First of all, there's the news of the day of course .. the Corona Virus. I haven't said much about it but it's started to get a closer to home at the moment ..
We've officially reached a pandemic by now, and most states in the US have cases too. Funny enough .. Idaho is among the view still unaffected! 
Also, as of this Friday, Trump declared a 30-day travel ban for Europe!

 
I have a ticket to fly to Holland for the end of June ... we'll just have to wait and see!
Also, daylight savings time went into effect this last Sunday. Two weeks earlier than in Europe!

                         

OK Maxine, I agree, but .. really! Why are we still doing this? Not a fan!

In the meantime, blossoms are still popping everywhere you look at the moment. 

The ones in the picture above are next to the river, and are presumably from Apricot trees. They have a slight pink color to them, especially when they just emerge.

Most of the ones I see are from the Wild Plum's though, and they're literary all around us!

                                  

This is a big one, about halfway up the canyon, and the ones below are all on the edge of the meadows alongside the gulch ..

So pretty!

Climbing up the hill at the start of the driveway, I came across several of these tiny Yellow Bells, a Fritillaria variety .. (on the left)

    

They're actually little bulbs .. and the one on the right is an (even tinier) Redstem Filaree or 'Storksbill', a member of the Geranium family.

As I said in my previous post, the birds are starting to stir and are enjoying the warmer weather.

 

This left one is a Western Meadowlark and the one on the right a Western Kingbird. 
Both very common, but after a very quiet winter it's so nice to hear them starting to sing again. 
By the way, the lark (according to my audubon field guide) says something like "too tee too tiddleyou" and the kingbird "kit' and 'kit-kit-kiddledit". Ha! Just what I thought too .. 

The house is progressing, a little slower than what James would like at the moment, but sure. 

He really could use one skilled carpenter in his crew, since all he has at the moment are very young inexperienced kids, but it is what it is, there just aren't any around here ..

They've been working on readjusting/checking the trusses that they put up so everything is nice square and straight, and they finished installing the smaller ones around the dormers.

There's now a floor on the second floor .. comes in handy!

Even in the weekend (Sunday) this guy keeps on 'working' .. or playing with big machines .. it's a guy thing ..

 

I've spend quite some time in front of the TV this week, since I discovered we have the 'Olympic channel', which telecasts speed skating!
Being Dutch, skating is in my blood, and to be able to finally watch some of the races is so exciting!

                         

"We" won both the men's and women's All-round Championship titles, and quite some individual ones too ..

 As I said, it's in our blood!

I baked a little this week, using the last of the blackberries we picked last summer for a blackberry pie:

 

It came out surprisingly good. This pie is often very 'wet', oozing juices as soon as you cut it, but this one stayed up nice and firm .. a winner!

I also tried my hand in preparing some morels, that were gifted to us by Jesse, one of our employees!
These (wild) 'shrooms' were picked around here last spring, and they can fetch as much as $15 an ounce in a good market!

  

They came dried, so I first had to soak them in some hot (salted) water for about 15 minutes ..
When they're nice and soft, you cut them lengthwise (they're hollow) and than you fry them in some butter.

I served them over an omelet with asparagus, carrots and blue cheese, and some wild rice (you don't want to 'overpower' them by adding a lot of strong flavors). 
I found them a little disappointing, not much flavor. Not bad, but not very special either. Oh well ..
Next time (hopefully we'll find some ourselves this spring), I'll be adding some garlic, and some creme for a little bit of a sauce.

And last but not least, I captured last Monday's full moon through the plum blossoms next to the RV .. rather fairy tale-like, as my mother mentioned ..

Wild Plum

We have some crazy warm weather here at the moment, with temperatures around 60F. 
Today we were up to an incredible 69!
It's that balmy, that the wild plum trees around the house and alongside the gulch, are already starting to blossom ..

I couldn't resist bringing some into the RV. The firmly closed buds opened up in 24 hours!

I was even able to have my morning coffee outside for the last 2 days!

Soaking up those beautiful, warm rays ..

 

The first birds are coming back, I saw some Canadian geese at the river, and the locals are out and about, doing their busy ready-for-spring preparing and doing some singing exercises ..

This little guy (a house wren) in particular is very voicetress, we're definitely in his territory and he doesn't want us to forget that!
He's that bold that, if I'm not careful and leave the doors open, he comes in the RV and even in the house!

I also spotted a few brave butterflies ..

I keep exploring different areas to go for my daily walks, and these next pictures are shot from a pretty steep hill I climbed the other day, directly behind the new house ..

                    You can clearly see  the river from here!

Talking about the house, things are really taken shape right now!

There's the beginnings of a deck on the river-side ..

