RiverMusic Ranch

Early Autumn 2010

2010-10-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

This morning's view of sunrise across the backyard.

It has been quite awhile since I have sit at the 'puter and made a blog posting. I will be back with an update of September soon. Life around the ranch has been quite busy... school has restarted, we have been fishing and wildlife watching on a regular basis (videos and stills yet to come), Round Up week with family BBQ, and of course playing with the horses has been a treat. Labor Day I had a horse wreck on Nugget, went to the ER with a brain concussion, that set me back a bit. A couple of weeks ago Kittee hit me with some news that has sapped my creative writing energy, but I am back up and running.

Want to show you something a graphics artist Facebook friend (that I have come to know, but never met) did for me and Summer...

Pretty cool, hey.

OK, I am just making this posting tonight to say I am back onboard and today has been a beautiful day at McKuster Ranch. Started this morning working Summer in the round pen while Kittee washed the horse's winter blankets, mid-day I put a water sealant on Rusty's run-in shed, and this evening I spent some time in the backyard fishing. All of this week has been pure sunshine and very warm temperatures - near record highs. Tomorrow it is suppose to start raining for a couple of days, so I will try to catchup on my backlog of blog pictures, coming and going stories, and Kittee / Rosey's riding video.

This evening's view of sunset across the backyard.

And that's the way it is around the ranch these days.

Peace be with you,

Dale

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times...

2010-09-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…” it was 1775.

C. Dickens

September 2010, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times…

September 1st was the last day of school before a very long Labor Day Holiday weekend. Actually it turned out to be a full week off from work. Kittee and I had plenty of horseback riding plans lined up, and there was no one as in the past weeks to barge in on our plans, in their inconsiderate manner. Thursday, Sept. 2, Kittee went into Pendleton to take care of her business, I handled horses and in the late afternoon did a bit of fishing.

It was a great day for handling horses, cooling off in the river and catching fish.

My first hookup of the day on a Royal Trude

The last hookup of the day

Friday was Kittee’s half day off as we headed into the holiday weekend. I did a few chores around the ranch, spent some time with Summer working in the round pen and after Kittee got home everyone had a most relaxing afternoon.

Saturday we had made plans with Lisa, one of our boarders to ride the OLE Cache Hollow Trail and around Lincton Mtn, along Kennear Rd. above Couse Creek Canyon. It was a beautiful day for horseback riding, felt much like an October day.

On the way back to the ranch, Lisa and Cloud had a bit of a bad encounter with a tractor working a wheat field along the road and Lisa found herself on the ground, got bruised but not hurt badly. After getting back to the ranch we offered Lisa some aspirin, a beer and made plans to go riding again on Sunday into the timber near Tollgate.

Sunday the 5th Lisa arrived at the ranch late in the morning, which was quite clear and rather cool. Each of us groomed out our horse loaded the trailer and headed for the hills. It was a most beautiful day on the mountain and Lisa could hardly believe the views and the places we get to ride horses so close to home.
After our ride this day, we made plans to ride the harvested wheat fields and Bowlus Hill behind the ranch on Monday.

Monday, being Labor Day we started the day out slow and easy. After Kittee and I having a late breakfast and grooming horses, we waited for Lisa to come out to the ranch. With her small wreck on Saturday and the ride Sunday she was moving a bit slow as well. Kittee and I went ahead and saddled up Derby and Nugget while Lisa worked with Cloud on trailer loading training. So for awhile Kittee and I rode the front pasture with our steeds. I was having a great time on Nugget as we cantered back and forth across the pasture, taking turns at a canter and running back to Kittee and Derby. On the last run around that day, Nugget and I were walking back towards the house with Kittee and Derby, when our horses spooked.

All I remember was picking myself off the ground and saying to Kittee, “I glad I was wearing a helmet on that fall.” I don’t remember what happened; I don't remember anything about the next 15 minutes. One of my spurs came off in the fall so I told Kittee that Nugget and I would go back to the house and reset the spur and I would remount and be right back. That didn’t happen. When I sit down to reset my spur I lose consciousness for about 10 or so minutes. When I came back to reality, Kittee and I made a trip to the ER for a CAT scan.

Everything appeared to be working properly.

The doctor called it a concussion and told me to take it easy for a few days, maybe stay off the horses for a couple of weeks or a month. I have.

