Used to be, one would have been enough...

This past week the weather at McKuster Ranch was gorgeous as the herds of horses and goats laid around sunning under our warm eastern Oregon blue skies. One day this past week I spent the entire day working in my AQHA T-shirt. Enough to make me wonder if global warming might be heading in our direction here in the Great Pacific Northwest, or if it is just the micro-climate of McKuster Ranch and our solar heat collector/bluff. Our clear blue skies now has the sun traveling deep in the southern quadrant with sunrise hitting our front door at 7:56 this past weekend and the last light of the setting sun leaving our front door at 3:23.

The weather this past week gave me a good chance to work on cleaning up our garden area; burning off the weeds, pulling up drip tape/soaker hoses, spreading horse manure,

and working until last light making the first soil tilling for the up coming '09 garden season.

Saturday and Sunday Kittee and I went horseback riding in the fallow-stubble wheat fields of our property on the north side of the river. Derby and Misty had a grand time jogging and cantering the harvest trails on Saturday. Even though we had Sunday riding time at the indoor arena in Walla Walla it was just too beautiful in the great outdoors to take our horses for a ride inside four wall/under roof. We just don't get views like the ones below when riding in and around the city of Walla Walla.

Sunday when we off loaded the trailer, we had intentions of going to the top of Bowlus Hill. But it appeared that Derby and Misty were a bit tuckered from their Saturday of cantering in the soft soil of stubble fields, and they were not quite as eager to cantering up the foothills of The Blues this day.
So we made it easy for them and us, a little jogging, a little cantering, mostly walking and enjoying the scenery above the forks of the Walla Walla. After a 2-hour ride as we were heading back towards the trailer/the trip home, we watched a herd of a dozen mule deer running, bouncing off their toes across the field in front of us. Wish I had been set to get a picture of that.

It was one year ago today that I fired up old "Silver PU" and drove to Helix, OR around 5:30 a.m., there to meet Julie at her MidCo school bus. That was the Monday before Thanksgiving Day, the night before and that morning we were getting our first seasonal snowfall. Reminded me of WNC winter weather. As I headed for Helix that morning the wind was blowing snow so hard in places I could not tell if I was on the road or about to run out across the wheat fields. Well, a lot of bus driving has gone on since them, and this past week I got a telephone call from MidCo Bus Company in Pendleton asking if I would be interested in having another school bus to drive for them. I told them give me a day to think about it and I did.

Used to be, one school bus sitting in a driveway would have been enough in a family. Now at McKuster Ranch we have two school buses sitting in our driveway. Makes the place look like a pretty busy location with four other vehicles sitting out front of our two school bus parking lot.
So if you are heading in our direction and need to find us quick and easy, just leave Milton-Freewater on Walla Walla River Road and look for the home with allot of horses out to pastures and two school buses parked in the driveway. There is no other place on the river like this one.

And that's the way it is. Hope you and yours have a safe and happy T-day holiday weekend.

A week in the life at McKuster Ranch -- Dale