First catch of '08, bovine branding, equine jumping...

Starlog 072808

Today was the first day that I have waded our backyard with a fly rod in hand since last October 31. I was quite amazed at how much the riverbed/stream flow had changed since last fall. The work that BPA/CTUIR had done last August was still very much in tack.

The dynamics of the river's flow was very different, not just in the area of the Tribal work zone, but through the entire stretch of river I fished today.

Right after taking the above riverscape picture, I turned around to start fishing, and had an owl fly off the river shore and landed in a tree overlooking the river and me. I took a few pictures of him as he was making screeching owly night sounds, and twisting his head looking in all directions. I will have to say that this guy was a very nice owl specimen as he stood about 18"-20" tall on the tree branch gazing at me. A very handsome bird.

The best part of the stroll upriver this afternoon was there were plenty of redband trout/steelhead smolts that were taking dry flies as the water temperature was a perfect 58°. While wet wading I stayed very busy catching and releasing fish for about 2 ½-3 hours, the air temperature was about 82° so the whole affair was very comfortable. Here is a picture of my last hookup of the day (with a #10 Orange Stimulator attached). After the hook release I headed back to the ranch, needless to say with a smile on my face.

Today I found that the river was much easier to fish (footing wise) than last fall. There is now a river rock/gravel bar that has formed right down the center of the river from our east pasture fence and runs about 200+ yards upriver.
I found it very easy fishing in this run at the base of the bluff's wall; caught maybe three dozen nice pan size trout in this stretch of water. Today I had no encounters with salmon or smolts. A very pleasant afternoon.
When fishing over wild trout and steelhead, I am a firm believer... "that he who fights and swims away, gets to fight another day".

~~~~~~~~~~

This past week has been a busy one. Sunday we worked with horses and our little horse Rosey. Rosey is now thirteen weeks old, and continues to grow like a weed. We got video of Rosey this weekend and I will post to blog when I get back to CLO's DSL system.
Here are some shot of Kittee and Rosey working together...

















































SHAI AL BEY's bath- 2:00 min

Saturday, Starlog 072608
We made a morning ride up Cache Hollow Road with Leila and her horse Duke. It was a most pleasant ride as we went out about 4 miles to the overlook of Couse Creek Canyon. Here we sit on horseback and have a vista that allows us to watch the hawks flying through the canyon below us. On a clear day we can see forever, from this perspective.

Friday, Kittee and I spent most of the day in Pendleton as Kittee was doing some catchup work after a week of trials, then she and I went out to look at a Paint mare, for breeding to Rusty (not).

Thursday, Starlog 072408
The roofers and siding guys came today...
we are now in the process of rejuvenating our home's exterior with new metal roofing and vinyl siding. All of this make-over was spurred by the January 4th storm that devastated our area.

Tuesday, Starlog 072208
I was heading out to work with the horses, bring Goldie and Rusty back together again for a re-mating session,
set the irrigation... a usual day around the ranch, when I notice some whooping & hollering at the Kelly corral. Looking in that direction I noticed 4 or 5 white hats, and one that was very much taller (appeared to be a person on horseback). I drove down to the corral area and found the Pat Kelly crew about to go to work on branding calves. I asked if I could join in and take some pictures of the event, Pat said sure...





















Branding veal, just doesn't add the same fragrance to the air as BBQ-smoking well aged beef.


After most of the branding was done, I came back to the house and burned a couple of CD of the morning's cattle ranching activities and gave them to the fellas.
By this time of day it was close to noon and I noticed that Goldie really didn't want much to do with Rusty, so we feel that she has settled in and turning pregnant.

Later Tuesday afternoon/evening Jennifer came out finished working on the area jumping standards, set them up, and proceeded to warm up Phoebee and begin her jumping training. Quite an equestrienne that Jennifer is.




















For the Record... I am planning to put together a catalog - stills and videos - of Jennifer and Phoebee's jumping progress.




To be continued... as we just may see these two in London at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Whelp, that is kinda the recap of this last week's activities around the ranch.
