As the sun sets slowly in the west…

Kittee and I got all of our weekend wanna-do’s done for this past weekend and went fishing. This past week the weather in The Oregon Territory has been hot and dry. Most days temperatures have been in the upper-90’s with no rain in sight, no clouds to hide behind. It was time to head for the hills.

Yesterday, after Kittee took an early release from her office in PDT, we ate lunch, packed up Subie with our fishing gear and beer and headed for the mountains. We had planned to go fishing all weekend, in the backyard or in the mountains but with other horsey activities going on and Kittee sporting a broken foot we stayed close to house / home.
So right after lunch we headed for the hills, and arrived at one of our favorite fishing ponds in the early afternoon. Kittee lined up her fly rod and headed for the pond ASAP.

On her second or third cast Kittee hooked a fish. I headed to the pond at a slower pace and on the second cast I caught a fish. Now in all my years of fishing this made for a very unusual experience, as we were fishing under the full moon phase, and I rarely catch fish in that situation. But right off the bat we were having fun and taking fish for dinner. After each of us hooking / catching a couple of fish apiece the bite stopped. There was still some fish activity, but we didn’t hook anything for quite awhile, so we stopped for a beer, chit-chat, rest our arms, got off of Kittee's broken foot, and took a break under a shade tree above the pond.

After our beer break, Kittee went back to fishing.



I took some time to get some wildflower photos and Kittee sitting by the pond, relaxing, fishing.


After I got the pictures I wanted I went back to fishing. A little later in the afternoon while I was fishing across from Kittee she motioned for me to look over my shoulder. Behind me was a mule deer doe trying to decide how to get to the pond for water. The doe backed away from our position and quietly walked to the other end of the pond, came down the hill and proceed to take water. What a pretty scene that was…

While fishing Monday evening there were quite a few thunder clouds moving around the mountains, but we got no rain on us. A little later in the early evening, Kittee and I started catching a few fish again and by the end of the day / sunset we had caught more than our creel limit of 10 but only kept 7.

Thank you Jerry for our new landing nets.
They are working great, and getting plenty of use.

On the way out of the forest we had a beautiful panorama of sunset views for miles, with fresh, cool mountain air engulfing the interior of the Subie. By the time we got home, about 10 o'clock it was too late to prepare a fresh trout dinner, so that will be for tonight. Looking forward to that.

On the way home we passed so many beautiful sunset panoramas. As we were driving along the Skyline Drive the air was so mountain forest refreshing. I wish you could have been here to see, feel, and smell our Pacific Northwest last evening.

Sunday, around here it was HOT. We made our plans to get up and at 'em early and go for a short horseback ride before the heat came on for the day. We rode Derby and Nugget up through Cache Hollow for everyone's exercise of the day.


After returning home we sit back on the sofa, read books under the a/c during the heat of the day. The high temp for the day looked like 101º HOT, here at the ranch and in town. We did get back out into the backyard just before sunset for an icy wine cooler to polish off the day, and catch the evening breeze coming from the Blues.

Saturday, in order to beat the heat, be had an early breakfast and saddled up Misty and Nugget, went for a short ride up Cache Hollow Road. This made a most pleasant ride, with plenty of trotting, jogging, and a little cantering along the way. Just a fun ride for everyone. After our ride we made a quick shopping trip into M-F, then came home and called it a day under the a/c watching Star War movies. Late Saturday evening we grabbed our beers and sit in the backyard watching horses and relaxing in the cool downdraft mountain breeze coming off the Blues.

Friday, started pretty early since Kittee had court duty in Pendleton for the day and I was to go after Shaiela, who had been at Upriver Dale’s for the week being bred to his Eagle – AHA stallion. We are hoping that we might get another Rosey out of this year’s breeding. After my acupuncture "needlework" appointment I just took it easy for the balance of the day, feeding horses and resetting irrigation.

I am so glad that I designed and installed our irrigation system to operate with buttons and valves; it was a lot of work putting it in, but makes life so much easier now. That counts as we get older.

Last Thursday, I was out with the mare herd and on the way back to the house got this pic of four (4) silly fillies here at McKuster Ranch.

Rosey 2 yo - Summer 1 yo - Raji 3 yo - Sunny 4 yo

These girls really do enjoy hanging around and playing together. It is a joy watching them during their running and horse playing.

Wednesday, was a fishing day with my fishing buddy Randy. Not long after we left the ranch and headed up Lincton Mtn. we ran into a few mule deer bucks along the side of the road.

Further into the Nat'l Forest we ran into wildflowers.

This day we took a friend of Randy’s with us and everyone caught their creel limit of nice trout, most being 10”-12” in size. On the way back home we spotted elk along the road… a cow and spike bull. They both started moving out too fast for me to get a picture of both of them, but I did get a quick shot of the cow. We also saw quite a few snowshoe rabbits along the way, but I didn't shoot any of them. Again, another beautiful day on tour through the Pacific Northwest forest with plenty of wildlife around.

Tuesday started early with Kittee off to work in Heppner, I had planned a fishing trip into the mountains. Along the way Randy and I ran into many wildflower bouquets. There was colors, colors everywhere once we got to the mountains.



Tuesday we actually packed up all our gear and got to the fishing pond, for a most relaxing day of fishing to find all our gear was locked up in the back of Randy’s new p/u truck canopy, and he didn't have the key. If this had not been his new truck, we probably would have used a rock on the lock, but instead we headed home, enjoying the beautiful wildflower gardens along the way.

... tis not all of fishing to fish.
- Izaak Walton

Monday, the BIG news here was… Goldie is pregnant x Rusty once again.



They bred on June 19-20, so we will be expecting a new horsey baby here around mid-May 2011. We WILL be waiting with much anticipation to see what kind of little horse Goldie and Rusty will come up with this time around.

And then Sunday before last was Log-to-Frogs Art Fair in Milton-Freewater. This is actually a full weekend of chainsaw art working. Kittee and I only took the cool of Sunday a.m. and went to town for some shopping and a walk through the wood creations.

Below a video clip of the Logs-To-Frogs happenings of early Sunday morning.

That Sunday afternoon we took Shaiela up to the Dale & Cheri Cosper’s to be bred with their AHA – EagleFromTheLight once again.

Sheyenne (Shaiela's sister) and Shaiela - at the Cosper's

A video clip of some of Cospers' silly fillies running around, and around as fillies do.


And so that the way it is around our world this past week. Hope to hear from you and of happenings in your world soon.

Happy Trails and Peace be with you,





Dale