 

And they came to hook up the electricity! No more noisy generator!

  

  

The posts for the carport went up ..

And today the most exciting job .. they placed the roof trusses!
Fortunately, all the guys were available, so James had a good size team, but unfortunately, the crane and the trusses arrived an hour and a half late! 

 

They started around 9am ..

And they had to work real hard all day, taking breaks in shifts, and working until it got dark to make up for lost time!
Although the temperatures were absolutely amazing, the wind was brutal all day, which at times made the trusses swing around rather precariously ..

            

But .. it's done! And it's beautiful! And it almost looks like a house!

Mule Deer

Since we've spent most of the time we've been here up at Joseph Plains, we've not seen too much of  the area 'down here' yet.
And although this winter was mild, the weekend weather was often bad, rainy or cold or snowy.
But last Sunday dawned absolutely gorgeous, so we finally went for a day trip to the resort town of McCall and the nearby ski-slopes of Brundage Mountain.

               

It's about an hour and 15 minutes drive, following the Salmon River to the south, towards New Meadows, where the temperature dropped to a freezing 8 degrees ..

                                    

From there, you turn left toward the mountains ..

When we were slowly starting to climb to an elevation of  5003', following the windy road, we started to see more and more snow.

 

When we finally reached the village, the roofs were covered with a couple of feet of snow! Fortunately the roads stayed dry and clear. 

Even Lake Payette was frozen over!

The little cruise boat that tours around the lake in summer, sat frozen in the ice at what is actually the dock, you just can't see it at the moment ..

People were ice-fishing, something we'd never seen before:

  

                                        

I was rather disappointed about the village, I'd heard it was a rather cute, but other than a very short and uninteresting main-street there was really nothing special about it. 

             

After having coffee at the Dreamtime Coffee-house, also nothing to write home about (the pastries were over-baked and tasteless), we drove a little further south to the villages of Donnelly and Cascade.
We were looking for a view of the lake but couldn't find it, until we realized we'd driven right next to it the whole time, thinking it was a meadow .. duhh ..
The towns were tiny and not of a lot of interest, but the scenery was gorgeous .. all that snow, glittering in the sunshine!

One thing of interest were all the Mule Deer we encountered in both villages. Apparently they're being fed and they're pretty much domesticated, albeit still 'wild'.

We drove back to McCall where we had a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant with a view of the frozen lake.
Driving out of town afterwards,we stopped shortly at the local 'Little' ski-slope, and than up to nearby Brundage Mountain where the skiing gets a lot more serious ..

The slopes here are wide and nicely groomed,  and have an undisputed reputation for the Best Snow in Idaho.

The Brundage Mountain Resort sits right at the bottom of the slopes, and was packed on this beautiful (Satur)day!

Three lifts bring you to the top of the hill at 7600'.

 

No skiing for us anymore though! We're starting to get a little more concerned of breaking something now we're getting older, especially since we have very little experience.
Cross country skiing would be more up our alley, but we didn't bring any appropriate gear or clothing, so we just enjoyed seeing everybody else having a lot of fun ..

Here's a few more pics of the way back.

                                     

On another note, last Tuesday was 'Fat Tuesday' or Mardi Gras, once again.

Of course we're not Catholic, but after spending time in Louisiana, and New Orleans especially, we're hooked on clebrating the day with a little silliness and most of all .. King Cake!

Although I used the same recipe as last year, this one came out a little drier. 
Nothing that some extra butter wouldn't solve though, and it was still very good. This time I even had the correct 'purple' sprinkles!

    

In Googling the recipe, I came across another Mardi Gras tradition that I had not heard of before, namely the eating of pancakes on that day?!
Hey, anything involving pancakes sound good to us, so I whipped up some batter, and (banana-nut and apple-raisin) pancakes were had by all ..

Also, I'm very happy with my new carpet that arrived last week. 
I'd wanted one for ages, but somehow it just never came about (traveling/lack of money/etc), so I'm thrilled (really) to finally got one.

I'd ordered it online through rugsusa.com, who have the excellent police that you can return it free of charge within 30 days if you don't like it!
But I do. Do I ever! It's nice and soft, the colors are beautiful and the size is just right! I'm so happy, it's so beautiful!

And as of today, the last of the concrete went in around the house. 

Last Tuesday they poured the first half of what's going to be the carport, and today the second half was done.

(Unfortunately James had miscalculated slightly and he was short just a yard or so, but a new truck was ordered and everything is in by now.)

First half in ..

Such a smart guy that James, to do this in two batches. 

This way he could stand on the already cured ones, to do the rest!

And the second half in ..

Houston .. we have a carport!