I don't see them often, but they are around!

We're having a couple of rainy days at the moment. It started out with a day of very fine/light snow all day yesterday, and today it rained steadily and non-stop all day long. 

James' crew didn't work yesterday, and he has cancelled the work for the rest of the week too, it's just too miserable out there ..

This is a picture of the light dusting we had on Sunday and this is how it looked today ..

Just as well that Ronnie and Sam brought us some vitamin C, all the way from down south, in the form of  a whole bag of citrus fruit when they arrived here last week! 
It included some Satsumas, the mandarin/orange variety we loved so much when we were in Louisiana!

                      

             Doesn't that look healthy?


Talking about the job, things are starting to go up! See?
The floor is coming along and part of a (inner) wall is up:

I climbed yet another hill on one of my walks and took this picture which shows the house from a little different angle.
I was very (almost uncomfortably) high up on that (very steep) hill.
I always forget that I have to go down too, and that things look way-y-y steeper when you look down!

Here's the boss, spraying down the glue for the floorboards:

There's a whole herd of Elk that keeps coming down the canyon on a regular base now. They're coming closer and closer down to the house ..

And the other day, just when I thought there was nothing interesting to be seen, and I was already on my way back, all of a sudden there was this ..



I immediately froze and crept a little closer towards the side of the path, trying to blend into the hill so he wouldn't see me.
He didn't, but he kept looking up and around and sniffing the air .. I think he smelled me!

Let's see, what else .. on the cooking and baking front, I'm sorry to have to say, that my second attempt to bake a sourdough bread was a total bust!
After taking it from his 'slumber' in the fridge, I think I killed the starter, by adding the wrong ratio of flour and water when I tried to revive it!
The result was a nice, firm hockey puck, a deadly weapon of sorts!
Oh well! I'll try again ..

             

On the contrary, the French onion soup I made in the IP, came out great

                            

French Onion soup in under an hour. Ooh, la, la, la, c'est magnifique!

          

Talking about food, since I wasn't able to do my grocery shopping on Thursday due to the fact that Sam's truck was in the shop (busted fuel pump), we went shopping in Riggins on Saturday and had lunch there also.

We tried a restaurant we hadn't been to before, which in the winter is only open in the weekends (you got to love small towns).  

Although the place doesn't look like much (and that's an over-statement), the food was surprisingly good!

I also spotted a nice looking purse they had for sale (don't ask) and that I didn't buy ... of course I regret that now, so I might go back this coming Saturday to see if they still have it!

If not, it obviously had to be so ..                 

It's a Concre-ature! (Ha!)

As you can see we had a wild week. 
Concrete was poured in the Styrofoam forms .. and James got covered in the meantime!

This was the first time the concrete company was using this conveyor-belt system, and it worked like a charm. 
The whole contraption could effortless reach the walls on the far side of the house!

        

Still, it was a rather messy job, that shirt James was wearing could not be saved.
The guys worked their butts off to get it all done in one day, they had three trucks coming and used it all!

Now the 'building-up' part can start!

                          


An enormous order of wood and beams and screws was delivered, and a start of placing the beams that are gonna hold up the floors, was made ..

                                        
              
We were very fortunate that the weather had been so warm and dry, and the concrete trucks had no problem coming up the driveway.
Lucky indeed, since the next couple of days looked more like this, and the drive way turned muddy and slippery:

Grey, rainy and cold .. yikes!

I went for a short walk to the river on Sunday, just to get some fresh air in my lungs, but was happy to come back in the nice and warm and cozy RV, and enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate in front of the fireplace!

                               

Fortunately, we woke up to a beautiful morning again on Monday, just in time for work to be able to continue ..

I went for a longer walk, up and over the hills this time. What a difference a day makes!
Sometimes I have company these days in the form of Tody, Steven's dog. 

He's such a sweet and fun little guy (the dog).

He really loves, loves, loves it when you throw him a stick and never tires to chase it, but he likes to go for a walk too. 

I guess he gets bored with the guys ..

And than for something totally different .. I've been trying my hand at making sourdough!

James loves it, but I've never been a big fan of the American sourdough. I've always liked the German-style bread though.

Any-who, James' niece Bethanie is 'doing' it, and reading about her trials and tribulations on Facebook, I decided to give it a go.
  

