Rusty, Rosey, Kootenia and The Shack

Spring is now in full swing around McKuster Ranch and the Walla Walla River Canyon. The snows are beginning to recede further up the mountains and our river is running fast with steelhead green spring runoff waters. Wheat fields are becoming dark green and most of the open range vegetation and area trees are turning fresh spring green.

During this spring warming period the herds have really been enjoying the weather. The middle of April we separated the mares and gelding in order to keep everyone at peace. Last Sunday morning this was the view out of our bedroom window... some mares' early morning R&R.

Since the last posting to this blog, Kittee and I have had allot of comings and goings. It was prior to last posting of our ranch blog, that I was giving a copy of the book The Shack by my friend/ co-worker Marilyn. I started reading the book on the school bus-baseball trip-I made to Baker, OR. Baker sets near the southern base of the Wallowa Mountain Range, a most wonderful place to begin reading this book. What a book, what a story which takes place mostly in Northeast Oregon around Joseph and Imnaha on the north side of the Wallowa Mountains (back country and Hell's Canyon area). For those of you who have traveled, camped, fished, and looked up into the night skies from that wilderness area with me; I invite you to read The Shack. It will bring you back to this place and move you with fright, sadness, inspiration and joy. WOW, what a story, what an ending... really hit close to home and heart for me.

Kittee, had the opportunity to head for the beautiful Oregon coast during that same space in time. It was a couple of weeks ago that she went to an attorney's CLE at Newport, one of our very favorite seaside spots to visit. On her way to the coast she stopped and had an evening together with ole friends Ed and Sherry as she passed through Portland. Many of you may remember meeting Sherry and Ed at our wedding, a few years ago.

As she was heading for the coast, I had spring ranch chores to do and was scheduled to make a day trip to Ontario, OR on the Idaho boarder to take the M-F high school golf team for a tournament there. My trip was a pleasure, and the pun of the day around the golf course was the guys asking each other "Have you got the balls for this?" This tournament had golf teams coming from all over eastern Oregon and southwest Idaho. I was amazed at how far folks had traveled for this game, but we were nearly 200 miles from home ourselves.

M-F's MacHi won the tournament of that day, so everyone came back home with a smile on their face. The golf coach was very happy with the day's scores.

Since that day's trip, I have been running sports teams all over northeast Oregon, the tennis team I took to Boardman and Pendleton, the baseball team to Umatilla and Heppner.

Also over the past couple of weekends I build Rusty a mini-pasture for him to come out of his Keep and have the opportunity to graze and stretch his legs. His mini-pasture is irrigated and bit more than ¼ acre of tall grass with a 6' high electric fence around it. He has a bow gate between this pasture and his Keep, so he is kept quite secure and seems to be very happy with the configuration. Do we love our horses or what?

He seems to be enjoying this addition to his world and it keeps him safe and sound from the balance of the herd; or vice versa.

Mid-April we had a new boarder to come to our pastures. We now have Fly and her equestrian Stacey sharing our spring pastures. Fly will only be with us for a couple of months as her owner Stacey is a student in Walla Walla, and they will be going home for the summer. They both plan to return in the fall when Stacey's college restarts.

Here at the ranch we have had a most eventful week with our horses. This past Monday 4/27 our baby Rosey turned one year old. Quite a change she has made in the past year.

Rosey's birthday 4/27/08

Rosey at 1 year old.

Also while I was on my afternoon bus route this past Friday afternoon, our trainer Travis came by and saddled up and mounted Rusty. Wish I would have been here to get a picture of that, but Kittee was here and gave me a full report of the happening. Next time Travis is here I shall get pictures and video of Rusty's ride. It is our understanding that this is the first time he has been mounted. Rusty's sire-- Fire An Ice --holds several AHA Western Pleasure Junior Horse Championships from around the USA. I hope to be riding my Rusty before the autumn breezes blow.

Saturday, Kittee and I spent the entire day from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. working with Kevin our farrier. I have been doing some garden work over the past couple of weeks, and today after the farrier work, started planting seeds.
Today we discovered that we will have to have Kevin back asap, hopefully this week to trim the hooves of our newly acquired AHA mare... SF Kootenai we maybe calling her "Koo".

Koo is a 12 year old AHA registered mare that we plan to breed with Rusty next month. She too is a very well bred Arabian with legend*Morafic being her Great Grandsire.

And that's the way it is around the ranch over the past few weeks. Kittee's law practice has been very very busy, my bus tripping, evening organizations meetings, and ranch work has kept me in a running mode for the entire month of April. We hope with our horses being shod, we will now be able to find the time to spend more time in the saddle, riding our neighborhood back country.

Happy Trails and hope you get the chance to read The Shack soon. Hey, better yet... come visit us and we will take you to the places where the story of The Shack was written about. Beautiful country.