Feels good to be back home -OR- Running thru September at the speed of life

Stardate 0921-2307

We're back home and settling in. The past four weekends we have been on the go, go, go and running in circles between the eastern Oregon mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It's been fun, glad it's done, it feels good to be back home again.

Three weekends ago 8/31- Labor Day Weekend it was... Kittee and I worked the Walla Walla County Fair in Walla Walla, WA. There Kittee worked with her ladies horseback riding group -Blue Mountain Riders selling entrance tickets at the front gate, and I work with the Walla Walla Wagon Wheelers horseback riding group selling beer at our club's scholarship fund raising booth. The work was fun and we got to say Hello to a lot of new faces. I really did enjoy drafting up a few hundred cups of beer in one afternoon, and having a couple brewskies thereafter when Kittee came to join me in the Wagon Wheelers' bar room. While serving up beers there was a powerful wind and rain storm that came through the area (cancelled the balance of the horse races taken place that afternoon outside), upon leaving the fair everywhere we looked there were lots of trees and tree limbs down. This same evening we went to a Thai restaurant that we had heard of in College Place, WA for dinner, it was delicious... we will go back, and would like to take you there. It was after sunset when we got home and found several large tree limbs had blown out of the maple tree in our front yard , one of our Equine Facility signs had blown out of the county, and several breaks had occurred in the Hot Tape fencing. I had my work laid out for me, for right after breakfast Saturday.
The rest of this weekend we stayed home and rode horses where no one else seems to go. Made a nice four day holiday.

Two weeks ago 9/9- we celebrated our wedding anniversary riding our horses around in the National Forest and out to our wedding site at 5200' elevation on the Breaks of the South Fork. This year we noticed that from our wedding site overlook we could see the upper end of our ranch's rock faced bluff... a pretty neat view of our world.

Last weekend 9/16- Kittee had a CLE to attend at Newport/Agate Beach across the bay from Yaquina Lighthouse, on the Oregon Coast. It made a fabulous 4 days outing of walking in the surf and eating dinners at Depoe Bay overlooking the beautiful Oregon coast. The upper picture here if from the window of the Agate Beach Hotel. The lower picture is the seascape view from our favorite table at Tidal Raves seafood restaurant. Did you notice a camera pointing at you in this pic?

This weekend 9/21- 23 we spent in a CCC built cabin of the National Forest at 7100' in the beautiful Oregon Elkhorn Range of the Blue Mountains at Anthony Lake... fishing with our fly fishing club, and catching lots of rainbow trout and a few brookies.
This year was the first time in the past few club trips made to Anthony Lakes that we didn't encounter a snow storm. When we arrived on Friday the weather was warm and clear - summer like, a most beautiful day but the fishing was slow. Saturday the morning was quite warm as I was outside before breakfast in T-shirt and shorts but as the day progressed it became cloudy and cooler. Late afternoon it had become mostly cloudy with light breeze and felt quite cool - autumn like. The fishing really began to turn-on as the cloud cover thicken and by late afternoon we were catching some nice 10"-12" rainbows. Sunday we woke up to sub-freezing temperatures with cloud cover that had formed rime ice in all the area trees - winter like. After breakfast we all packed up, cleaned up the cabin and headed for each his own home front.

Late this afternoon Kittee and I decided to stop running, mixed up a WWWW&BV, took a stroll through the mare and gelding herds to pet horses and then went back to our two-boulder Contemplation Station on the Walla Walla River, and just watched the river run through it. While there we watch a small herd of seven or eight mule deer running across the back of our bluff property and run down the draw to the river towards where we were sitting. It is a rough life here on the ranch... but someone has to do it. 9/23

Now I think we are ready to clean the fireplace, set/light a fire, just kickback and enjoy the cooling weather of autumn/early winter season. Barn is full of hay, and all I have pressing me is to: harrow the pastures, mend fences, prep the pastures for some reseeding, muck out the barn, put in one more short line of irrigation at the arena, install another valve in the irrigation mainline, clean up the garden, start getting ready of next year's planting, do 2007 tax preparations, and keep my Kittee, horses/ goats/cats/ fed, fit, fat and sassy through the coming winter months. This should be easy.

It feels so good to be back home again, with plans to go nowhere, but to take long horseback rides, and do a little fall fishing.
It's a simple life here at the ranch, and I wouldn't trade it for anything else I know of -period.

Dale --- September in the life of Kittee and Dale

Round-Up Week '07

Stardate 0909 - 1607













This week Kittee and I celebrated our SIXTH wedding anniversary (week) by heading for the hills.

