My blog is supposed to be about 4 things: cooking, reading, travel, and trains. Travel has been out of the question since March and many of my train pictures come from our trips. I started reading Shuggie Bain on October 28 but stalled on it because it was so grim. So, cooking: so many cooking posts. It’s been fun because we’ve explored some new dishes and cuisines but I yearn to get out. The best I can do is post about my neighborhood walks.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a set of pictures showing the changes of my favorite neighborhood wooded area through the year. In this post we’ll dive into Hyland Forest Park and surrounding neighborhood one morning in early December.
If you are local and interested in the area, it is east of Murray Blvd and south of Hart Road in Beaverton.

As walked toward the park, I grabbed a picture of some white berries I’ve seen around town.

Although it was December 3, there were still some pumpkins out from Halloween.

Then I got into the park. I wanted to see how it looked in late fall / early winter.
Along the trail on the southern edge of the park I saw this nursery log – one of my favorite sites along the way. Even in December it is still nurturing growth amongst the fallen leaves; you won’t see that in Chicago.

Though most of the leaves had fallen, there were still a few hanbing on even while buds for next spring start to form.

While there were a few signs of growth; fallen leaves were the rule of the day.



This tree had fallen across the path. So old, I tried counting the rings but couldn’t keep track. It’s interesting how the rings became smaller as the tree aged. It looks to me like there are 5 bands of rings.

The lush growth of summer is long gone, but there is still some life.

On the way home I noticed something shiny a few feet off the sidewalk. I looked then walked on, then returned to see what it was. Can you see my reflection (click to expand)?

You can see more of my photos from my walks this past year in my Flickr album Walks in the Time of COVID.