January's thaw

It has been over a week that we have had a taste of springtime in January. Last Tuesday or Wednesday we had a Chinook wind blow through the Walla Walla River Valley and since then our daytime high temperatures have been in the mid-50's to 60° with nighttime lows being in the mid-40's.
It was also last Tuesday or Wednesday that I was pluggin around on Facebook and saw where Upriver Dale was planning on making a horseback trip through my front yard leading up into Cache Hollow on Thursday mid-morning. I ask him if I might tag along and so we made it a three-some with Dale's neighbor Hutch along for the ride. I didn't make the entire route with those guys since I had to make a school bus/sporting trip to La Grande that same afternoon. It was a wonderful ride and a great mid-week break for men and their steeds.

When I got back to the ranch, I fed and grained Misty as she had expended alot of energy and sweat trotting up the Ole Cache Hollow Trail.

Also when we got back to the ranch we found several mares and Derby laid out and sunbathing.

After getting everyone settled back in place, I had to make a quick dash to cleanup and hit the road for my p.m. girls basketball trip into the mountains.
Friday was another beautiful springlike day, and the beginning of my 4-day weekend, but with sore thighs and another school sporting trip to make to Umatilla that afternoon, I just stuck around the ranch and petted horses and told Misty how much I appreciated the ride of the day before. Again I gave her extra grain and hay to replace the calories she had burned the day before.
Saturday the weather changed and the winds began to blow in one direction and sucked in the other directions with the threat of rain, so Kittee and I made our rounds in town and went to Walla Walla to get a wireless router to accommodate Kittee's laptop computer with our new broadband Internet service. Gee does all of this upgrade work nicely, with the exception that Mozilla Thunderbird does not work with Charter broadband service, at least not for me. Saturday evening while Kittee was reading the logs of Lewis and Clark/Corps of Discovery, I was using her laptop 'puter and our new wifi home installation system to listen to old Neil Young concerts. With this much entertainment we didn't listen to NPR that evening.
Sunday the weather forecast was for improving weather conditions, so we had our sights set on getting in some horseback riding that day. After breakfast the weather conditions were still a bit iffy with some heavy clouds circling the area. Then about mid-day the clouds broke and we got a dose of warm sunshine on our shoulders, so we decided to grab a quick bite of lunch and saddleup, get ready to ride. By the time we finished lunch, the clouds were beginning to gather again so Kittee decided to work Nugget in the round pen for some warming up.

Thereafter, we decide... what the heck, let's go for a ride, rain or no rain so we headed up the Ole Cache Hollow Trail. Now, reflecting on Thursday's trail ride, Misty was still acting a bit herd bound as I took her out for the trail ride, and again on Sunday she really let us know that she didn't want to go up the road again. She danced, pranced, and did her backup Fox Trot steps for about 10 minutes before getting her straightened out and headed up the hill. But thinking about it, other that two trips to the Walla Walla indoor arena, this had been the second time she has left the herd in 8-10 months and she really didn't like the idea. Anyway we got her pointed in the right direction and the four of us had a very pleasant trail ride for 4-5 miles until we hit some high winds coming from the south, so decided to turn around and head back to the ranch.

Sunday we also reunited Summer, Rosey, and Raji with the mare herd. It had been a month 12/20 since we separated Summer and Misty from Goldie for Summer's weaning process. The reunion of Summer and Goldie was quite uneventful, as the only thing that happened, was Summer stuck her nose into Goldie's hip towards her udder and Goldie turned and made one nip at Summer. That is all she said, that was all that happened upon their reunion.
Monday, again the weather was most pleasant, but the wind blew. Since our horses are not shod, we were planning to trailer Nugget and Misty around the corner to ride in our backyard on the north side of the river, but with the wind howling, we decide not. I spent the morning dropping a ton of hay out of the loft and Kittee decided to begin her further training of Rosey by giving her the feel of a saddle being cinched onto her back. Rosey will be a two-year-old in April and has once before had a pony saddle place on her back. Both times of saddling-up Rosey has been a non-event. The pony and cordura saddles maybe weigh about 20 pounds.

You can click here to watch this process in action.
NOTE: you can watch this clip in HQ and full screen.

And that's the way it is around the ranch this past week. Gee this warm January weather and sunshine really feels good. Think I shall go out and sunbath with the mares tomorrow.

Dale