Spring Break '09

It was a beautiful first day of spring last Friday March 20. During the mid-day break I was able to bring out the lawn tractor and mow down the remaining dried weeds left in the garden, and spread fertilizer across one of our pasture areas… forecast for Saturday was for rain to move in. With the last student to leave the Double Deuce, I was on Spring Break ’09. I made a beeline straight for the ranch with visions of all I could accomplish this afternoon, it is now DST and that makes a world of difference when living life outdoors. The skies were clear and the temperature was a most pleasant 70°, a perfect afternoon - first day of spring.

I still find is hard to believe the number of "holidays" there are working for the state... in the school system. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining because this job does give me time to get things done around the ranch that a 9 to 5 would not allow without consuming most weekends.

First things first for this Spring Break, the ground was drying out so I made a couple of passes through Rusty’s keep to mucked out his living quarters, brushed him off as we both enjoyed the fresh air and warm sunshine.


After working with Rusty I fired up the rotor tiller, first time since way back when and went to work breaking ground for our ’09 garden season. Gee, it felt good to be back into the garden works once again.

Kittee got a couple of picture of my tilling the garden for the record, as well as a couple of cat photos.

After making two or three passes over each garden row with the tiller it was time to join Kittee to brush and pet horses until beer-thirty. We brought out a couple of beers and just enjoyed the warm spring afternoon and petted the herd, watching the sunset until dinner prep time. Kittee made her clam spaghetti dish for us, while I went out to evening feed and water the equines. By the time we finished dinner it was time to call this a day. Saturday’s forecast was calling for rain to move in and what we hoped to do would have to happen fast.

First thing Saturday morning I hit the floor running to feed the horses so they would be out of my way ASAP for me to start fertilizing before the rain moved in. After putting out hay, I came back in and started breakfast for Kittee and I, the first time in quite awhile we had our apple bread French Toast with sausage and coffee, WOW, what a way to start the day… with dessert for a meal. Right after breakfast I jumped up from the table and headed for the barn and a ton of fertilizer. I was able to spread fertilizer over three pasture areas, which is what I hope to get done this a.m., before the clouds became very threatening. Just as I finished spreading the last load of fertilizer and was heading back to the barn I began to get hit with raindrops; my morning’s mission accomplished. Much to my good fortune it did not rain very hard, so after lunch I was able to work in the garden, opening a fresh tilled row for garlic transplanting, Kittee was working with Rosey and even groomed Nugget and saddled him up for a ride in the round pen. After I finished with the garlic transplant row it started raining, and raining, hailing and raining all the way through Sunday. Dissolved the fertilizer I had spread on Friday and Saturday into the ground very well.

Monday, the alarm clock went off at 4:20 a.m. in preparation for a school bus trip to take the M-F high school girls fast pitch softball teams to Boardman for the day. After a bit of breakfast, shower, and shave I headed for town to get the school trip bus ready to roll for a 6:00 departure time. We were ready-to-ride at 6:00, but were a bit delayed waiting for donut delivery that took until about 6:15. I have learned that on ALL school trips, there is a reason to be at least 15 minutes late on our departure time. Anyway, it was a good day for a trip as the clouds broke away and the sun was once again warm for the day, the girls won two of their three games. I returned about 8:00 p.m. that evening.

I had some pretty big work-around-the-ranch plans for all day Tuesday, but as I was leaving town on Monday a.m. I received a call over the bus radio from our Transportation Director asking me if I could/ would like to make an all day school trip run on Tuesday. This trip would be taking the boy’s baseball team to Heppner for the day. Sound like a good time and make some money to me, so my reply was… YEP, I can do that.

On Tuesday my time of departure was to be 6:30 a.m. so Monday evening I was able to reset the alarm clock for a 5:00 wakeup call since I was driving the trip bus home after Monday’s trip. Again this was a good trip, but the weather in Heppner was cloudy and very windy all day long – Burrrr, it was chilly out there. The high school boy’s baseball team played a double header that day, and won both games. During the a.m. game I stayed in the bus and read a book. As I sit and watching the afternoon game I reminisce of the days I used to watch the young rookies "Steady" Eddie Murray and "The Iron Man" Cal Ripken, Jr. play in front of me when I lived NC.
I shall digress here for just a minute.
Thinking about the Charlotte O's and those guys who are now in the MLB Hall of Fame... too old to play MLB. That was in my regular ballpark visiting days when a few 25¢ beers, a couple of 10¢ hot-dog made dinner at the park as I and friends were sitting right behind the O's dugout – enjoying the game and shouting at “Steady” Eddie playing first base. Those were some “Wild and Crazy” days we had then. This is for real… one evening I had Ted Giannoulas The “San Diego Chicken” not in costume but still a real entertainer/nice guy to be around; came to my house for an after game/birthday party. My home then was only a block from Charlotte’s Crockett Ball Park. These are some fond memories of days gone by.

Back to Tuesday; I was also thinking of the work I wanted to get done while on Spring Break… maybe tomorrow. It was a bit after 7:00 p.m. when I got home from the ball games, in time to feed the herd with daylight.

Wednesday, I had a slow start with NO alarm clocks/ radios going off to remind me to get up. Kittee even crept around quietly as not to wake me. It felt good to sleep in that day. I was up about 7:30 to feed the herd just before it started raining, snowing, hailing, sleeting with a few sun breaks through out the day. Made a good day to stay indoors, take a Spring Break, and make a corned beef casserole for dinner for Kittee and I. Kittee has been working late most every evening the past week or so as her law practice is very busy, and beginning Monday she is hiring a new office hand.

