The Christmas to New Year break seems very open this year. Several homeys have more days off than most years – or so it seems to them. The big question centers around how to use that time getting kids and family outside.

There are plenty of long evenings and nights for games and huddling, so throw together some leftovers and sandwiches and make the most of whatever the Paradise daytime outdoors offers. The principles hold for anywhere you find yourself – get outdoors.

Of course, you know I have to start with finding, watching and photographing some wild critters. (Santa DID bring someone in your family a new camera or cellphone, right?) We are being told to look for prepare for an El Niño winter, somewhat drier and warmer than most. Still, the jury is out on the weather for any given set of days, so be prepared anytime you take yourself and family on a wildlife watching safari. If the forecasts hold, this may be one of the best opportunities to observe and watch wild things in semi-wild places that we’ve had in a couple years. To maximize the pleasure for all, remember hot chocolate, coffee, cookies, sandwiches and whatever else your gang might need to make an outdoor adventure memorable.

A couple at-large members (Aren’t we all, really?) of the Reecer Creek Rod, Gun, Working Dog & Outdoor Think Tank Benevolent Association (RCRGWD&OTTBA) recently raised those “wildlife watching etiquette” questions, and asked that I again pass along the simple guidelines. As chair of our little think tank’s Winter Wildlife Watch Subcommittee, I am duty bound to share the following.

Winter survival is everything, of course, to deer, elk and bighorns. Under the best of conditions, the stress of winter is the major controlling factor for their numbers. Our responsibility is to avoid adding to the normal stresses of winter.

Warm protective coats and limited movement make it possible for deer, elk and sheep to slightly lower metabolic rates and caloric requirements. But even with a decent food supply and limited activity an average winter will cost a large ungulate 20 percent of its fall weight. Disturbed, a large mammal may double its rate of energy burn, and burning away 30 percent of fall body weight will often cause death, even if food becomes available.

The bottom line of all this is that we have an obligation to observe critters from a distance comfortable to them, not us.  I often think about Dale Swedburg (retired manager of the Sinlaheken Wildlife Area) and his “Facts are facts, but perceptions are reality!” statement. Even if we think we pose no danger, what matters is what the animals perceive. Causing wildlife to stop feeding, or leave a feeding/resting area, will affect their health and well-being. Be as unobtrusive as possible.

Here in the valley, elk and deer are all over. Lower Cooke Canyon, Reecer Creek or Colockum Pass Roads will all take you into winter range and a likelihood of seeing deer. They are common up Taneum and Manastash Roads, too. A few bald eagles are beginning to show themselves around the valley – particularly along its northern edge and in the Canyon.

You may find elk up the Colockum, but the largest herds in our valley will be fed up Joe Watt Canyon once the snow flies. My spies tell me there are already a handful of elk near the fence, and you can hang out about as long as you like. As snow arrives, Joe Watt Canyon is a favorite sledding area. You may also find elk scattered from there over to the Heart K Ranch at the mouth of the Taneum.

Down the Yakima Canyon are deer, a few elk and several bunches of California bighorn sheep, along with a seasonally increasing population of bald eagles and other raptors. The sheep are being seen on both sides of the canyon road, and, often as not, pretty close to the highway. The trick here, of course, is the traffic. There are only a handful of good pull-off areas, and they may or may not be anywhere close to critters you=d like to examine up close. Still, it=s worth the drive, and kids get very excited about being the first to spot one critter or other.

A longer drive will get you to what many consider the ultimate regional elk and bighorn watches; the elk feeding at Oak Creek Wildlife Area, and bighorn feeding at the Cleman Mountain Site. Numbers of animals at both sites are still increasing, but you will likely see wildlife. Both sites are near the point west of Naches where Highway 410 and Highway 12 intersect. At the intersection, turn north onto the frontage road and follow it to the bighorn sheep feeding site. You cannot miss the fencing and the signs. For the elk feeding, turn south onto Highway 12, and look for the wildlife area signs (and perhaps visible elk) on the right.

Wherever you wander, take your Discover Pass and watch the wintry roadsides. Hitting a deer or elk can mess up the whole day for both of you.

Enjoy the gift of this long holiday weekend as it pushes us toward whatever is in store for 2019.

See you next year.

Note that this column is focused on gifts available in the Kittitas Valley of Washington, as is my custom. Note, also, however, that these are great gift ideas no matter where you might find yourself for this Christmas Season. Whatever you do, celebrate your outdoor heritage!