Please feel free to come join us when you can, here in the "real west".

Please revisit this blog posting to watch our Rosey -YouTube- videos in the near future.

a week in the life--- Dale

We're back in the saddle again...

Starlog 07/18-20/08

Again Kittee and I had a very busy 3-day weekend, and stayed close to the ranch. This weekend beginning with Friday we had our day laid out for us. We worked the garden early, worked with Rosey and Shaiela on trailer loading. Rosey did much better at trailer loading than her mother. Friday as we were heading for town for lunch, Don and Jaz Kelly from Scottsdale came in to visit their girls. We had a most pleasurable afternoon visiting with them and their horses Sunny and Raji. It was good to hear that even though they call Scottsdale, AZ and Puyallup, WA home; they think they will be able to show up here somewhat regularly to visit their girls. They seemed to be quite pleased that they had found McKuster Ranch for their girls to call home away from home. While they were here they got to meet Jennifer, Leila their horses and Rosey. Don took a nice quite walk back along the river. Leila's dad, Gary and I were spending this time with a metal detector trying to find my wedding band which was lost last winter while throwing hay at a herd of horses, on a cold wet evening.
Last week we blended the Kelly's Sunny and Raji "sisters" into the herd, and watched the herd dynamics working to protect Rosey. This week the three youngsters are now pasture buddies and spend time running around together. Here Sunny and Raji are watching over Rosey as she takes a nap. The Kellys were glad to see their girls were getting along with/had joined the herd. They have never had a free range, horse herd life before. We feel they will be happy here.
After playing and grooming our girls on Friday afternoon we sit back and treated the Kellys to a round of McKuster Ranch Cider, we think they were impressed with our concoction. Everyone had a smile on their face after the first round. It was about 9:30 when it struck them that they needed to hit the trail and find some dinner, so we told them about Kelly's steak and seafood restaurant, the great seafood fettucini we had found there a couple of weeks ago, and hope they could get there before the dining room closed.

Saturday, Starlog 071908
I had an appointment with Jennifer to come out to the ranch around 9:00 a.m. and help me buck hay out of the hayloft, so Kittee and I were up early, took care of tending to the herds and headed out to Heather's for breakfast. Mmmmm good stuff... homemade sausage biscuits and coffee for an early morning start. After breakfast, we dropped by the Milton-Freewater weekend festival of LOGS to FROGS.
This is an annual event whereby chainsaw carvers from around the Pacific Northwest come to town and start carving up the place. Milton-Freewater has chosen to "brand" the town with over 40 frog statues. Most frogs around town are of commercial relevance, but there are some, like the ones that come from this carving festival, that are truly a work of art; one-of-a-kind from the carver's mind. This year the restriction of only carving frogs came off, it was up to the carver to create the sculpture of their vision. Many of the logs in the rough are about 6' tall and 24"-30" in diameter. For our little town this is a two-day event that begins on Saturday with sizing up the logs, carving the artwork out of them and on Sunday putting the finishing touches to the logs for the "Best of Show" prize. Most guys start by working on their log art with a saw this size, and after they have roughed out their vision they go to smaller chainsaws and wood carving tools to produce the fine art detail work.

After walking through the Logs to Frogs festival, Kittee and I made our rounds through town and headed home for the day. Upon getting home I had a call from Jennifer saying she wasn't going to make it out to buck hay this morning (not a problem). Kittee and I slowed down for a while, we did lunch and I laid out in the front yard hammock- took a nap, while Kittee took her mid-day nap in the house with A/C. When I awoke Kittee was sitting beside me talking on the telephone with my Mom. She handed me a can of Coke for a caffeine wakeup to go along with the phone call. Had a nice chat with Mom and a little update from the east side of the river.

