Springtime, and my thighs are sooo SORE

Well once again this weekend we stayed pretty busy around the ranch, Friday through Sunday.

Last Friday, there was no school in session in Milton-Freewater but I put in a full day's work as I had a sports bus trip to Stanfield, OR. I took the Central Middle School Track team there for the final conference tournament. The day was fairly pleasant with some off and on sunshine and a little breeze. Central Middle School had a good day, for their final meet of the year as they won 1st place in the Boy’s, Girl’s and Overall competitions. We came home with a fist full of Blue Ribbons for their day’s effort.
While I was on the road/ track all day, Kittee had court in Milton-Freewater Friday morning, with only one client showing up… everyone else got a bench warrant issued for their arrest, upon sight by law enforcement. With this lack of courtroom activity, it allowed Kittee to come home quite early. She and downriver Robert did a little horseback riding in the mid-day, and work on a bottle of wine thereafter. Did I ever mention that the Walla Walla Valley was a world class wine tasting location, with more than 100 wineries in our valley?
When I got home it was time for dinner and a beer, so we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for a beer and dinner. After a feast for dinner we headed home and watched the rest of 2001: a space odyssey, Kubrick must have had to tasted some good LSD during the making of that movie. After the movie we turned off the light and called it a day, tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.

Saturday, we slept in late having our coffee in bed around 6:30 waiting for 7 o’clock to roll out and do a quick breakfast of corny grits, eggs and sausage, before Kevin the farrier was to show up. Kevin got here at 8:05 and we went to work on horses.

~ Summer at 10 months old ~

Kevin and Summer working together 5-8-10

Kevin and Summer's first farrier work session 11-1-09

Kevin is a farrier extraordinaire. We have had several
farriers to work on our herd, and we found that those guys
couldn't handle horses properly, or do their job well.
Neither has been the case with Kevin's work.

We had our three trail horses to shod, the rest of the herd to trim and with a lunch break we finished up around 4:30 p.m. – beer thirty. We took the rest of this day off with a pot of leftover beef stew for dinner. Sunday the weather forecast was for rain, rain, rain but we were hoping to take our three trail horses with their new shoes out for a mountain ride.

Sunday started with the sun rising over the eastern mountains. All week there had been a fresh snowfall on the Blues every morning and that is where we had plans to ride on Sunday. After Saturday afternoon’s blast of sunshine Sunday morning there was no snow in sight from our kitchen window. So after a hardy Happy Mother’s Day breakfast of wheaty hotcakes and a side of sausage we proceeded to round up our tack and horses and load the trailer under perfectly blue skies with no winds. What a beautiful morning it was. After loading everything/everybody, we headed for Big Saddle on Lincton Mtn., which is maybe 4 miles from the ranch.

~ Views from Big Saddle ~

To the southwest, Basket Mtn...

to the east, Blalock Mtn...

to the northwest, the rivers basin.

Many times we have ridden the horses from the ranch to this point and beyond, but today with the horses' new shoes and winter soles on their feet we thought we would give them a break. Off loading at Big Saddle we headed up the mountain and for the timber. -see videos below- The ride was fun as all three of our steeds had just come off fresh pasture grasses and were ready to run and play in the cool, fresh, clear mountain air. From the vistas on Lincton Mtn. we could see the Walla Walla, Columbia, and Snake rivers basin/junctions. Quite a site on a crystal clear day… no rain and very few clouds, just beautiful blue skies with scattered cotton ball clouds. We rode on until we reached the timber and there watched a cow Elk cross the road and decided that would be enough for this first day of the 2010 trail riding season. We expected to see quite a bit of snow at the timberline, but we found none on our ride, even though there was lots of mud puddles in the road from the snowfalls of the past week in this area. We trotted most of the way back to the trailers, being horses love to move out -fast- when they get the idea of we're going home.
Returning home we put our rides out to pasture, and we proceeded to kick back and have a couple of libations for the balance of the afternoon. During this time I closed off our roadside pasture from all others and put Rusty out to run. He ended up doing very little running as he had to check out every manure pile in the pasture and wonder who left it there. While he was jogging around we had a car to stop and watch him moving. This happens a lot here as we all the time have people stop and start taking pictures of our place. Anyway this car turned around and came back to the house and ask about that beautiful horse in the pasture. We told them he was our Arabian ranch stallion – Rusty. They wanted to know all about him. We told them of his background/ pedigree and that we had one of his foal in the back pasture. They wanted to meet Summer. We now have a potential buyer for Summer, but I told them not until she is one year old, and Goldie and Rusty breeds us another. I will hate to see my baby leave here :>(

Anyway by the time all of this was over I asked Kittee what time she thought it was and it turned out to be 7:00 p.m. Yikes! and it's three hours later on the east coast; I needed to try to call my Mom again to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. By the time I finished talking with Mom, it was time to put the horses back in their places, Rusty in his keep, have a bite of dinner and hit the sack. Mondays start very early around here, at least for the next three weeks.

This morning, I got out of bed, hit the deck, showered and ran my a.m. bus route with no pain. Now, usually after riding as much as we did yesterday I have sore leg muscles, (much like the day after the first snow skiing outing of the season) but this morning I was fine. I thought maybe I was in pretty good shape from regular rides around the ranch arena area. But getting out of the driver's chair of the bus upon my return home, I found out different... Oh my aching thighs, feel like they have been worked over with a meat tenderizer.
Today after my a.m. bus rounds the skies were very dark and gray. I was hoping to put in a garden row of green beans and corn on Sunday afternoon, but that didn’t happen, so today I was in a go mode to beat the rain I saw heading this way. I was able to double till two rows before the rain started and got my beans and corn planted in fresh tilled /wet soil. Later this week we are suppose to have temperatures heading into the 70’s, maybe 80's for the first time this year. I hope this will spur my seeds and effort to grow and produce abundantly. Amen.

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



Anyone have an idea of how to steady a camcorder
while sitting a trotting horse?

♫ Happy Trails to YOU until we meet again ♫

Peace be with YOU,




Dale