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. 9/23Now 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
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