Summer and the Winter Solstice

Last Sunday, after playing with horses most of the day Kittee and I separated our baby Summer from her mom to be weaned. They had both been kept in the barn’s infirmary stall since the week before and their visit to the vet clinic for knee injuries. Both are doing very well, and have healed well from their injuries. During this weaning process I kept Goldie in the barn stall to continue her knee medications and give her some confinement from Summer. For a day or two they called to each other from 30 yards apart, but not so far apart as to stress either of them out by a long distance separation. Aunt Misty is keeping a vigilant eye on Summer during this separation period.

Monday was the Winter Solstice above the 45th Parallel and for a couple of days this past week we had sunbreaks that gave us a ranch sunrises around 8:30 and a sunset at 3:05 with no aurora borealis sightings. Summer's foal coat for her first Winter Solstice has been very adequate for this time of year as she is very plush and soft to touch, and has never shone any sign of shivering. To celebrate the Winter Solstice this past week I brought home some fur tree boughs from upriver Dale's but they have offered no fragrance to the house. The high note on this time of year is... now that we have passed the solstice, it sure is nice to have each day getting longer, and I will be glad when they are warmer.

Ginger, Misty and Summer behind bars

It was Tuesday or Wednesday that I let Goldie out of the barn stall, and she went nuts for about 10-15 minutes running the fence lines along the pasture that Summer was in. After she settled down a bit I haltered her and lead her to the rear pasture to keep her distance from Summer as I was going upriver to help Dale work with his ranch website for the balance of the day. Going into the riverside pasture Raji wanted to join Goldie so I let her. Together they ran, with hooves and dirt clods flying in the air for about 5+ minutes. This was the most that Goldie had run since she was maybe 6 months pregnant; she worked up a pretty good sweat with this workout. After Goldie had settled down I put another half dozen mares in the pasture with her and Raji to keep company for the while. After all of this had settled down I headed up river to work with Dale.

Thursday, Kittee took the day off and we played with horses. The weather forecast was for clearing skies, cool crisp dry air, and warm sunshine on our shoulders for the balance of the week. So our hopes were to be horseback riding maybe by Thursday noon, all day Friday and Saturday. But, our winter weather did not break… it's December, the ground is frozen, the skies are mostly gray, sometimes foggy, and sometimes flaky fog falling on us most of the past week.
Anyway, come Thursday we had an invitation to spend the late afternoon and evening with family in Pendleton at cousin Worth and LeBelva’s house.

There we found everyone doing well, Worth, LaBelva, cousin Lynn, Lois, and Lois’ granddaughter Lucy, my Aunt Pat and Lois’ mom Elsie was also there.

































































Once again LaBelva managed to spread another Xmas Eve feast, of turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, salads, pies, cake, chocolates, etc. before us for our over-indulging pleasure fix. I do believe that everyone made at least two passes at the spread of food, even Kittee. Lois brought along one of her extra large huckleberry cheesecakes which Lucy and I tried to warn everyone that we thought there was something really wrong with that cheesecake, and they shouldn't eat any of it. (The problem that Lucy and I thought we found with that cheesecake was that there may have been just too much wild huckleberry filling layered on top of the thick cheese layer, on top of the graham cracker crust.) I don’t think anyone listened to our warnings, so Lucy and I ate our share of cheesecake, and maybe that of Lynn's daughters. Both of Lynn's daughters were spending their holiday weekend in Dallas, TX where they called this family gathering while driving through a Texass snow storm. As Kittee and I were leaving the party, Worth gifted us with about 10+ pounds of elk meat, LeBelva with a loaf of banana bread, fudge, and some holiday cheer. Thank you, Thank you, LeBelva and Worth.
After Kittee and I returned home we went out, fed the herds of horses, goats, and cats, and wished everyone a happy Xmas eve. We didn’t have anybody talking back to us, so not sure where that old story came from.

Xmas day we spent with the horses, goats, and seven cats. Treating everybody with extra hay and sweet grain. Again we found nobody was talking, but felt sure that everyone appreciated their treats and hugs for the day.

Saturday, we had plans to go to the movies. After feeding the horses, having an eggnog latté for breakfast we loaded up and headed for Walla Walla. We had heard a week or so ago on NPR about the new sci-fi movie Avatar . WOW!!!! This movie has a Lucas Film connection, and was previewed by Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and George Lucas. The movie very much reminded me of, but was nothing like the ET and Star Wars epics. What a movie, and quite a story in looking at (and it will jump out at you) the powers of greed pursuant the US Industrial-Military complex of our times and that of 150 years from now. If you enjoy movies with lots of action, a tender love story, an odyssey with 3D effects, YOU should see Avatar in 3D (not plain screen)… quite a trip without leaving town.

