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