Running across Oregon

The past week for me was spent mostly at home in and out of the rain, feeding, grooming, petting horses and waiting for the weekend. This week we did find eggnog at Safeway, so we have been treating ourselves each morning with an eggnog lattè; that is worth making note of here. This is like an annual highlight to start our day as the daylight hours are now getting colder and shorter. A couple of weeks ago we started running our Happy Light in the evenings to ward off the getting shorter days blahs.
As the week came to a close we found that once again we had become a two school bus family. Nope we are not in the business of dealing in school buses, just staying a bit too busy... to get the job done with just one big yellow bus in the driveway.

Friday, Kittee was in Milton-Freewater city court for half a day, while I made three school bus trips to Walla Walla taking elementary school kids to concerts at Whitman College. Friday afternoon I mended fences from the hard wind blows of the week, and packed my travel bag with some extra cold/wet weather clothing for Saturday's out-of-town bus trip to the west side.

Saturday, I got up at about daybreak as usual, to make a trip to Wilsonville, OR for the Oregon State Boy's 4A Soccer Championship game. Our Mac-Hi School soccer team was playing the final and state championship game this day. All was going well and I was on time working on breakfast, put my bags and coats in the little silver P/U and headed for the downtown school bus lot to pickup my trip bus. Now, this day of all days, out of living here for over seven years, I go down the road about a mile and hit a deer... can't stop; gotta get to town and prep the bus to hit the road. Not sure what happened to that doe. I made it to town OK, as the buses (4 of us) were loaded with allot of hometown soccer boosters/fans and was ready to roll at 8:00 a.m.. It was a good trip, very uneventful and we made good time to get to the game on the other side of the state by 3:30 p.m.
The weather forecast was for cold and wet on the west side of the state, but when we got to Troutdale, the skies were clearing with a few sun breaks. By the time we got to the game it had clouded up a bit, but no rain, and game conditions were great for running, running, running after a soccer ball.

All in all it was a good game with the first score being made at about 55 minutes into the game. That made it 1-0 La Salle Prep School... the team in red above. At this point the game got a little testy as the clock was running down in the second half, when a La Salle player broke out of the pack, dribbled the ball down field and facing the MacHi goalie one-on-one made the score against MacHi... score 2-0. After this goal MacHi came fighting back and in a few minutes scored a tight goal making the score 2-1. Now with just a few minutes left in regulation play, MacHi made several strong attempts to score for the tie, but as time ran out La Salle had the ball in their possession/ hands, jumping and shouting in victory. It was a good game, great temperature for playing a running game, and no rain until we were back on the buses and driving out of the school parking lot. It was about 11 o'clock pm when we got back to Milton-Freewater after a great day's outing of traveling across Oregon. The only thing that really disappointed me about this trip (other than losing the state championship) was seeing the large number of wind turbines that have been place along the rim of the Columbia River Gorge. It really has screwed up the wide open river scenery on both sides of the mighty river, having the white needles showing up everywhere. As I drove through the gorge, I wondered what Lewis and Clarke might think about this view.
Saturday, Kittee was going to work at her Pendleton office, but decided it felt too good to stay home and enjoy some down time with the horses, and a little reading. She told me she spent quite a bit of quality hands-on time with our babies -- Rosey and Summer.

Again today we woke up as the wind was blowing hard, and the rains fell off and on all night; forecast for the day was more of the same, with lots of snow to fall on the mountains to our east. After having breakfast, feeding the herd; with these weather conditions, Kittee and I decided to make a run to the local pottery/art shop - Clay in Motion, to visit that operation (our first time there), have a mocha... Mmmmmm that was good, and venture on to Walla Walla for awhile and do a little shopping. With the weather and our schedules we got no horseback riding time this week. This afternoon, we were out petting horses as the sun had sunk slowly in the west, then out from under the clouds over our heads, the sun gave us a beautiful flood of golden lighting along our backyard bluff. That was a beautiful site... wish you could have been here to see it.
This entire week coming at us is time off, NO SCHOOL, for the Thanksgiving holiday. Got plans to stay close to home and horses ;>)
We have the Walla Walla indoor arena to ride in next Sunday, rain or freezing... Gettyup!!