Today after a breakfast of eggnog lattés in bed, Kittee and I got up, went out to feed the herds, and for breakfast we had cups of coffee and each a nice slice of peach pie. Mmmmmm good. Thereafter we went out to fire up Blue and hookup the horse trailer for Kittee to take Derby and Nugget to the Walla Walla Fairgrounds arena for a morning ride. I did not go on this run as the cold and fog has given me too many arthritis aches and pains to be outdoors for 2-3 hours in the cold and falling fog. I stayed home and played with my Summer, Misty, Goldie and Rusty this morning.

Goldie's Summer

Our Summer
Rusty's Summer

Summer at 6-months old

This afternoon we will be watching movies lounging in our home theater and drinking a beer or two, with a big bowl of guacamole and chips between us.

And that's the way it is around the ranch this past week. I am still on school holiday break for the upcoming week, with an out-of-town bus trip to make to Pendleton on Wednesday. The weather forecast for that day is snow, snow, snow.

Hope you and your have a safe and Happy New Year,
Dale and Kittee at McKuster Ranch life

Coming out of the deep freeze, into the snow.

It was a week ago Saturday we had our first dusting of winter's snow... very light but frosty. Kittee was in conference in Portland so she missed it. I took pictures of this dusting for the McKuster Ranch records of 12/5.
Last Sunday Kittee had returned home, she and I had the option of going into Walla Walla and riding our horses at the indoor Fair Grounds arena, or to ride in our riverside backyard arena. Sunday was a very nice day and this is where we stayed, riding with our pets, enjoying our day, around the ranch.

12-5-09 snow dusting

We had a most enjoyable ride that afternoon, Kittee was riding Derby bareback, and I was taking Misty in and out of cantering gaits and doing 180° and 360° circles, and a few fast up-to-the-fence stops. This made for some good adrenaline rushes and riding practice. Misty and I are still working on doing cattle work around here. After our riding session Kittee and I sit in the backyard talking with horses and having a beer, just relaxing in the sunshine… with a weather forecast of changes to come. After our sunbathing, the temperature was starting to drop so we went ahead and blanketed the horses that had blankets.
By Monday morning our outside temperature had dropped to 7°, with the weather forecast being, highs in the teens and lows in the single digits for the rest of the week.

mid-day high in the barn = 19°

That is just what we got for the entire week. After all week of sub-freezing temperatures and everyone looking for the next free meal, the mare herd got a bit pissy.
Thursday, evening when I opened the gate for feeding, I noticed that Goldie was limping/lame. Taking a closer look, I found that she had been kicked in the knee. This looked like an infirmary stall up in the works. When Kittee came in she looked at Goldie leg and we decided to put her and baby Summer into confinement until we could take her to the vets. Fortunately we had a vet appointment on Saturday to take in Shaiela for a pregnancy test and Summer for her first round of vaccinations.

During all this process we have discovered that Summer maybe a “Hunter/Jumper” athlete. Once before when she was maybe three months old, we came home one day and found her in the barnyard paddock, which is not where we had left her.
Last Friday when I got home from my school bus route, I found her in the barnyard paddock… not where I had left her. Being separated from her mom and stirring with the rest of the mare herd, she was a bit jittery/spooky, which was unlike her regular behavior. In the process of trying to catch her, she jumped the barnyard paddock –no climb– fence once again and I saw the jump. Sad thing is she scrapped her knee on the top wires of the fence while making this jump. After this episode I put ointment on and bandaged her knee for the night until we could make the scheduled vet appointment on Saturday morning.
Saturday morning I was up and making coffee at 5:00 turned on the furnace, and went back to bed awaiting for the house to warm up. Got up again at 6:00 to get Kittee and myself a couple of holiday eggnog lattè to enjoy while continuing to warm up under the electric blanket. With this get up we found that our world which had been frozen solid for a week had turned white in the past hour or so.

12-12-09 snow covering

After breakfast we loaded mares and foal and made an uneventful horse trailer trip to the vet in Walla Walla. All of our girls, Goldie, Summer and Shaiela all loaded well and Summer went for her first real ride. At the vet’s we found that Shaiela was not pregnant, Summer’s knee was scraped but with no cuts and Goldie did have a puncture wound at her knee. Everyone got a good BILL of health… that came to over $500. OUCH! That felt like a bite on my butt. Well, that’s life with these very valuable 1000-pound pets, and we will just call this our Christmas to each other and these three horses. Having finished our horsey chores here at the ranch, we turned around, went back to town to pickup some videos, and get some cold weather foodstuff for the balance of the weekend/ this next week.

shot from our office window- deer on the backyard bluff

Late yesterday afternoon we made a ride upriver to visit with Dale, Cheri, and some upriver neighbors to celebrate Dale’s upcoming birthday. We had a very pleasant get together with all and coming home (about 9 miles) we did not pass another vehicle and the road. Told Kittee that the ride made me think of taking a most comfortable, well-heated ride down a snowy lane. While at Dale and Cheri’s a Chinook wind began to blow and our temperature went into the upper 30’s by the time we got back home. After getting home, feeding the herd, we watched a video and call it a day, a night, our weekend.

