White Water-Crowfoot

Most of the first spring flowers are very small, but when you 'blow them up' they're always quite stunning ..

I find new ones everyday at the moment, probably due to the beautiful weather we're enjoying. Temperatures are as high as 70F and the winds not as bad as they used to be.

  

 Prairie Stars and Creeping Flox

I always have to touch these velvety soft leaves of the Wooly Mullein, soooo soft!

Wrens are so darn cute, I think this is a Canyon Wren ..

As far as the job goes, after much deliberation .. James has brought the guys back. 
It's been 10 days, everybody is still healthy and we still only have 2 cases in the county, so we'll take our chances!
They've all sworn to keep a low profile .. time will tell if this was a very dumb move ..

OK, let's see, this was about how I ended the last post, the whole place looking this kind of sickly green:

James biggest concern right now, is keeping the seeds moist so they'll germinate.
He has finagled (he's good at that) a sprinkler-system together:

 

He placed a water tank in the truck-bed and attached a sprinkler-system pump to it. With help of the generator this now pumps water either to a sprinkler-head attached to a water hose, or to a man-held hose (where the system can't reach). 

One of the guys will be on sprinkler-duty for 2 weeks, moving the heads and spraying by hand. It takes 2 days to do a full go-around, and than you start all over again.

It would help of course if it would rain. Unfortunately there's not much in the forecast, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

The seeds should germ in about 4-7 days. We'll see ..

The rest of the crew worked on getting the last of the framing done to get the roof ready for sheeting .. 

We were very surprised (but elated), to find out that the Grangeville Country and Golf Club opened as scheduled on the first of April!

Apparently golf is an outdoor activity permitted by the self isolation order, if done in compliance with Social Distancing Requirements

Unlike in Boise, where they closed all golf courses, they decided to open and see how it goes ..

The restaurant is closed and you pay by putting the green fees through the slot of a mailbox that they nailed on the tree at the first tee.
You're not supposed to touch the flag, as in, not pulling it out, and they put a little piece of foam in the hole, so you don't need to dig deep for your ball and touch anything.

They had planned to bring a food truck on the premises this year, and of course in the current circumstances that has turned out to be a perfect move, since food trucks are exempt from the restaurant closures.
This one serves hamburgers, hot dogs and, best of all, street Tacos!
Guess what we're having next time?

And that was another week in this strange new world of Covid-19. Like I said, not much has changed for us but places like New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans are being hit hard and fast. 

So many deaths .. it's mind-boggling ..

A nice full rainbow .. apparently they're symbols of hope .. how appropriate!

Well, we're still here, the end hasn't come yet! It's a strange world though, getting stranger by the day. 
There are some hopeful sounds from Holland that they feel the curve is 'flattening', but here in America we're still very much in the 'accelerating' phase of the disease. 
New York had it's highest death-toll over the last 24hrs today, a scary 950! That's just for the city!

We're a week into the stay-at-home order now, and for us nothing much has changed yet. Austin is still working for us and we're all doing and feeling well.
We're actually thinking that we might bring some guys back so James can work on the roof. We feel it might be possible to stay away from each other far enough to make work possible, especially since they all will be outside. We'll see..

I've been diligent to go for my daily walks, getting some fresh air in my lungs and trying to build up some muscle and most importantly, some overall resistance!

It's fairly sunny lately but the winds are bad and often very cold!

When the sun is out more and more insects are starting to buzz around ..

I came across this beautiful hawk the other day. Too far away to get a really sharp shot but nice enough ..

                           

                              Harlan's Red-tail Hawk

I'm trying to keep busy and to not check the news or social media too often, but it's hard to not want to know what's going on all the time.
My mind also just doesn't want to focus on anything too long, it jumps all over the place ..
I do a lot of puzzling and reading (a lot of blogs of course) and spend quite some time cooking and baking.

I've made these little mini apple pies before, they're very nice, apples, sugar, cinnamon .. comfort food!
I have to start watching what I eat though, I'm 'comforting' myself a little too much ..