  

Well, let me tell you, making this type of bread is not for the faint of heart! It is a very interesting process, to say the least!
First you have to 'make' a starter, aka mother/leaven/chief/sponge. Which can take 5 to 7 days or, if you're un-lucky, up to 2 to 3 weeks! It's easy enough, just combine flour and water, let it sit at room-temperature and 'feed' it every day until it starts to ferment ..
Mine took 12 days (I started to get a little nervous there!), but finally I had a beautiful bubbly, melted marshmallow-ish concoction. 
If a teaspoon of dough floats in a glass of water, it is 'potent' enough to rise a bread-dough!




I mixed part of the starter with bread flour, salt and more water and let it rise overnight. The next morning I had a beautiful risen dough. Phew, so far so good!

                                   

After forming it in a ball and letting it rise for another 2 hours, it went in a hot cast-iron pan, in a 425F oven, for about 30 minutes ... and voila!

A beautiful crusted bread, lightly (just enough) sour and pleasantly 'chewy'. Wow, I did it! How about that?
The only thing I forgot was to 'score' the bread so the crust didn't break open as it should to form a nice, rustic looking, 'ear' .. minor detail ..
I actually dusted some flour on the crust, using a quick, hand-cut-on-the-spot template, so I think it looks nice enough.

Now to keep the starter alive! It sits in the fridge until next time. There are people that have 100 year old starters that originate from their great grand-mothers!
I named my starter, as is tradition, Beth, for Bethanie, who inspired me and is as bubbly, sweet and nurturing/mothering as this starter!

Unfortunately, this beautiful snowy landscape is NOT around us!

James had to pick up materials in La Grande, Oregon, about 5 hours away from us so he drove up on Thursday and came back on Friday.

He was very surprised to encounter nothing but snow as soon as he passed the town of Pollock, only 19 miles to the south of us!

Look how beautiful! This was just after sunrise, it still has a little pink glow to it ..




Past New Meadows ..

 

Up over the mountain range ..

And down on the other side towards Fruitvale, Cambridge and Ontario ..

Gorgeous!

I know it's good for the job that we don't have any, snow that is, but I'm still rather bummed about it! It's so beautiful!

We'd learned this spring that Riggins is situated in the so-called Idaho Banana Belt, as in:

A banana belt is defined as any segment of a larger geographic region that enjoys warmer weather conditions than the region as a whole, especially in the wintertime.

Shielded from storms by the eight- and nine-thousand-foot peaks of the Seven Devils to the west, the low elevation and the canyon with black rocks, which absorb heat from the sun and radiate the heat down into the canyon, Riggins boasts a “Banana Belt” sub-tropical climate.

Go figure! I guess that means little snow indeed!

Any-who, James spend the night at a hotel in La Grande, and after loading up the materials and picking up some groceries at the local Walmart, he went home the next morning. 
It had been a freezing cold night there (19F), and there was some snow on the ground but the roads were all clear and he made it home safe.

Which was fortunate, since it so happened to be that it was his birthday that day!
We celebrated the next morning with a belated birthday cake:

I left out the other 60 candles .. they didn't fit!

That Sunday was a beautiful day, 51F and sunny and we went for a little drive to Slate Creek, where James had to pick up a water tank from Don. 
We decided to do some sightseeing afterward and drove up Slate Creek road for a few miles ..

It's a pretty drive, and a decent dirt road leads you into a deep canyon .. 

After 4 miles you enter the Nez Perce National Forest, where there was a sign that the upcoming road was partially washed out, so we turned around.
Back into 'town', we turned onto Nut Basin road and followed it all the way up .. look at this view!

We drove over the hill to the other side where you enter a large open basin .. Nut Basin, I presume ..

And back up again across the basin, towards the snow!

 You look towards Grangeville here, but can't see it ..

As you can see, there's snow all around us, but not down below at the river where we are .. oh, well! 
Let's see, what else is new .. one of last mornings I discovered this herd of Elk on the hill towards the back of the canyon. I could actually see them from inside the RV!

This time there were a few males among them!

The work on the house is progressing nicely. Like I said, no snow, or much rain either, and the temperatures are much better than last week and it looks like they'll stay that way for a while longer.

So far it has been a much milder winter than normal, but that's what you get when we're in town!

After the concrete was poured and cured and all the trenches for pipes filled back up, it was time to install the new material that James had brought from La Grande.

It's called   , made of Styrofoam and very light weight and easy to work with ..

It's like building with Lego blocks!

The only problem is that when the wind blows (and boy does it blow!), it has a tendency to get airborne, so they have to make sure to hold onto it and anchor it down quickly ..

Starting to look like something!

Looks like we had a busy week doesn't it? Except maybe for Sunday ..

The guys are watching golf and I'm puzzling .. 

life is good!