Made a trip into Milton-Foggywater today

Making my first rise out of bed before daybreak this morning, to put on a pot of coffee I found the outside temp to be 15º once again, and the stars were shining brilliantly. At first light the air was calm and all the vegetation above ground level was covered with rime ice... a beautiful sight. After the coffee was made, Kittee and I had probably our last cups of eggnog lattés for this season, as eggnog is becoming harder to find around the area.

When we finished our lattés, Kittee headed out to feed the herds and I worked on breakfast. This morning's breakfast was second cutting grass/alfalfa hay for the herds, and for Kittee and I it was wild huckleberry hotcakes w/maple syrup, sausage, and coffee... Mmmmmm good stuff.

While Kittee was outside feeding I notice from our home office window a beautiful sunrise at 8:00 across the backyard buff.Yep, it looked like it might be a beautiful day. While Kittee was out feeding a breeze developed and the temperature rose to 42º before she got back to the house. Some strange weather lately.

Right after breakfast we went back out to pet and grain horses. As soon as this was done we opened the gates to the back/riverside pasture to let the horses run. Coming soon to the McKusterRanchLife YouTube Channel I will be posting the video of the herd romping, running and playing in the snow today. We were out with the herd for about an hour before we decided we need to go to town for some more barn wrapping wire. With the current weather and snow ground coverage/conditions our guys get bored and spend time chewing on the barn wood. It felt like it was getting colder while we were out with the horses and we noticed th Walla Walla to Milton-Freewater (Columbia River) fog bank was moving upriver towards us. Before we left the house the temperature had dropped to 27º. I repeated myself to Kittee...
it's January.

Now, there has been so many times that horse boarders from Milton-Freewater, College Place and Walla Walla, WA have made comment on our ranch weather when those areas were covered with fog and freezing. Today with Kittee driving, I took the camera to see how much difference there might be between here and town/ Walla Walla area.

I will let these pictures tell the story of our trip to town in less than a thousand words...Looking back over our shoulder to check on the herd as we head out...

and into the fog bank a mile and a half down the road.

While downtown the temperature reads...






















Crossing the river bridge leaving town looked like this...










Returning home the ranch house looked like this...










When we get home our temperature reads...

Yep, this is a bit of what it is like to go to town in December, January, and February while living at McKuster Ranch. It is a bit sad to think that most of the folks in our area, not living in the Walla Walla River Canyon, see cold and gray days all winter while we enjoy these sunny ones. Do we and our horses love living here? Youbetcha.

After getting back home for the day, we had lunch and worked on armoring the barn wall with heavy wire mesh from the herd of horse nibblers. While finishing that job, the winds began to blow once again and once again our outside temperature rose to about 37º. It was really a day of up and down temperature range, but we had our very usual dose of sunshine.

It was then about 2:30 and I had to go to work... on the school buses to get them outside the inter-gate double-fenced-system of our equine pasture works, and prepare for travel on Monday. Winter vacation is over at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow.

a day in the life --- Dale