New Year's Day '08

Stardate 010108

The days are getting longer now and it feels great, even though today it has felt quite cold outside - mostly sunny, high temperature in lower 30's, some wind chilling breeze.
Kittee has been home for the holiday since last Thursday afternoon; a nice long weekend together. During this time we have been winter horseback riding Friday through Monday. A nice reprieve from the winter weather of snow, winds and rain of the past few weeks.


Friday, Kittee worked with/ rode Nugget and Derby in our riverside arena, as I worked on broken windswept electric fence tape.
Saturday, Kittee and I took Derby and Nugget on a short trail ride up to the foothill's snow level, just riding up the harvest/ back country road that is across from the ranch. It was a gorgeous late morning ride with plenty of warm sunshine. We rode until we hit snow and the road turned to ice. A little slick of barefoot horses. This was the first time we had ridden Derby off the ranch since July's bucking ride. I still have sore/broken ribs from that ride I feel almost every night while lying in bed.
Sunday morning the wind was howling here, and as our usual Sunday morning activities go this Sunday we took Shana (one of our horse boarders), Nugget, Derby, and Sinwaan (Shana's horse) to the Walla Walla Fairgrounds indoor arena. At the arena Kittee and I both rode Nugget and Derby (my first ride on Derby since July).
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We were planning to ride with Shana again today- New Year's Day, but the weather forecast was for mostly cloudy with winds from 20 to 30 mph... so Monday we headed out to our backyard riding range, on the north/bluff side of the Walla Walla again with Shana and our rides - Sinwaan, Nugget, and Misty. Shana had never been on Bowlus Hill so she was rather pleased to find what was on top. Yesterday's ride gave us a wonderful clear blue view of the Walla Walla River drainage and the Blue Mountains covered in snow. The view from Bowlus Hill is the river basin/confluence of the Walla Walla, Snake, the Mighty Columbia rivers, and the upper most part of the Blue Mountains of Oregon/Washington. This ride also give us quite a view on a clear day of the cities of Milton-Freewater, College Place and Walla Walla, not to mention the Cascade Mountain Range and The Washington Palouse --150 miles out across to the edge of the horizons. It was a good afternoon's ride that everyone enjoyed.

Today it was a bit too cold to horseback ride, so we didn't. This morning we started the day with the usual - holiday eggnog latte- while still under the electric blanket. Last night the outdoor temperature went into the mid-20's, and our fire burned down to just a bed of coals, which meant the house was quite chilly as the sun broke through our bedroom window this morning. I threw a nice size backlog in the fireplace at about 6 a.m. and we drank our hot latte's while we were waiting for the living room to warm up. Burrrrr.
This New Year's morning we were prompted to put on a little background music (Kittee's favorite R&R hit) and just warm up by the fire. We have a little video at the end of this blog if you would like to share the morning fire with us. We hope you can feel the warmth of our fireplace while watching this video.

You might notice in the above picture that Kittee has her foot in the air.
OUCH -*#$%@* !!
Yep, we heard that.

Kittee got stepped on yesterday as she was off-loading/handling Misty to head up Bowlus Hill. Fortunately they were both standing in a soft cultivated wheat field so her foot was able to sink into the ground as Misty was standing on it.


Nice hoof print here... don't you think?

We were not prompted to move too fast this day, as we were thinking about horseback riding to bring in the New Year, now we would NOT. We also had a new boarder coming to the ranch today, so we felt a need to stay close to home. Our new boarder was scheduled by our information(?), to come to the ranch "around mid-day". Well as I was taking our breakfast eggs out of the pan, Natchez -- "Nattie" shows up knocking at the door. Here is newly arrived Nattie putting our butts into gear earlier than expected.

It has been really interesting watching Nattie blend into the herd. Nattie is a nearly 3 year old filly that has been called a "Paint that A'int". Really a sweet girl and after the herd ran her around a bit to find out who she was, Nattie has appeared to be bonding with Baby, a 16 year old Arabian mare and her 6 year old daughter that have been boarding here for a couple of years. Very interesting to watch this three horse bonding, particularly as Baby and Nattie look so very much alike. These horses owners are really going to have to do a double take when they see this.

OH well, such is the way we bring in the New Year at McKuster Ranch. Our weather has been great and as the days get longer/ warmer, we are looking forward to more "Hiddy Hoe - Let's Gittyup and Go" riding time. Last year we were able to ride almost every weekend from January's MLK weekend until November's freeze. It was a very good year to live in NE Oregon.

Gee, do we love this place or what?

Now back to the eggnog/BV -Holiday Elixir- for the balance of this holiday weekend.

Happy New Year!


a horsey holiday weekend at McKuster Ranch, Yee Haaw, gittyup--- Dale