Tuesday and Wednesday with a doctor’s release I stayed home, no work and took life easy. Thursday and Friday I was functional again, went back to work but not making any fast moves. Quite a week.

Saturday, the 11th Kittee and I had plans only to go to the Wheelin Walla Walla car show, but first she wanted to ride our filly Rosey once again. Rosey is turning out to be quite a little Arabian champ.

After Kittee's riding lesson we headed for Walla Walla, WA. Again this year there was a great show on Main Street Walla Walla. The auto pride and prizes of the Pacific Northwest showed up for a beautiful weekend of sunshine and most pleasant temperatures.

Main Street - looking east

Main Street - looking west

Kittee and I had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant we had never eaten at before-- I ♥ Teriyaki. The sweet and sour chicken was good, but the teriyaki beef was outrageously good. I could have eaten a couple of pounds of the teriyaki beef. After the car show we came home petted horses and had a relaxing evening watching the sunset.

Sunday, the 12th was the day for our annual ranch BBQ with the family from Pendleton. Usually we have these BBQ get togethers on Memorial Weekend, but this year we made plans to be out-of-town, so we had this beautiful weekend to celebrate our family's togetherness. Everyone was to arrive in the late afternoon, even Nicole was coming in from NM, so it gave me time to polish off the meal that I had been preparing since Saturday afternoon. It was about noon while I was working on dinner there came a knock on the door, I answered it and a plain-clothes officer handed me a Petition for Divorce signed by K Custer. Yep, she has now decided to practice her Dom-Rel law on us. I am afraid my wife is truly SAD, and it is getting worse, she will seek no help, so this is where we are.

Well needless to say that really set the tone for my mid-day activities (and the same way I am feeling now - sad for my wife, broken hearted for us), but this day I was determined to ignore Kittee’s move during our family's time together.
We did have a good time sitting around and Kittee played with Lucy and Jasmine in the round pen.

Aunt Pat- it is she that brought this family
to the Oregon Territory - Thank you

The smoked BBQ ribs turned out well and we had a bit of leftovers to make BBQ/cole slaw sandwiches throughout the week. Mmmmmm good stuff.

The rest of that week was the 100th Pendleton “Let’er Buck” Round-Up week. This was my 57th year of attending the Round-Up. I haven’t gone each and every year but I have been at the Pendleton rodeo since 1953. Need I say anymore than I love it?

"Let'er Buck"
a new statue unveiled this month

Again this year on Round-Up Wednesday, I took the Special Needs children of the Milton-Freewater School District to the Special Kids' Rodeo of that day.
That is special, and I hope that this day for these kids will mean as much to them and my first trip to Round-Up meant to me.

After the p.m. school bus run Kittee and some acquaintances from La Grande drop by the ranch for a beer, a walk through the horse herd and a trip to town for dinner. There we also met Miriam and her little granddaughter from Portland at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

Round-Up Thursday, Kittee and I had breakfast at home, went to pick up Miriam and her granddaughter at the B&B in town where they were staying (Ellie cannot be around the indoor house cats), and headed for Pendleton. We spent the rest of the morning hours just strolling Main Street, then headed for our seats in the brand new west grand stands of the new and improved Pendleton Round-Up rodeo grounds. The new section is very nice and the whole décor has improved greatly, even with a new scoreboard. To save most of a thousand words, I shall let the pictures and videos attached tell the tale of this year’s rodeo. It was a good. "Let'er Buck"

We had a "good old boy" from Goldston, NC to entertain the crowds between events --- Keith Isley PRCA 2009 Clown of the Year

Between the East Oregonian newspaper and myself we have a pretty good collection here of the rodeo happenings. Hope you enjoy these videos…
(right click links with your mouse
to open in a new window)

2010 Round-Up Kickoff Ceremony

2010 Saddle Bronc Finals

2010 Steer Wrestling Finals

2010 Bareback Bronc Finals

2010 Calf Roping Finals

2010 Hide Race

Wild Horse Race

Wild Horse Race II

2010 Wild Cow Milking

and then we had PBR,

and more Bull Riding

and Bull Riding

and more Bull Riding

and then we had women Barrel Racing,

with more Barrel Racing,

and more Barrel Racing.

