A Sunday afternoon ride

This past week the weather has been rather mild around here. I am currently sitting on a big dose of horse wormers, but with the mild temperatures we still have flies and I am reluctant to worm everyone, until we get hit with a cold weather front. Our episode with Piegon Fever seems to have passed with only Rusty, and Shaiela showing any major signs of that virus. Derby did have his days of feeling bad, and some mild swelling, but nothing like Rusty and Shaiela.

Thursday after work Kittee went by the M-F Library, picked up a couple of books and five 007 classic movies. So needless to say this was a James Bond movie weekend at McKuster Ranch, beginning with Kittee's three day weekend which started Thursday evening.

Friday I did my morning and afternoon bus route, while Kittee worked on her case brief going to the Court of Appeals. Friday evening we did a James Bond movie, with a dinner intermission.

Saturday a.m. we had our farrier Kevin here at the ranch, he trimmed all our horse, pulled shoes off Nuggett and Misty for the rest of the year. So between now and next spring everyone is barefooted as we will be riding wheat fields and the Walla Walla indoor arena.
Saturday p.m. Kittee and I put on the roof flashing kit that didn't come complete with Rusty keep run-in shed. Last winter when I bought Rusty's keep -- Nobel panel and run-in shed -- I only got part of the roof flashing kit at that time. Without much rain or snow in sight at that time, I didn't worry about it. This past week I went back and got the complete flashing kit and now we are set for the wet season roof runoff.
Late Saturday afternoon Leila came out to ride and work with her horses. Kittee built a fire in the backyard fireplace, and we just sit by the fire watching our herd of horses, Leila working with her Calvin in the round pen, while the sun set slowly in the west and the nearly full moon rose over The Blues to our east.

Sunday afternoon, after giving everyone's hooves a chance to settle from their fresh trimming, we loaded Misty and Derby into their trailer and drove a mile and a half, to the saddle of Spofford Hill and there rode the wheat fields. Not long after we had offloaded horses and we were tacking up our rides, the Cospers drove up with a trailer of two horses and were planning to ride the same hillside.


I asked them if they wanted to join our party, and they said nope, that their horses were a bit green and they would work with them alone on the other side of the road. So they rode off up the hill and Kittee and I rode off heading across the hill. Pretty neat place that you can ride around with your friends and neighbors, stay in sight and be a ½ mile apart.
Kittee and I were out riding for about two hours today, and had a grand time working our horses in the soft turf of the stubble fields.

Misty and I had quite a few nice across the field jogs, using the harvest road trails. Here on one of our jogs I took a picture from Misty's point of view -- of the field in front of us, and got a shot of Kittee and Derby at a leisurely jog. Misty and Derby worked up a good sweat with this afternoon's workout, and seemed to have enjoyed this outing as much as Kittee and I.

After our ride we headed back for the ranch, got everyone put back out to pasture, had our lunch and watched another 007 movie for our late afternoon/evening's entertainment.

This is mostly what is happening around the ranch these days. Feel free to come and join us when you get the chance, we are not planning on going anywhere before spring... except out to feed and ride our horses.

life around the ranch --- Dale