Summertime around the ranch

Except for our blazing hot Forth of July weekend when the temperatures around here reached 102°, Kittee and I have had a very busy past week/10-days of comings and goings. 4th of July weekend we found some movies and stayed in the a/c for most of the mid-day hours.This works well for us as we do not like to get into any holiday crowds, regardless of the season.

Last Tuesday as I was coming in from watching Summer and Goldie, I noticed allot of bird noise in the front yard Hawthorne tree. Looking around I see five Western Kingbird chicks out of their nest and sitting on a limb together. The remainder of the week Kittee and I have watched these chicks stretch their wings as they fly across the road and around our barn and paddock area. They keep going a little further from the nest each day.


I showed these guys to my Aunt Pat as we were heading for the Walla Walla Airport last Tuesday for her trip back to visit my Mom in N.C. and the old family (per-Revolutionary & Civil War) homesteads of eastern Carolina. Their big plans for this trip was to take part in the 150th Anniversary of the families' Oak Plains Church festivities. They were both very young lassies when they attended the church's 75th Anniversary, and they still tell stories about that occasion.

Wednesday was Kittee's birthday (follow this link for details). Our trail ride with Derby and Nugget that day was so enjoyable that we felt that we had to do much the same for Friday.

Friday, right after breakfast we groomed Nugget and Derby, loaded them into the trailer, made a U-Turn in our driveway and beeline for the upper So. Fork Walla Walla River trail.

We had left our tack in the trailer from our Wednesday's ride so getting to the trailhead and easy. Again Derby and Nugget were champs as we headed up the trail, past the back country river cabins' and on to Bear Creek Trailhead. At that point we made a left turn and headed up-up-up. This was a beautiful forest trail ride and the trail was very clean and clear to travel. After a couple of hours in the saddle we made it to the Bear Creek Saddle meadows. The trail was about 5 miles long from the BLM day use parking lot, up to the saddle, and it has an 1800' elevation change.


Here we took Nugget's tack off as he was a bit heated. Kittee and I shared a turkey-bacon sandwich wrap for lunch as Derby and Nugget grazed on tall grasses and allot of sweet red clover.

Some younger folks of the area also call this area the "Cub" Saddle for the remains of an old Piper Cub airplane that still sits in the saddle meadow.

After lunch-grazing, a cooling off period we saddled-up again for the ride back off the mountain. We let Nugget lead the way back off the mountain this day. Many times when Derby sees that we are heading down the "going back to the trailer" trail, he really wants to step out and I didn't feel like chasing he and Kittee off this mountain today. When we got back to the trailer, we gave the boys a river watering break, some hay, we washed the trail dust out of our throats with a couple of beers and sit back and took a break for awhile. This made another nice back country outing for this week, a nice ride for July.

This day we passed only two guys on trail motorcycles on the side of the mountain on the Bear Creek Trail. The rest of the trail and world we had to ourselves, our horses. We did catch Dale and Cheri walking around outside their place on our way back to the ranch, so we stopped and paid them a short visit/a recap of the day. By the time we got home and unloaded the boys it was a bit after 6:00 p.m. -- a full day's outing.

Saturday, the weather forecast, once again was for it to be hot. Kittee and I made plans to get out early with the boys and spend the morning hours riding in our riverside arena before the heat got too high. Whelp, when we finished breakfast, went out to greet everyone in the pastures we found Derby and Nugget laid out flat as pancakes, in their pasture. They were tuckered out and ready to take this day off, and with that so were we. Mid-morning we made a quick trip to Walla Walla, stopped by the video store on the way home, and for the rest of our 100° Saturday we stayed indoors and watched movies. Saturday evening just before sunset we did get back outside to watch/interact with Goldie, Summer and the boys.

Saturday evening after sunset we watched another movie until midnight. Gee that is awfully late for us, and on Sunday we are planning another trail riding day with the weather forecast saying cooler and maybe T-storms.

Sunday morning the air was much cooler and a few raindrop were on the bedroom window when I got out of bed for the morning paper and to make a pot of coffee. This day we were not in a rush to get too much done but hopefully go horseback riding, even in the rain. By the time we finished breakfast and went out to groom Nugget and Derby, the clouds were breaking and there were some sunbreaks. Again having left our tack in the horse trailer, we only had to brush the boys off and pick hooves and walked them out to the trailer to saddle-up and get ready to hit the old Cashe Hollow Road Trail, at our front door. This trail goes through some wooded area and then through the fields of amber waves of wheat, particularly amber this time of year.

At the top of the Cashe Hollow Trail, we can overlook the Walla Walla Valley, centered on Walla Walla, WA. in the valley background.


This day we left the house around 10:00 a.m. and made a three hour ride to the top of the road and down the Kennear Road Trail for a mile or so. We got back home and had the boys saddles on the racks shortly after 1:00 p.m. By this time of day the afternoon temperature was 95° and it felt like Sangria cooler time as we watched the movie -- The Cooler with William Macy, a pretty neat story. For the movie intermission we prepared a delicious seafood fettuccine dinner, using plenty of seafood, butter, Chablis, and Alfredo sauce to cover the pasta. Mmmmmmm good stuff. After the movie the T-storm clouds were beginning to buildup and the wind was blowing pretty steady, so Kittee and I went out to visit horses and enjoy sitting out in the storm with its wonderful light show and thunder boomers all around us. As the rain got heavier and cooler we came back into the house to finish our day/ weekend by having another viewing of the movie -- Crash.

and that's the way it was around the ranch this past week --- Dale