I did not go fishing this weekend.

Derby, Nugget and Miles being casual

Friday our weekend started out quite casual and progressed all the way through Sunday evening in the same manner. Friday a.m. Kittee had city court in Milton-Freewater, with all her cases being settled out-of-court, so that made a light day for her. Myself, after my a.m. bus run, I headed for Walla Walla for some needlework with my acupuncturist. Upon returning home from my p.m. bus route, I saw Kittee and Derby at the barn's hitching rails preparing for an afternoon ride. So as soon as I signed off of my bus, I changed into my spurs and headed out to call in Misty, so we might join Kittee and Derby in the riverside arena. Misty is such a sweet girl and a great horse. When I called her to come in, she was probably 150-200 yards out in the pasture. With my call she raised her head from grazing, and started walking towards the barn. I continued to call her a few more times and she came right in, through the paddock gate, and stood for currying. I rarely hitch Misty to the hitching rail anymore, as she will stand at the barn bay entrance and allow me to put her saddle blanket on, put my saddle on, and then she take the bit and bridle standing in one place… no hobbles. After she was all tacked up, we walked out to the arena and rode for maybe an hour with Kittee and Derby. Misty and I took it quite easy that afternoon, since coming from an acupuncture treatment that morning I didn’t try to exert myself too much. Kittee and Derby were running and jumping around the arena as Derby was trying to sprout wings and fly. It was fun watching the two of them. Misty and I mostly walked with a little trotting mixed in around the arena and then across the pasture. Friday evening after dinner we started watching the home video of Mel Brooks’ Men in Tights, quite funny in the Mel Brooks sort of way.

Saturday, morning we started the day with coffee in bed and a late start on breakfast. Plans for the day was to go visit and ride Goldie. I had all my tack in the car, so after a breakfast of corny grits, sausage and eggs we headed off to see Goldie and her trainer. The morning was mostly overcast and windy. When we got to Chad’s training facilities, he was not there so Kittee and I just walked around and visited with Goldie and about 15 other horses that were there for training of various sorts. When Chad arrived, he pulled Goldie out of her stall, curried her, saddled her up and headed for his arena to warm her up for my ride. With the wind, the weather, and pulling Goldie off of her breakfast she was a bit pissed-off. About halfway across the arena Goldie gave a little kick-out of defiance. Chad said that was the second time she had done that in three weeks… her way of saying “I don’t want to do this.” I know Goldie. With Goldie’s pissy attitude that morning and the weather/wind conditions, I decided not to ride her this day. I just asked Chad to tell me everything he could about Goldie, her training, and he showed me how they were working together, the things he had taught her. Kittee and I were pretty satisfied with the works. I now have plans to go back out to Chad’s on Wednesday and hopefully ride Goldie at that time, weather permitting. From Chad’s place we motored into Walla Walla and got a mocha to share, while walking Main Street and visiting the downtown kitchen shop and Farmers’ Market. Afterwards we came home and were going in and out of the house all afternoon visiting/petting horses between a dozen-wind/rain/sunshine squalls coming through the area all day.
After one of those trip out to pet horses Kittee came in and was standing in the kitchen groaning, huffing and puffing pulling her jeans and boots off. I asked her what was her problem… she had been kicked in the leg by a mare, which is now in heat. Damn girlie horses, they do get moody when their hormones go wild. The same mare kicked me in the shoulder later that evening while out feeding the herds. Raji didn't get away with that the second time in a day, as I pushed her out of the herd and away from their dinner and demonstrated to her who is herd boss around here ~~ it's ME. Saturday evening, after dinner we tried to finish watching Men in Tights, but both fell asleep before the evening got too late.

Sunday, I had made plans to go fishing in Washington with a school bus driving friend. Kittee and I were looking forward to a fresh trout dinner for Sunday evening, but…
Saturday, with the weather changing every half-hour of so and quite a bit of high winds passing through, Randy called and suggested that we cancel our fishing plans for Sunday. I agreed. Hopefully we will be able to make up for this missed opportunity during our Summer Vacation coming up in about 5 weeks. Gee, it feels good to say that. Summer vacation begins in five weeks.
So plans for Sunday changed... after a breakfast of hardy-whole-wheat hotcakes, sausage and coffee, we hoped for breaks in the weather so that we might horseback ride during the day. As described above how I go about catching-up Misty for a ride; Kittee is not quite as fortunate in the process of catching-up Nugget as the following pictures will show.

Easy like Sunday morning.

Yep, that is right... Kittee usually has to walk out to the horse to fetch her ride of the day.
It's a tough life around here, but someone has to do it.

Even though it was a little breeze at times, we did get in a good mid-day horseback ride in the arena -see videos below- and through the pastures. Next Saturday, Kevin the farrier comes and our riding horses get shod, so once again we with be hitting the back country trails around the ranch... Gitty up. After putting the horses back out to pasture following our ride, Kittee and I sit out in the backyard and sun bathed while having a few beers and I got a short nap while sunning this afternoon. Kittee went out and worked with Rosey in the round-pen for awhile. Later this afternoon I tilled several rows in the garden for planting this next week.

Today I planted some potatoes and transplanted some garlic that has been growing “wild” since I put Rusty’s keep in, which went over most of our old garlic garden area. I hope from these transplants we will see plenty of fresh German Red and Elephant garlic this summer, and fall.
This evening we had a great pasta verde dinner from Rusty's keep. A couple of years ago when I built his Nobel panel round pen I enclosed our asparagus and garlic patch. I had to put him somewhere and the only space we had was the asparagus and garlic garden area. I expected a horse would eat asparagus as soon as it came out to the ground... but not so. So tonight Kittee suggest that we make a pasta dish for dinner, and I suggested that we try to salvage some asparagus from Rusty's keep and the dinner came out great. Thank you Miriam for the fresh supply of olive oil you brought to us last weekend, it went great with the garlic, fresh ground black pepper, and asparagus to make our pasta dressing... Mmmmm good.

And that the way it has been this weekend around the ranch --- Dale

Peace be with you.




Some wind noise in the microphone on these videos, so you might turn down the sound volume.

Hope you enjoy.