There it is, our first snow of the season... burrr.

This morning as I was firing up the Double Deuce, I noticed that there was frost on the neighborhood pumpkins, our first of the season. We also found that we got our first dose of snow across the mountains, east of the ranch with yesterday's daybreak. Burrrrr, it's getting chilly. I understand talking with hunters at the coffee stop this morning that Tollgate received 6" of fresh snow this weekend.

This past week has been fairly busy for Kittee and I. Kittee had allot of court trial prep to get ready for; as this week she is in trial everyday, and I stayed busy prepping the ranch for the onset of winter, already.

Sunday morning after feeding the herds (For The Record - we started feeding hay on Saturday when the rain started and the temperatures begin to drop) Kittee and I spend half the morning watching it rain and playing cards with the cats...

or maybe I should say that I spent the morning playing cards with Kats.
The weather did break later in the day, with clearing skies and plenty of sunshine so Kittee and I went to a neighbor's plum orchard and picked maybe 30-35 pounds of plums for ourselves and the herds of horses and goats that live here. After pitching out maybe 6-8 pounds of honey sweet and juicy tree ripened plums to the horses, we then sat basking in the sun in the backyard and watched 10 mule deer strolling the backyard bluff. Since I knew deer hunting/rifle season was opening here on Saturday, and I spent part of last week posting all of our property with No Trespassing signs. So while watching the deer in our sanctuary, we noticed one doe's head and ears behind some rocks being stationary, (while all the other deer were moving all over the bluff's draw) we thought something might be wrong with her (maybe rifle/arrow wound) so we hiked to the back of our property to check out the situation. When we got to the top of the draw, we spotted 7 of the deer (six does and one buck) and they all moved off, around the face of the bluff together including that stationary doe, so we felt that all was well.

Friday and Saturday were winter weather prep days around the ranch. The weather forecast was for wind, rain to come into the area and snow to hit the mountains by Sunday morning. Friday I made sure that all our hay was tarped well and finished harrowing the rest of the pastures before some a.m. drizzle began to fall.

Thursday was a most pleasant day weather-wise here in Milton-Freewater. That morning it showed a threat of showers over the mountains, but after my a.m. bus run and some horse herd work, I headed into town to make a bus trip with the high school girls' soccer teams. We had 100 miles to go to the west for a full afternoon of soccer in Boardman next to the Might Columbia River. Nice dry country this time of the year in that desert area. I had the opportunity to sit back in my bus' driver's captain chair and watch two games of well played girls soccer. Got pretty exciting...


MacHi, has some of the best soccer teams (girls and boys) in the state, so as expected the varsity and JV teams both won their games. I found this to be a most enjoyable way to earn a living for this week.

Last Wednesday, a new Walla² Fly Fishers club member came out to the ranch and we fished for awhile after my early run bus route was finished. It was a pretty afternoon, but temperatures for the season had already begun to drop. That afternoon the air temperature was 64° and the water temperature was 46°, quite a change from the week before.

With the onset of the full moon, the drastic drop in air and water temperatures, Jan and I had a pretty slow fishing day. The river and atmosphere was beautiful, but with only one hook-up apiece and a hour and a half of 46° leaky wader experience, Jan was ready to call it a day. I didn't realize that she was persevering, getting her river legs, casting stroke timing in sync, and while hiking around with a cold wet foot. A tough little fly fishing lady, but she has fly fished Alaska, so she know what she is doing.

And that's the way it is around the ranch this past week --- Dale