How's that for some excitement for this week?!

A massive rock-slide came down between Riggins and Pollock around 9 am on Friday, blocking the road for all traffic.
The slide was 120 feet long and 40 feet deep. ITD said some of the rocks were extremely large, with some of them measuring 20 feet across. That's as big as our truck!



                                     

It couldn't have happened at a worst time, right at the start of the 4th of July weekend! 

The town of Riggins really needs the tourists, to make up for some of their losses so far due to Covid-19, but with this road closure there is no way to get there!

Grangeville had even bigger problems since they had decided to go forward with their yearly 'Border Days' festival and Rodeo, and the only way to get there now would be to drive all the way around through Walla Walla and Spokane.

Fortunately most of the vendors and contestants were already in town since it started on Thursday.

So, despite numbers of cases being on the rise (yes, also here in Idaho), we decided to spend the day in Grangeville to attend some of the festivities .. after playing some golf first of course!
Since everything was outside, we thought it would be easy, and safe enough, to avoid getting too close to anyone (famous last words).
  
We tried to get a cup of coffee at Crema, but there was a line all the way outside to the street, so we went to this drive-through instead.

               

We still had to wait 20 minutes in line there too, but the coffee was very good, we got a nice apple-muffin to go with it, and we could sit outside (where we were the only ones).

 

From there we went to the park where they had set up booths (at 'safe' distances) for an Arts & Crafts show.
The large trees provided some welcome shade, since it was a beautiful warm and sunny day, and we strolled by the various displays, tasted a few samples and James had to get two (!) more pastries since that (huge) muffin with coffee was apparently not enough ..

                        

                   Love this dad's outfit!

On the other side of the street, at the Le Schwab tire-service place, a car-show was set up.

I'm not such a car-show person, but I must admit they had an impressive number of them there, for such a small town, and some were really gorgeous.

    

What about these fun gadgets? The one on the left is a 'curb-feeler' (how cool is that?), and the one the right has a hand-cranked windshield-wiper!

Since we had some time to kill before the parade would start, we drove up to the Snowhaven ski area, a place we had marked in our 'places to visit before we leave'.
The elevation of its summit is 5,600 feet, and it's a nice drive up the hill from town, easy now in summer when there's no snow!
(The average snowfall is about 60", but they haven't had that for a couple of years now).

Without the snow there's not much to it ..

We'd thought to go this winter but never made it there, and of course it would have looked totally different than.
There are two surface lifts, serving 9 trails and the terrain is rated 75% beginner and 25% intermediate.

 

There's a good (although hazy) view of the town from about half-way up the hill ..

                                          

Back in town James found a terrific spot to park the truck, at a closed-up garage right alongside the parade route.
We bought some food (Chinese, of course, why not?) at the food-court, and settled in for our own little tail-gate party:

 

This way we had a nice elevated view, and were a safe distance away from everybody else, who were seated like this:

The parade started at 2 pm and followed the exact scenario of all other parades we've seen so far, first there's the flag :

Followed by the Rodeo Queen and Princess ..

And the Idaho County Fair Queen and her court of Princesses:

Than all the usual culprits made an appearance .. old cars, buggies, all sorts of farm equipment:

Some small, some big ..

  

And no parade is complete without horses, especially over here where cowboys are still everywhere ..

What the ... ?

For the kids, it's all about the candy (and the occasional fun toy) of course!

Aren't these three the cutest? Little cowboys and girls in the making!

As far as social distancing .. face-masks .. eh ... what?

Lets all party! Or .. how the virus came to Grangeville!

I guess we have to wait and see how this went in 10 to 14 days!
We skipped the rodeo for that reason; too crowded, no masks.
It's the oldest in Idaho, by the way ..

 We did drive by .. all's quiet during the day.

Although we sometimes wonder why we go to see yet another parade, these small-town ones are just charming. 
Sure, the floats aren’t as elaborate and the bands aren’t as big but they give a sense of community, it's a yearly 'meet-and-greet with a 'we're all in this together ' kind of feel, and everybody is just happy to be there.
All in all it was a fun and relaxed day, and with all the depressing news of this @#!%$ virus, it was nice to soak up some happiness and cheer ..