Today after my a.m. bus run the bus has frozen back into its pre-trip condition to look like a large yellow icicle.
This afternoon we have a winter storm warning becoming effective at 4:00. OH for joy, for joy, tis the season for freezing, and only one week to go before winter is here.

Life around the ranch this pass week, was very cold --- Dale

Summer at 5-months old

This past week was a week’s vacation from my school bus chores. Speaking for myself it was rather relaxing, with sleeping in late a few mornings, working and playing with horses during the mid-day. With the seasonal re-introduction of eggnog at the Safeway store, Kittee and I now start everyday with an eggnog lattè. Mmmmmmm, what a treat to start the day with.
Our baby "Summer" turned 5 months old last Monday.

Well, in northeast Oregon we got sucked into the 21st Century a bit deeper last week. In order to furnish the Californicators with more electricity, there has been a massive host of wind turbines popping up in our area. Last week they turned on the marking lamps to a number of new installations and these things are now visible to our horse herd all night long. These things are about 9-10 miles away, but it bites my butt to see RED night light pollution in our Oregon Territory to satisfy the California oink, oink electricity hogs. Calfornicators, turn off the lights and your computers when you leave the room. What a waste to our beautiful Oregon Country skyline.

I shall descend from my soapbox now.

Last week was beautiful weather-wise, with highs in the upper 50’s most day and lows in the upper 30’s, plenty of sunshine. Tuesday and Wednesday our horse trainer – Travis came by, which allowed me to get a bit of mid-week riding in with Misty. We are still into cattle rustling training (maybe that should be re-phrased… cattle penning training) with Travis. While he was here, he saddle broke Sunny a boarding horse, and saddled up Raji a to be 3-year old boarder we have here.
This past week I got my confidence up enough to put Misty into a canter and attempted to make a 180° turn. We did it once, and that was about as much excitement in the saddle that I need to handle at this point in time/training. I am very pleased to say that the riding feels good and diminishes most of my lower back pains, just about as much as acupuncture treatments. Thursday night and half the day Friday we had rains, our round pen got swamped so I was unable to ride in there for the rest of the week.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day we were invited to join some upriver neighbors to share late lunch/dinner with them. Kittee and I had a most enjoyable time with Connie, Jerry and one of our very best young riding friends, Kasey. It was such a pleasure to be with these folks this day and we went with the instructions of "bring nothing with you". I find it really nice to be obligated to take nothing when invited to a feast and a party with dear friends and family. In this way the day starts relaxed and remains relaxed through the end. Again we ended up staying out way past our bedtime, and I was glad that I had put out hay that afternoon so the horses could have dinner by the 8 o’clock dinner hour (that is very late for them as well). When we got home all I had to do was open the gate to feed dinner.

Friday, with everything on the ground being wet, we made our in town rounds, and that afternoon cooked our turkey dinner to be picked upon for the balance of the week. I prepared the turkey and stuffing, while Kittee worked on potatoes, gravy and a large apple crisp. While all was cooking, we played cards and listened to rock-n-roll on the stereo. After dinner the outdoor cats were so happy with their turkey treats for dinner.

Saturday, we had made plans to have Kasey and her Bow from Montana, to come to the ranch and we were going riding. Kasey may try her hand at riding Rusty, with his Arabian saddle or her English saddle, but this week was too wet. I also had made plans, for Friday a.m., with a friend to smoke some wild Alaskan salmon that he had come upon, but that got rained out until Saturday. The smoking of salmon and petting of horses kind of overran my schedule of horseback riding, so Kittee, Kasey, and Sloane went horseback riding in the fields behind our bluff, while Randy and I had another beer and waited for the salmon to finish smoking.
After all the above activities and lunch were said and done, Kittee and I took the time to celebrate Summer with a 5-months-old birthday party, with allot of hugs, kisses and green grass grazing.
Sunday, our main objective was horseback riding in the arena, either in Walla Walla’s indoor arena or in our riverside arena depending on the ground conditions. The ground conditions here at the ranch were great, and the weather conditions over our heads was wonderful. So we spent the best part of two plus hours running and jumping our rides. Just having fun.