Kittee and I are now recuperating from our bucking rides of this past year. This past week we had talked about saddling up a couple of horse this weekend and riding around in our riverside arena; just some quite, easy riding to get back in the saddle again. Well, right after talking with Mom the phone rang again and it was Yvonne, a MidCo Bus co-worker in Pendleton asking if we would be interested in doing some horseback riding. We said "sure would- come on up, and let's go for a ride". About an hour later they were here and we headed up Cashe Hollow Road for a most enjoyable ride. We only rode out a couple of miles, but in doing so we saw quite a few deer (a few nice antlered bucks), a very large owl, a nice hawk feeding beside the road, and for the first time ever Tony and I saw a badger. This guy was a funny looking sight... a big fat fellow standing probably 2"-3" off the ground, about 12" wide, running down the side of the road as fast as he could to get out of our sight asap. It was a most pleasant late afternoon ride and the first ride for Kittee and I in quite a while. Kittee said she didn't experience too much pain with her shoulder and I did not feel my broken ribs at all on this ride. It felt so good to be back in the saddle again. When we got back to the ranch everyone rinsed off their horse, put them out to pasture, grabbed a beer, and went out to visit Rosey. After Yvonne and Tony left, Kittee and I had fresh out-of-the-garden -- grilled veggies for dinner. Mmmmm, that was really good for a late evening meal. Kittee had also shared some fresh veggies with Yvonne to take home.

Sunday, Starlog 072008
We started with some good strong coffee while lying in bed and then I went charging to take care of horse, while Kittee cooked some fresh garden veggies into scrambled eggs. Good stuff. Right after breakfast we headed out to Walla Walla where this weekend they were having the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Festival. While there we strolled Main Street, had an iced mocka, and listen to a local band who did a great rendition of...

Fleetwood Mac's Dreams

Kittee and I were quite impressed and wished we could stick around for the afternoon show, but we were on the move and trying to beat the heat. Our friend Linda from PGG is the lead singer... she sounded like Stevie Nicks, the band sounded great. While on Main Street we stopped and picked up a couple of recipes from a local chef's daughter, while he was giving details and demos on his ideas for cooking sweet onions. We will be trying these very soon.


After walking Main Street Walla Walla, we dropped by the Farmers' Market, met some old friend (from when we used to sell garlic there) and bought a 25# bag of Walla Walla Sweet Onions for the rest of our summer season eating enjoyment.




OH! OH! have you seen the Smart4Two - a two passenger commuter car built by Mercedes Benz? We saw one today parked on the street in Walla Walla. Looks like a neat little commuting automobile, and as cute as a bug.


Leaving the Farmers' Market we made a beeline to Milton-Freewater to see how the Logs to Frogs sculptures that were started on Saturday were finishing out today. Here are a few pictures of some of the logs to...









































While here Kittee bought a horse sculpture/ wall hanging for her Custer Law Office.


Arriving back at the ranch in early afternoon, Kittee brought Derby out of pasture and gave him a nice cool bath, shining up his palomino mane and tail. I re-configured the mare and gelding herds in pastures to allow allot of space for Rusty and Goldie to finally get together to work/play on creating a 2009 foal, and that they did.
Today was the first time that Rusty and Goldie have ever come nose-to-nose with each other, and it worked out well. It was really amusing to watch Goldie actually chase Rusty for more "attention" after each breeding. This is the prod that lead us to search for/buy Rusty.

Quite a hoot. Now, we know where the term "hot to trot" much have come from. ;>)
Goldie was literally about to chase Rusty's smaller Arabian ass off his hips, begging him for more breeding "attention". The picture on the right will show you that Rusty is a pretty happy guy, having just bred Goldie he runs off as a high bucking horse.

Thank you Goldie and Rusty-  equine breeding- 1:44 min

We are also very happy to find that our Rusty and mares are so congenial that pasture breeding is an easy thing for them to do. No hucking, no kicking, no biting, no bucking until their breeding is done, and they are happy.
This seems to be such a better way -Nature's Way- of horse breeding than having them tied to a lead rope and putting them together just for copulation without any courtship time.


Last but not least... today Rosey is twelve weeks old. This past week she has been sporting a new hat around the pasture, yesterday she gladly started trailer training, and she is still growing like a weed.




Below are pictures of Rosey at 1-days old, at 6-weeks old, and today at 12-weeks old.












































That's our baby... Rosey.

