So far we're having a beautiful summer, temperatures are (still) comfortable and the days are dry and sunny ..
 

Don, Sam's helper, has been cutting and spreading and baling the grass in the canyon (in between several tractor break-downs), ..talking about 'making hay while the sun is shining'!

Ahhh, nothing says summer like freshly cut grass!

I'm afraid it's not going to stay this comfortable for much longer though. 
Last Wednesday it was a very warm 95, fortunately only for a day, but the forecast is showing temperatures creeping up into the 90's over the next 10 days and staying there!

                                                          

                                                                     Thank goodness for AC!

I'm starting to walk a little earlier, to beat the heat. It's so nice out there when the sun is just coming up ..

A field full of Rabbit's Feet (Clover)

Like I said in my previous post, I'm not seeing too much wildlife these days, this week I only got a few 'butt-shots', like these of a trio of does and a coyote (yes, very hard to see but I swear it is one):

    

What I did find was this:

 

My eye caught a small white spot about halfway up the rocky hill and when I zoomed in with my camera it turned out to be a wild beehive! 
How cool is that? The honey is probably very good, and people have suggested to get it, but I'm not going to disturb them. So little is left 'wild' these days ..

Talking about 'wild', the apricots on the wild apricot tree were ripe and I set out early in the morning (too cool for snakes) to get some of them!

       

I ended up with 2 bags full! Pretty awesome! Which is nice, but now what to do with them? 

After washing the lot, I separated them in three piles; (slightly) under-ripe, ripe and (a little) over-ripe and/or bruised.

I used the latter batch right away to make 4 jars of preserves, and I baked an apricot/almond-cobbler:

M-m good!

The next day I blanched and froze some and than tried my hand at drying a few.
First I dried some in the microwave (defrost setting), which went OK, although it still took some time, and for the second half I used the oven, which took waayy longer (too long for me), and they came out much drier than those out of the microwave.       

     

I think I stick with freezing them (on the left).

I still have a whole bowl left, I hope they'll keep for a while in the fridge. I'm planning to make a pie next and maybe some scones and/or muffins. 

It's a lot of work, but absolutely worth it, they're so good! 

We tried to do some more sight-seeing last weekend, the weather was gorgeous, so we drove into town for a cup of coffee (bringing a piece of cobbler with us).

The small coffee shop at the end of town has a nice outside sitting-area, and we sat there for a while watching the traffic go by. 

 

That traffic is still greatly reduced by the way, because the rock-slide south of town is still blocking the road, and although they created a small detour, they only let a few through at a time.

Our plan was to visit the fish hatchery, just out of town to the south (well before the slide) but after  we drove up there (just a couple of miles), we discovered it was closed because of the virus.
Well, shoot .. maybe next time.

We'd never been on this road before, and we quite liked the little canyon with the small river (Rapid River) flowing through it.
It would be a contender of somewhere we'd like to live one day, that is if we would stay here, which we won't ..

We came across this Longhorn bull, look at the size of those horns! Wouldn't those give you a headache?

Since I've no other pics of our outing, I'll put up a few of last week from when we came back from Grangeville and drove the Old Hwy 95 grade down into White Bird.

We'd wanted to drive it ever since we arrived in Idaho but never made the time (or the weather was lousy or too hazy).

This historic old road with a zillion switchbacks (the arcs/switchbacks, if combined, would form 37 full 360° circles, an average of  950° per mile), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an engineering accomplishment, a "marvel", and was the only Idaho road north or south for nearly 40 years.



Farmers kept water troughs at a few of the precarious switchbacks for their livestock and folks who frequently traveled the road knew their exact locations, as they were a welcome stop for over-heated cars (this was in the 30's).
 

The new 7.2 mile grade (on the left in the pic above) took ten years to complete (1975) and saved more than 15 minutes driving time and ‘countless beads of sweat’ as people navigated the treacherous switchbacks on the ‘Old WB Grade’.
It's a fun drive, with almost no traffic these days, and we took our time to slowly wind our way down to Whitebird, while enjoying the spectacular mountain views.

OK, back to the current week, Austin (our 'neighbor', and Sam's new 'estate' manager, in the old house next to us) and his girlfriend Jessica have acquired a puppy, and when they went to Grangeville to do shopping on Saturday, they asked if I would mind checking in on her every now and than.
If I would mind .. are you kidding me? Taking care of an adorable 7 week old puppy?
I might not give her back!

 

Let me tell you though .. she is quite the handful! It's like taking care of a 3 year old! You have to have eyes and ears everywhere! She basically was just a blur, as you can see in the pictures .. I only got one sharp shot of her!
Thank goodness she came with a crate, and after each ferocious playing session she would conk out for a couple of blissful hours.

                
                   She's so stinking cute!

Nothing much else to report I think, other than that I finally finished this insanely difficult puzzle. Again.
It's the smallest 1000 pieces puzzle in the world, and the image is of a town I know very well, close to my hometown in Holland.

                                             

Even making it for the second time didn't make it much easier!

It's a challenge though .. and I do love challenges!

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!