Working on Labor Day

The past couple of weeks Kittee and I have stayed pretty busy around the ranch, her law practice and my school bus driving. I am still on the mend with busted ribs, and Kittee is trying to get in all the riding time that we cannot do together due to my horsey crash a month ago.

This weekend I have been working with Rusty in the round pen and his little filly -Summer- doing halter work, giving petting strokes and sharing hugs with her. Kittee has worked with Rosey this weekend in preparation for a showing in a couple of weeks, and has ridden Misty, Nugget, and Derby to keep their saddle blankets damp.





































Today while Kittee was working with Rosey in the round pen, I moved Summer’s little herd of mares and got everyone into running, hucking and bucking in the process of changing pastures. Gee it is fun to watch them do that…

Misty and Rosey enjoying the cool autumn air rushing their faces.

Yee Ha, Let'er Buck!!!
Mama Goldie and little Summer kicking up their heels

Thinking about how much fun and exercise that was.

Today we introduced Summer to Rosey, and that was a non-event with the two of them just sniffing each other and then went about their own ways. Later in the afternoon we moved boarders Raji and Sunny into this mare herd, again a non-event as we now have a two month old foal, a yearling, a two year old, and a three year old -all silly fillies- bonding with each other.

Yesterday turned into fall. Weather was partly cloudy, mild with before sunrise morning showers. Kittee and I just really took the day easy –a day of rest, with a nap- and early yesterday evening we sit up the card table for a game of cribbage. Before starting the cribbage game we pulled out the bottle of Sangria, cut some orange and lemon into glasses and had a drink of refreshing vino, which help us to decide to play a fast furious game of double solitary instead of cribbage.

We finished the day, after quite a few hands of solitary, dinner, and showers watching the rest of Yellow Submarine, which we started watching Thursday evening.

Saturday we made a quick trip to Walla Walla to take care of some business there and to watch the Frontier Days Parade. The parade was lead off by the Walla Walla Police Dept. motorcycle squad, followed by the Wal-Hi Marching Band, Indian princesses, some big fat women riding sidesaddle, pooper-scoopers with wheelbarrows, people walking their mini-horses and dogs, on and on and on, down Alder and up Main Street.


































The Master-of-Ceremonies for this year's parade and the Walla Walla County Fair/Rodeo was John Payne a guy calling himself the “One Armed Bandit” and his mule. These guys paraded through town on top of their transport/stock trailer, while the "Bandit" cracked his bull whip over the crowd's heads.

It was a rather nice affair for a beautiful Saturday morning outing into town.

Friday, Kittee had to go to jail; I stayed home and worked on income taxes. A rather non-eventful day until Kittee got home in the late afternoon and we sit out and enjoy a couple of beers, had a ribeye steak dinner and a glass of vino and watched horses romping into sunset.

During this holiday weekend we have tried our best to stop in the middle of the afternoons and relax with a root beer float while the day time temperatures are still in the mid to lower 80's. Fall is approaching very quickly around here and Round Up is just around the corner.

Last week Kittee stayed quite busy with one trial after another all week long, and I had my first full week of bus driving for the new '09-'10 school season Monday through Wednesday. Working for the school system once again we had Thursday and Friday off to go along with the Labor Day weekend.

Last weekend we got in our winter store of hay. By doctors orders I did not touch a single bale while stacking these loads of hay into store. That felt pretty good as I get older and begin to look at 20 tons of hay having to be put away… high and low into the barn.

Kittee and I still have to tarp the hay loft hay, but it is now all under roof for the winter, and that feels good.

And now last but not least, as Kittee and I was sitting out and enjoying the sunset in our backyard last weekend we noticed some new structures way out on the western horizon. We brought out the field glasses and discovered it was wind turbines encroaching from the west. The machines in this picture are about 10 miles to our west, at this point in time.

Eastern Oregon is now being covered with these machines springing up everywhere. This is not so very bad, except that 95% of the power produced in Oregon is being transmitted to the Californicators to our south, and in turn raising the cost of our power due to the incompatibility between wind and hydro power generation. This sucks as these machines take over our Oregon ecosystems. Our Oregon countryside is beginning to look like the ass-end of southern California.

Now let me get back to my tax work chores... :>(
and cuss some more.

That’s the way it is around the ranch this week --- Dale