Isn't that a pretty picture? Doesn't it look like he knows what he's doing?
Well, guess what ... he doesn't! Ha, ha! Just looking the part!
How about those waders? Weirdly coincidentally, we found a pair in his size at a garage sale, the day we bought our license, for only $10! We were going to do without but hey, that was a too good of a deal!

Now ME on the other hand, I totally know what I'm doing ... just kidding! Not a clue, I'm afraid.

Steelhead Salmon fishing was upon us and we thought we give it a try. Who knows, beginners-luck?
We got us a license, plus a special Steelhead 'stamp' ($35 for 3 days), rigged up some old poles we found in the barn, and dragged ourselves out of bed at 6 in the morning.
We gave it 3 hours in the morning, and 2 more in the evening.
We managed to break 2 poles on some snags, (yeah, it's an art .. but it turned out the fiberglass was just too old and brittle) and we lost 3 'riggings' on some more snags, but unfortunately, no fish!

This all happened 2 weeks ago. Now this last Saturday was Idaho-Free-fishing day, so you could fish anywhere without a license, and we decided to give it another try. 
Same scenario, only much, much colder (46 versus 66 the previous week!), we about froze our tootsies off, but again .. no fish. Nothing, Nada, Zilch! 
Oh well, we gave it the E for Effort, you can't say we didn't try and Steelhead season is about to close anyway, so we call it good.
We might break down and buy some fish from the Indians who are allowed to fish with nets (we aren't) somewhere south of Riggins, and have much more luck than we do. They sell them fairly cheap (from about $20, but you have to clean it yourself).

These birds, and a Bald Eagle that came over too fast one evening to get a shot of, were about the only wildlife we saw on the river. 

I did see a Beaver too, but also didn't get a shot. Remnants of his handy-work were clearly visible on the shore though:

    

OK, here's some more pictures of my wanderings up the canyon beyond our RV.

It's not a very steep trail but it gradually goes up, and for the moment it is still quite challenging for me, a flat-lander, to go very far. Yet. 

I hope to get into better shape over the next weeks!

                   

It's very pretty though and I'm thoroughly enjoying myself, look at these happy Poppies!

                             

Like I said in the last blog, the weather has been exceptionally warm the last couple of weeks and the wildflowers just keep on popping up!

                 




A couple of days ago I 'made it' to the ponds, about halfway up the canyon.
They're stocked with trout and bass by Sam (the owner of the property) and we're good to try to catch (and eat) them.
So, I see some fly-fishing in the (near) future! Maybe we're more lucky this time (and we don't need a license).

If you look closely, I got a shot of this fairly big trout. I think it has my name written on him, no?

These tracks on the trail are tell-tail signs of Elk and Raccoon.
I still have to see one though ..

 

This Red-tailed Hawk's calls this canyon home and he keeps a close eye on me:

 

This is him in flight ..

And how about this little guy? I think it is a Western Fence Lizard:

And this is how the barn is looking at the moment. Look at that, the roof is almost on!

Update: the roof IS on, as of Tuesday, 6/11. Yoohoo! Great job, honey, as always!

Here's a few pictures of my vegetable garden:

 So far I have a bunch of cilantro, some basil and parsley, one (yellow) cherry tomato and one (ever-bearing) strawberry! Not quite self-sufficient, ha-ha, but it proves that even when you're trailer-trash you can grow your own veggies.

Merlin is really enjoying all the barns and the pastures and the corrals. 
So much to explore and dash through!

But he's careful too (thankfully).

 

Those cows are awful big! Better stay under Mom's skirts!

Wow, that was a looooong post! I guess things DO happen around here.
I almost forgot, we went golfing the other day! After returning some scaffolding to Grangeville (30 miles to the north of us), we played 9 holes at the local Golf and Country Club.



Due to finances, time, and in my case a rotator-cuff tear of my (other) shoulder, we hadn't played in 6 months. Gasp!
Surprisingly, we didn't do too bad. Not too good either though ...
Oh well, you know, typical golf. Some good shots, some bad shots, some @!#%$&! shots ...

Afterward we decided to have a glass of wine on the patio and grab a bite to eat as well.

The chicken wings were delicious and the fish and chips reminded us of our stay at our summer digs near Buffalo, NY, where they had it on the menu every Friday.

As I've said before: "Life is good"

Almost another 3 weeks have gone by and no blogs to prove it!
I don't know why, there's really not much happening around here, but I don't seem to find the time, or make the time, to get to writing. 
There's always something else that's more 'important', do a material run for James or go to the post-office or clean or cook, look after the cat ... yeah, excuses, excuses ...
Oh well, today I'm determined to get this one up, so let's get to it already!

Spring has really sprung around here, or it actually almost feels like summer already, since the weather has been unseasonably warm for most of the days these weeks.
The flowers are out in force, like these buttercups along wet Gulch...

It also smells heavenly outside, due to the flowering Locust Trees (an Acacia variety), a species that is very prolific around these areas!
We've got them all around us, hence the wonderful smell ...

           

In the last post I included some pictures of our evening drive up the canyon, so in this one I'll show some of the walk down the canyon towards the road (Hwy 95).
Which is basically our drive-way ...

You can see the house in the distance ..

Towards the front of the picture you can take a small hiking trail up the hill, towards those rocks in the foreground (on the left) ..

Where you have this beautiful view of the Salmon River (and the Hwy below), looking towards Lucile!
This is part of one of my morning walks. Isn't it gorgeous?

Here's a funny thing, we are technically situated in the high-desert area of Idaho and because of that they do grow Cactae here! 
Like these .. that I accidentally sat in while taking some close up pics ..