I know you’ve been tightly clutching your cash and cards, resisting all that Black Friday and Cyber Monday hype, awaiting my list of hot locally available gifts for the outdoor nuts in your life. As chair of the Gifting in Support of Homey Businesses Subcommittee (under Reecer Creek Rod, Gun, Working Dog & Outdoor Think Tank Benevolent Association bylaws), I’m pleased to pass along hot gifting ideas for the 2018 outdoor nut on your list.

Let’s start with the immediate. The 2018-2019 Light Rifle Class League starts is underway at the Valley Rifle and Pistol Club, but you may still easily join the 16 week program of safe family recreational shooting. Pay one small fee for your entire household, then bring your little rifle and ammo. The Club will supply regulation 10-bull NRA targets, a modern heated range facility, the direction of a qualified range master, and great coaching. What better gift could you give your children and family? Learn the responsibility and discipline of safe shooting and firearm handling while enjoying week after week of the simple pleasure of putting holes in paper exactly where you want them. Mel Goudge at 925-4285 or Hal Mason at 962-3002 will help you get your household in the game.

At the east end of the valley, Kittitas’ Sure Shot Guns & Pawn has a wide variety of firearms and accessories from handguns and suppressors to youth .22 rifles. A good supply of bulk .223 and 9mm ammo is available at special prices. A variety of gun safes are available, and they go out the door with no sales tax. Todd and Melody and crew have an easy quick set up to handle background checks for purchasers of firearms, and other restricted items. Stripped lowers (for DIY folks) are readily available this season, as are gift certificates in any denomination (they always fit). There is never a charge for special orders, which usually arrive in 2-5 days. Sure Shot offers a full line of Badland clothing and packs. 509-968-4867 with your questions, or go to www.sureshotguns.com.

Nika Mihailov and his Kittitas County Trading Company crew on Main Street in Ellensburg have an excellent supply of new and used handguns and long guns, including a just-acquired estate collection of unusual and rare pre-war handguns. The Trading Company is about the only place in the region with a selection of M-1 Garands and other military surplus items. The AR 15 type rifles and accessories are in-demand gifts, as are concealed-carry accessories. The store carries a wide variety of ammo for handguns, rifles and shotguns (including .22 ammo). Nika is still paying top dollar for gold and silver (check your old or broken jewelry) – a good way to start shopping with a pocket full of unexpected cash. If you are looking for something in particular, or have a question, call the crew at 509-925-1109.

It would be a superstore most anywhere, but Three Forks Ammo & Reloading happens to be on the main drag in Cle Elum. John and Chris have most every reloading item your shooter’s needs or wants for the holidays, and a variety of gift ideas among the 10,000 items in the store. No one carries more or better reloading equipment than Three Forks, including the top of the line Forster and Dillon brand equipment and tools. The popular Hornady Lock-n-Load Classic Reloading Kit is only $219 (including a 500 free bullet rebate). The guys always offer free individual reloading classes, on demand. The store holds more bullets and live ammo in more calibers (plenty of .22) than ever; more than 1400 choices and case lots in several calibers – many at special prices. There are several game cameras in stock (commonly used for home security these days). From 200-round WWII commemorative .45 ammo boxes to stocking stuffers, if you need it, they probably have it or will find it. Go to www.threeforksreloading.com or call 509-674-2295.

In the middle of it all are Bi-Mart pros Mike and Ron, and their determination to carry what you want most. From stocking stuffers to under-the-tree gifts, start with .22 ammo in good supply and work your way up to great prices on rifles and shotguns. This season, trigger locks are in demand as are the Ruger 10/22 rifles and the take-down Ruger carbines. Anything that says 6.5 Creedmoor – from bullets to rifles – is hot. As always, there are several styles of ammo boxes, smokers and gun safes in store. The outdoor desk has new knives and sharpening systems, along with shotshells and stocking stuffers like flashlights, headlamps and keychain lights. Interestingly, as salmon have become less available, fishing gear for bass, walleye and kokanee has become very popular. 509-925-6971 will get you to one of the Bi-Mart sporting goods pros.

If one or another of the women in your family is receiving a handgun, make that holiday gift complete with a one-day safe shooting and handling class just for her. Contact Marilyn Mason at 509-962-3002.

