My two favorite guys ..

Last Thursday was the 4th of July and although we didn't 'do' anything, and James just worked like normal, we at least put a steak on he BBQ ..

Merlin insisted we did ..

And than he crashed .. one of those -"I can't believe I ate the whole thing"- things!
Talking about crashing, a while ago I took some pictures of his daily evening ritual ..

He settles himself half on the pillow and half on James' lap (mine won't do), and within a couple of minutes he's going, going and .. gone .. lights out!

  

He's just too cute for his own good .. when he's asleep ..

Let's see, what else .. I hiked to the Joseph Cemetery, a couple of miles down the road. 
This very interesting little cemetery, literary in the middle of nowhere, has been used since the 1800's to bury various homesteaders and settlers from the area.

The boy-scouts have recently cleaned up this historic little plot some, placed a fence around it and actually discovered a few more unmarked graves. 
They've placed a binder near the gate with interesting stories about the ones that have headstones, and of those they could find some information about.

This is a headstone for 3 brothers. No clue if they had families or how they got here. Must be an interesting story ..

We're still very happy with our beautiful deck next to the RV, from where we're enjoying the beautiful sunny summer weather to the fullest. 
We eat many of our meals here ..

It's a wonderful outdoor spinning studio as well:

           


The 'flower' border that runs alongside of the deck has been a thorn in my side since we got here. 
Nobody was maintaining it (although I think it's the girls job), so I finally started to work on pulling the weeds ..

Half-way there!

Gosh, what a bugger of a job! 
A lot of it was grass, and it's roots had formed hard, solid clumps. I didn't have a hoe, so I just used a shovel to lift them up and cut through the roots.
But, it's pretty much done now, and although it already looks a lot better, I think I'm going to re-located a few clumps of wildflowers from the meadows and plant them in there, so it will look even better!

My walks have been even more fun lately, since I now have a companion that comes with me:

This is Rosy, she belongs to one of the ranch-hands here (Roy), and she likes to follow me on my hikes.
She loves to run ahead and than hides in the grasses, only to come racing by me in a fake chase, after which she sometimes jumps half up a tree out of silliness!
She's so much fun!

Now I must mention that Rosy almost wasn't alive anymore, due to the fact that she destroyed two of the birds-nests we so enjoyed (and eating the little birds that were in it)!
It happened a week ago and I could just about kill her for it, but what do you do ... it's in her nature, I guess .. so sad though ..

One of the nests that fortunately is still thriving, is from this little Tree-swallow:

 

Rosy has tried to get to it, but these feisty little birds are dive-bombing her as soon as she gets anywhere close to the nest!
They must have actually hit and hurt her, because she is down-right skittish to go by the meadow that there in.

I'm seeing a little more butterflies but not as many as I'm used to. (Maybe it's too cold up here in the winter?)
Here's a few:

This is a Comma Butterfly, it's the same one as the one in the middle of the collage below ..

(The others are a Sulfur White, a Painted Lady, a Meadow Crescent and a Tiger Moth)

And that was all she wrote, I think, for this week. Not too exciting, just a calm, quiet, peaceful week ...
I take it!      

We haven't seen many spectacular sunsets yet, this one was one of the more colorful ones.

Pretty enough!

Although the weather has been very good this week, temperatures around 72, we're getting thunderstorms almost every afternoon/evening.
It doesn't last long though. After some very dark clouds, some nice thundering and a few crackling light-claps, the sky brightens, the sun comes out again and everything dries up quickly.

 

I guess that's the mountains for you. Those heavy clouds collide with the hills and have to rain out to get over them. Or something like that?

Something else typical rural Idaho is the next scene, that I witnessed from my side window:

Marianne and Wade 'working' the steers. Whatever that means ..

♪ Move 'em on, head 'em up
Head 'em up, move 'em on, see 'them dogies rollin', rawhide!♫

Rollin', rollin', rollin' ..

Unfortunately I don't have a horse, so I'm just walkin', walkin', ...
These are pics of  another of my hikes, this trail is circling the house on the back side, looking towards the valley below:

 

It's where I came across some more deer .. a little fuzzy, but aren't they a cute pair?

And a few more birds, of course, like this little Yellow Warbler:

 And a (sharp pic this time!) Western Bluebird ...

Somewhere along the creek I came across some honest-to-god Rhubarb!

It must be a very old plant, a leftover from an old vegetable garden that belonged to one of the Homesteads that used to be here.
Look at that, I picked myself some nice stalks!
 

