Winter Solstice '08

Yep, that is almost 23" of snow between the house and the barn.
We currently have a couple of drifts this deep to go through getting to our barn since last Thursday's storm. Most of the snow depth around the ranch now is actually running between 11-12" deep.

We have now had a week of celebrating the Winter Solstice of 2008, even though yesterday was the first day of winter. Everyday for over a week now we have had subfreezing temperatures, and some amount of snowfall.

As you can see during this time we have not had much of a desire to sit around our outdoor fireplace.

We have enjoyed being "shut-in" after dark this past week with our eggnog, apple cider, and the Canadian BV.


We have had a few reprieves from what seems like a constant snowfall: morning, noon and night. There has been a couple of days, this past week or so that there was a break between the a.m. snowfall and the p.m. snowfall.


Even though Goldie has been bred x Rusty, she finds her best horsey friend still to be Nugget.

I received an email from my sister in Charleston, S.C. this past week saying their weather forecast was calling for temperatures to reach 80º and she would like to see some winter for a change.

Today I sent her a few pictures of our '08 winter, and hopes she will get into the spirit of cold and snow. We have!
Some of our daytime highs have looked something like this outside the kitchen windows.

It is sometimes hard to believe that horses love this temperature when in their winter coats. Since we have been having snow almost everyday, almost all day long we went ahead and put blankets on our herd last Wednesday before the blizzard came through on Thursday. Not a problem... I put on my Santa Claus cap about 9:30 that morning and went on my merry way. Thursday we had our regular school bus run (on a 3-hour delay) and part of my morning country route was driving through a whiteout. By Thursday afternoon's route delivery run we had an additional 3-5" of snow throughout the area, so that made driving even more fun. Friday schools were closed, which made an early start for our holidays. School bus driving is not a bad occupation, for someone living life around a herd of horses. ;>) Many days I feel like ole granddad chauffeuring kids around, and some days I really have fun teasing the little ones and some days the big ones.











Temperature at the barn during the brightest part of the day. Do you see the reflection of the sunlit bluff?

















December's irrigation utilities are now on hold.












Snow is this deep on the roof, and the snow guards are working well on our slick new metal roofing.


We found that we have a weak/old circuit breaker in the barn power system, so we have only been able to heat one inside-the-barn water trough on this circuit. We have a new circuit breaker coming to town on Wednesday. Outside the barn we have a heated water trough for the goats/ponies and a heated trough in Rusty's keep.

Horses are now being fed four times a day - 7:30 am, noon, 4:30 and 9:00 pm.


Yesterday the first day of winter, Kittee and I stayed close to home, with only about 3 hours out with the horses. Coming soon to the McKusterRanchLife YouTube Channel I will be posting the video of the herd romping and running as we let them change pastures and play in the snow. With blankets on now, we have to be very careful not to let them get overheated. Horse blankets, like a great single malt Scotch are a luxury, as well as an unnecessary evil for a horse... A blanket can make a horse sick and create sores so we looking forward to taking the blankets off soon.

With all the snow we have been having, I am out 3-4 times a day clearing snow from the front and back door porches. Saturday, as I went out to sweep off the front porch there was a large white flutter that left the corner of the porch. Kittee saw it as well, and I thought it was a snow white dove... beautiful bird, sitting on the front porch. Yesterday in our comings and goings to feed and play with horses we found a snow white bird next to the haystack in our barn. The bird was definitely in distress, so Kittee tried to give it some sweet COB grain, it ate very little. We saw the bird was not going anywhere, as it sit huddled in the loose hay next to the haystack, so when we came back to the house we place the bird in a box and brought it back to the house with us. Here we gave is some wild bird food and water. The snow white bird continued to eat for the rest of the day. Apparently this bird was nearly starved with only snow cover to feed upon.
Yesterday we found that Walter was not only a beautiful snow white pigeon, but he was wearing a leg band. Now we are interested to find out where he may have come from. Currently we have called the local vets and humane society to put out the word that we have found Walter, the pigeon that is.
If you have any knowledge of how to help a homing pigeon find its way home, please let us know.

Well as I am about to close this posting for today, I look outside the office window and see that once again it is snowing...
FTR --- Doc Doug Corey came by this afternoon and gave Goldie her first Rhino vaccination as she is now 5-months pregnant.
NOTE: I do use my blog postings to help me keep a running record of events around the ranch, changing of the seasons, as well as a log of the comings and goings of Kittee and myself. It is fun to look back at the recent past, I hope you might enjoy these posting as well.

With this, I shall close this blog posting and wish that all who read it; a safe and Happy Holiday Season...