You can also visit the McKusterRanch YouTube channel for more 2010 "Let'er Buck" video action.

Round-Up Friday I fired up my school bus earlier that usual and headed for the Milton-Freewater Middle School to pick up the marching band and took them to Pendleton for the big Westward Ho Parade. This made a good show, and they say there was over 1300 horses in the parade this year. There was a lot of horses in this parade.

and a 2010 Westward Ho Parade video.

After the parade we had lunch in Pendleton, loaded up the band, headed back for school and the p.m. bus route run. It was a good day.
It was a good week of fun and activities.

Wish YOU could have been HERE.

Saturday after breakfast Miriam and granddaughter Ellie came out to the ranch and petted horses and then took a pony ride with Jasmine.

Saturday evening our Walla² Fly Fishers held our first banquet with guest speaker Brian O’Keefe.
I met Brian when I owned the fly shop in Pendleton and many of you fly fishers may know Brian from the fishing photos he has published and has had published in many fly fishing magazines around the country. Brian has a really nice presentation of his fly fishing adventures from around the world, categorized by the different fish species he had stalked. If you ever get a chance, talk to Brian sometime. A really nice guy to know, it was good to see Brian again.

The next morning, Sunday I rolled out of the sack way before dawn as some of the Walla² Fly Fishers had made plans to go to the Deschutes River to fish for steelhead. With everyone meeting in Milton-Freewater at 5:30 a.m. we made a beeline for the river, just making one pit stop in Biggs. It was a wonderful day on the Deschutes with off and on overcast, a few drizzles, and sunbreaks throughout the day. It just felt good to be on the river that day.

There was six of us and we fish the river hard. By historical standards, Round-Up week is the best time of the year to have your feet in the Deschutes and expect to catch steelhead and some fall Chinook. This day for our group was a good day for fishing, not a good day for catching. For the whole day of fishing, we saw two fish on line and one of our party hooked a sucker in the back for the day’s only catch. Gee it felt good to be back on that river, even without a steelie coming back home with us. Just the anticipation of hooking a 10+ pound fish make most cast exciting.

Since the last week of August, we have been watching elk from our front porch/ front yard. Most of these have been cows and calves up to 45 of them one evening. On Tuesday the 21st the bulls showed themselves. What a majestic sight that was while standing in the front yard.

Now it is not every evening, but 4-5 out of 7 evenings we now have elk standing on the hill in the front yard. A pretty nice site for the home front grazing range.

A couple of days after the bull sightings, we had a Great Blue Heron to land in the backyard pasture and spent about a half hour picking at something in the tall grass.

I have never seen these guys feeding in grass, since they are actually fishers and we have them flying up and down the river all the time. A couple of days after the Heron was hanging out in the backyard, we had a nice Redtail Hawk working the same pastures. He probably spent 10 minutes going after something in the grass and then sitting on the RR tie supporting the irrigation Big Guns surveying his range. I should have pull out my camera and shot him, but I didn’t.

This year I have spotted so much wildlife in my comings and goings beginning with the beautiful Bald Eagle in the winter, and another while fishing in WA, the great bucks on Lincton Mtn., the osprey catching fish up at Notellum Pond, twin fawns playing in the backyard, etc. For being close to home this year we have seen almost everything Oregon has to offer except seals, otters, bear, cougar, wolves and I had just assume not see them around the house.

Summer had her 15 months old birthday in late September. It is really hard to believe how much she has grown during this summer. What a sweet getting to be a big girl now, she is.

Saturday the 25th, I was still recovering from my concussion of Labor Day and have not been horseback riding since then. Things just feel a little strange, and I am keeping my feet on the ground. This day the Bluebutt flies were flying in swarms. Each year these insects come out in progressive larger and larger swarms during September and October. An interesting annual event I have found in NE Oregon including Pendleton and Baker City.

This time of year we also see lots of starlings working the pastures for insects. Great organic pest controllers...Sunday, September 26th was another beautiful day. I spent the morning working with Summer in the round pen. Just before lunch I tied up a new fly pattern to imitate an October Caddis nymph.
Later that afternoon I ventured back to the river and tried my new fly pattern. First cast out hooked this guy...
Below is a beautiful Redband, with golden-green colors. I was too close to get all of him in the picture, what a nice fish to take on my caddis nymph...
This afternoon I had six nice hookups, one took my fly and left with it, another I could not get to move out of its lie. While fishing that afternoon I revisited the wild honey bee hive I had found in the bluff earlier in the month. It hadn't grown much but appeared to be weighted with much more honey than a few weeks ago.
That evening as the sun sank slowly into the western sky...
So this is how I wrapped-up this September, as the air is getting cooler, days are getting shorter, and fish are putting on their fall feed bag. Life is good, even with a heart that aches for my wife's pain. I guess that's life, take each day as it comes.