Maybe an adult fishing and/or hunting licenses fits for your sportsman or woman. There are options to fit your outdoor nut in a variety of prices. (You will need Wild ID number, date of birth and account password at fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov/ to purchase the licenses.) The proof of purchase for most any of these will fit nicely in a discreet envelope under the tree.

Buy in Paradise. You’ll find virtually everything your outdoor nut needs close at hand.

Happy gifting and Merry Christmas…

Several dozen of us gathered Saturday afternoon at the Fairgrounds here in Ellensburg, Washington, to remember our friend Joe Meuchal (as in “Michael”). True to his nature Joe wanted no fuss made over him, so we just made a small fuss and spent a couple hours sharing memories, laughing, and celebrating a good man who will be well-remembered.

You probably crossed paths with Joe at one point or another over the past decades. He was one of those great story tellers and loyal friends you can’t forget – and wouldn’t want to forget, anyhow. He went to his well-earned reward on his 91^st birthday.

Joe was an outdoor guy from the moment he could find his way out a door. He grew up on a homestead on the North Dakota prairie and then in Montana after the Great Depression took the homestead. As a young man he spent summers as a fire lookout for the U.S. Forest Service, times of which he spoke and wrote often. He was a WWII and Korean Conflict vet. He worked forests and spent much of his adulthood as a rancher. Fresh air, sunshine, plants, wildlife, horses, and change were the constants in his life – all of them, he said, fueled his passion for knowledge about the world around him and the forces that shaped it. As long as he was able – as close to the end as possible – he took long daily walks.

If you were there Saturday, you heard about his work with Audubon and the many places – roundtables, committees and boards – where he made certain that someone was speaking on behalf of them. You also learned that even as he was speaking in great detail – scientific names and all – about birds, animals, native plants or weeds, he was devoted to seeing them in the context of a healthy habitat, within the big picture. He often noted that when we restore or maintain a healthy environment, with its variety of habitats, the plants and wildlife will find their proper balance.

I first crossed paths with Joe during the Big Game Management Roundtable (BGMR) – a group of some 50 stakeholders dealing with big game damage to agricultural ground in the Kittitas Valley of Washington in ’03 or ‘04. He was a strong voice for open space and the holistic management of wildlife and livestock. His insatiable appetite for the natural and cultural history of the valley and the region – and his nearly perfect recall of what he had learned from archive after archive – supported the roundtable in finding workable solutions to some fairly intractable problems. When he spoke about the BGMR and his role, he was speaking of his own values: “People are talking; trust is developing… Open communication… A diverse group of people collaboratively seeking solutions to the elk problems within the whole environmental picture.“

Over the years, he often spoke about the importance of kids being free to explore the outdoors without constraint. Only in this way, he insisted, would they fully develop their innate desire to learn all they could about wild things and wild places. A decade or so ago, when we were talking about one of the columns I was writing, he reminded me that without that passion for nature future generations will not do the work for a healthy natural environment that we are doing. On Saturday, a couple of his other friends reminded us of his strong opinions about the importance of outdoor kids.

Joe put together half a dozen books of his well-written and entertaining stories. Copies of various of them are in the hands of friends, but they were never widely distributed.

I thought I’d pass along a couple of the notes folks sent me about our friend.

Marc Eylar described him as an “old hand of many subjects, experienced and well read. Not only could he tell a good story but his ability to just listen and converse with you always left you feeling fortunate to be in the conversation. His laugh would warm your heart and when you were in his company you were content…and so was he.”

Robert Kruse wrote that Joe “possessed a  breadth of knowledge, experience and interest in sharing with others encyclopedic knowledge and recollections in natural science, landscape arts, agriculture, horsemanship and cultural history, to name a few. Joe took us back with him to days long ago and allowed us to experience moments in the past with colorant, spices and humor…to make the flavor just right.”

Maybe the best way to summarize how so many of us felt about Joe is just to let you read the words of his friend Charlie McKinney. “I feel like Joe, in his own way was a kind of Renaissance Man. If it had to do with plants or animals, wild or domestic; land, especially the American west or how people have lived on it or still do, then he was interested. He had a wealth of practical, hands-on experience because he had lived it. But he was amazing in that he could stay right up with you in a discussion of modern range management, forestry, wildlife management or environmental issues. Joe was steeped in the traditional ways but also knowledgeable about modern science and management. Joe maintained a wonderfully open mind to the end.”

A wise man once said to me, “A person is only as big as the number of things to which he or she attends with interest.” Joe Meuchal was a big man.