And that's the way it has been around the ranch this past week --- Dale

She's baaack...

Well this past week we watched the snow levels rise and fall on the Blues three times, getting a bit closer to the ranch each time. Yesterday, we could tell by the slow warm up of the morning, that we were going to be socked in with clouds, high winds, cool but not cold temperatures for the day. So while I was checking emails, etc. Kittee was on the phone with a couple of folks and petting her cats.

How many Kittees can you count in this pic?

It had been awhile since we had sit around with the Cospers, so we gave them a call and headed upriver towards the South Fork Horse Ranch. We left the house expecting to be gone for a couple of hours visit, and ended up staying upriver for about five hours. It was nice to see those guys again, and have some most thoughtful conversation and a few jokes. I told Dale a new joke about a cross-dresser and a rancher woman… thought he might fall out of his chair laughing over that one.

Saturday was a pretty busy day around here. After breakfast Kittee went straight out and rode Derby in the cool of a bright sunny day. I worked on the ‘puter doctoring our Walla² Fly Fishers blog site, then I went out and prepped Misty for a round pen workout. During this time Kittee put Derby out to pasture, saddled up Nugget, and took him to the arena for some fast action canter riding.
I also brought Misty up into a canter for awhile as we worked out in the round pen. After riding, Kittee milled around with the mare herd. There was about six mares sunbathing and dear Sunny was laid out flat and snoring up a storm (I could hear her from about 30-40 feet away). As I was pulling the tack off Misty, I found Kittee kneeled down petting Rosey which was laid out resting. I went to get the camera to get a picture of that, and when I got back everyone was on their feet except Kootenai and Kittee.

Kittee was then kneeled down and petting her.

After our riding sessions/ hanging out with horses it turned into about 2 p.m. and we packed up the horses trailer and Blue and headed up towards Walla Walla to pickup our little girl Ginger, who we sold to Jennifer a bit over a year ago, I think. Jennifer is now in nurses training and needed to move her horses, and ask if we would keep Ginger for her until next spring, so we said yes to Jennifer and our baby pony.










On our way up towards Walla Walla we pulled in to our favorite Hwy 11 bar and grill and got our favorite bacon/cheese burger with French fries and a beer… that was a good mid-afternoon roadside lunch. We then picked up Ginger, headed home expecting a big homecoming splash from Jasmine.
When we got home, we put them out to pasture together, and it was like they had been separated just long enough to go get a drink of water.

Earlier during the week I finished throwing out the rest of our red delicious apples for a apple bobbing/ lip licking good time that everyone in the paddock enjoyed.

Lick those lips, Baby. Mmmmmm, good

I have found it to be quite interesting that Rusty will not eat a red apple, a ripe plum, or pears, but really enjoy golden delicious apples. To each his own.

This past week, I also "finished" cleaning up the garden area and burned off the mowed weeds and stubble. I am thinking that this year, I shall not till the garden rows as they are so loamy with horse manure/mulch and just work on keeping the weeds burned off between now and next spring. I'm thinking I will not get/put so many weed seeds into the soil by not tilling until spring.

I am hoping that by the time I am 60 I will have figured out how to shape up this garden, keep it watered adequately at 105º, and make it grow while having time to regularly ride our horses.

That is about what we have been up to this past week, beside going to work each day, and I think I remember having an afternoon ride with Misty and Travis our trainer. I know Travis wasalso here working on a couple of boarder’s horses this past week and “broke” one to ride. He did a pretty nice job, the horse co-operated nicely while under saddle.

Life around the ranch in November --- Dale

Under the full moon

Waiting for sunrise

Well again this past week Kittee and I have been very busy, myself around the ranch, Kittee at her office, both of us working on protecting our Walla Walla River Valley from the onslaught of the wind turbine construction steamroller trying to cover our end of the county, with wind generators, now almost everywhere you look.