And so that’s the way it is around the ranch, the Oregon Territory in September 2010.

♫ Happy Trails to You until We met again ♫

Peace

Dale

Recapping August '10

2010-08-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

The balance of August around the ranch has been very interesting and busy. The most interesting thing that has happened this month is we had a herd of elk move into the neighborhood.

Tuesday 24 August, I brought the Double Deuce back home for another school year of school bus driving. Wednesday was our first day of school with an early release, Thursday we were back on schedule for another year with a full day of school.
It was the evening of Wednesday the 25th that our farrier Kevin came out and was working on Derby when we looked up to the hill across the road and started spotting elk and deer. First there was like 12 elk and 4 deer on the hill. Before the evening was over we counted about 16 elk laying around and grazing across the road.

The next day we had a weather change and the wind and dust blew most of the afternoon. Kittee and I got home about the same time that evening and looked across the road, we spotted a few elk once again. Shortly thereafter more and more elk came over the horizon and by sunset I counted 45 head of elk grazing on the hill and along the fence line.

What a sight to see from our front porch. Friday we were back to just a few head of elk on the hill.

Saturday we had an appointment to bring in the winter’s store of hay – 30 tons. Whelp, I am beginning to get a little old and too banged up to try to handle 30 tons of hay so I called in some help. Blake and Beau, a couple of high school students/ football player came out for their first time of bucking hay. Fortunately this day was overcast and cooler than any other August Hay Day that we have experienced. A very good day for putting up hay.

We had four truckloads like this to put up.This is not the place to be if you have hay fever.

While the hay trucks were gone to reload,
we took a lunch and fresh air break.

It was quite an experience for Beau and Blake, and they worked very hard keeping up with the machinery running and the hay bales stacking.

Sunday 29 August, Kittee and I had made plans (on Friday) with Lisa one of our horse boarders to go for a horseback ride into the mountains. We were really looking forward to that. Lisa was not going to be able to get here until later in the morning, so Kittee took the opportunity to work with Rosey. Saddled Rosey up, put a bridle on her and the next thing we know Kittee is riding Rosey in the round pen… first time ever.

see Rosey and Kittee's first ride on YouTube

After Kittee had her riding session with Rosey, she announced that a most inconsiderate person she knows had called and once again was coming out to the ranch, and would be replacing the plans we had made for the rest of this day. I called Lisa and let her know this is not a good day, that our riding plans were cancelled. I later sent an email explaining this situation.

Forgive me Father for I have sinned(?)…
When that turdhead came marching through our home like she owned the place and asked “what’s wrong Dale... have I done something to you?” I told her “Yes, you have fucked up OUR plans for another day, so go on about your business and leave me alone.”
WOW!!! I was perturbed once again with that person. It is not in my character to be rude, but now she knows she had stomped on my toes too many times with her lack of consideration and common courtesy.

So that's the way it is around the ranch as we draw August to a close.

Happy Trails and Peace be with you,

Dale

Rusty rides again

2010-08-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we received a new boarder here at the ranch -Cloud- from Arizona. We were looking for Cloud to come in last Saturday, but due to her round about trip with Bill Barrow's Equine Transport, through California she didn't arrive until Tuesday in good shape and appears happy to be here.

Cloud is an 8 yo Missouri Fox Trotter.
Having been a box stall kept horse in AZ, she was very happy to be able to stretch her leg and breath fresh air at McKuster Ranch.

She now has full run of the paddock, and has had an hour on pasture at this point. We are glad she in here, no longer living in a box, and in a week will be part of our mare herd.