OK, moving on, besides all that, there's lots of  'Timber !!' going on here at the moment:

Men .. nothing more fun than to be like Paul Bunyan!

                                                    

 

These (black) walnut trees are being felled to make a stair for the new house.
It's going to be a 'floating' stairway, made out of half-logs. I think it's going to be really pretty!

A little more of the siding went up, as well as a few sheets for the roof:

More stones have been excavated and the chimney is about to be covered!

It's like a beehive!

Some of the wild plums (on the left) are coloring (the ones that get the most sun), and the apricots are starting to look good!

          

The Blackberries still have a while to go though ..

 

 

With the higher temperatures, and the dewy mornings, the mosquitoes are starting to wake up! 

Time to put up our tent:

Merl' is very happy about that too! 
As soon as it was raised he ran inside, installed his-self in one of the lounge chairs, and has been asleep ever since. .. well, sort of .. you know what I mean.

                         

He loves that tent! It probably gives him a very safe feeling and of course the mosquitoes can't get him there either (they like his nose,) so he's tickled pink.

 Life is good!

 

Pale Snaketail

These dragonflies are everywhere at the moment, being about 2" long, they're big guys! 
A little googling taught me that Dragonflies and damselflies, like cockroaches, are one of the oldest types of insects. 
The only thing that has changed about dragonflies and damselflies, known as "Odonata," are their size. In prehistoric times, when dinosaurs could be found roaming the earth, odonata were as big as hawks!

I found this funny picture somewhere on the web:




Never knew there was such a day, but I immediately took advantage of it and did the same ..

 

Despite still having some rainy days, summer has arrived, and I've brought out my summer dresses ..

                                                                       

I'm diligently watering the few pots I have, and so far have kept them alive.
My tomatoes are doing OK, although there's something in them that turns the leaves yellow with brown spots, and my zucchini is hanging in there, despite still being attacked by earwigs .. they call them  'Idaho Cockroaches' here and I can see why, there everywhere!

The river came up during the recent rains (and the rest of the snow-melt) but is rapidly going down now it's drier ..

 

You can see some banks developing in the curve there .. '𝅘𝅥𝅯 islands in the stream, that is what we are .. ♫'

                                                          

I'm barely seeing any wildlife at the moment, this Common Merganser (female) at the river was the only thing stirring:

 

Well, yeah, there are some butterflies, but not too many either. This is a little Pearl Crescent.

Wildflowers, that were predominantly yellow last week, have been joined by lots of blues now, like Chicory ..

 

Due to a rainy weekend we didn't do any sight-seeing but on Monday, since James had cancelled work for the same reason, we decide to drive to Lewiston/Clarkston to pick up some parts and do a little 'big-time' shopping.

 
  

We had coffee at Kodiak Coffee, not the best and not the coziest place either, but that was largely due to the fact that because of Covid-19 only a handful of furniture was sitting in a big open space. It being situated in a shopping mall didn't help either .. oh well ..
Afterwards we drove to Walmart in Clarkston, WA. These two cities practically border each other, only divided by the Snake River.

                       

Because of the increasing numbers of virus-cases, Washington state had just re-instated several restrictions that they had let go of previously, which meant that face-masks had to be worn inside stores again. 
Apparently though, Walmart does not have jurisdiction to enforce this and half of the people were not wearing them!
That, and the sheer number of people (so many more than in our county), had me cut short what was supposed to be a 'fun shopping-spree', and after lunch at Sonic (where you can stay in your car), and picking up a few items at Home Depot, we drove back home.

I don't know what I was thinking, and I guess we're rather sheltered here, but somehow I didn't expect to feel so vulnerable and weird.
It's a strange world we live in these days ..

                        

OK, let's move on to some building news. They've started to put the siding up!

                        

It's a little bit scary since they only have a few extra sheets for mistakes, so they measure 27 times and cut once!
It'll take some time ..

And since I really don't have much else to talk about here's a few shots of him, himself.
How weird can you sleep?