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

Fishing with a new Cameraman

Yesterday downriver Robert and I found ourselves in a dilemma first thing in the morning.

The day before while horseback riding we had discussed, “what are we going to do tomorrow?”

We came to the conclusion that we should just sleep on the issue… Do we go fishing in the mountains, or go horseback riding into the timber towards Tollgate.

So it was decided that I would give Robert a telephone call at 7:00 a.m. sharp, and we would make our decision concerning… "what are we going to do today?"

Came to the conclusion that we had horseback riding available to us most days, but with summer vacation winding away, we should make the wiser choice and use our full day "OFF" for an out-of-town fishing trip. I had told Robert that I would show him a fishing pond on the summit of the Blues or we could go work a pond that had been stocked with triploid rainbow trout.

I had a few ranch chores to deal with, so after taking care of horses, (still breeding Kootenai and Rusty), and making a quick business trip into town, I dropped by Robert and Sherry’s on the way back from town to let Robert know that I was ready to go…

We had a wonderful ride pass Pilot Rock, and up into the mountains, saw a few deer, and the flora was gorgeous as we gain altitude going into the National Forest. When we got to Notellum Trout Pond, I gave Robert a hand replacing the leader on his fly line. Robert then headed for the pond and on his second cast brought in a legal size trout, which we released so as to creel 10 larger ones for the day. I lined up my rod and it took maybe a half hour before we saw another fish, I hooked a fair size triploid and creeled it.

Anyway, we fished on, Robert caught one more legal size, I caught a couple more triploids, while getting quite a few strikes then we took our lunch break in order to give the fish a break. During lunch I started thinking that I had brought along a 4-wt full sink line so we lined up Roberts rod with that after lunch and immediately he started hooking fish on his first or second cast after our lunch. Robert did hook up to a nice triploid a little later, but lost it in the weeds in the process of landing it. :>(
At 3:30 we felt that it was time to head home, after we had made two more cast apiece. Robert made a cast, with no hookup, I made a cast with no luck. Robert made his second cast with no luck, then I made my last cast of the day and found a triploid on my hook looking for an invitation for dinner with Kittee and I. After that cast we packed our gear, hit the road, and clean our fish along the way in a cold, clear running stream.

Now in the process of the day, Robert wanted to get a picture of me with our first triploid catch, so I agreed – For The Record. In the process, the camera kept taking funny pictures, and Robert wasn’t sure what was going on… why the view finder kept showing motion instead of the still shots he had just made. I looked at it and saw that I had left the mode on video from the evening before when I was taking pictures of Rusty and Kootenai breeding. This is what we got… A couple of Good Ole Boys out fishin.

;>)







Tight lines and good fishin,
Dale

Kittee turns 50-something

As I sit and write this blog update, I look outside and see the wind is blowing - hard. When I flip to TWC for weather conditions in Milton-Freewater it says that our current temp is 83° with a 29 mph wind and gust up to 36 mph. I see that our eastern and western horizons are brown out of view with blowing dust. I think I shall continue to sit by the computer, until the winds subsides. This morning at 6:30 I did take Shaiela to the vet in Walla Walla for a hormone shot to push her into a heat cycle with hope that she will be ready to breed this coming weekend. This evening when Kittee returns home I will go out and put Rusty and Kootenai together for them to again have a close encounter of the first kind. Their last encounter of 6/25-26 didn't work for us ~ them.

Looking over my shoulder at this past weekend, Kittee and I took it pretty easy, laid back. This was not our plans, as we hoped to be horseback riding most of the weekend, and had talked to downriver Robert about riding with us up into the timber on Lincton Mountain to beat the heat of this past weekend. We had thought about going trout fishing in a lake at the summit of the Blue Mountains on Sunday to beat the heat. All of that came to a SCREAMing halt, when Kittee (standing on a concrete floor) got her foot stepped on by Kootenai Saturday morning. We were at the vet's office in Walla Walla having Misty and Kootenai's pregnancy tested when that happened, and from there we came straight home. I put the mares out, Kittee came into the house, took an Aleve, a glass of wine, another glass of wine, and put her foot in the air for the rest of Saturday, Sunday, and another glass of wine. An unusual weekend of being totally kicked back, and laid out around the ranch, but with afternoon temperatures in the upper 90's I guess it was time to take a break.

