Exploring Portland: Audubon Society

Kim and I and Jeff spent an hour on Sunday looking at possible houses, even though we've made up our minds that Blueberry Hill is the absolute best. I haven't written about this house, but as soon as it's ours, I'll show you why we held out for it.

After wasting some gas driving all over Portland, we needed some good physical exercise. Haris had told me that a visit to the Audubon Society was a must, so that's where we headed. It's at 5151 NW Cornell Rd., right on the edge of Forest Park. I wanted to see some rescued birds and hike in the lush Oregon primeval forest -- and I wasn't disappointed.

I love trees. Even that awful tree in our front yard in Clearwater -- we spent hours pulling up the sprouted seeds from that tree -- was truly a beautiful tree.

That's our favorite bird, the turkey vulture. This poor guy was enjoying some road kill when a motorist tried to make him into someone else's dinner. He won't be released -- he was too badly injured. But he's extremely well cared for here.

I'm a big fan of helping folks who are doing good works. The Audubon Society has been around forever and I've never really paid much attention to all the good they do and the myriad ways they improve our world. So I dropped a few thousand dollars in the gift store to help them out.