Regal Fritilary

We don't have too many butterflies at the moment and this one's a little unusual even for here. He certainly is a beauty though! 

Too bad, for pictures sake, that they insist in landing and sitting on piles of sh*t!  What's that about?

I looked it up (of course) and found out that this behavior is called mud-puddling where they suck up fluids from soil, dung or carrion in order to gain extra nitrogen and sodium which are needed for reproduction which flower nectar lacks.
Aha! Now we know!

Let's see, last Saturday it once again was Idaho's free-fishing-day. 

It rained practically all day, and last year's results didn't really inspire us to try it again, but when it cleared in the afternoon I thought we should at least give it the E for effort.

Since we broke 2 poles last year (don't ask), we only had one fishing pole left, but it was still rigged with all the necessary 'stuff', so we were quickly in business ..

We took turns standing on this rock, looking for all the world that this time we knew what we were doing, but it didn't make a difference .. because once again .. nothing, nada, zero, zilch, nothing. Not even a nibble!
Which is so frustrating, since this river is supposed to be full of salmon! It's even named for it, for heaven's sake!

Talking about rain, we had several days of a steady drizzle this week, and some good downpours accompanied by the obligatory gusts of wind ...

That's the wind whipping the trees .. (and the light from inside the nice and dry and cozy RV)

Most of the spring-wildflowers are starting to slow down now, and the more 'summery' ones are opening up ..

 
That's White Horehound (sjeez, imagine ending up with a name like that!), and     on the right.

                  

 This is      and White Campion

   

Along the river I came across an unknown apple tree, whose (small) fruit is already getting some color, and the apricots on 'our' lonely tree here in the canyon are getting a little bigger also ..

    

This adorable little Wren (Rock? House?) did not want me anywhere close to his/her nest! It was bobbing up and down and yelling like a lunatic ..

              

It was so pissing mad at me, I thought it was going to have a heart attack!

Imagine being so tiny, but willing to take on what would be nothing less than a giant for us!

I'm not seeing much of any other wildlife around at the moment,  other than some Raccoon prints near the dumpsters ..

                                              

And what's with all the snakes at the moment! Jeez, they're everywhere! We've counted about 8 Bulls and 3 Rattlers so far!
I'm not that afraid of them anymore, but they scare the bejesus out of me each time I come across one .. if that makes any sense?

OK. Let's not dwell on that, let's talk about the house a little.
The stone-work is coming along nicely and looking great ..

                              

The AC and heating and ducts are all in, and it is working too (always nice) ..

          

And the insulation couple Alan and his wife (I'm spacing on her name right now), are making great progress:

In between the rain and wind, there were some drier and warmer moments too, and I enjoyed sitting outside for some spinning and reading ..

Look at those white feet!

And although I still suffer many days from not feeling like doing anything at all (compliments of the continuing depressing news of the virus), I have my moments of suddenly wanting to bake things

(and I have to keep James into enough 'sweets' to get him through the day):

I baked an up-side down pineapple cake in my new brownie-pan, which made these awesome individual little cakes. So cool!

Holland (Europe) has opened it's 'borders' for inter-european flights, but is still closed for non-essential international airline-travel, so it's still a waiting game ... there's nothing to be done about it.

 It's starting to get old though!