pumpkins, owls and skinny owls

Eugene, OR, has a totally cool Saturday Market. It's kind of like Davis' Whole Earth Festival, except it's apparently pretty much every weekend, and it's a whole heck of a lot bigger. There is a farmer's market associated with it as well. I recognized more than one booth at the Saturday Market from the WEF, in fact.
On our way into the market, we discovered that downtown Eugene had been taken over by pumpkins. Lots and lots of pumpkins. Little pumpkins, costumed pumpkins, carved pumpkins, uncarved pumpkins, giant pumpkins. We had lunch in the food area, then wandered around looking at pretty handmade things. I picked up a double-ended wooden crochet hook. On our way out of the market, we picked up doughnuts with interesting toppings (some of the doughnuts available include various breakfast cereals, bacon, candy, cookies...).

We then proceeded to the Cascades Raptor Center, which, it turns out, has quite a nice collection of permanent resident birds - lots of species on display, in nice big mews (cages). There are a handful of corvids, including magpies and ravens. According to the signs, several of the raptors came from the Lindsay Wildlife Center (my local rehab center!) and one hawk came from the UC Davis Raptor Center (where I spent a few years as a volunteer - this bird even came from the time period I was there - maybe I'd seen him? Dunno!). They also have a magnificent Eurasian eagle-owl (not a North American native species) who is available for hire for parties :)

There was a nice picnic area in the center of the Center, and we gave in to the repeated urging of my friends' little girl and consumed the doughnuts we'd picked up earlier. Tasty goodness :-)  Oh, and by the way, we saw no hawks or eagles at the raptor center... according to the little girl, all the birds were either owls or "skinny owls." :-D

The evening was spent playing on our computers and playing Mariokart on the Wii. An excellent way to spend the time :)

Pumpkins on parade

Street pumpkins

Headless horse-pumpkin

Pumpkins dressed up

Pumpkin pi

Giant pumpkin

Many pumpkins

There was a guy walking around with a guitar and a  kitten.

This is a water thingy in the center of the market with some kind of fish sculpture in the middle and Saturday Market booths around it.

Northern saw-whet owls.  The leather straps you see under the birds are called jesses - they basically help hold onto the bird when it is on the fist (in this case, for education)

One-eyed gyrfalcon (AKA, a skinny owl)

Snowy owl

Eurasian eagle-owl (and raptor center staff member)