This is when I put Misty in the 180° turns at a canter, and worked her in quite a few 360° turns at a trotting gait. After all our riding we made a quick lunch of a couple of beers and the smoked salmon pastè that I had made Saturday night for this day. After lunch we got really energetic and wormed all the equines. This we usually do early in November, after a few killing frosts, but this year our weather has been warm and wonderful since our mid-October quick chill. After we finished worming everyone, Kittee had a procession coming at her for more pets and maybe more worming paste/treat(?).
To polish off this afternoon... I had found some October plums in our cool storage pantry this past week, so Sunday late afternoon I threw out/handed out plums to everyone's delight.

Yesterday was again beautiful outdoors and for the first time since my August 1st horse wreck I pulled out the OLE weed-eater and machete and went to work on a blackberry bush that had overgrown a portion of our electric fence. Again last evening I put out two meals for the mare herd, one for last evening’s dinner, another for this morning’s breakfast.
The weather forecast for today was for a.m. fog, giving way to afternoon sun breaks. I am glad I put out breakfast yesterday evening as today we are cool, gray and mostly damp with fog. Can't even find the bluff in the backyard this morning.

Now this looks like December.

But wait, the weather forecast is correct...
as I finish this blog posting I look out the office window and see that we are now lining up to get sun breaks for the rest of the day.

♫ Home, home on the range, where the skies
are not cloudy all day ♫

And that the way it is around the ranch this week --- Dale

Running across Oregon

The past week for me was spent mostly at home in and out of the rain, feeding, grooming, petting horses and waiting for the weekend. This week we did find eggnog at Safeway, so we have been treating ourselves each morning with an eggnog lattè; that is worth making note of here. This is like an annual highlight to start our day as the daylight hours are now getting colder and shorter. A couple of weeks ago we started running our Happy Light in the evenings to ward off the getting shorter days blahs.
As the week came to a close we found that once again we had become a two school bus family. Nope we are not in the business of dealing in school buses, just staying a bit too busy... to get the job done with just one big yellow bus in the driveway.

Friday, Kittee was in Milton-Freewater city court for half a day, while I made three school bus trips to Walla Walla taking elementary school kids to concerts at Whitman College. Friday afternoon I mended fences from the hard wind blows of the week, and packed my travel bag with some extra cold/wet weather clothing for Saturday's out-of-town bus trip to the west side.

Saturday, I got up at about daybreak as usual, to make a trip to Wilsonville, OR for the Oregon State Boy's 4A Soccer Championship game. Our Mac-Hi School soccer team was playing the final and state championship game this day. All was going well and I was on time working on breakfast, put my bags and coats in the little silver P/U and headed for the downtown school bus lot to pickup my trip bus. Now, this day of all days, out of living here for over seven years, I go down the road about a mile and hit a deer... can't stop; gotta get to town and prep the bus to hit the road. Not sure what happened to that doe. I made it to town OK, as the buses (4 of us) were loaded with allot of hometown soccer boosters/fans and was ready to roll at 8:00 a.m.. It was a good trip, very uneventful and we made good time to get to the game on the other side of the state by 3:30 p.m.
The weather forecast was for cold and wet on the west side of the state, but when we got to Troutdale, the skies were clearing with a few sun breaks. By the time we got to the game it had clouded up a bit, but no rain, and game conditions were great for running, running, running after a soccer ball.

All in all it was a good game with the first score being made at about 55 minutes into the game. That made it 1-0 La Salle Prep School... the team in red above. At this point the game got a little testy as the clock was running down in the second half, when a La Salle player broke out of the pack, dribbled the ball down field and facing the MacHi goalie one-on-one made the score against MacHi... score 2-0. After this goal MacHi came fighting back and in a few minutes scored a tight goal making the score 2-1. Now with just a few minutes left in regulation play, MacHi made several strong attempts to score for the tie, but as time ran out La Salle had the ball in their possession/ hands, jumping and shouting in victory. It was a good game, great temperature for playing a running game, and no rain until we were back on the buses and driving out of the school parking lot. It was about 11 o'clock pm when we got back to Milton-Freewater after a great day's outing of traveling across Oregon. The only thing that really disappointed me about this trip (other than losing the state championship) was seeing the large number of wind turbines that have been place along the rim of the Columbia River Gorge. It really has screwed up the wide open river scenery on both sides of the mighty river, having the white needles showing up everywhere. As I drove through the gorge, I wondered what Lewis and Clarke might think about this view.
Saturday, Kittee was going to work at her Pendleton office, but decided it felt too good to stay home and enjoy some down time with the horses, and a little reading. She told me she spent quite a bit of quality hands-on time with our babies -- Rosey and Summer.