Sunday we loaded Misty and Nugget into their travel trailer and headed for our wedding site on the Breaks of the South Fork of the Walla Walla. Wish you were here...This year the weather on September 9th was as beautiful as it was in September 2001, when we invited a number of our family and friends and Judge Rudy Murgo to join us on the Breaks of the South Fork to celebrate our wedding ceremony. For those that joined us, we are glad you were here.

~~~~

After our ride and return home, we continued our anniversary celebration by going to one of our favorite "home range beef" restaurant and had a eastern Oregon steak for dinner. This day was definitely what we would call a wonderful, memorable day of Our Golden Years together.

~ Round Up Week ~

Since our special day/week together in 2001, each year during the Pendleton Round Up week, Kittee tries to take off as much time as possible from her law office practices. This is a recap of what was happening during Round-Up Week '07.

Monday following the our ride of the 9th we made a day of relaxing and fishing around the ranch. We found the fishing is getting better in the newly constructed fish habitat in our stretch of the river. We had made plans to make another horseback ride on Tuesday so this was a kickback day for us and horses.

Tuesday's plans were to join up with our young friend Kasey and make a horseback ride to Tollgate. Tuesday morning Dale had an upset stomach, and was not up for a ride, so Kittee and Kasey loaded their horses in the trailer and headed for Big Saddle on Lincton Mtn. Road. From Big Saddle they rode horses on towards Tollgate. Dale came up later and picked the women up near Tollgate and we trailered everyone back to the ranch.

Wednesday was the opening day for the World Famous Pendleton "Let'er Buck" Round Up. This year we feel it was one of the best PDT rodeos that we have ever seen, as no one got hurt, while playing the rough/ tough cowboy games. This was the first time in a number of years that we sit in the North Grandstands, and had great seats on the sixth row just above the livestock chutes in the center of the arena (a little better than being on the 50 yard line of a football game, and sitting above a coach's field of vision). It was just by chance that when I asked for two adult tickets the ticket seller asked if I wanted North or South Grandstand, for the price I immediately said "North side - center". From our seats we were able to watch the livestock being loaded down chute's alley, and being so close to the chutes/ action I came to realize that these cowboys and bull riders are getting younger every year.
Kittee started riding Nugget and Shaiela bareback this year, so it was quite a thrill to watch the Native American horse races being run bareback. It was quite amazing to watch these Indian guys running their horses flat-out without the aid of a saddle/ stirrups (some did have Indian blankets, most were completely bare back). You don't see any white boys doing this type of racing!!!
After sitting through a great rodeo, I came to realize... there ain't no old guys doing this rodeo "stuff" anymore. There is something to be said for youth. Kittee did point out one saddle bronc ride and said it looked much like my last bucking ride on Derby, including the dismount without a pickup rider's help. (The younger guys appear to be able to hit the ground more softly/ better than I can). Another thing about this years rodeo was that most of the riders (bull and horse) stayed on for their full 8 second run and made score. There were some really good rides and we, had a couple of the best seats in the house. Wish you were here...

Thursday, Kittee and I had a full day. We started with a great McKuster Ranch breakfast and then went out and caught up Misty and Nugget and trailered them upriver to the South Fork Trail. We rode for two - three hours up through about six fords, seeing only one dead adult salmon. We had heard that the week before the bears were in the river cleaning up the spawned out salmon carcasses, we saw no bears. This too was one of the most enjoyable, relaxing rides we have made up the river... horses must be getting used to the routine, and the cooler autumn weather is rather soothing.
Getting back from our ride we began preparing for our trip for the Oregon coast. After lunch we moved the horse into their weekend pastures, reset their water troughs, for the weekend horse keeper, tidied up around the barn, got ourselves cleanup and headed for Lyle, WA. to spend the night with our friend Bill.

Friday we hit the trail early having a cup of coffee at Bill and Ed's, and leaving the house before Bill awoke. On the way to Newport we enjoyed some good mocha(s) and enjoyable scenery driving through the west Oregon countryside. Arriving at the beach/ our hotel we found the weather to be great. After checking in we made a stroll on the beach before Kittee had to go into her CLE conference. After the high sun of the day Dale made a stroll on the beach, and called his sister and had a nice long chat. It was a most enjoyable afternoon of rest and relaxation. After Kittee got out of her CLE for the day, we again headed for the beach and walked through the surf until the sea breeze got a bit cool for Kittee. Afterwards we went back to our hotel room and turned on the TV. Yes, we watched some television during this outing, in this case we watched TCM and was caught up by an old late 1950/ early 1960's black & white spy mystery, and really enjoyed it until we had to leave to meet a friend for dinner about 10 minutes before the movie was over, sorry we missed the ending. This year we again found dinner at Tidal Raves in Depot Bay to be great. Since we had a late dinner reservation, we spent the balance of the evening sitting and chatting with Janie, our friend from La Grande and sipping vino until near closing. We got back to our room just in time to call it bedtime... the end of another wonderful day.