Now, even as I type this blog, Rusty and Goldie are working/playing at making us another foal for 2009. With this breeding we hope to get a ¾ Arabian palomino Quarab beauty. That is allot to hope for, but we have good stock to work with.
Good Luck, and just get-r-done kiddos.

a 3-day weekend in the life at the ranch --- Dale

Rosey is XI weeks old today

Stardate 07/11-13/08





This week as we blended the mares from Scottsdale, AZ into the McKuster Ranch mare herd, we again witnessed the dynamics of horse herd hierarchy. As the two new mares entered the long standing McKuster Ranch mare herd there was a circle formed around Rosey by Shaiela, all aunties and ponies, and the new AZ mares were warned to stay away from "our" baby- Rosey.






Amazing to watch, as Sunny (the two year old Arabian) would keep trying to enter the herd and most of the mares would pin their ears, snake their heads and send her off running. Raji (Sunny's yearling sister), would stand and watch the show. When Raji would come in contact with the older mares she would give them baby mouth signals of submission. Very interesting.


As the weekend progressed the blending developed more and more, but sisters Sunny and Raji, still kept their sisters "set" bond, much like we have seen with our pony sisters Jasmine and Ginger, pictured here in their grazing muzzles.


Friday & Saturday were big days for Rosey this past week as she got her first soaking wet sponge bath and farrier's hoof trim. She behaved like a champ under both situations, even though she was not overly excited about taking her first Saturday afternoon bath.
Working with Kevin on Friday, she was quite willing to pickup all four and have him nip and file ever-so-little off each hoof.

When that was said and done Rosey went right out to pasture and ran to join the mare herd. Shaiela is giving Rosey free reins to roam the pasture, but very protective with the comings and goings of the new Arabian sisters around her filly.

More and more Rosey is showing signs of turning into a beautiful chestnut bay. From her hocks down she is showing black, along with her black tail, mane, and ears. As Kittee works with imprinting Rosey she finds equine instincts are present, but her tabula rasa is very interested in learning all we can give her. This weekend I told Kittee that I have a feeling that our baby--- Rosey is going to become "HER" Varian/Shai Arabian for keeps.
Maybe... NOT FOR SALE/not a problem.

This weekend we tried to stay close to home. Saturday we had breakfast with Don and Arlene Osterman at Heather's a favorite breakfast restaurant in M-F, and picked up a few horsey supplies while in town. We did not ride this weekend, as Kittee is still sporting her banged up shoulder, and while Kevin was working on Goldie I got stepped on. Really didn't hurt my foot (good boots), but as I tried to spin and pull my foot out from under her hoof, I pulled a muscle in my hip, which made life the rest of this weekend not conducive to horseback riding.
The rest of the weekend, not to burn fuel we spent working in the garden, working on irrigation, playing with/petting horses, and now with the advent of Hotdamn July we are toasting the red hot evening sunsets with Margaritas as we sit under the backyard walnut tree and watch horses grazing and playing in their pastures.

During this hot weather season we find ourselves very fortunate living in the Walla Walla River Canyon. Every evening a cool mountain breeze comes off The Blues, down the canyon at about sunset which drops our afternoon temperature about 10° right now.

Had an interesting scene one evening this past week after sunset as Rosey was so happy that she was running, running, running around the pasture and then started doing dance steps around her dam. A most joyous sight, (same as Misty does) rearing on her hind feet and dancing around with joy.Wish you could have been here to see the same.

FINAL NOTE: Sad but true... this past week we came to the decision that with Kittee's shoulder being banged up from her flying lesson, we had to cancel our annual weekend horseback ride into the Eagle Caps Wilderness Area and Minam River Lodge. :>(
Anyone out there want to come and just ride around our ranch neighborhood, maybe up the cool So. Fork with me and Misty August 1-3?

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

Kittee is L-? years old today

Stardate 070808
OK, in case you didn't get it... in those bygone days of Roman rule L-? = fifty something. We need not to be any more specific than that, as time marches on.

Today was the perfect day for a Kittee's birthday. Skies were as blue as Kittee's eyes, the sun was bright and warm as the glow showing on her face- picture above, and all the ranch horses and I were happy to be with her all day.