HO, Ho, ho, and a
Winter Solstice around the ranch --- Dale

December 15th @ 15º F

Last night was our coldest night for the Winter of '08. Got a call last evening that our Milton-Freewater school system would be running on a three hour delay, due to winter weather. Now, let me tell you it is pretty neat to get a telephone call from the boss on Sunday telling you to wait around home for 3 hours before going to work on Monday. ;>)

This morning at first light the outside thermometers on the house read 15º, an almost perfect temperature for the horse herd to enjoy their breakfast. At the 7:30 morning feeding the barn thermometer was also reading 15º, and everyone was quite happy to be getting their bellies filled.


One would be hard pressed to find coats like this at even the finest apparel store.




































It is now time for the 1:00 p.m. feeding and our temperature is standing at 25º.

Hard to believe that only a week ago it felt like springtime, as I was working in the garden, and even noticed some new pasture grasses sprouting.

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Coming in from the midday feeding I measured 4½" of snow.
It's beginning to look allot like...

Only 10 days 'til...

a day in the life --- Dale

Treacherous -or- What a difference a week makes.

Treacherous - that is the word Garrison Keillor used this evening on
A Prairie Home Companion to describe how the "over-50-something" crowd might describe our area weather this evening. A treacherous night, not to be outdoors or going anywhere. It was a cute story Garrison told about life this past week in Lake Wobegon, hope you might find the opportunity to listen to it.

Anyway, this week Kittee and I had plans to head out to Pendleton this evening to attend our annual Back Country Horsemen banquet, and visit with some horsey friends. We were also looking forward to a dinner of prime rib and a plate of prawns with scallops tonight. It is our custom to usually swap plates half way through the meal, so we both enjoy the combo of entreés.

This day began with our usual holiday weekend eggnog lattés while soaking in bed, waiting for the house to warm up, watching the snowfall and the outside thermometer. With snow accumulating on the ground Kittee and I both headed out to feed horses, do some work around the barn, and setup two more water trough heaters for this weekends weather forecast. At daybreak the thermometer was reading about 36º and most of the falling snow was melting, but it was snowing hard enough that everything was still turning white. Temperature did get up to 40º here today, but the snow did not stop falling all day long.

It appears that winter '08-'09 might be here. Last Sunday night there was a snowfall on The Blues to our east, and the mountains stayed snow capped all week.

This week it was quite comfortable around the ranch, as I continued to work in the garden between my school bus outings. The garden is now set for winter, as I just have some berry transplanting to do, and we do plan to put in some fruit trees before spring. Between now and next spring I intend to take half of our 1 acre garden area and put it into pasture for Rusty, next to his keep. Even though his keep is a large round-pen area, I hate to see him locked up in there for very long.

Today it was much too warm to blanket the horses, as they have developed very nice winter coats. With snow on the ground and on the horses' rumps, we gave them three good rations of alfalfa/grass hay and everyone seemed to be happy spending most of the day eating, and no one in the herd had the shivers. There was awhile that the herd was playing in the snow... very slick... funny to watch horses play on the skids and slides.

It is our philosophy that horses are best living life in the great outdoors naturally. This philosophy was once again confirmed to be correct by an article this month in Equus magazine which stated that horses with natural winter coats are most comfortable at 15º to 20º F, and being well fed. We do blanket horses at 25º if the wind blows and snow flies. Many folks don't realize that it is more hazardous to a horse's health to be kept in a barn box stall environment, than to be in an outdoor environment with temperatures as low as -20º F.

Tomorrow, we have weekly riding times at the Walla Walla indoor arena, but the weather forecast is for snow to continue throughout the night with temperatures dropping to 15º - 20º overnight. Highs tomorrow are to be 15º - 20º with more snow, a perfect play day for horses. The weather is to be treacherous for humans, appears that it will be a day to stay home, crank up a fire, listen to NPR, read, visit/feed horses throughout the day.

So it appears that winter '08-'09 might be here; oh what a difference a week makes.
Tonight's dinner was a couple of bowls of brown rice smothered with homemade chili beans, dashed with Tabasco Sauce. Mmmmm good stuff for a near winter's night.

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

December 6th @ 60º F

This weekend may have been our last weekend of beautiful Fall '08 weather. The weather has been very pleasant here this past week with several morning of heavy frost, and afternoon's being shirt sleeve weather.

Friday Kittee and I took care of business around the house after going to Walla Walla and looking at some tile for a bathroom makeover. Friday evening after my bus route, I got home worked in the garden, fed horses and we went back to Walla Walla for the evening of our Annual Banquet of the NWQHA.