I happened to have some strawberries also, so I made a sauce, and the rest I used in these pretty little hand-pies.
I remembered having them at the Amish in Ohio, and how much better they upheld with 'saucy' fillings than regular 'big' pies, who always go soggy and ooze/fall apart when cut.

 Look how perfect! Much easier to eat and very portable too!

 


Let's see, not much else for this week, I think.

Oh, we went 'down the hill' for grocery shopping and a material run, and we stopped for coffee at White Bird.

We sat outside on the terrace where you have a great view of the 'floating' bridge over White Bird Creek.
The opening of the bridge in June 1975 completed the multi-lane Highway US 95 44 years ago, following ten years of construction.
It starts it's climb from here, up to the White Bird summit at 4,245 feet above sea level after which it descends to Grangeville on the other side.


After coffee we drove over that summit to the Grangeville golf Club where we played 9 holes, followed by an excellent lunch at their deck.
It was beautiful weather and we really enjoyed our day 'off'.

(The road back and forth put the fear of God in me once again though. I'm so not looking forward to having to leave in the Fall!)

On a lighter note, these Irises are flowering in the border next to the RV. Aren't they gorgeous?

James is feeling a lot better, although he still has a lingering cough, and he's making steady progress with the master bedroom suite.
He's pretty much finished pulling all the electric wires ... spaghetti!

Now if everybody could make up his/her/their minds about this renovation, things would progress a lot faster, but as it is it's a rather slow process with a lot of different opinions (the girls, Sam's, Ronnie's), we are caught in the middle, and nobody is making any decisions fast.

It's a little frustrating to have to do things twice, or to change things that were already done ..

Oh well, it will get done eventually .. we hope.

Time for another post. We've been here for a week and a half now, and I already love it here so much I don't think I want to leave come Fall. (that, and the fact that we have to face that horrible road again, and this time going down!
Just look at these pictures .. the one above is of the house as seen from the back meadow. 
The wildflowers are so pretty and there's all kind of critters hiding in the tall grasses. Like .. Turkeys!

And ...

             

.. A ruffed Grouse (I've never seen one before) and her brood of about 4 or 5 babies.
I flushed her out and everybody scattered, but one chick followed her in a tree ..

What a cutey!

I sure hope they all found each other when I moved on!

Like I said, the wildflowers are blooming and these pretty wild roses are all over the place. 

              

They have a wonderful smell, especially when the sun is shining and warming the air ..
These are a few more that are now blooming:



I've discovered several nice walking trails already. So far I've stayed fairly close to home, but I'm branching out a little farther every day. 
There's one that brings me through this woodsy area ..

   

.. and over a little creek .. 

 To where I can still see the house through the pines ..

Just a little further I saw this beautiful White Tail buck:

And in the meadows beyond a couple of pretty does ..

 

They sure saw me too!

Not too far from them a movement in the distance caught my eye, and when I zoomed in with my camera it turned out to be a Coyote!

I've heard since than that they have a den there somewhere, and sometimes the pups are playing outside.
I'll be back for sure to see if I can catch them in the act one day!

On another of my walks I follow the road in front of the house, the same one that we came up on, Joseph Plains Rd ..

It winds it's way through the fields and pines and is a very easy walk because of the gravel. 
It's only very hard to walk quietly, as to not disturb wildlife, because of that very same gravel.

This guy didn't mind I was so loud, he didn't budge one bit!

He was enjoying sunning himself on the open road on this crisp morning and couldn't be bothered ..

It's a Racer by the way

Eventually you'll reach this small pond. 
It's popular among Elk I've been told but there weren't any present this day.

So far the weather had been absolutely beautiful, I've been walking around in summer dresses and skirts, but than this happened last Thursday, it SNOWED!

Wow, can you believe it? One day before the start of Summer, the 20th of June!
We've had snow on Mother's day before, in South Dakota, but this is a record! It got pretty cold too:

It didn't stick, or stay, though, but since than the weather has been a lot cooler. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!
Being at this altitude, you can expect anything, no matter what the season.

James got a very bad cold, during which he couldn't do much more than some paperwork, ordering materials and drawing plans, but now he's feeling a little better and has started demolishing some of the walls ..



This is the new bedroom addition that somebody started on, but that never got finished.

 

And he has begun with some framing ..

I promised in my last post to get a better shot of that little House Wren and his amazing narrow nest entrance. Well, here it is!
Isn't that awesome?

Well, I think this is about plenty for this week. I'll safe some for the next one! 
           (as if I ever run out of pictures or things to say).