It's freaking hot today!!!

Stardate 06/28-29/08

Summer has struck McKuster Ranch this weekend in a big way. Since Thursday our afternoon temperatures have been rising by 10º a day. Thursday we were in the upper 70's, Friday we were in the upper 80's, Saturday we were in the mid-90's and this afternoon the ranch thermometer shows 100º outside, in the shade as the A/C came on.

This morning we moved pretty quickly, situating the horses and irrigation for a hot day. After getting everybody/everything in place it was most pleasant sitting out under the maple trees with coffee and the Sunday morning newspaper, watching horses' play.

Shortly after having our breakfast granola while sitting on the front lawn, one of our boarders- Jennifer showed up with her brother and family. They were camping at Harris County Park on the So. Fork of the Walla Walla this weekend. This was a very cute family of visitors with a three year old little girl, and a set of two-year-old twins. While they were here the little ones did a front yard pony ride with Kittee, Jennifer and Jasmine, and had some petting time with Jennifer's horses.

After Jennifer and family left, Kittee and I turned on the front lawn sprinkler, moved our chairs to within showering range still under the shade of the maple trees, opened our beers and enjoyed the shade and shower until about noon. By then it was getting hot, and we came into the house for lunch, A/C, and a nap.

This afternoon Kittee had to pack up and drive to Portland to handle a court trial there tomorrow morning. YUCK!!!
Suppose to be about 100º at PDX today, with the west side humidity this will feel about like CLT, NC... nothing like our pleasantly irrigated front yard/Walla Walla River Valley. Kittee and I are both glad that we don't live in or near those two high rise concrete slabs any longer. We just thank the Great Spirit- Creator of All most everyday for our home, our space, our blessings.

Today Rosey is nine weeks old and is doing very well with blending into the mare herd and pasturing on her on. She is a really neat pasture pet now, and will come readily to being called. Yep, she knows her name, she gives a nay when we call her and knows that loving & petting feels good to little horses. She's our baby. This week we are to have two new arriving pasture boarders from AZ. These are two Arabian sisters -- one a yearling and the other a two year old. So with Rosey, Shaiela, and the two new arrivals we should make a very interesting second (Arabian) mare herd.

Picture on the left is Rusty tossing his head/mane. Arabians like to toss their heads allot, and stallions throw their heads and flaunt their manes quite a bit as Rusty does here. It is really funny watching him when he gets around mares, and arches his neck and throws his head in a most stallionlike manner.
With the weather forecast for today being 100º I canceled Rusty and my training session with Travis for the afternoon. It was a good time for Rusty to just go out to pasture and spend the day relaxing and grazing outside his stallion keep.

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Yesterday was our Blue Mountain Flycasters club's annual Kids' Fishing Day outing. Each year for the past four we join with ODFW and have a designated kid's fishing day at a beautiful well stocked trout pond about 35 miles south of Pendleton in the cool of the mountains.

A nice cool place to be yesterday as Pendleton was getting hot mid-morning as I was going through there. Kittee with her busted shoulder did not attend the activity this year. She was expecting Jennifer and family to come by yesterday, so she felt that she would do best by holding down the fort.
It was a good day to be in the great outdoors and the fishing/ catching was good for most of the kids.

While this is a non-fly fishing event, we do have folks that want to get a feel of handling a fly rod and tying some flies. Our club's Prez Bob Wolfe is a good guy for sitting in front of a fly tying vise and showing anyone how to make a trout fly develop. Bob is also a pretty good hand at getting trout to play with his flies.

Another part of our program for this day is to help kids learn how to clean and ice fish to make the trip worthwhile when they also get home and pull out the frying pan.


Here club member Bob Clabby has been a star player over the past years by putting his hand on the knife and pulling fish guts in demonstration of how a smooth easy cleaning process is done.

Along with trout fishing there is water play and a bountiful chowline to help make the day go easy.While standing around we had a fella asking yesterday, just how did we manage to create a deal like this; where the weather is beautiful, fishing is good, and food is furnished? I told him we should just call it a "hellavadeal" and keep on fishing and smiling.

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This past week around the ranch has been a good one with the exception that I found out Wednesday that Misty was not pregnant, so we will have to try again next year with her and Rusty. Now waiting for Goldie to go into heat, maybe will breed her to Rusty and hoping Shaiela to go into heat soon to breed her back to Eagle. Our experience with our baby -Rosey, we are still thinking strongly of trying to have two foals for next year. Baby horses are just so neat to have around, and maybe someday we can even make a buck or two, from our breeding program.
Happy Trails to you.

a day in the life around the ranch --- Dale