Last Saturday was the last day of trout fishing in our Walla Walla River, and I was too busy to go fishing. But I guess that was OK, as most of this past week we have lived under the full moon (like the pic above), and I have found that fishing under a full moon is almost useless. Saturday morning Kittee and I went to the funeral of our dear departed friend Cliff, in Walla Walla. After the funeral we had time for a lunch break and then our farrier, Kevin Walker came for his fall visit. The rest of Saturday afternoon we worked on horses’ hooves. This was Summer first actually farrier handling, and she did well. Again I have been imprinting her since the day she was born to have her feet handled and become accustomed to having her feet tapped, tapped on so when the day come for her to be shod she will be prepared for that new venture.


Last Sunday I tried to put Nugget and Derby with the rest of the herd for the winter. November 1st seemed to be a good time to do that, as I remember from the past. So Sunday morning I laid out nearly two bales of hay, more than enough for everyone to be happy, and turned the entire herd (less Rusty) out to feed.

All went well, until everyone had a full gutload of hay. Then Nugget’s attention turned to Misty and Kootenai as Kootenai was showing some signs of being in heat. Nuggets being his OLE stud self decided to chase these girls around for awhile, so Kittee and I had to go out a separated the boys from the girls. Since the cold snaps of a few weeks ago we have now become another banana belt in this area, with temperatures most days near or above 60. So I guess some of the horses around here are now confusing this warm fall weather/ season with spring.

Also Sunday, Travis our horse trainer came by and got me started with some riding lesson to prep me for moving cattle. The day will come we will need to use our back 55 acres, and I feel that cattle will be the best way to do that. So I have started working with Misty on making cattle moving moves including 180º turns while in a trot or canter.


Misty was such a willing girl to do all I asked of her, except going into a canter. With my past experience of broken bones, I have held her back allot, and I think she is now confused when I ask her to run, run, run… but we will get over that as I get my running confidence back. I am also hoping this training will help me be better prepared to saddle up and ride off with Rusty in the near future. So anyway, I was able to find/make the time to ride Misty 4 or 5 times this past week, and that felt good. We have both been out of shape with our summer layoff and with a few day of workout we have shed a few pounds and toughen up just a bit. Something I am learning is that the more horseback riding I get to do the less backache I have to deal with.

During the mid-week, I was able to fire up the lawn mower and mow down the garden and orchard area of the old dead weeds that had taken over. This was the first time I had really worked in the garden since August 1st. Hopefully in the next week or so I will be able to burn off the old crop rows and maybe get the garden tilled before cold, wet weather sets in for the winter.

Yesterday, Kittee and I had a bit of a break, so she brushed out Nugget and I tacked up Misty and we spent awhile riding in the arena. Again I was trying to get back up into the canter mode with Misty, but we didn’t run for long as my bones don’t seem to be ready for that yet. I still feel my broken ribs on a daily basis and the busted sternum is still sore. Anyway, we did get some nice riding done while under a warm November sun. Later in the afternoon, we had Doc. Sarah Metcalf show up at the ranch, after her day’s drive from Boise. After she got settled in we set back and listened for a little while to NPR, then chatted – horse talk. After dinner Doc Sarah headed back to her dental clinic/ travel lodge, Kittee and I prepped for bed and started watching On Golden Pond, since our world in northeast Oregon has turned quite golden this time of year.

Today we started with coffee in bed, followed by having breakfast with Doc. Sarah. Thereafter we all went to work with horses. Our friend Shana came out to help Sarah with handling horses, and Kittee and I groomed horses prior to their visit to the dentist office. Since Nugget was our major dental works guy from years past, I did get a few photos to help remember how the story goes, and all went well…
With all the horses we worked with today, we found that Nugget's teeth are looking great, so we hope we have saved him from an early demised of losing all his front incisors which he was on his way of doing a few years ago. Thank you Doc Sarah for helping to save our Nugget. The other good news from today's dental clinic was that Goldie and Rusty have great looking/ perfect teeth, so hopefully this will pass along to their offspring as we continue to breed these two.

Tomorrow after my a.m. bus route, we will be working on 7-10 more horses before the end of the day. Tuesday and Wednesday of this coming week, I will be making full day school bus trips to Pendleton, and Kittee is planning to present a case to the Oregon Court of Appeals in Salem on Thursday. So again it looks like a busy, busy week in front of us.

And that is the way it has been around the ranch this past week as we have been living under the full moon, mostly clear autumn skies with warm sunshine days --- Dale