Again today we woke up as the wind was blowing hard, and the rains fell off and on all night; forecast for the day was more of the same, with lots of snow to fall on the mountains to our east. After having breakfast, feeding the herd; with these weather conditions, Kittee and I decided to make a run to the local pottery/art shop - Clay in Motion, to visit that operation (our first time there), have a mocha... Mmmmmm that was good, and venture on to Walla Walla for awhile and do a little shopping. With the weather and our schedules we got no horseback riding time this week. This afternoon, we were out petting horses as the sun had sunk slowly in the west, then out from under the clouds over our heads, the sun gave us a beautiful flood of golden lighting along our backyard bluff. That was a beautiful site... wish you could have been here to see it.
This entire week coming at us is time off, NO SCHOOL, for the Thanksgiving holiday. Got plans to stay close to home and horses ;>)
We have the Walla Walla indoor arena to ride in next Sunday, rain or freezing... Gettyup!!

And that's the way it has been around the ranch this past week --- Dale

She's baaack...

Well this past week we watched the snow levels rise and fall on the Blues three times, getting a bit closer to the ranch each time. Yesterday, we could tell by the slow warm up of the morning, that we were going to be socked in with clouds, high winds, cool but not cold temperatures for the day. So while I was checking emails, etc. Kittee was on the phone with a couple of folks and petting her cats.

How many Kittees can you count in this pic?

It had been awhile since we had sit around with the Cospers, so we gave them a call and headed upriver towards the South Fork Horse Ranch. We left the house expecting to be gone for a couple of hours visit, and ended up staying upriver for about five hours. It was nice to see those guys again, and have some most thoughtful conversation and a few jokes. I told Dale a new joke about a cross-dresser and a rancher woman… thought he might fall out of his chair laughing over that one.

Saturday was a pretty busy day around here. After breakfast Kittee went straight out and rode Derby in the cool of a bright sunny day. I worked on the ‘puter doctoring our Walla² Fly Fishers blog site, then I went out and prepped Misty for a round pen workout. During this time Kittee put Derby out to pasture, saddled up Nugget, and took him to the arena for some fast action canter riding.
I also brought Misty up into a canter for awhile as we worked out in the round pen. After riding, Kittee milled around with the mare herd. There was about six mares sunbathing and dear Sunny was laid out flat and snoring up a storm (I could hear her from about 30-40 feet away). As I was pulling the tack off Misty, I found Kittee kneeled down petting Rosey which was laid out resting. I went to get the camera to get a picture of that, and when I got back everyone was on their feet except Kootenai and Kittee.

Kittee was then kneeled down and petting her.

After our riding sessions/ hanging out with horses it turned into about 2 p.m. and we packed up the horses trailer and Blue and headed up towards Walla Walla to pickup our little girl Ginger, who we sold to Jennifer a bit over a year ago, I think. Jennifer is now in nurses training and needed to move her horses, and ask if we would keep Ginger for her until next spring, so we said yes to Jennifer and our baby pony.










On our way up towards Walla Walla we pulled in to our favorite Hwy 11 bar and grill and got our favorite bacon/cheese burger with French fries and a beer… that was a good mid-afternoon roadside lunch. We then picked up Ginger, headed home expecting a big homecoming splash from Jasmine.
When we got home, we put them out to pasture together, and it was like they had been separated just long enough to go get a drink of water.

Earlier during the week I finished throwing out the rest of our red delicious apples for a apple bobbing/ lip licking good time that everyone in the paddock enjoyed.

Lick those lips, Baby. Mmmmmm, good

I have found it to be quite interesting that Rusty will not eat a red apple, a ripe plum, or pears, but really enjoy golden delicious apples. To each his own.

This past week, I also "finished" cleaning up the garden area and burned off the mowed weeds and stubble. I am thinking that this year, I shall not till the garden rows as they are so loamy with horse manure/mulch and just work on keeping the weeds burned off between now and next spring. I'm thinking I will not get/put so many weed seeds into the soil by not tilling until spring.

I am hoping that by the time I am 60 I will have figured out how to shape up this garden, keep it watered adequately at 105º, and make it grow while having time to regularly ride our horses.

That is about what we have been up to this past week, beside going to work each day, and I think I remember having an afternoon ride with Misty and Travis our trainer. I know Travis wasalso here working on a couple of boarder’s horses this past week and “broke” one to ride. He did a pretty nice job, the horse co-operated nicely while under saddle.

Life around the ranch in November --- Dale