I'm writing this blog from sunny Las Vegas where we arrived a couple of days ago, so obviously I'm a little behind, but I'll try to remember what our last week in Idaho looked like and piece a little story together! 

It did bring us some more (light but continues) rain, about a whole day of it, and 2 days of very low hanging clouds. It was pretty much dark the whole day, very gloomy .. 

But afterward everything emerged refreshed and clean ..

     

The walnuts were especially striking, when the sun back-lit their bright yellow leaves ..

The house was all of a sudden quickly nearing it's completion, with everything happening and coming together at the same time. The ceiling of the carport went in .. painted sky-blue! Not our cup-of-tea but 'to each it's own' I guess ..

All the bathrooms got finished. this is the guest-one:

 

And this next one is the shower in the master (the rest was already finished). I like the pebbles on the floor ..

    

This is the Master bedroom:

And this is the laundry room, with the washer and dryer installed and working:  

               

The beautiful walnut stairs got a handrail ..

                                               

All the kitchen appliances went in and all the plumbing was taken care of.
The roof-fascia on the back over the deck was finished, as well as some miscellaneous metal strips that were on back-order, but had arrived last week.

 

There's still some stuff to do but Austin and Lee should be able to do those 'finishing touches'. They'll stay on our payroll for another week and after that it's Sam's responsibility. James will be available for questions for a while longer, until it's all done, but other than that this job will be finished!

We'd planned to leave on Saturday (the 24th) but the weather forecast showed a storm coming in with  frost and snow at higher elevations, so we decided to move our departure to Friday. (Sam, Ryan and Ronnie already left on Wednesday).

With the usual crunch to get everything packed and wrapped up we managed to get out of there at 12.30, about an hour later than we had hoped, but at least it had warmed up a little because that morning it was a chilly 27F!

                                  

                                 Brrr! Las Vegas here we come!

 

Well, that was pretty much what happened. I think. After James walked Austin and Lee through an extensive punch-list, we all said our goodbyes, which included a cuddle for Mahogany ..  (wow, hasn't she grown?!)

 

And on the road we went! Goodbye Wet Gulch, goodbye Salmon River! We will miss you!

As you can see the river is still very low despite some rain we had this week .. well, yeah, it really wasn't much to speak off ..

The forecast is for a lot of the same, cloudy days with a little bit of rain here and there. Except for the temperatures, apparently they will be going down to freezing at night (!) and only in the 40-50s during the day! (I also see some snow for next Saturday, when we're leaving, but I've chosen to ignore it, for now ..)

Here's a picture of our 'compound', taken from the opposite hill than the one I'm usually on. Just for a change of view:

          

That's us there of course, squashed against the side of the 'old' house .. 

.. and here you can see us in the 'whole' picture, with the new house on top. That's my 'normal' hiking trail there on the top left:

It's hunting season and Sam, who got a tag for a (Elk) cow, and his son Ryan, drove up to their property at Joseph Plains, where we stayed last summer.

He shot his cow already on Saturday, on opening day, so he was very happy, since last year he never got one. Of course that means that he's now back to be rather bored since he doesn't 'do' much at the house ...

 

Neither of these are Elk, I've actually not seen any so far this Fall, but I ask you (I aks you) .. could you? Shoot one? It's beyond me .. such beautiful creatures ..

Any-who .. I've kept my eye on the bees, because I figured they would leave/retreat one of these days (actually, I'm not quite sure what they do for the winter?), and finally this last week it looked like (most of them) had 'fled the coop'.

                                                                      See the difference?

 

Also, I thought the snakes were all 'gone' or holed up with these cooler temps, but just this week I came across two ..

It's such a pity they're so scary because they really are rather beautiful aren't they?               (I think these are both Gopher Snakes, or Bull Snakes as they're called around here).

 

The house is changing appearances for the better by the day! 

Biggest 'news' of the week is probably the completion of the fireplace/mantel:

It came out absolutely stunning. The local stones and the old barn-wood from Guiles Point (another property Sam owns just outside of Grangeville), make for an impressive and beautiful feature!