This past week I have been moving the asparagus out of Rusty's keep and into a new garden row. Allot of this work was removing/moving the horse manure from around the asparagus plants that came up in Rusty's keep last spring, digging out the crowns and moving them to their new home turf. I was quite surprised at the size of some or the crowns, and glad to see that as I spread them out we will have a full 100' row of fresh cut asparagus to enjoy next spring. I have also been amazed that Rusty did not eat all the asparagus as it emerged this year. He only nibbled a few of the fern-leaf tops, leaving me many flags to follow to get to the underground crowns.


Saturday we very dutifully set our sights on horseback riding again through the wheat fields in our backyard. The weather was perfect, mostly clear blue skies, and the thermometer on both ends of the house were reading 60º. Again we thought about taking Derby and Misty to the top of Bowlus Hill, but Misty got kicked in the leg by a shod horse this week, and I felt that it would be better not to stress her by climbing a hill like Bowlus Hill, so we just casually rode the harvest trails, enjoying the scenery and wide open spaces.

Trail pictured above is looking over Kittee's left shoulder, as we get to keep an eye on our mile high wedding site at the Breaks of the So. Fork.
Below is a view of Bowlus Hill, (on the far left) from our wheat field riding range. The harvest/combine trails make a great place for us to ride and watch for gopher holes and animal borrows.

After our afternoon ride we got back home in good timing to give a little sweet grain to most of our "needy" horses, catch our NWPR 3:00 p.m. edition of Prairie Home Companion, from The Town Hall - NYC which was a very good show this week. Thereafter we headed upriver to the Cospers to help them with their new ranch website works. While there Cheri served a delicious roast beef dinner, with pumpkin pie dessert and late evening ginger sugar cookies. A most pleasant evening with Dale and Cheri. This past week Dale and Dale and Cheri got about half of their website operational, most of this web work job should be completed this next week.

Sunday began with our seasonal eggnog lattés while soaking in bed for awhile. Outside temperature at 8:00 was 51º and skies were cloudy. Today's weather forecast was for rain to be moving in. After a second latté we rolled out of bed and Kittee went out to feed horses while I worked on breakfast. Our plans for today was to go to the Walla Walla arena and ride, but since it was warm and the rains were not here this a.m. I told Kittee I would stay home and work on moving the rest of the asparagus. So after breakfast Kittee loaded Derby and Nugget and headed for the arena, I grabbed the shovel and wheelbarrow and started digging up more asparagus crowns.
About 1 o'clock I had maybe a half dozen crowns left to bury, and the rain began. Just about perfect timing as now this weeks transplants are now being very well soaked with a warm December rain of this afternoon/evening.

It didn't take long after the rains began, when the horses that were scattered in the pastures, all headed for the barn and stood around grumbling about the afternoon's wet weather changeover.

So our first week/weekend of December '08 has felt much more like springtime than heading into the fringe of winter.

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

Thanksgiving '08

This Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, Kittee and I did not get into allot of running around nor did we have company in.

We began this holiday season with our traditional eggnog latté morning treats. Mmmmmm good stuff. These have always been quite the treat, while soaking in bed on cold holiday/weekend mornings, waiting for the house to warm up around us.

This year for Thanksgiving dinner we went up the So. Fork of the Walla Walla and had a most pleasant afternoon- evening with our ex-boarder, Kasey and her grandparents Gerry and Connie Schmeckpeper. Gerry's sister also joined us for dinner, and there we all consumed a delicious feast, with plenty of vino on the sidebar. This was a very casual dinner party, (I was instructed not to attend in Black Tie) with too much good food and wonderful company to share it with. This was our first opportunity to break bread with Connie and Gerry, it was a good time; we have now invited them to come down river and join us with a ranch BBQ when the winter weather breaks.
Kittee and I roasted our 20 pound turkey, with all it's trimmings on Saturday. It made a very good dinner for Saturday and all day today, pick, pick, pick... Mmmmmm Good!

Our weekend weather has been mostly off and on clouds/fog banks going through, with sun breaks to let us get outside with horses and do a few chores around the ranch before December/winter is upon us.
I did some more work on burning, cleaning and tilling the garden area these past few days. I was hoping to move the asparagus plants out of Rusty's keep, but all I got done on that project was to till the bed I am moving the asparagus crowns into. Hopefully this next week I will be able to move the crowns before having to move Rusty back to his keep.

Other than these little projects, we have just stayed home, relaxed, watched some good movies, "worked" /played with the horses, and Kittee her cats.


Kittee did load Derby and Nugget up this morning and took them for a ride at the Walla Walla Fairground Arena. Since it was quite chilly and foggy this morning when she left, I did not feel like going out trying to ride my horse and have my head chilled out this day; so I stayed home and when the sun came out at high noon I went out and groomed and grained horses. Everyone is now wearing a winter coat, but so far their coats have not gotten very long or shaggy. Hope this might be a sign of a mild winter to come.
After working and playing with the herd, I tilled a couple more rows in the garden, getting ready for spring of '09.

