may 31 2009

first the nature shots. woke up at 6 am, saw the great clouds & headed out to camas marsh with the camera-

here's the back field yesterday before the thunder storms moved through. so green! and the light is great.

here is our mode of transportation in town- along with the jeep.

we rode the bikes to the chamber of commerce breakfast in the park for lily days. they'll also come in handy for trips to the store, and possibly evening cocktails. we better get lights, though.

steve made good progress in the master bath. here he is happily plumbing along.

this is one of the bathroom cabinets that steve got a good deal on from a building outlet that was blowing out overstock. looks good, doesn't it? will fit perfectly with the 3 in spacer once we get the trim around the door. next step is a counter top & sink.

the afermentioned lily days included an art show in the park (6 booths, it was fun). there was a man there with furniture made from old cedar fencing. perfect! so now we have a bench for the porch...

and more kitchen storage.

and that's it for this weekend. close to getting the occupancy, and then we can come up & relax more & work less....... it will be really nice to get to cooler temps when it's in the 100s in town.

memorial day weekend

first, the nature shots. wildflowers starting to bloom behind the house. these are phlox and wild parsley.

not sure what these are...

larkspur & wild parsley.

it's all so green! this is the tree i've been shooting & a currant bush.

and camas- the plant that the county is named for. the indians summered in the wide high valley & gathered camas roots for food. this time of year, fields are literally blue with flowers.

went to camas centennial marsh saturday morning.

the yellow headed blackbirds looked very cool among the blue camas blooms.

on to house progress..... steve and jake got the king mattress upstairs, and we got the overstock.com bedding on it. pretty comfy bed, it is. hoping the microfiber keeps halle hair to a minimum. it is nice having room for all 3 of us :)

also, notice white walls- that was my job this weekend, to primer the master. 3 plus hrs later (even with the power roller) it was done. big room. which is good.

there was one casualty of getting the mattress up the stairs..... good thing we opted for the cheap paintable sconces.

the amoire (craig's list, mexican pine, price we were very happy with) didn't make it upstairs. will take 3 guys. and probably best after the room is painted, to minimize moving. it is a great piece of furniture, though & we'll be glad to have it. steve is reading baxter black and eating breakfast. good thing we didn't catch him laughing.
steve built this storage for the kitchen in boise and he & jake brought it up.

dandy storage/microwave stand until we get cabinets. will have doors on it & become garage storage in its next life.

subfloor for the master bath also on the agenda. here's the workshop.

and the floor.

the bathroom walls that i painted a few weeks ago-

the tile for the tub & shower that jake says he can finish in an afternoon- so we'll pay him to do so. less stress that way.

last fall's tree & shrub purchases survived-

and the grass seed is started.

and that's it for now......pushing for the final, which means completing the master bath. we're close. (i should say steve's close, since that part is pretty much up to him).

anyway- productive weekend!

more yellowstone photos

where we've been

we had a weekend of stuff around the first house (friend in town, christmas tree burning party, the usual) and then the next (long) weekend a trip to yellowstone.


one sad bit of news- our sandhill cranes that were nesting by the highway didn't fare so well. we stopped to check on the way out of town and saw no cranes & an empty nest. looking further, we saw at least one crane carcass. we think maybe the golden eagle we saw across the road got to them, but will never know. major drag.

more of the same lesson in yellowstone, but lots of new life too.
the buffalo calves are so cute, and silly- they'll just take off like little lunatics running in circles, butting heads, jumping sagebrush- and then collapse into a dead sleep with mom watching out for them.

then, the griz.... saw lots this trip. they seem most interested in food (which is usually of the carcass variety). big powerful animals. magnificent. and clearly something you don't want to get too close to (i have a fairly long lens).

black bear- looks really different- i wasn't sure i could tell, until i saw a griz, then no question.

four buffalo were curious about what was going on here and wanted to walk by. the bear finally bluff charged and the buffs moved off. they didn't seem too concerned, tho. bull buffalo seem to do pretty much whatever they want.....

we also saw 2 wolves, and plenty of ungulates, will post more as i sift thru the photos. and, of course, update on house progress.

may 2 & 3 danger! lots of photos!

here's how it looked when we got to fairfield on saturday- much like what we left in boise. good weather to be working inside.
after the obligatory dog romp with rocky, of course.

and a walk around to see what's growing .

wildflowers starting to pop up. i think a desert parsley.

and something else- maybe larkspur?- getting ready to bloom.

i think we'll have lupine and wild geranium and maybe camas too.

the willow are starting to really show color as they put on new growth.

here's how it looks up close.

and now inside.

my mission for the weekend was to get the master bath painted so we can tile, install sink & commode & get the final occupancy.

here i am putting on the primer. picked another dark color for the last bath. this is a dark, steely blue- similar to the stormy skies we saw all weekend.

steve's mission was to get the stairway painted & hook up the sink in the upstairs guest bath. the stairway was fun- the ceiling is really high.

looks great now! a few touch ups on the ceiling & it's done. glad we got the paint 'em to match sconces- they blend in nicely.

and- voila! a sink upstairs! woo hoo! we both took showers this weekend too. it is so nice to be able to do laundry & shower up here. we're getting there. even left some clothes in the new dressers.

a little r&r after a tough day. not much though b/c we had to dash off to the iron mountain inn to watch the derby. and eat some finger steaks for a healthy afternoon snack. and have an adult beverage. well, we deserved a small reward!

we missed the actual race (actually, so did everyone in the bar b/c the satellite went out at a most inopportune time), but we caught the amazing replay & the excited jockey & big fun in the winner's circle. then headed off to camas prairie centennial marsh.

by now it had cleared off some and the sky was beautiful.

there is a lot of water out here in the spring after the snow melt. it's pretty strange to see so much water in the midst of the sagebrush. from what i could tell this should be popping with wildflowers in a month or so.

there are all sorts of shore birds about- this is an avocet with a beak that curves upward.

i wish i'd taken the video camera & left the sound running- the bird calls & singing are just great to listen to.

we got quite lucky with sandhill cranes this visit. i like the way you can see the farm buildings behind this one.

got lucky and caught these two taking off.

and in flight.

lots of yellow headed blackbirds too.

saw this female pronghorn trotting down the road. did you know that the only place there are antelope is in africa? so even though we call these antelope they're not really.

on the way home, we pulled over to get some shots of these guys.

we've seen them in this spot our past few trips. on the way up yesterday, i caught the female sitting on what looked like a nest, but we weren't sure since it's in the middle of this bog.

but look what we saw today! eggs! it is going to be really fun to check in on the sandhill crane family as we go back & forth. we're going to miss the next 2-3 weekends, so there should be chicks by the time we are headed back up.

steve noticed this guy sitting on the rocks across from the cranes. huge bird.

we're pretty sure a golden eagle- due to size & coloring.

whew! great weekend! probably sparse posting for the next few weeks, but we'll be back. hopefully with crane chick photos. and blooming wildflower photos. and, oh yeah- more progress on the house:)