Slight Detour

The dogs and I were on a late afternoon walk in the woods when I spotted this scene.

Happily, Bridie did not, and nothing alerted Foster's sniffer that another creature was in our midst.

The cat remained, as if frozen like a sculpture, on the log as I stood and admired it, took it picture and as we eventually passed by.

Only after we were on our way away from the log did I see any movement.

It's neat to come upon such sights and not disturb their sense of safety.

I can't say enough about this crew: polite, positive, fun, focused, eager to do whatever asked, efficient and amazingly skilled and dedicated to their individual jobs.

We are beyond pleased and especially happy to have met them and watch them work for three days.

Such experiences restore faith in the fact that there is a lot going right in this country. It just doesn't make headlines.

Thanks so much, Ty, Keely and the Oliver Tree Service crew of Gale, Lance, Mahone and Kelly.

You're the best!

I'm thinking that one of these days this little Bambi will just come on in the house for a snack.

It has become more comfortable each day checking out potential edibles around the yard, and I don't mind a bit these days with gardening ending for another year.

It was amazing yesterday to see the family a squirrels start racing around the yard again shortly after the tree crew left.

Apparently, with all that noise and logs banging to the ground, they decided to hunker down somewhere while the crew was doing their work.

Now, it almost seems like they have that much more yard as they scurry from one place to another, often chasing each other.

A reminder: a fun horse show this weekend.

It all starts tomorrow, Friday, at the Bonner County Fairgrounds.

Lots of opportunities to see beautiful horses performing.

Each day, except for Sunday has a morning, afternoon and evening segment.

There'll be a food truck, and it's a great place for horse lovers and to bring the kids.

For more information about the show, go to the following link and click on "September Showcase." It's in a box at the top of the page.

https://www.eeahc.org/home

The red maple tree and the big spruce tree south of the house have now become more prominent for our window viewing.

Thursday Throwbacks: photos from past events, moments, places and people. Enjoy. And, do scroll along with the music.

An explanation. While in office, President Obama made an occasional habit of spending some quality time with people whom he deemed as great thinkers or voices of the world.

His first choice: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson who was born in Sandpoint, Idaho.

AI Enhanced. If you look closely the faces are not accurate.

If you look and compare to the original photo above, some locals still may be able identify some of the individuals.

Let's see if anyone gets a 100 percent.

AI enhanced photo of Batch Two of the Brown/Tibbs family and their 4-legged friend: Laurie, Jim, Rowdy (?) and Barbara.

Bill and I call them the "twin towers."

They are the last of the eight poplars, and they'll come down today. The crew expects to be finished with the project by noon.

Once again, it's been fascinating and fun watching the four team members work.

In addition to removing the poplars, they also cut low-hanging limbs from a big spruce tree in the southwest lawn.

I've had to do contortions with the lawnmower while mowing under that tree, so it will be nice to have the daylight in future mowings.

Yesterday's clump of four poplars turned out to be a little more complex than the first batch.

These trees are closer to the house, and it seemed like they were bigger and had more big branches to remove.

I decided they could be cut off flush with the ground rather than leaving notable stumps.

The taller stumps actually look good with the periwinkle patch.

Obviously, I'll be looking for additional shrubs or flowers to dress up the scene. I envision iris, daffodils, black-eyed Susans and maybe more oregano as possibilities for that space.

Both areas offer some fun challenges to see what we can do, landscaping-wise.

The photo shows Bill's plate of dinner from last night.

Homegrown baked potato, with garden beans and carrots AND a roasted pasture-raised chicken from right here in the Selle Valley.

For several weeks, I've followed the catchy videos Kyle and Ashley Nagy have been posting on Instagram.

When they started raising their second batch of broilers and called for orders, I decided to give them a try.

After all, my colitis diet limits me, and chicken is usually a safe meat choice.

So, the rest is history. I received word earlier this week that the harvested chickens would be ready.

So, Monday, I drove over and the first person I met was Lark. She greeted me with her pet chicken. And, then came her little brother.

A few years ago, I took some photos of Lark, her brother, her mom and their dog one day when they came by our place.

At the time, they lived on North Kootenai Road, but since then, they've moved to a farm on Colburn-Culver Road where they are raising both poultry and pork.

Ashley shared some suggestions on how to cook the bird----slow cooking, that is. I prefer that method and do so whenever I think about dinner early enough in the day.

I stuffed some of our peeled apples inside the chicken, added some water and wine to the pan, basted the chicken with some avacado oil, seasoned it and put it in the oven for about five hours----starting at 225 degrees and increasing the heat to 350 during the final half hour or so.

No disappointment.

It was tender and tasty. Bill drizzled a little barbecue sauce on his, and then we savored every bite of the chicken and veggies.

Doggies liked their chicken too. We spoil our dogs.

We'll all be feeding off from the chicken again today.

Ashley tells me they'll be raising another batch in the spring.

The Sly Fox Farm folks do a beautiful job of preparing and packaging the birds.