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 DreamsKittee 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.
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
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 minWe 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
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