June 2010 recap

As I sit and write this blog update, I look outside and see the wind is blowing - hard. When I flip to TWC for weather conditions in Milton-Freewater it says that our current temp is 79° with a 24 mph wind and gust up to 37 mph with the east and west horizons beginning to brown out of view with blowing dust. I think I shall stay in for the day; it is Monday the 12th of July. This morning at 6:30 I did take Shaiela to the vet in Walla Walla for a hormone shot to push her into a heat cycle with hope that she will be ready to breed this coming weekend.

Well it has been almost a month since I made a blog entry, and since then we have been very busy around the ranch and horseback riding elsewhere. It has been hard to try to find time to sit at the computer and get much work done with the weather outside turning springtime beautiful and school being out of session. With this in mind I am not going to try to recap every detail as I sit here. For this blog entry I am going to refer to my photo album since 13 June with photo journal of the comings and goings of Kittee and myself around our McKuster Ranch life.

On the 13th of June Misty was showing signs of coming into heat, so on the 14th we brought she and Rusty together for a couple of days.

We have tried to breed Misty before without success and again this time we had no success. Our vet Dr. Doug Corey says that Misty has very small ovaries and for that reason maybe barren. We would like a pretty Paint/ Arabian, but if we don't get one, we have Misty, a wonderful trail riding companion.

Wednesday 6/18 was my first fishing outing of the season with co-worker Randy and his brother. That day we spent on the Tucannon River in WA fishing the stocked ponds there. This is one day of all days that I wish I had had my camera, as when we walked up to Deer Lake a Great Blue Heron took flight from the pond, and across the pond from us sit a beautiful Bald Eagle in the top limb of a tree, that was a beautiful sight and I did not have my camera. That evening Kittee and I had fresh trout for dinner.

Friday June 18, Kittee and I stayed home and she had her secretary bring some work out to her from Pendleton. Aurora also brought along her family for some pony riding...


Later that same evening we noticed that Goldie was acting out in front of the geldings, so on the 19th, we put she and Rusty together for a couple of days of close encounters of the first kind.

She has not been pregnant checked, but we are hoping that next May we will have another foal much like our Summer.

With the advent of an early spring in February and March, we spent alot of time riding horses around here with downriver Robert. During that time we discussed alot of bird watching with Robert and that created quite an interest in our local bird population. Since that time and Robert thinks it might be due to the cool wet weather we had in April and May that we had an above average showing of colorful birds around our neighborhood. We had been paying close attention to the nesting Bullock's Orioles we had in our backyard Walnut tree and one morning while doing something on the computer I looked out the office window and there sits a Bullock's Oriole

A couple of day later downriver Robert and I headed in the direction of the Tucannon River partly due to the great fishing trip that Randy and I had at Deer Lake, the previous week. Robert has a new Orvis 4-wt. Clearwater rod/reel that he needed to train to catch fish, and found that day it worked well. We had a great day working on Deer and Big 4 lakes. Our best success was again on Deer Lake with alot of C&R fun...


Upon returning back to the ranch, we celebrated our Summer's birthday - 1 yo on the 23rd.

Oh what a sweet girl she is and it is hard to believe,
how much she has grown in a year.

Again we asked Rusty to go back into action on Friday 6/26 to service Kootenai as she was showing to our gelding herd, signs of going into heat.

The two of them spent that day and Saturday together except for the time that Kevin was here taking care of everyone hooves.

Kevin and Summer 6-26

Tuesday 6/29 Randy and again headed out for an Oregon fishing pond -- Notellum Pond -- for an opportunity to fish for triploid rainbow trout. Oh what a day that was for fly fishing...

In the middle of the afternoon an osprey joined us
for some fishing pleasure and it's mid-day meal.

Our day of fishing turned out very well.

Then on Wednesday 6/30 after a good day's work, I decided to finish off the end of the month with my first fishing excursion in the backyard. I jumped in the river about 5:00 p.m. and fished my way upriver for about 300 yards catching probably 24+ redband trout in less than two hours.

