October's ranch life

I have had a few inquiries as to where my blogging has gone. Looking back I see it has been awhile since I have posted any of the comings and goings of Kittee and myself. This absence has been due to my having a cold, not getting to go fishing, and not getting on horseback for our usual beautiful autumn rides. Most of our activities are done around the ranch in October, but this year has been slack. Over the past few years we rarely travel more than 5-10 miles from home in October and most of that travel is on horseback except going to/from work.

It was late in September that the October Caddis begin flying all around the ranch. This got me pretty excited about jumping into the river and spending much of October frothing the waters with a #10 Orange Stimulator to play with my share of backyard trout. As I was waiting for the full moon to come and go to start my fishing revisited; this is when I came down with a bad head-cold and spend most of my time just resting in bed/sunshine, and taking cold meds and vitamins.

Well, all is coming back together and today Kittee and I made our first ride in quite awhile up Cashe Hollow Road to see the red sumac blended with shades of gold and fading greens.
With heavy frost and freeze of last weekend most of the colors going up the hill are now on the wane. But today's weather and colors made a most enjoyable ride with Misty and Nugget.

Here at the house we are just getting into our autumn color as the Sugar Maples are beginning to turn red and gold, the English Walnut tree next to the house lost most of its leaves last weekend with the freeze and some wind. Plenty of walnuts coming off this year, even though this is the off year for nut production.

Late this afternoon Kittee and I enjoyed the sun's lighting as it shown across the river bluff. As the sun is moving further south for the season there is more late p.m. lighting on the bluff and it shows nice earthly color textures/tones across the rock face.

Today we finished doing some repair work on the barn in preparation for winter and bringing the herd into the barnyard paddock area. We usually put the gelding and mare herds back together for the winter sometime in November as it appears the snow is going to blow.

Today we separated Rosey and Shaiela to wean Rosey as it also appears that Shaiela has contracted "Pigeon Fever". It was about two weeks ago that I brought Rusty into his keep, when he was acting mopy and had a whelp on his chest, day before yesterday we noticed that Derby appears to be infected with the virus with swelling on his sheath. All of these guys are now isolated, and we hope it doesn't spread to others. Talking with horsey folks in the area, "Pigeon Fever" appears to be running rampant in our area this autumn. Bummer.
Our equine vet Dr. Doug Corey asked us last year if we had seen it in our herd, we told him that we never had, he told us then of its growing frequency in the lower Walla Walla River Valley. This year it appears to be all over our valley.

It was about 10 days ago we got a new chestnut Arabian mare to come to the ranch from Idaho. Her owner was on her way to moving to Portland and got here around 10 p.m. that evening. We made a quick offload into the pasture during a pouring rain storm (the first we had had in months), signed off on her boarding contract, and Kim was off to Portland in less than an hour. Said she would be back in the spring as she was heading for a new job, and would be out-of-the country for awhile. Our new girl's name is Moonie, registered AHA and this weekend we blended her into the rest of the mare herd. All went quite well and again this was a non-event as all the horses meet the new arrival and they begin to run the pasture together. It is beginning to look like an Arabian horse ranch around here, but we have a tendency to love and care for them all... Arabian, Appy, Paint, Quarter and Quarab. It is a beautiful sight to lookout across the pastures and see a herd of horse (many colors) standing around.

With Shaiela being separated from the mare herd, now Goldie is "Ms. Alphamare". Rosey seems to be quite happy to buddy up with the girls from Arizona (Raji and Sunny) that are one and two year olds... making a great little sub-herd for Rosey to bond and play with.

Last weekend as I was getting past the cold I had, we had a most pleasant Sunday afternoon/evening with some new found friends from Walla Walla. Our friends Ed and Bill, introduce us via the Internet/email to a couple settling into Walla Walla. They are Dennis and Sharon and they are developing a small farm operation with lots of critter and a large blueberry patch. We are looking forward to spending more time with these folks as our busy schedules may allow.

This next week I will be making two trips to Pendleton, one with the Double Deuce for a school ball game, and the other to visit the monthly fly fishing club meeting. I am now working on an Internet slide show to attach to our ranch website and hope to upload some photos while in Pendleton on Wednesday, if this works well I shall let you know of the progress. Other than that, this week I hope to get in some afternoon trout fishing and maybe do a little horseback riding to make up for the lost time of the past two/three weeks of not. Kittee and I hope to be riding next Friday - Saturday - Sunday if this beautiful October weather holds steady for us. This is our favorite time of year to be sitting in the saddle in wide open spaces.

Happy Trails,
a week in the life --- Dale