Friday after Kittee's birthday, we just spent the day communing with horses, resting, and going to town to get Kittee's new OR driver's license. Gee did she have a tough time getting those things. I will have to have YOU talk with her about that situtation;>) I found it amusing being like a fly on the wall at the DMV.

Last Thursday, it was Kittee's birthday and she turned 50-something. I had invited some special friends to the ranch for a BBQ dinner and to celebrate Kittee's day. Most everyone started arriving around 5:00-5:30 and we had a most pleasant evening sitting around chatting, snacking, drinking, laughing, talking with horses, eating, sharing our warm evening and just getting another day older with each other.

The golden hue of this pic comes off the folks sitting here
and our natural western sunset lighting.

At our age it is kind of nice to think of days in golden terms, having fun. Older we all are, hopefully wiser, and happy.

Anyway that sizes up our past weekend.

It was last Tuesday and Wednesday that we had a contractor and crew come out and do a little work on our horse chewed barn. Each of the past few years, we have horses and goats trying to eat our barn during the winter when they have full access to it. This horsey chewing of wood is mostly due to horsey boredom. It will be interesting to see what they do now for winter boredom when the ground is covered with snow. We hope they won't be eating the face off of our 100+ years old barn any longer.
Since the 4th of July, hot and dry weather has come to our northeast Oregon Territory. Many of our days have now been in the upper 90's for the past week and a half, and I have run irrigation most days. Thank goodness for our push-button pump, my multi-valves system, and Big Gun delivery of irrigation.
Last Monday the 5th Kittee and I gave pony rides to the children and grandchildren of two of my co-workers. They came out about 11:00 a.m. and everyone gathered around and fell in love with Jasmine.

and then it was time for pony riding...






















































After the pony rides everyone gave Jasmine a hug and then went out to meet and pet the rest of the herd (except Rusty) and take a walk beside the river.

Sunday July 4th, Kittee and I rode horses around the ranch, before the heat of the day arrived. First there was Derby in English,

and then there was Sunny in western, this was Kittee second time for riding Sunny (a boarding mare)
and then there was my second ride on Goldie in western. Since coming back from the trainer, we have had such poor weather, or she was hormonal that I have not saddled up Goldie to put time in the saddle. She was again a very good girl and very sensitive to the bit and leg pressure. Maybe needless to say that I ride Goldie very carefully as we learn to connect with a saddle between us.And that is the way it is around McKuster Ranch. Wish you were here.

Happy Trails and Peace be with you,





Dale

PS. Kittee's foot is doing much better, even though she now has a hitch in her Gittyup, and a portion of her foot is still purple.

PPS. Did you have a chance to see the first blog posting I made today --- June 2010 recap

June 2010 recap

As I sit and write this blog update, I look outside and see the wind is blowing - hard. When I flip to TWC for weather conditions in Milton-Freewater it says that our current temp is 79° with a 24 mph wind and gust up to 37 mph with the east and west horizons beginning to brown out of view with blowing dust. I think I shall stay in for the day; it is Monday the 12th of July. This morning at 6:30 I did take Shaiela to the vet in Walla Walla for a hormone shot to push her into a heat cycle with hope that she will be ready to breed this coming weekend.

Well it has been almost a month since I made a blog entry, and since then we have been very busy around the ranch and horseback riding elsewhere. It has been hard to try to find time to sit at the computer and get much work done with the weather outside turning springtime beautiful and school being out of session. With this in mind I am not going to try to recap every detail as I sit here. For this blog entry I am going to refer to my photo album since 13 June with photo journal of the comings and goings of Kittee and myself around our McKuster Ranch life.