The new house now has water. It is being pumped up from the tank below (next to the old house), somebody came out to install the pumps and everything that goes with it.

But the most exciting thing that happened this week was the arrival of the grass-seed!
The hydro-seeding company from Boise was still doing business as usual, although I doubt they fall under 'essential' services, and showed up early Thursday morning with a big truck and a whole bunch of seed!

It had to be filled with water on arrival, so the guys here had connected the sprinkler system from the well up above, down to the meadows below, and James had found the correct parts to connect it to the truck's in/outlet.

There was a little hiccup when the system stopped working after only 30 minutes into the job, but it turned out it was out of gas (duhhh ..) so a trip to Riggins solved that problem and fortunately they could proceed ..

What a cool system! It goes so fast!
     

They sprayed everything from the barn up above all the way down to the shop below, and unto the area in the front, the back and below the new house.
Most was done with the 'big gun' that was mounted on the truck, but some of the more detailed work was done with a hose and by hand.

They used different nozzles on the gun to spray up close and for far off.

Who on earth came up with that terrible color green though, god only knows ..

They also did the area around the old house where the tank had been placed, as well as where they'd taken out the trees before and had created a path to the new house.

Even our new and improved 'run-way', that we'll use when we leave here in October, got a shot!

They only had just enough seed, in fact they were a little short (I actually thought they were a little 'heavy-handed' at times), but the most important areas are done. 
Hopefully we'll get some spring-rains in the coming weeks, but just in case that will not happen (which of course is 'Murphy's Law), we're going to bring the old fire-truck, that's sitting at Brust, down the hill for the duration. 

At least, that's the plan, now if it only would stop snowing!

It's a beautiful spring .. I just wish it was a happier one ..

Well, there you have it .. Gov. Brad Little ordered all Idahoans to stay home for the next 21 days, with some exceptions for 'essential' services.

 

 

Since Friday, March 13th (go figure!) when the state reported its first confirmed case, the number quickly zoomed over 100 on Wednesday!
'Our' county still has none and the neighboring ones each only one, but it's just a matter of time of course ..

             

Although some don't think so ..

                                          

Unfortunately, we don't fall under an 'essential' industry and after some deliberating (we're rural, pretty isolated, we might get away with it .. yeah, yeah ..) we decided to lay off all the guys but one.
Justin lives very close, he's almost a neighbor, and he's pretty much self-isolating anyways because of some health issues, so we keep him on for now ..
James has ordered a lot of materials lately and probably has enough to do for the both of them to keep them busy.

     

I'd already made a menu-list for 4 weeks and stocked up for that last week, so I added 2 more to it this morning (I'm not very optimistic), and went grocery shopping one last time (all the shelves were full and just a few items like bread, eggs and TP restricted to one).

 

Other than that not much will change for me. I'm very happy to be able to just carry on like usual, taking my walks, making my puzzles, reading, knitting/spinning, baking .. nothing different!
Funny enough it's just the 'not being allowed to' that makes it feel different and 'restricted' ..

                              

Talking about walking, we had some gorgeous days this week so I spent some wonderful time outside.
Temperatures were soaring, I'm not kidding, into the low 70s!
Wow!

Birds are claiming their territories and are making a ruckus doing it!
I think this is a Pine Siskin:

      

One day I even encountered a whole bunch of butterflies! 
That's a California Tortoiseshell on the left and a Pearly crescent on the right:

 

I walked out to the river, which sparkled in the sun, and where the
beautiful weather had lured some fishermen out to try their luck ..

This last week the work-crew has worked mainly on getting the grounds rock free and as smooth as possible, in anticipations for the hydro-seeding that has been planned for next week.

Don also is still moving dirt, digging and closing up holes with the tractor .. and unfortunately, between all of them, they've hit the water pipes not once, not twice, no .. wait for it .. six times so far! 

            

     You think they have enough parts to repair the pipes ?

