Hay fields around Grangeville

It's August already, and about the hottest time of the year here!
The grasses are all brown now, and the hay has been harvested almost everywhere. 
The meadows are covered with those big rolls and trucks are driving off and on, stacked to the top, to deliver them at farms all around the valley for their winter feed-lots.

We went down the hill for our weekly golf and coffee R&R, followed by a grocery and material run.
James had to pick up some rope at Wet gulch where we also found a lot of the Blackberries ripe for picking!

Let me tell you, a sleeveless dress is not the right picking attire! Those berries are nasty!



We ended up covered in scratches, and berry stains (!), but also with 2 big containers of berries!
I froze some (for crisp/buckle/cobbler), and the rest we ate with cereal and ice-cream. Yummm!

Summer is also bug-time and although we're very happy that we don't have any mosquitoes, or flies, we do have a lot of Paper Wasps.
They've made many nests under the eaves of the house. These are two of the bigger ones:

                

The one on the left isn't covered with 'paper' yet.

We also have a lot of large grasshoppers, I think this is a Two-striped Grasshopper:

And of course, as I said on my Facebook page, and as I have said before .. every paradise has its snake:

I almost stepped on this one, which would not have been good, it's a Western Rattlesnake!
It was early in the morning and he was laying very still and in the shade, I suspect he was still asleep or trying to warm up.

Remember these cute little ducklings I photographed in July?

It looks like she lost two of them but the other seven have grown a lot in the last four weeks .. 




What else? I finally finished another puzzle, which has been on the table for weeks!
It doesn't look too difficult, but those chickens in the hay and all those people are quite a puzzle .. ha!

On the building front, we had quite a flurry of activity this week.
Ronnie, our 'boss', and Sam, the owner, were back from Louisiana, and had brought 3 friends with them!
They're all Pharmacists by the way, except for Ronnie, and are here for their yearly reunion/get-together and camping/hiking trip.

They brought some building materials up from Boise, helped unload and than move two stacks of drywall to the suite in the back. Nice!

They also helped installing the last part of the furnace-exhaust on the roof.
James had done all the prep-work and custom made a base for it:

        

But he needed a few more hands to lift the large and heavy top part, to place it on the base ...

                          
                                                   Success!
 
Ronnie helped us the rest of the day, by putting up dry-wall on the ceiling in the bedroom-suite!
We had it all insulated and covered with plastic ..



Just waiting for the drywall to go up ..

The master (Ronnie) at work ..

There was a lot of joking and chatting going on ..

It's so much easier, and more fun, to do this with two or three people!
It would have been quite a chore for just James and me, but now we knocked it off in one afternoon!

Afterward we were invited to join everybody for dinner, which was prepared by the rest of the guys.  
They made Elk-burgers and fried potatoes, and I added a Caesar salad. It was delicious!

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day with good company, good food and a lot of hard work being accomplished!
They all left for Montana the next day to go on their camping trip, so we have the place to ourselves again.

Not a very spectacular sunset but a very peaceful one ..
Life is good!