Now one thing that I really enjoy doing when catching wild trout like this guy is to take them into some calm waters and release them and watch they swim away under their own speed...

Do you see the camo colored trout at waters edge, under the blades of grass in the above pic? It also amazes me how well wild trout are camouflaged.
That same evening we had elk burgers for dinner, while the wild trout continue to swim free in our backyard.

As I was putting away my fishing gear, Kittee arrived home and we sit out under the backyard walnut tree with a beer and watched the sunset. Whelp, in a nutshell this is the way the balance of our June 2010 was finished off.

Peace be with you,




Dale

PS. This past week our video of Thank You Goldie and Rusty went over 100,000 hits on YouTube.

The return of sunshine in NE Oregon

This past week once again started with heavy rains, and then sun breaks for most of the day last Monday.

Views from around the ranch 6/7

early a.m. heavy rains
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
mid-morning sun breaks



afternoon sunshine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
an evening double rainbow
-the outer one is faint-






on the left is looking NE
and on the right is looking SE with the color of the sunset shading
the rain inside the rainbows

Tuesday the sun rose in perfectly clear blue skies. With the weather forecast for the balance of the week being mostly sunny, I put on my bib overalls, mixed up 15 gallons of 2-4-D in my backpack sprayer and begin spot spraying the pasture weeds. During the process of spraying dear upriver Dale and Cheri came by with horses in tow (heading out for a beautiful mid-day ride). They pulled off the road and asked me "are you having fun", I gave them a big smile and a salute to send them on their way. Heard back from a Facebook posting the they had a wonderful/beautiful ride in the sunshine, thru the lupine, across Lincton Mtn. that day. Sounded much like the ride Kittee and I had across the Lincton Mtn. the week before. After that day of spraying, my back was fried and I was most looking forward to seeing the acupuncturist on Friday, with that visit being way past due. Tuesday our temperatures went into the mid-70's and after making a run into town and back I set up the Pawley Island hammock, took an Aleve and had a couple of beers while laid back in the hammock. When Kittee got home that afternoon, we continued to just stay kicked back with Barney on the lap.

Wednesday and Thursday, I laid low with back pain doing what most needed to be done around the ranch... mowed the lawn, pet the horses, used the hammock during afternoon beer breaks.

Friday was acupuncture day, OH what relieve that needlework is. Kittee had a court trail in Milton-Freewater with a frequent flyer and a jury, that morning. That trial came out 50/50 in Kittee's client favor. Friday afternoon I put Rusty out in our front pasture and late in the afternoon Rusty and I had a big time, as I would send him off running like a lightening bolt, and then he would come back for petting strokes, then off running, running, running again. I would be interested in knowing how fast that Arabian stallion can run, but I wouldn't want to ride him at that speed.

What a joy to have a pet like him, with the wind in his face, mane, tail, and comes for pets when he is called. He should be making some more much like him in the next few weeks. It was close to sunset when I took Rusty back to his keep.

Saturday, started early with bird watching and coffee around 6:00 am. Over the past couple of weeks we have been watching a pair of Bullock's Orioles using their 2009 nest in our walnut tree. The male is very flighty and I have had a hard time catching him with our new camera, but Saturday he had some sun to hit him and I got his picture...

Happy to have caught this guy in my lens

Kittee and Barney were most interested in watching the Orioles come and go, and then I found Saydee sticking her paw and nose out the backdoor to see what was going on in the great outdoors.

After breakfast we called downriver Robert to come up and do some horseback riding with us. Thereafter Derby and Nugget got a bath in preparation for Sunday's back country trail ride along the summit of the Blue Mtns.


Today was a good ride by all, as we sit up a small obstacle course outside the arena, and opened the gates to two other pastures. We worked the obstacles course and then continued to walk, jog, trot, canter around the different pastures. We even had a small spook at one point and everyone stayed in the saddle very well. Really proud of Robert's riding this day. Will let the picture tell the rest of the story...

