Spring is getting sweet around the ranch

Goldie is now off at training camp, Aunt Misty and Summer

graze the driveway together

This past weekend started Friday with Kittee going to Milton-Freewater court which lasted until 10:00 a.m., I did some grocery shopping while she was in court and we both got home by 10:30. I gave downriver Robert a call and asked if he wanted to join us for an arena ride, and he did. Close to 11:00 we were saddled up and ready to ride. Kittee was going to try to start riding English this day but the girth strap she bought didn’t fit Derby or Shaiela, so she went western and then bareback; we rode about three hours.

From Misty's point of view

To finish this riding session I took Misty out of the arena and we rode the pastures at a trot and then a little ways at a canter. In the above picture Misty has her ear cocked back, while making arena circles, but running the pastures she is head high, ears erect, and happy with the wind in her face. Misty is just making a better ride all the time, actually we work together to make our rides better and more fun. After my p.m. bus route I burned the garden rows to eliminate any seedlings that had started since I had Round Up the entire growing area several weeks ago.

Kittee and I then kicked back and had a few beers and topped our day off with a couple of thick hot-off-the-grill ribeye steak, grilled mushrooms (from our new two person gas grill), a large baked potato split between us. Mmmmmmm good stuff. That and a glass of vino for Kittee and a red-beer for me made a fine dinner and we then capped the day off with an early evening video.

Saturday, was a beautiful day for fun, play and horseback riding. Right after our hotcake & sausage breakfast Kittee and I made a bee line to the tack store and bought a longer girth strap for her English saddle, I got a set of roper reins (that were too short) and we headed home to ride. Again Robert came up and rode with us for several hours. I will let these pictures tell the story of this day…

Kittee and Derby go English

After riding we put the horses up. I got a picture of our three youngest ranch fillies…

Raji is 3 yo (a boarder), Summer the yearling, Rosey the 2 yo

After lunch Kittee brought Sunny a 4 yo Arabian boarder filly, into the round pen, saddled her up and lounged her for awhile. Sunny’s owner told Kittee, she could have the freedom to ride her at will so Kittee is looking forward to that.

Kittee has not ridden Sunny yet... maybe next weekend.

Saturday evening Robert invited us to have dinner with he and Sherry. Pizza, & beer party with a Wii machine of fun and games to follow. First we had two sets of bowling, I made high score on the second game, then Kittee and Robert played 15-shot / 3-point basketball, then Kittee played two 9-hole rounds of golf. Everyone had a really good time with this toy, and now Kittee feels we should have one (Hummm? Would be good for winter). By the time we were through, it was waaaaay past our bedtime.

Sunday, we slept in for awhile, had our starter cup of coffee in bed, listened to Will Shortz's puzzle game on NPR, and later a corny grits, sausage and egg breakfast. The weather forecast for Sunday was temperatures in the 60's and a 40% chance of rain, which usually means things are going to get wet around here to some degree. With that chance for rain, right after breakfast I fired up the garden tiller and went to work.. on about 600 row feet of garden space.

Sunday it didn’t rain so Kittee and I rode, rode, and rode horses up to lunch time. This day I rode Nugget to put him through some of the arena course work that I usually put Misty through. Nugget not having done this in a long time was quite a bit slower and less responsive than Misty. But I worked him, and worked him and he was much better at running the course in a trot and canter by the time we were through working/ playing the course.

Kittee spent her time riding Derby in their new English attire.

Sunday afternoon, Kittee and I just kicked back and took life easy for awhile.

Taking a break, just taking it easy...

After lunch Kittee laid down for a rest period (we were out late Saturday night), and I hung out with horses. About time I was going into Rusty’s keep to groom him, I had company show up. Now this is neat… I met Jennie on Facebook a few weeks ago. She now lives in the BIG NYC, but is from Walla Walla, WA where she grew up on a 20 acre asparagus farm, and her mom Bonnie is a member of our Walla² Fly Fishers’ fishing club... small world. Jennie was on vacation this past week, spending time with her mom, so I invited both of them to drop by the ranch to pet horses and have a beer. They did, we did. After Jennie and Bonnie left, Kittee came back outside and we messed around with horses for awhile, had dinner and watched a video before calling it a full blown weekend… done.

And that's the way it is around the ranch this past weekend.

Wish you were here,
Dale