Saturday we had breakfast at the CLE's breakfast bar... as usual for these occasions. Kittee had conference until noon, so Dale went back to the hotel room and tyed trout flies until time to go for a morning walk on the beach. The morning stroll was beautiful with the Oregon mountain to the sea coastline, the Yaquina Lighthouse on the northern point of view, and a sea haze off in the distance. On this walk I called my Mom and had a very nice 45 minute conversation. After the morning stroll on Agate Beach, I again joined Kittee for lunch at the CLE's lunch bar. A great spread of all-you-can-eat Mexican plate fillers. After lunch I continued to tye flies for the Anthony Lake outing with our fishing club the following weekend, while Kittee returned to her CLE. While tying flies I watched some more TV (multi-tasking) - a National Geographic program on wild animals and their bite. Pretty interesting since we don't get this stuff back at the ranch. After the fly tying session, I proceed to head back out to the beach for an after high-sun-hours stroll. It wasn't too long on the beach when I got a call from Kittee that her CLE was finished and she wanted to have a cocktail and a stroll on the beach together, so we did.After this afternoon stroll in the surf and hiking across the dunes we headed back to the room to prepare for dinner at Tidal Raves for our second evening's dinner of seafood at the coast. Upon returning to our room we found that the 1930's version of King Kong (starring King Kong - a marvel of the world ape and Fay Wray - the Queen of Scream) was on TCM so we sat and watch this until the end. As we were about to leave for dinner we were held up by the approaching sunset we found out of the hotel window.

Sunday was the return home, back to the ranch, checking on the herds of goats and horses. But first we had to find a good mocha as the day was starting out gray and damp. Traveling up Hwy. 101 we did find a coffee roasting house/ giftshop with a great mocha in Depot Bay. While waiting for our mocha, we sat and browsed the local what's happening publications while listened to James Taylor's "Carolina In My Mind" and other of his hits on the stereo. (While at the Oregon coast I still wear my Outer Banks, NC T-shirt of lighthouses and horses, for ole times sake.) Further up the road we pulled into the vista lookout and visitors shop at Cape Foulweather, so named by Capt. James Cook in 1778. This day it did hold foul weather, the ocean and sky were both gray. "Thar she blows" after looking around the coastline --- 500 feet below us we went into the visitors center/ giftshop and while there looking at the giftshop's "dust collectors", there was spotted a whale blowing and breaching the surf below. "Thar she blows", yep, we watched this whale for about 15-20 minutes swimming around in the bay below us, as it was mine and Kittee's first time to actually watch a whale swimming the surf in front of us. We have seen plenty of porpoise and sharks in the surf, but this was a whale, a world's largest mammal. A pretty neat experience to behold.
After leaving Cape Foulweather we continued up the coast to Hwy. 18 and headed for Portland, to see our friend Sherry. It has been quite awhile since we had seen Sherry, as our schedules have not been able to come together for well over a year. We had a late lunch at one of our favorite Hawaiian restaurants in Portland, where each of us feasted on kalua pig (oh, a feast of that stuff is sinful). Thereafter we made a beeline for home and our livestock.
Arriving home well after dark we found that the herd was taken care of very well, and everyone was happy to get an apple for their evening snack treat.

A week in the life of Kittee and Dale

Kittee's first time in two seasons -OR- They're Baack

Stardate 090107

Kittee sparkles while fishing upriver.

It was yesterday that Kittee and I decided not to use our Oregon State Fishing License to go fishing. It was about 4 p.m. when we were putting on our studded fishing boots and heading for the river to get onto the 3 o'clock bite. Kittee wanted me to go upstream first, so I hit a couple of spots to warm up the casting arm, develop my aim and move up to the first recently constructed cross-vane rock structure/ root wad. There I laid a Krystal Flash Elk Hair Caddis between the two. POW! first fish of the day was an 8" redband from right behind that rock.
Kittee had started fishing the first root wad structure coming up stream and was having trouble casting her fly with a 12' leader. I went back down to help her cut off about 4' of leader, and her fun started immediately.

Kittee waves while making a nice back cast...
they didn't teach her to do this at law school.

A happy fly fisherwoman
at work, in her own backyard.

Now, what a mess this is.

Kittee's last cast of the day somehow got a wind knot (here we call them "Kittee knots") in the leader that polished this fishing outing off. We had fished up to the upper pasture property line and exited the river where the excavator had made a gentle sloping exit ramp the week before, very convenient get-out/ take-out for our ranch fishing.

We fished for about two hours. During that time we saw, 4 adult salmon and one jack. We caught maybe 20 steelhead / salmon smolts between us and Dale caught four or five 8+ inch redbands. We also ran into a couple of other fly fisher coming downstream, one saying he had caught a 15"er upriver. We were glad to hear that.

Kittee and I were quite happy with the work done on our stretch of the river by the CTUIR and the results of 8"-9" trout that were now moving into the new fish habitat structures.

Dale --- a day in the life at McKuster Ranch