We started our day with a good strong cup of java, and then Kittee proceed to sit in the yard watching horses graze and having her bowl of huckleberry granola for breakfast. Afterward we walked through the herds, putting on fly mask, and pony grazing muzzle-mask. Had allot of fun chasing Ginger around for about 10 minutes to catch her and put her muzzle-mask on. That was fun as together Kittee and I took very few approaching /chasing steps but kept Ginger moving along -running around the horses- until she gave up; huffin/puffin and just stood still for the mask. Funny, silly little ponies.

After everyone was situated for the day with fresh water, plenty of green grass, we begin working in the garden until the temperature got July hot. Kittee loves this time of year- the heat thereof- she generally says "it very pleasant and about 85° outside" when actually the thermometer shows it is more like 95°+ and it's pretty freakin HOT.

After working in the garden, I turned on the irrigation for horsey comfort, we had a bite of lunch and got ready to spend the rest of the afternoon in Walla Walla. There we made our first stop at the "Ice-Burg" ice cream parlor/snack shop for a root beer float. Mmmmm, that was good, our first of the season. We have been talking about making root beer floats at home for the past couple of weeks. The "Ice-Burg" is an interesting soda stop. While we were there, they had Elvis Presley singing on the outdoor stereo and the old car-hop area has now been converted into a very small parking area for those that wish to order their treats at the front window and enjoy the ambiance of just sitting at this little drive-in. Picture this, they now have drive-thru windows on both sides of the building for the folks that do not wish to leave the A/C of their SUV's and walk up to the service windows. Kittee and I felt that the "Ice-Burg" is probably a 50-60 year old landmark of almost city center Walla Walla.

Next stop was to head for Staples, and Kittee got a new laptop Compaq computer; very nice machine... Windows Vista, large hard drive, CD/DVD read-writer, etc.

From Staples, we made a beeline to a favorite area restaurant for dinner. We went to Kelly's with our friend Miriam last Friday evening and our dinner was so good that Kittee wanted to have seafood fettucini again tonight. I had to agree with Kittee that this evening's dinner dish was better that the wonderful one we shared on Friday... had more seafood and salmon tonight. While waiting for our dinner to arrive, we had a cocktail and asked the waitress to hold off on dinner until Kittee had time to play/setup her new puter.

After dinner the air was a bit hot sitting in the sun, so we pulled the hammock and lawn chair into the shade of the front yard maple trees and sit back and relaxed see above picture.
As soon as the sun began sinking in the west, Kittee, Sylvester and I went out to check on the garden's growth for the day, thereafter we went out to check on the herds and our baby- Rosey.

Rosey is now taller than the ponies, not quite as heavy by a few hundred pounds. She spends more and more of her time grazing these day and trying to act like a "big" horse. The other day I watched her running, running running around the pasture and through the mare herd for maybe 10 minutes steady on. Just having fun being a little horse.

After the sun had set slowly in the west, we started rounding up our "stuff", turned off the irrigation works, headed for the house and called it Kittee's Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Kittee
~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you can see in these blog pictures, Kittee is now carrying her arm in a sling on an almost everyday basis. She still has a banged up/sore shoulder from the flying lesson given her by Shaiela and Rosey. Part of today's activities was trying to get in to see a doctor to take a look at the shoulder... no one available until September or October.
Needless to say we have not been horseback riding in awhile. Good news is, that my broken ribs of last July's bucking ride are almost healed (?), and hurt very little anymore... as time marches on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking back over the three day Fourth of July weekend, we had a pretty busy time and received two more boarders on Monday 7/7.

Last Friday our friend Miriam from the Portland area came in for a getaway to the country. She arrived here as Kittee and I were finishing the afternoon of horse baths. Over the weekend Kittee and I broke in our new horse/pony wash station. Kittee washed Ginger and Nugget and I washed Misty and Goldie. All went well, even though we had to work together on getting Goldie to stand steady in the wash station. After she got used to standing in the station she did fine for her first real bath.