The wood-burning stove is a little small, but I guess they were lucky to get one to begin with, since just after they bought it, they were 'outlawed' by the state of Idaho! (Not 'green' enough anymore in this day and age)

Another beautiful feature worth mentioning, is the little ceiling above the staircase leading up to the loft. The cottonwood happened to come in lighter and darker colors, and since we were a little tight on how much was available, they had not inter-mixed any of the smaller amount of dark wood in the main ceiling.

Instead they used it all in this small area:

Looks like a work of art to me!

The huge expanse of ceiling in the living-room/kitchen area got a little bit more interesting by adding some cross-beams, literary:

                       

And than there was the floor!

This is the loft.

And as of today the whole house is pretty much done, except for the entrance hall and closet!

Now we're talking!

 

As for those walnuts I mentioned last week .. after a stormy night I discovered a lot of the 'normal' ( instead of the 'black') walnuts had come down! 

Yes! Just what I'd been hoping for!

 

           

In contrary to the black ones, these are easy to peel, crack, and don't need to dry very long. In fact, you can eat them almost right away!

                                              

                                 Which we did!

Also, since we're leaving in a little over a week we've started to eat/empty the big freezer we've been using in the old house.                                                                                              There's baggies full of plums, apricots and blackberries, so I made a little plum pie which I spiced with pumpkin-spices and cinnamon ... can you say 'delicious'?                                                                                           

Well, I think that's it for this week. Today I cleaned and treated the roof but have no pictures to show for .. I sure feel that I did it though! Man, I'm pooped!

Time to relax a little. Maybe lay out another puzzle, since this Wysocki cat-one is done ..

Another week and a half to go, but who's counting?!

Three different life-styles: RV, Cabin, Mansion ...

Time sure flies! Especially now we're in those last couple of hectic weeks, aka 'crunch-time', when we're working hard to get everything done before we leave.
Only 2.5 more weeks to go until we're back 'on the road again'!

Many birds are ahead of us though, and are (or have) already leaving/left for the south. We often hear and see V's of Geese, honking their way south in big flocks.

                                                      

                                                                     Gold Finch

Lots of smaller birds are gathering too, but are still hanging around for the seeds of the (mountain) sunflowers and thistles. I bet they're almost ready to pack up and go as well though.

Flicker

The weather definitely is changing now. We're going to have some rain over the weekend, and the temperatures will finally drop into the 60's! Or .. so they say ...

I've come across several Wooly-bears this week and only one of them had a brown band, the others were all black.
This doesn't bide well for the winter, since they have the reputation of being able to forecast the coming winter weather. A bigger brown band is good - a mild winter. Bigger black bands are bad - a hard winter. All black ... you better go and find your 'woolies' (ha!) because an especially bad and very hard winter is coming!

Althought I'm not looking forward to the, still, hot temperatures in Arizona, it might be for the best that we're going to spend the winter in the south this year!

The blackberries are all done for now, and the Italian plums are getting all mushy, but we're having apples galore.

                                                 

There are about 4 or 5 different 'brands' on the property, and the black walnuts are starting to ripen and fall as well.

Black Walnuts

I don't think I'm going to venture into 'doing' anything with them though.
For one, they stain everything, your hands and clothes, a terrible black, and secondly, they are extremely hard to crack. And after you would have braved all that, they need to dry for a couple of weeks before they're edible.
Too much work, if you ask me, and especially now we're so busy. We just don't have the time .. or the energy left!

 The house is starting to look great! Guess what? Houston .. we have a ceiling! Look at that!

                                

Isn't it gorgeous?

This last shot is taken from the landing to the loft, looking down into the kitchen and living-room area .. and as you can see, the countertops are in as well!

And also the bathroom counters and sinks, and the one in the laundry-room/pantry/mudroom:

                   

Talking about bathrooms, the shower in the master is starting to look good too (that bright red is some thick water-proof paint that went on first, before we started tiling):

                

Needless to say, the days are long and busy, and we're pretty much pooped at the end of the day when the 'golden hour' comes along ..

The beer and wine at happy hour have never tasted this good!

Proost!