I know, it's hard to be precise with that big machine and those pipes are fragile but still .. they're talented!

It also means I have on-and-of water, since they have to turn it off each time when it happens .. (sigh)

                                                     

After one of those breaks, James had to jump in the hole which was quickly filling up with water, to cap the pipe, since he was the only one that had spare clothes readily available!

Also, a small start has been made to sheet the roof, but since than it has started to rain, which made it too slippery to safely work on it, so it was put on hold:

This was before the stay-at-home order came about, and now that we're down two of our guys, the roof has to wait until we can get them back.

OK, that's it for this week, I think. 

Some last numbers: over 500 deaths in total in Holland right now, almost 800 in the last 24 hrs in New York and over 900 (in 24 hrs) in Italy!

Maybe it's true ..

I'm pretty proud of this beautiful Spring shot, isn't it just stunning, that blue of the (Mountain) Bluebird in that ever so slightly pink of the (apricot) blossom?
I love how it came out. 

  

It was not such an easy shot, since I'd spooked the flock of  birds, and they all took off. 
But when I followed their flight with my eyes, it looked to me that they might turn back.
So I decided to hide in a ditch next to the soggy meadow, and low and behold, 30 minutes later (with wet knees) I got my shot!

As I mentioned in a previous post we mostly have Plum trees that are blossoming, but there's also one or two Apricots.
Side by side you might see that the plums are all white, but the apricot is a teensy bit pink:

I just can't take enough  pictures of them ..

And I didn't notice until yesterday, but they actually do smell rather nice too!
Here's some more flowers that are starting to appear. Very small, but cute ..

  

Buttercups and Narrow-leaf Parsley

And if you're thinking, jeez, this almost feels like spring, than you'd be right on the money, because as of today, it is!
It's the earliest Equinox sine 124 years (combination of a leap year and daylight savings time)! 

But I'm getting ahead of myself here, because first there was St Patrick's Day:

                                              

Which we celebrated, as usual, by having Corned Beef with cabbage and carrots.
Mind me, we've got nothing with the holiday itself (no Irish blood here) but if it involves food of course we're game!

The previous two times I'd made it, I was a little disappointed in how succulent the meat came out, so I took the advice of some comments on the recipe site to shorten the cooking time and .. bingo! Soft as butter!
I guess you can overcook corned beef ..

Lets see, what else?
The guys dug two huge holes, one at the new house for the sewer tank, and one next to the existing house for the water tank:

The tanks arrived today and were placed quickly and without any problems ..

This is the one above ..

And here's the one below ..

            

And here's a guy that has watched a little too much golf lately ..

... in the hole!

Also, a start has been made to sheet the walls ..

                                

I baked a batch of brownies (sorry, no pics) and finished my latest puzzle.

Oh, that reminds me .. I've not talked about my newest toy (it's so nice to have a little money, you can actually buy some 'stuff' for a change)!
The plexiglass sheet I covered my puzzles with up until now, had cracked a third time and I was looking for something else instead.
So .. I got me a Puzzle 'caddy'. Yup, I didn't know they existed either but there you have it!

It's a sleek black case that, when you fold it open, contains 2 separate boards that you can spread the pieces out on. 
On the middle area you make the puzzle:

When you're done puzzling for the day, you just fold the whole thing up and move it out of the way.
How cool is that? They claim you can even hold the caddy vertical, but I haven't tried that yet .. it fits through the door to the bedroom and that's where it goes, so I'm happy!
I only wish I had bought the 'Jumbo' one, since this one is a fraction too small for some of my puzzles .. oh well, I'll make it work!

*As for the COVID 19/Corona virus as of today: almost 9000 deaths worldwide, over 3000 in Italy alone, 100 in Holland and 200 in the US .. how's that for some numbers?
We're stocked up on groceries for about a month, our store was still completely stocked (including toiletpaper), and we're trying to stay home as much as possible.
What else is there to do? The whole world has come to a stand-still and we're all waiting, waiting for this to end ..