  

From there I continue my walk on the rim, alongside the river to the right, roughly following this narrow path that the cows have made ..

Here's another view, a little further down the path ..

Eventually the trail becomes a rough two-track path and turns back over and into the hills, where I sometimes meet up with the cows.
It reminds me a little bit of Switzerland ...




I was thrilled to come across some birds that are new-to-me. Yeah!
A Yellow-breasted Chat ... (ha, couldn't have named him better myself) ..
      

      

And a Lazuli Bunting ..

                            

Isn't he a handsome fella?

On the building-front things are coming along nicely ..

                                                             

James found another worker, Bart, and Steven the concrete guy, who finished the floor after pouring, in what is going to be the 'enclosed' (hopefully mouse-proof) bay.

They've even started putting up the side panels ...

It's starting to look like a barn, doesn't it?

On the home-front, there was the latest victim to our string of things that are breaking down or failing. 
This time the microwave/oven gave up the ghost. Sjeez, Louise! Is this ever going to end?

Any-who, a new one was ordered (pretty much the same one, although a different brand and this one has a turn-table) and after some careful reading of the instructions (yeah, how's that for being smart for once), the thing was professionally installed by him himself!

Look at that beautiful shiny new oven!

It had to be tested thoroughly (of course), so over the next couple of days I baked some muffins (cranberry/coconut, blueberry and apple/walnut), a whole-wheat bread and shortbread bars with chocolate chunks and walnuts. 
I'm happy to report they all came out perfect, so it's going to stay!

Well, that was about all for now. I'm going to get this posted and will immediately write up most of the next one, so it can get up in a couple of days.
There's still all those weeks back-logged from our travels from Florida of course, but maybe now I'm on a roll I will start on that soon too.

                    (did y'all notice the 'maybe' there?)

 

I can't believe it's already our 4th week in Lucile! Wow, when did that happen?
After last weeks Rodeo the town has gone back to it's usual, sleepy, pre-summer-season existence although we've been told that somewhere in the next two weeks or so the tourists will start to arrive!
We'll see ..



Here at the 'homestead' James is finally making some progress with the barn, thanks to the arrival of two helpers, Joe and Mike.
       
                                                   
 
                         

 
Oh, and a few hours of assistance by me, myself and I. 
First time on a tractor: 'I'm not going to do it ... right .. oh my gawd, I'm doing it!'

               

Fortunately UPS and FedEx have been able to find us to deliver some of the materials.
For one because James put up an address sign, but more so because of the descriptive instruction of  '2 miles north of Lucile, at mile marker 207'. This is rural America, folks. 
The UPS guy, Cody, claimed it was only the 2nd time in 10 years that he had to come up here.
Well, I guess that's gonna change with us, I already started to order groceries from Walmart and some 'stuff' from E-bay!

Talking about ordering .. yes, we can order .. we've got Internet! Yahoo!

The guy showed up last Saturday and it turned out we had to cut down a tree (but it was dying anyway), and he did find a signal, placed the dish and lo-and-behold ... it works!

It's a beautiful thing!

And, even better, 2 days ago the phone arrived to go with it, and ... it also works!
So, we are baaaack, back in the real world, and in the digital one!
I have to say I'm very happy about it. Not having a phone really sucks, and when being without Internet, my world becomes very small indeed!
It also means I now have to start working on our back-logged travel adventures all the way from Melbourne to here. 
It's gonna take me a while because god knows a lot has happened, but I guess I have time, so I'll just do a little bit every day ...

In the meantime, we had some visitors for a couple of days! Mary-Ann, one of Sam's caretakers for the ranch in Joseph, brought down some of his cows and calves ..

They spend two nights in the corrals behind our RV to recuperate from their ordeal of being wrangled up and hauled down the mountain.

It gave us something different to look at from the back window. (And smell!)

Since than they've been given free roam of the hills around us. We rarely see them but every now and than you here some mooing in the distance.
We see cows grazing on impossible steep slopes and we've heard that yes, they do (sometimes) fall down ...

Up until now we didn't have much time to explore the property we're at, so Sunday evening we took out the side-by-side 4-wheeler, and drove to the end of the property in the hills above the house. 

We followed 'Wet gulch', the little stream that runs through it, past the pond (that is apparently stocked with Trout and Bass), and than up a steep hill that gives you a great view of the RV and the house below.

See the RV down there?

We haven't seen much wildlife here as of yet, although we've been smelling a Skunk who must be close to us for days now, but this evening we saw our first Whitetail doe!

At the top of the hill you'll come upon a gate through which you leave the property, after which you end up on a county road that winds it way further through the hills.

When you look down over the edge of the steep hill from here you can see the Salmon River at the bottom of the canyon.

 To the left you look towards Lucile .. 

... and towards the right, in the middle of the picture, is the entrance road to 'our' property.

We'd brought some sandwiches, and enjoyed a little picnic, while watching the sun going down over the mountains around us.





I guess there are worse places to be. We must be pretty lucky after all!

I snapped some pictures of the wildflowers that are starting to bloom. I'd never seen that yellow Paintbrush before and most of the others are new-to-me too.

 


This next one is a Shooting Star, one that I have seen before, but that was 5 years ago in Montana. Five years! Unbelievable ..

As for wildlife, look what we found in the shop/barn next the RV:

A pair of Screech Owls and their two young! Apparently they come back every year. Sometimes they have as many as 5 or 6 babies!

 Aren't they the cutest? Especially the two chicks!

And, last but not least, our sweet boy turned 16 this Wednesday!
According to Google that makes him around 80 years in Cat-years. Wow!

 

This is an old picture but he still looks just as handsome!

Happy Birthday Baby ... and many more!