On the 13th of June Misty was showing signs of coming into heat, so on the 14th we brought she and Rusty together for a couple of days.

We have tried to breed Misty before without success and again this time we had no success. Our vet Dr. Doug Corey says that Misty has very small ovaries and for that reason maybe barren. We would like a pretty Paint/ Arabian, but if we don't get one, we have Misty, a wonderful trail riding companion.

Wednesday 6/18 was my first fishing outing of the season with co-worker Randy and his brother. That day we spent on the Tucannon River in WA fishing the stocked ponds there. This is one day of all days that I wish I had had my camera, as when we walked up to Deer Lake a Great Blue Heron took flight from the pond, and across the pond from us sit a beautiful Bald Eagle in the top limb of a tree, that was a beautiful sight and I did not have my camera. That evening Kittee and I had fresh trout for dinner.

Friday June 18, Kittee and I stayed home and she had her secretary bring some work out to her from Pendleton. Aurora also brought along her family for some pony riding...


Later that same evening we noticed that Goldie was acting out in front of the geldings, so on the 19th, we put she and Rusty together for a couple of days of close encounters of the first kind.

She has not been pregnant checked, but we are hoping that next May we will have another foal much like our Summer.

With the advent of an early spring in February and March, we spent alot of time riding horses around here with downriver Robert. During that time we discussed alot of bird watching with Robert and that created quite an interest in our local bird population. Since that time and Robert thinks it might be due to the cool wet weather we had in April and May that we had an above average showing of colorful birds around our neighborhood. We had been paying close attention to the nesting Bullock's Orioles we had in our backyard Walnut tree and one morning while doing something on the computer I looked out the office window and there sits a Bullock's Oriole

A couple of day later downriver Robert and I headed in the direction of the Tucannon River partly due to the great fishing trip that Randy and I had at Deer Lake, the previous week. Robert has a new Orvis 4-wt. Clearwater rod/reel that he needed to train to catch fish, and found that day it worked well. We had a great day working on Deer and Big 4 lakes. Our best success was again on Deer Lake with alot of C&R fun...


Upon returning back to the ranch, we celebrated our Summer's birthday - 1 yo on the 23rd.

Oh what a sweet girl she is and it is hard to believe,
how much she has grown in a year.

Again we asked Rusty to go back into action on Friday 6/26 to service Kootenai as she was showing to our gelding herd, signs of going into heat.

The two of them spent that day and Saturday together except for the time that Kevin was here taking care of everyone hooves.

Kevin and Summer 6-26

Tuesday 6/29 Randy and again headed out for an Oregon fishing pond -- Notellum Pond -- for an opportunity to fish for triploid rainbow trout. Oh what a day that was for fly fishing...

In the middle of the afternoon an osprey joined us
for some fishing pleasure and it's mid-day meal.

Our day of fishing turned out very well.

Then on Wednesday 6/30 after a good day's work, I decided to finish off the end of the month with my first fishing excursion in the backyard. I jumped in the river about 5:00 p.m. and fished my way upriver for about 300 yards catching probably 24+ redband trout in less than two hours.

Now one thing that I really enjoy doing when catching wild trout like this guy is to take them into some calm waters and release them and watch they swim away under their own speed...

Do you see the camo colored trout at waters edge, under the blades of grass in the above pic? It also amazes me how well wild trout are camouflaged.
That same evening we had elk burgers for dinner, while the wild trout continue to swim free in our backyard.

As I was putting away my fishing gear, Kittee arrived home and we sit out under the backyard walnut tree with a beer and watched the sunset. Whelp, in a nutshell this is the way the balance of our June 2010 was finished off.

Peace be with you,




Dale

PS. This past week our video of Thank You Goldie and Rusty went over 100,000 hits on YouTube.