Tripping and Gardening – Spring ’10

This past week has once again been a very busy one for Kittee and I.

Last Thursday, Kittee had a full day of being in court in Heppner, OR. About a 2½ hour drive to the southwest from home, Heppner is further out in the middle of nowhere that almost anywhere else in northeast OR. A beautiful drive getting there, but once you arrive… you are still in the middle of nowhere.
Thursday after my morning bus run, I traded buses at our bus lot and came home with the trip bus and prepped it for a trip to Baker City, OR. Thursday was a beautiful day for traveling in both direction, but I got to run the interstate and landed in the beautiful Power River Valley, which is as pretty of a location as anywhere in the lower 48 particularly in April thru May. At Baker City to the south and west of town is the 8000' snow capped Elkhorn Mountain Range.

The Elkhorns

To the north of Baker City is the 10,000' snow covered Eagle Caps Range of the Blue Mountains. The Eagle Caps was the setting for the story of The Shack which I read last year while on a baseball trip to Baker. That reading was rather eye opening, and close to the heart, mind and spirit.

The Eagle Caps

Just before we arrived in Baker I noticed the rear window of the bus started to fog over. I thought from the uphill climb out of La Grande the bus may have sprung a coolant leak, but instead there was a pin hole rupture in the fuel line, so the bus spent most of the afternoon in the Baker County maintenance shop. On April 15 everything in the valley was green and temperatures felt great for going on open air walks around town and watching girls softball.
While in Baker I got to have dinner at one of my favorite eastern Oregon restaurants - the Inland Cafe- just great home style cooking served here. The MacHi freshman team lost both of their game miserably to the Baker City girls.

Friday, was another gorgeous day around home. Right after my a.m. bus run, I came home, fed the herds of critters here and then headed to Lowden, WA to visit my Goldie. Goldie had spent ten days with the horse trainer there and I was very eager to see how they were doing. It was about a half hour drive over there and when I got there Goldie and Chad were out riding around his place. I jumped out of Blue with my still camera and video camera and started taking pictures as the two of them approached. See video below of this Goldie ride. Found out shortly that my batteries were getting weak so my picture taking opportunity was short. Chad told me that Goldie was a very good saddle horse and was going to make a great trail horse. She was calm, mindful of the surroundings, didn’t spook, and paid attention to the directions of her rider. This made me feel good. I am really looking forward to having her back home, her spring shed brushed out and that pretty girl under my saddle.













Friday, Kittee was once again in court in Heppner, and left from there to go visit here sister’s family in Yamhill, which is way out in the metro area of western OR. I know that made a very long day for Kittee.

Saturday, Kittee was gone and I had plans to do some horseback riding with downriver Robert later in the day. Right after breakfast I headed for the garden to prep it for some planting this weekend. I moved up about 25-30 wheelbarrow loads of horse manure from the barn and Rusty’s keep and got that raked out and tilled in. About that time Robert came up and said he was running late in his schedule and would not be able to ride, so I just keep working the garden.

Asparagus bed ready for seeding.
Hummm, appears my tiller has a wiggle.

Saturday's temperature today hit 70°, first time this year, here at the ranch. Got my asparagus row prepped for planting and decided that this was enough work for the day so took a break and had a couple of red-beers and rested in the sunshine. Later in the afternoon a cool breeze came up with a storm cloud behind it so I went in and worked on the Walla² Fly Fishers’ blog site of last week’s meeting minutes. We did get a very nice evening rainstorm out of the weather system and at near dark I went out and fed the horses and grilled myself a steak and had that with a baked potato for dinner. Kittee called around 8:30 to let me know she was leaving Yamhill, and she had about 5 hours of driving in front of her to get home. I stayed up all evening, running around the Internet, chatting with folk on Facebook, waiting for Kittee to safely return home, she got in shortly after 1 a.m. It was pretty exhausting staying up until after 1:00 a.m. - waaaaaaaaaaay past our usual 9 o'clock bedtime. Plans for Sunday was to plant some of the garden and horseback ride, making up for lost time with our boys and girls.

It was after 9 a.m. before we woke up and started coffee on Sunday. After breakfast I went out and started planting the garden area worked on Saturday with lettuces, radishes, chard, and peas.
While I was gardening Kittee saddled up Derby in the round pen and gave him a short workout. The rest of the day we just took things easy. Pooped out from the Saturday night stretch we sit out in the backyard sunshine, then watched a Stephen King movie and attempted to take a nap, but really didn’t nap as the movie was pretty intriguing so right after an early dinner we called it a day, turned off the lights and was out. Hopefully this year with the Great Spirit smiling on me, I will have no horse wrecks and the garden will give us a good yield. Amen

Yesterday was another day back on the road as I made a trip with the MacHi girls softball teams, heading for Umatilla and Boardman, OR. This made a good trip, as both teams won all three of their games, hands down.

Varsity girls beat Umatilla handily

During the third game I walked around the Boardman Riverside Park which is located next to the Mighty Columbia River.

Girls warming up to play the next game

Seagulls following the migration of fish from the sea to Canada stopped by the park.

Standing on the banks of the Mighty Columbia River

It made a pleasant walk with temperatures in the mid-70’s just before sunset. The late afternoon was cloudy so I had no sunset views of the river. After last week's trip into the mountains of 8000'-10,000' it struck me that this day I was standing on the banks of the Columbia River at 275' above sea level (half the height of our backyard bluff), with fish and rivers that run out of Canada and seven states.
The OregonTerritory, quite a country.

Today after my afternoon bus route run, downriver Robert came up to the ranch, we groomed Nugget and Misty and spent the rest of the afternoon horseback riding along the river at McKuster Ranch. After work, Kittee joined us with a burgundy wine cooler in hand. It was a good day to be drawing air from these great Oregon outdoors.

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Not part of the comings and goings of K&D, but a slice of family history I will share here...
While cruising Facebook, I found that cousin Nicole has now exited the state of Texass (home of the likes of LBJ, GWB, Enron, the assassination of JFK, etc.) and moved back to the Turner Ranch in NM. I did find on Nicole's Facebook page a photo of she (while in Austin) and sister Brilynn (visiting), standing in front of The Alamo Memorial with our cousin James Bonham listed front and center as one of the defenders who gave his life for the Texass' independence from Mexico. Not sure that the lose of cousin James was worth it, but he was there as a Bonham and an American with the best of those that fell at The Alamo.
And that's the way it is around the ranch this past week.

Happy Trails and Peace be with you,
Dale