Is there a doctor in the house? I repeat, is there a...

Last Sunday we had a pretty nice day with our afternoon temperatures in the upper 50's. Our nighttime lows were in the 40's all last weekend. Late Sunday afternoon our horse trainer Travis Webster came by the ranch to begin his work with Rosey. For about a half hour he worked on sacking Rosey out, keeping her feet moving. After that she was pretty comfortable with having a tarp hanging around her neck.

Monday this week we had a beautiful day, day time high temp was 60° -much like springtime. We found a new home for Walter Pigeon, with a local fella that keeps and races about 250 birds. I talked with him for over an hour about racing pigeons and found that very interesting. I feel that Walter will be happy with a new flock of bird to make home with.

Tuesday morning Travis was back out to work with Rosey again,
























as we are prepping her for spring and summer show times. Again he worked on sacking her out then they worked on lead handling, because Kittee has had some trouble with Rosey balking when Kittee drops the lead rope. After this Travis worked Rosey on turns -- inside and outside turns. We found that Rosey was quite responsive and by the end of the training session she had worked up a sweat. This was the first time she had worked this hard.

Wednesday we went back into a usual gray January winter. Off and on, day and night the fog has been rolling by the ranch leaving a fine mist of white on everything. We are now in a perpetual covering of fog frosting, not rime ice or snow. Daytime highs are 36°-40° and nighttime lows being 28°-30°... usually January weather.

Thursday morning after make my early a.m. bus run, I was able to flag down Meryl Demaris as he was going up river. We chatted for awhile, and he asked me if I had seen the 7-point bull elk hanging out in the backyard. Well no I hadn't, but that day while eating a quick lunch, looking out our kitchen window, I noticed what seem to be a large rock moving on the backyard bluff.


I quickly grabbed our field glasses and saw that the movement had a massive set of antlers. WOW!! Those antlers were as tall as the bull elk at his withers. These pictures are made from our kitchen window of the bull elk about a half mile upriver. Wish I had a telephoto lens for this little video/still photo camera. Our field glasses really brought him into view-- up close and personal.

Thursday also found me having to take Derby to the vet's office to have a hoof abscess removed, running my MidCo midday pre-kindergarten bus route, going back to pickup Derby in mid-afternoon, running my afternoon M-F school bus route, and then taking the Mac-Hi basketball teams to Athena for their evening basketball games. Quite a full day of running.

Friday was the beginning of a four-day Holiday weekend!!! Yep, working with the school system... Friday was an in-service work day for teachers, so I had no students to transport, Monday is MLK holiday -off, Saturdays and Sundays are always free. What a neat system to work in. After all of Thursday's running around, I was looking forward to Friday being a laid back, take care of the horses kind of day. Most of Friday morning, I took care of paying mid-month billings, dropped by the library to pickup a book and some videos for the long weekend. Friday afternoon I worked on a pasta sauce for dinner, and waited for Kittee to arrive home. When she got home we shared our day over a beer and she had a McKuster Ranch Cider. Since I am sporting a head cold right now, Kittee offered to go out and do the evening feeding of the herds. As I was about to take the pasta off the stove, Kittee came through the back door and said she had fallen, and wanted me to look at her left wrist... this did not look good.

I turned off the stove and we headed for St. Mary's ER.


Calling Dr. FRANCIS, Calling Dr. BOB... you have a patient in the ER.

Calling Dr. FRANCIS... now where is Bob when we need him?

Well Dr. Bob was not here to help Kittee this evening, neither was our other TWO local orthopedic surgeons; so now we have a third orthopedic surgeon we can now call on in times of need. Yep, we are keeping these guys busy as we reach 50-something. It was about 8:00 p.m. when we determined that it would be best for Kittee to go to surgery for the evening to repair her broken wrist...

She came out of surgery doing fine, but hurting so I stayed with her in the recovery room until her pain was under control and we moved her to a room for the overnight lodging.

I was able to get home just a bit after midnight and went out to take care of the herd and turn off the barn lighting.

This morning I awoke alone and ready for a nap, (GEE those late nights out are getting rougher as I get older) but I got up, made a pot of coffee, fed the herds and headed for the hospital. Found that Kittee had a good night's rest, a wonderful breakfast, and was bright eyed and cheery, ready to go home.

We won't be playing any fast, furious hands of double solitary tonight. I'llbetcha Icouldawon every game this evening;>)

So now we are home on a 4-day Holiday weekend to watch a few videos, read some new magazines that came in this week, have a shot or two of whiskey, listen to a PHC this evening with Garrison Keillor, bringing us a new program-- the story/news of life in Lake Wobegon this past week.

And that's the way it is.
Five Kats laid back on the living room sofa, and Kittee reading about Dewey - The Small Town Library Cat.

A week in the life at the ranch --- Dale