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Rosey is VI months old

Thanksgiving Day '08 was Rosey's six months old Birthday.

She now stands 12 hands tall and tapes at about 450 pounds.

She is getting to be a big little girl. Still as lovable, soft to touch,
and gentle as ever.

I will be posting more photos onto Rosey webpage
and photo album soon.

Lest we not forget Rusty.
It was just over a year ago that we made the trip to Bend, OR and bought our Adrenaline Rush. Since that time he has become such a very gentle pet stallion. Rusty has recovered from his bout with Pigeon Fever and has spent the past week - 10 days out on pasture. He is currently in our 4 acre pasture being fed hay twice a day, and grazing the balance of the day, so he is showing being well winter fed. He does stay busy pacing/prancing the fence line as he watches the rest of the herd about 200' away in their pastures. This past week we wormed all the herds (horses & goats), and blended the mare and gelding herds back together to be one for the winter.

Our Quarab mare Goldie is beginning to show to be quite pregnant x Rusty, and loving her extra rations of mare/foal grain and sweet COB. She is still the #1 Blond Bitch in attitude, right behind Shaiela being the Queen Bitch of McKuster Ranch. Horse herd hierarchy, is a very interesting thing to watch.

This has been our Thanksgiving '08 holiday weekend. Schools has been out for over a week now, and tomorrow I get cranked up again driving two buses to make my rounds. Gee, just think... we have another holiday coming at us in just a few weeks.

Happy Holidays and to all a good night.

Thanksgiving '08 around McKuster Ranch --- Dale

Used to be, one would have been enough...

This past week the weather at McKuster Ranch was gorgeous as the herds of horses and goats laid around sunning under our warm eastern Oregon blue skies. One day this past week I spent the entire day working in my AQHA T-shirt. Enough to make me wonder if global warming might be heading in our direction here in the Great Pacific Northwest, or if it is just the micro-climate of McKuster Ranch and our solar heat collector/bluff. Our clear blue skies now has the sun traveling deep in the southern quadrant with sunrise hitting our front door at 7:56 this past weekend and the last light of the setting sun leaving our front door at 3:23.

The weather this past week gave me a good chance to work on cleaning up our garden area; burning off the weeds, pulling up drip tape/soaker hoses, spreading horse manure,

and working until last light making the first soil tilling for the up coming '09 garden season.

Saturday and Sunday Kittee and I went horseback riding in the fallow-stubble wheat fields of our property on the north side of the river. Derby and Misty had a grand time jogging and cantering the harvest trails on Saturday. Even though we had Sunday riding time at the indoor arena in Walla Walla it was just too beautiful in the great outdoors to take our horses for a ride inside four wall/under roof. We just don't get views like the ones below when riding in and around the city of Walla Walla.

Sunday when we off loaded the trailer, we had intentions of going to the top of Bowlus Hill. But it appeared that Derby and Misty were a bit tuckered from their Saturday of cantering in the soft soil of stubble fields, and they were not quite as eager to cantering up the foothills of The Blues this day.
So we made it easy for them and us, a little jogging, a little cantering, mostly walking and enjoying the scenery above the forks of the Walla Walla. After a 2-hour ride as we were heading back towards the trailer/the trip home, we watched a herd of a dozen mule deer running, bouncing off their toes across the field in front of us. Wish I had been set to get a picture of that.

It was one year ago today that I fired up old "Silver PU" and drove to Helix, OR around 5:30 a.m., there to meet Julie at her MidCo school bus. That was the Monday before Thanksgiving Day, the night before and that morning we were getting our first seasonal snowfall. Reminded me of WNC winter weather. As I headed for Helix that morning the wind was blowing snow so hard in places I could not tell if I was on the road or about to run out across the wheat fields. Well, a lot of bus driving has gone on since them, and this past week I got a telephone call from MidCo Bus Company in Pendleton asking if I would be interested in having another school bus to drive for them. I told them give me a day to think about it and I did.

Used to be, one school bus sitting in a driveway would have been enough in a family. Now at McKuster Ranch we have two school buses sitting in our driveway. Makes the place look like a pretty busy location with four other vehicles sitting out front of our two school bus parking lot.
So if you are heading in our direction and need to find us quick and easy, just leave Milton-Freewater on Walla Walla River Road and look for the home with allot of horses out to pastures and two school buses parked in the driveway. There is no other place on the river like this one.

And that's the way it is. Hope you and yours have a safe and happy T-day holiday weekend.

A week in the life at McKuster Ranch -- Dale