Tomorrow evening, Dec. 6, at 6:00, the Light Rifle Class League for winter family recreational shooting starts at the Kittitas Valley Rifle & Pistol Club range here in Ellensburg, Washington. The 16-week league happens at the range at 608 West 15^th (immediately west of the city shops).

It still surprises me a bit that, no matter where or when I mention the this or any other family-oriented small-bore shooting league, someone has a story to tell about learning to shoot with an old .22 rifle and some adult family member – and a wonder about why we don’t all give ourselves that sort of fun anymore.

The way the world looks at firearms has changed – as we see pretty regularly. Yet, an innate sense of the need for people to learn to handle firearms safely – and with the pleasure so much of our population took from recreational shooting just a generation or so ago – still burns in parents and families. Maybe it’s true that every kid who learns to safely enjoy handling and shooting a simple firearm makes society’s future a bit more secure.

I regularly hear parents talking about wanting their youngsters to learn to be safe around all sorts of firearms. It’s nothing new, really. The last of the Hucklings and I were on one of Captain Don’s boats out of Westport a decade plus back, chasing sea bass – rockfish – on the Pacific Ocean. On the boat with us was a woman and her 12-year-old son. We were enjoying the fishing; her son and the Hucklings were nuts about it. Over sandwiches she explained that the boy’s father split when he was born, and she was determined that the boy grow up with what she called a “solid foundation for life.” The men she most admired – solid and balanced in their lives – fished and hunted and cooked what they harvested. As a city girl, she said, she hadn’t had much of that, but determined that her son would, and enrolled every mentor she thought worthy. He had done a bit of .22 shooting with a friend and his wife, and she was now looking for an organized, regular target shooting opportunity, so he could grow up “relaxed and safe around all the guns that surround us these days.”

There were not as many of those organized ranges as she expected, but I heard she found the kid a shooting home. I’m guessing she got her boy reared to be one of those men she admired.

I don’t pretend that learning to shoot well and safely is the only way to a solid adulthood. I am certain, however, that every kid who has proper training in a fun and relaxed setting will be better able to deal with potential firearm problems down the road than one who hasn’t. Our good luck here in Paradise is that the Kittitas Valley Rifle & Pistol Club offers – in the midst of its competitive league activities – its family-centered Light Rifle Class League for winter shooting.

If you have a .22 or a good air rifle and want to involve your family in a winter-long program of inexpensive fun, instruction and good shooting, this is your opportunity. Come to the club’s HQ (608 West 15^th Avenue) tomorrow and meet the range and those who operate it. If you can’t make it tomorrow, you will still be able to sign up for the winter league. I can assure you, based on a long history of shooting and countless conversations with other shooters, the training and shooting pleasure of this winter will still light your youngsters’ eyes a half dozen decades down the road. You will make a family memory that will never fade.

Here is an opportunity for you and your family to develop the skills, patience, discipline and confidence that family recreational shooting programs promise and deliver. It starts just in time to be one of the best Christmas gifts you will ever hand your household.

Hal Mason and other officers will tell you that KVRPC’s Light Rifle Class League is a “do your own thing night under a rangemaster’s watchful eye, and a lot of fun. We have swinger targets and paper targets, and at times we set up some steel critters. All in a warm safe environment. Cheap too.” The 16 week league program starts tomorrow. Bring your favorite .22 caliber rifle or .17 or larger air rifle (under 10 pounds) or even BB gun, ammo and a desire for safe fun. Everything else will be waiting for you; regulation 10-bull NRA targets, a modern heated range facility, the direction of a qualified range master and coaching as needed/desired.

One other family-related opportunity at the KVRPC range is the NRA Basics of Pistol Shooting for Women class, taught by Marilyn Mason. No previous experience or NRA affiliation is needed to learn the skills and earn a course certificate. Reach Marilyn at 509-962-3002 or  www.kvrpc.org.

The KVRPC range is at 608 W 15th in Ellensburg. Everyone who enjoys shooting light rifles is welcome to come, learn about, and take part in the 18-19 shooting season. Call Mel Goudge at 509-925-4285 or Hal Mason at 509-962-3002 for more details

This range and opportunity is for you and your family. This is for you to discover (or rediscover) the joy of safe recreational shooting and the deep pleasure of watching kids or grandkids develop skill and confidence as they punch little round holes in paper. This is for lifelong pleasure.