I tried a new recipe for hot cross buns that came out okay. Traditional recipes often call for citron and/or currants, old-fashioned ingredients that are sometimes hard to find in today's supermarkets and grocery stores, and I think of this as a 'modern' recipe because it called for dried cranberries, golden raisins, and/or dried cherries, all easier to find.

It's too early here for bushes and trees to be budding out, but due to the warm winter some folks are reporting early daffodils. In recent years, the hummingbirds have started showing up in early April, so I've got a feeder ready to be filled and hung outside the dining room window.

This photo of the first bird is from April 2014, the spring after our big flood, so you can see flood debris along the riverbank in the background.



Here in the canyon we're all excited because a piece of the highway that closed in October finally opened to limited traffic so we don't have to take a 45 minute detour to go five miles. We still have to make requests to get in and out of our homes 48 hours in advance, but at least once we get out, it's a shorter trip, and easier to plan our time.

This aerial photo shows the work area during the time the riverbank was being stabilized. The 'highway' is on the left where the pickup truck is parked.