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!

Doumecq Road, with the Salmon River down below ..

Last Friday afternoon we went for a drive up into the mountains, all the way to our last year's stomping grounds at Joseph Plains.

The wildflowers were out in full, and the views were just as stunning as we remembered ..

Despite the height, the cacti were blooming here as well ..

After dropping off a new water-tank to the Brust lodge, and a short conversation with Marian (we would have loved to see the inside of the house to see what they have done with the place but, as usual, we were not invited .. they're weirdly secretive that way), we headed out for what was the main reason we were up there .. collecting rocks!

A neighbor of Sam/Marian up there in the mountains, has a large area of the type of rock on his property that Pat and Sam like for the base of the outside of the new house.

He agreed on letting them have as much as they want, so the guys had already been up there that morning to collect a truck (and trailer) full, and now we were there for a second run. 

                    

We loaded as much as we could (weight-wise) but we probably need to go back several more times.
Unfortunately, the road up to this 'quarry' is little more than a donkey-trail, steep and narrow and in very bad shape so we're really not looking forward to do so!



Derrick, the mason, thinks he knows a more accessible area for the same size and color of this particular type of rock, so we'll probably check that out next week or so.
Anything better than driving that trail again!

                                   

We tried for golf on Saturday although the weather-forecast didn't look very promising, and sure enough when we arrived in Grangeville it was raining, so we blew it off.

We went for a nice coffee at Crema instead, after which James did a material run, while I stayed behind for some relaxed reading and people watching ..                                               

James has a new phone, he cracked the other one, and this pics are made with that one. I couldn't figure out how it worked (what else is new), so James looks a little weird ..

                                                

As far as this weeks birds sightings go, here's a shot of a Western Tanager:




And a very cute, puffed up little Titmouse on the left here:

    

                               ... and a young Say's Phoebe there on the right.


No news on flying to Europe from here yet, but inside Europe they're slowly relaxing the flying restrictions, and will open up al traffic by the 15th of June:

                               (Telegraaf 6/4)

There's talk that international flights will follow, bit by bit, from the 1st of July on .. we'll see!

I just now discovered I have a Panorama function on my camera. Yeah, duhh ..
Makes for nice shots here in these hills, especially if you drive the quad all the way to the top, as I did, where you have a fabulous view of the surrounding mountains.
This is the Salmon River down below, looking downstream .. 

                                       
You can just see 'our' driveway there, going off to the right from the highway ..
I'm trying to get my walks in early since the weather has been crazy warm lately. I took a (very blurry) pic of the thermometer, you might just see that it was a whopping 85F there!

                  

We're having coffee outside most of the time, in the shade of the plum tree. I made a mixed berry crumble which, like most berry concoctions, came out a little wet, but still .. not bad!

                                                      

One side-effect of his unusual warm and humid weather is the cause of thunderstorms developing, and one such storm created some bad erosion on the driveway up to the new house ..


 

... as well as the main driveway up to the old house and us ..

                    

 Oh well, as if the guys didn't have enough to do already!

Speaking about that, they're still working on the plumbing and electric, since both inspections left us with some revisions to do, but we have a guy (Derick) who started prepping for masonry around the fireplace ..

There's going to be rocks around the wood-burner and a section of wood above it, somewhat like this:

In the meantime, James has finished what was left to do on the new water-heater and it's functioning beautifully. 
The water is a lot hotter than that from the old one, so it was probably on it's last legs regardless of the leak.

I took some shots while he was contorting himself to get everything connected. Like everything in an RV it is all crammed in a very tight space!

For our necessary R&R, we did go golfing early on Saturday, to 'beat the heat' ... never thought I would say that in May in Idaho!

These pictures are from earlier this month, but they were on James' computer and I kept forgetting to transfer them to mine.
They're the street-tacos we had that time, which weren't bad, but when we ate there the second time we really weren't impressed with the food (and the price). We've decided to lunch somewhere in town for the future.

Lets see, what else? How about some birds? No? How about just one?
It's a beauty, really, a Cedar Waxwing, although a little far away. I got him just after he puffed up for a moment after preening himself .. 

And since there really shouldn't be a post without flowers, here's some Indian Paintbrush (on the left), which is very happy here in these mountains, and those yellow ones are Moth Mullein.

    

Even the cacti are starting to flower (mainly on the south sides of the hills). As I mentioned before, we're considered to be part of the 'high desert', so yes, we do have cacti here!
(I know firsthand since I literary sat in some, while taking pictures of wild-flowers)

Also, the first of 'my' Zucchini flowers have emerged:

  

Despite being attacked and half eaten by Earwigs! So far they've managed to completely devour several small leaves and have eaten holes in many of the larger ones!
I never knew those pesky little things would do that ..

                                                             
                                                                See that one brave little zucchini there?

Fortunately it's not about the leaves but all about the flowers, and they seem to leave them, mostly, alone.
As of now I've only got one female flower, which will (when fertilized) develop fruit, and the rest have all been 'boys'.
Apparently this is quite normal, most of the 'girls' will show up later, when the plant matures. 

If it ever gets the chance ..