A winter's day

Stardate 120107

Plan A for this day's activities began two weekends ago, when Kittee and I made the purchase of our ranch stallion "Rusty". We were thinking that we would make another day trip to Bend, OR today and spend the time we had to visit and groom Rusty. Now with the advent of winter weather we fall back on Plan B.

Plan B, this time of year when it is too wet to ride, and we have no need to burn-up the environment with gas or diesel, we entertain ourselves with horses, reading, rental movies and a little eggnog/BV. Here is a recap of some of the things we did to entertain ourselves at the ranch today.

Before breakfast this morning Kittee and I had our seasonal eggnog latte's while still under the heated electric blanket. Mmmmm good, better than candy and it's caffeinated. Then just after daybreak we slid out of bed and went out to feed the herd. Burrr, that's a refreshing way to start the day.It has now been snowing for the past three days, and we blanketed most of the herd a couple of days ago. Today we went through the herd during their breakfast making corrections to their blanket fits. Everyone seems to be snug and comfortable in their winter weather wear.



After feeding the herd, we had our hardy ranch breakfast and then headed back out for a morning of horseplay.


It has been a month or so since we opened the riverside pasture, so everyone was happy to go to "new" pasture... even covered with a few inches of snow. Here is a series of photos of the gang coming out of the gate...
























Everyone had a few warm up runs around the pasture then settled into grazing through the snow. We have attached a short 11 second video of the herd winter's jaunt in the snow if you would like to watch them run through today's snowy playground.


While the horses and goats were grazing, Kittee and I continued our walk around the lower 18 acres to survey the river, and deer browse. I had put out a bale of alfalfa about a month ago, along with a partial salt block, and today was quite surprised to find very little of it was gone.



While back at the river I had to do a little wading to get the feel of the water... it's cold.

Kittee and I then visited our riverside Contemplation Station.

It was a bit cool and too wet to sit on our rock seats but we took a few minutes by the river and found the river's winter scape to be quite beautiful, as it has been in every other season.

After all was said and done we left the girls and boys grazing in the riverside pasture, and with chilling toes, we headed for the house for a bite of lunch.

To beat this winter storm system hohumm's, tomorrow we have riding times at Walla Walla Fairgrounds' indoor arena... Gittyup!!!

a day in the life at McKuster Ranch --- Dale