After Miriam got here, I mixed up some Fuzzy Navels and we proceeded to sit back and relax before heading out for dinner. Being the Forth of July, we felt that our favorite Mexican restaurant would be the order of the day, hip hip hooray. Miriam always enjoys the La Ramada when she makes it out to M-F. As we pulled up to the restaurant we noticed that it was closed. We could not figure out how they could justify closing a real Mexican restaurant on the "Americans" Fourth of July... don't think we have ever seen it closed before except for Xmas. Anyways, we proceeded to pull through the parking lot and headed on up the highway for Kelly's restaurant. The weather was very mild (all weekend) and we had a most enjoyable dinner on the outside patio at Kelly's. The drinks were good, the seafood fettucini was good, and the company (folks we knew and did not know) were very enjoyable. Hey, Hey, Hey, get this... Miriam (now a two-time-grandmother) got carded when she ordered a Fuzzy Navel for her before dinner beverage. Hey, Hey, Hey ladies... wanta get a rush, go to Kelly's for dinner. By the time we got back home it was time for another round of Fuzzy Navels and then we called it a day.

Saturday started early for Kittee and I, and we let Miriam sleep in, until mid-morning. I was up by the sun about 5:00 a.m. and went out to commune with the horses, particularly Rusty. After our strong cup of java at about 6:00, with a wild blueberry granola breakfast, we were out taking care of horses, ponies, water troughs, and puttered around in the garden for awhile. At about 8:30 Miriam was up, so we then strolled back through the mare herd talking with everyone. Miriam had a good chance to pet our baby- Rosey. After the morning rounds were done, we got ready and headed out to the CTUIR Pow Wow at the Wildhorse Casino near Pendleton.

To stay out of the mid-day sun, I spent a couple of hours at the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute reading books, while Kittee and Miriam spent their time watching Pow Wow dancing and drumming, looking for real Native American jewelry. By the time all of this was done, it was time to head back home and get ready to go to dinner, since all we had to eat this day was breakfast. This evening we took care of business at home and headed for La Ramada, Mexican restaurant once again. This night they were open, and we had our usual feast of good food.
Returning home we just blobbed out in the lawn furniture until after sunset. Thereafter called it a day... done.

Sunday, was quite a busy day. Sunday morning breakfast was previous dinner leftovers-- for Kittee and I it was seafood alfredo, and for Miriam's it was her vegetarian creamy pasta dish. Mmmmmm good stuff, again.
I started preparing for another McKuster Ranch BBQ for the evening. I had prepared most of the food works over the past couple of days so Sunday was easy "fixins" of just working on the chicken and pork ribs in preparation for the smoker.

After breakfast everyone went out to pasture to bid ado to the herds, and Miriam had a formal introduction to our handsome Arabian stallion -- Rusty. Miriam and Kittee also walked back along the river and took a perch at Contemplation Station. Before she had to bid farewell Miriam spent some time petting Rosey, and begin to think that she needed to find a place in northeast Oregon to retire to. Life is different here, and we love it.

Dave also from PDX country showed up about mid-morning to pet and groom his two Arabian girls. He was on too tight a schedule to be able to stay on for the evening's boarders' BBQ. Dave told us he couldn't take it anymore and was moving to Hermiston in October.

The rest of our day was taking care of small chores around the ranch and preparation for dinner. Around 6:00 p.m. Kasey and Travis showed up, shortly thereafter Jennifer, Henry, Leila and Gary got here for horse petting and another round of BBQ ribs with the side dish trimmings. This little party broke up next to dark with a breeze coming off of the Blues, and the air was cooling off quickly. Since most of the food prep had been done the days before, there wasn't much cleaning up to do and Kittee and I headed to bed shortly thereafter. It was a good day.

Monday, everything begin to settle back into place with the exception that we were to receive two new Arabian fillies on the ranch.

Kittee headed off to work, and about 8:30 I received a phone call from the equine transporter that he was about an hour from the ranch with sisters Sunny and Raji. After offloading these girls, the transport driver and I walked them around the pasture to introduce them to the fence line, water trough, salt block and grass. Raji the yearling probably ran a mile circling around me as I walked her around the pasture perimeter on lead.
They appeared to be quite happy to be standing on firm ground again after their ride from Scottsdale, AZ. Upon their hitting the ground I realized the had not lived on pasture grass before, so I made a quick trip to town and was able to find some prime eastern Oregon grass hay to cut into their diet. They are doing very well now.

Thus another weekend and Birthday in the lives of Kittee and Dale