Thursday, started about the same way as Wednesday except with sunshine and all the rain, snow, sleet and hail from the day before was frozen over with a nice covering of frost. Even though the sun was shining it looked like another poor day for working outdoor around the ranch in half frozen mud, so I took care of some office/computer business, went to town to do some work around the apartments, did a little shopping for the weekend.

By mid-afternoon when I returned from town the daffodils had begun to bloom.

With sunshine and a nice breeze on Thursday most of the day, Friday the ground was dry enough to get out and get some things done around the farm. After feeding the herd, I started working on cleaning up the tackroom area in the barn, I spend most of the rest of the day in sunshine, again mucking out Rusty’s keep, brushing out Rusty and then most of the herd until Travis our trainer showed up to help me get started “re-training” Rusty. Over winter I have had Rusty in the round pen a few times, but now with the advent of spring I plan to really get down to business with him and have him under saddle in a couple of months and hopefully be riding him by summer. We worked with Travis for about 45 minutes to an hour on Friday afternoon and got back into the groove we had left last fall with our workouts. After finishing our workout Friday, Rusty was following me around like a puppy… a “good feeling” accomplishment. I hope the weather will co-operate with us this spring that Rusty and I can make these workout a couple or few times a week.

Saturday the weather started out overcast and 50°. By the time I was able to feed and water the herd it had started drizzling only to turn into an off and on rainy day. The snow level on the mountains to our east went up and down the mountains all day long. Made another less than great day for just working on our ranch website, dinging around the Internet, dropping hay from the loft, and feeding horses during a few lulls in the rainfall. One good feeling I got out of this day was that in sizing up the balance of our 27 tons of winter hay store, it looks like we will make it to the second cutting of hay this summer without having to buy more, that’s a good feeling.

Getting up this morning I see that we have snow at the 1600’ level with splattering around the house. I think that everyone around here including the cat pride, horse and goat herds are ready for warm sunshine and a real Spring Break; ready for 80°.
I am now getting ready to head for town to get some T-post to build a containment for Rusty to graze outside his keep.

and that's the way it is as I polish off my Spring Break '09.

Made in China --- NOT

Just a quick blog posting to bring me up-to-date on the happenings around our McKuster Ranch life this past week.

Last Wednesday for the second time in as many Wednesdays, Kittee and I made an evening trip to Walla Walla to be part of the organizing of a new fly fishing club there. The week before our meeting was an interested parties gathering, to "test the waters" of Walla Walla for a fly fishing club. With 11 folks at that meeting we voted to do it again this past Wednesday and discuss organization of a FFF fishing club. We are now on our way to fishing/working together, and calling our group the Walla² Fly Fishers.

March's view of our Walla² River canyon

Last week we were in the throws of March’s winter the early part of the week. Monday we must have had a dozen March snow squalls/ sun breaks come through Milton-Freewater, while the temperature remained in the 40’s. Middle of the week I came home and had a most pleasant late winter's afternoon with horses as I opened our #1 pasture for the first time this year.

Everyone was happy to have the change of scenery.

That same afternoon after messing around with horses, brushing, and picking hooves, I came around to the front of the house to do something and found Kittee had gotten home early. Coming into the house there was no Kittee to be found, so I started calling… Kittee, Kittee, Kittee. No answer. I walked out the backdoor and found Kittee coming from the barn wearing a new pair of fine crafted working chinks. WOW!!!

Here is a picture of Kittee in her new chinks with winterized Rosey.

These were not your everyday working chinks. No way. These chinks had been crafted by a fine leather craftsman in Pendleton, not in China. A leather craftsman that Kittee is working with and he offered to pay her part of her dues with this work of art. Even though there is NO price tag on these chinks –that once hung in the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame as a work of art – she accepted them.

With only a day and a half of almost springlike weather this past week; most of our activities were of the indoor nature. Saturday evening we spent the evening with one of our horsey groups in Walla².

Yep, we did an "early" St. Pat’s Day spaghetti dinner with Kittee and Bob as part of the evening’s entertainment.

We stayed out way past our bedtime for this "early" celebration. Yawn - yawn

Not often do I get caught in front of the camera, but this night I did.












Sunday, was a day of rest and doing cleanup / organizing around Custer Law Office. We got back home in time to take care of horses, have a bowl of soup, and a movie.

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Just a note if you or any horsey friends might wish to have some custom leather work done, we will invite you to contact Stacy for fine leather work ---
NOT made in China.

I hope from this pictures you can see the detail of this craftsmanship. There are three layers of leather --- tan, red, and the multi-colored embossed layer of leaves/ buck'n bronc.

Anyone there interested in having a pair of working / riding chinks -kinda- like these?

Kittee can put you in touch with Stacey to get-er-done.




Just to finish this blog posting I have to show off my handsome stallion Rusty, as last week in the sun he was feeling good and prancing around his keep, wanting to go out with the herd in pasture #1.

I am planning to have a backhoe come in soon and we are going to build a private pasture for Rusty to run around and graze as soon as the weather breaks.

Hope you have a great St. Pat's Day celebration.

And that’s the way it is… waiting for spring at McKuster Ranch