Kittee started ponying Rosey this weekend

After our playing in pastures the boys got their bath, and to keep them from rolling in the dirt we brought them out to the backyard for some lawn mowing and Nugget had some of Bob's beer...

Now you might say that Nugget is a little young to be drinking beer,
but he turns 10 yo this next week,
and in horse aging that should make him about 21 in horsey years.
Please excuse his wet-head look, he just stepped out of the shower.

After one beer sip Nugget kinda started looking for more,
then he got very friendly with Robert.
Liquid barley in a bottle, what a concept for horses.

Yep, we do have lots of fun and games with our pets

It was not too long after lunch that upriver Kasey dropped by and asked if we would like to go for a ride with her. Well our only answer to that was, YES, so she went to get her bridle and horse and came back to ride with us up Cache Hollow Rd.

On this ride we noticed that the locust trees were in bloom, but their blossoms were not as fragrant as past years. This p.m. ride and dinner polished off our Saturday, as we were looking very forward to hitting the back country trail at the summit of the Blues on Sunday with the ACTHA competitive trail horse group.

Sunday, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and found after making a pot of coffee that Kittee had been awake since 1:00 with a few off-and-on Kat naps until 5:00. Sunrise across the ranch today was with clear blue skies at 5:45. After taking care of the herds, we had a big hearty breakfast of hotcakes and sausage and then proceeded to prep and load Derby and Nugget into the trailer for the day's activities. Our goal was to be on the road at 7:30, but it was closer to 7:45 pulling out of the driveway. We got to the trail ride checkin station about 8:40 and got our boys saddled up and ready for the 9 o'clock riders' meeting. Today we had 42 competitive rider on the trail plus the judges, photographers, and other staff to put all of this together.

Kittee and Derby at first obstacle starting line
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yep, that is a little Appy mule in the middle of our horsey group
Our riding group today had 8 riders and 2 leaders,
everyone could ride at their own pace, these 5 competitors
somewhat stayed together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the USFS road heading for the trail ride finish line

~ see video insert below ~

We rode out with the first group to hit the trail at 9:30. It was a most beautiful day for a mountain trail ride, with nothing but blue skies over head, snow patches under the trees, and the tamaracks were just putting on their new spring green leaf/needles. The video below will give you a bit of an idea of what it was like riding along the USFS roads that made up this ride. Wish I could have made a video along the single track trail through the backwoods, but in those conditions one should keep one's hands on the wheel at all times. Riding through the woods we did see a few elk, and one group told us they saw a herd of about 30-40 elk cows with calves in a high meadow along the way.

During this ride we made many water crossings, but since this was a ride to make the Guinness Book of World Records, all obstacles had to be standard, so our standardized "water crossing" obstacle was a walk/stop on a tarp, the same as the folks in AZ, NM, NV, TX and across the US would have had to use for a "water crossing" this day.
Nugget really enjoyed his romp through the woods today, most of the time jogging, but a number of times we let him and Derby go into a canter as we dashed through the woods and high meadows. On this course, the obstacles were easy and the ride was a lot of fun, wish you were here.

When we returned home, be unloaded the horses and trailer, Kittee took a shower, I grabbed a beer and took a two hour nap in my front yard hammock.
Afterwards I gave Raji her last dose of meds for the course, spent some time petting and passing out cookies to my Misty mare, Summer filly, and Goldie mare right after the sun set off the ranch at 8:29, under clear, very blue, skies.

So this has been our past week of Gittyup and go, go, go around the ranch.

Tomorrow, I will be back to mowing, weed spraying, irrigation repair works, and plans to see the acupuncturist on Tuesday to take care of the pain tomorrow's work will probably cause, and backup the repair of last Friday's visit.

♫Give me a home here the deer and elk roam, and the skies are not cloudy all day♫

Peace be with you,




Dale