Monday and Tuesday of this week I spent most of the day in Hermiston with MidCo bus company, in Special Needs children care/bus drivers' training. I found that most interesting, in dealing with children with special needs and disabilities. Also received my second course in Red Cross CPR in two weeks; not bad knowledge to have. Please, no one try to die on me now. Thanks

Sunday, Kittee and I had a most pleasant ride once again across the mountain in front of the ranch. We rode up into the timber, once again to beat the heat of the valley. Since Derby and Nugget have made this ride several times, this day we took Nugget and Misty. They made a great ride along the old logging roads/trails.

Riding Misty and Nugget along the ole logging trail

(a video link)
~option - you can view at 480p and full screen~

Sunday all the wheat fields across the road and back of the river finished harvesting, so now we have more wide open spaces to ride into from the ranch gates. These riding areas are most useful as we will be looking at deer hunting season opening in the near future. During hunting season Kittee, myself and our steed, we all wear RED while on the trail, and still we have heard goddamn moron's bullets whizzing by us.

Saturday, we were expecting to receive Cloud, so we planned to stay close to home until she got here. Saturday morning after breakfast Kittee brought Sunny, one of our AZ boarders out of pasture, groomed her, and gave her a little ride in the round pen.

Riding Sunny

(a video link)
~option - you can view at 480p and full screen~

Later in the morning our friend Kasey was in town for the day and she dropped by to see us. I asked her if she wanted to ride Rusty, and she said yes. So we made plans for her to come to the ranch later in the cool of the evening and work with Rusty for awhile... he likes that.

Riding Adrinaline Rush - Arabian stallion
( video links)
~option - you can view at 480p and full screen~
Riding Adrinaline Rush - Part II

Friday evening I once again slipped back to the river and proceeded to wet a fly. I did find where salmon had been spawning, in the same spot as a few years ago. Thereafter I was very careful to watch my step as I worked my way up the river. Since having spent all my fishing time below the second fish weir last time I was out fishing, this day I quickly fished up to and past the second weir and proceeded to continue upriver towards our east pasture boundary.

Again it was a gorgeous day to be on the river. Air temperature when I left the house was 84º and the water temperature was still a very cool 58º -- perfect wet wade fishing conditions. Since I was running quite a bit later this day than I was on Wednesday, I didn't spend much time in the mare herd, just petting everyone on the head and checking their legs. As I approached the river I found a blackberry bush and had a few big plump berries for refreshment.

Fishing below the second weir with a Copper John was a bit slow this day as compared to Wednesday's outing. With a few caddis flies in the air, I decided to try a Royal Trude -dry fly- and immediately there was success. After switching flies, I began to catch one fish after another... kept me pretty busy.

I fished up to the next turn in the river, about half of McKuster Ranch river frontage then turned around, and proceeded to tye on and swing a second Royal Trude (first one got pretty chewed up) through the runs and pools as I headed back towards the house. It made a nice late afternoon outing with the hookup of about 30+ fish.

When I got back to the house Kittee was sitting in the backyard watching horse as the sun sank slowly into the western skies.

Thereafter Kittee proceeded to chop up some kindling and built a fire for the evening, while I went into the house a prepared our dinner to have while sitting by the fire.

After dinner we sit back and watched for shooting stars. We spotted a few and I saw one with a really nice tail/trail following it. We thought this was the night for a meteor shower so Kittee decided to layout and watch the stars for the rest of the night.

Come to find out, the meteor showers were on Thursday night, but it was a nice night to be out under the stars on Friday.

And so that's the way it is around the ranch these days.

Peace be with you,

Dale

Going fishing

2010-08-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

Summer is beginning to look like we are getting to the short end of the stick. Last week I had driver's training in Pendleton with MidCo. Yesterday I had First Aid and CPR training with the Milton-Freewater School Dist., and next week I have special needs children training session with MidCo; busy, busy, busy. The following week 8/25 school re-starts in Milton-Freewater for another year.

So today it was time to go fishing. Before going fishing today, I prepped 4 lbs. of blueberries for freezing, got them in the freezer, made a large bowl of potato salad for dinner, and then made a large pot of olive/green pea macaroni salad for quick munchies to take care of us the rest of the week.

My plan for the day was to have my chores done, horses watered and jumping into the river at 4:00 PDT. That is 3 o'clock by-the-sun feeding time for the river's fish.

On my way to the river I filled Rusty's, the mare and gelding herds' water troughs and walked around petting the mares while their two tanks filled.

Now to save allot of chatter on my part, I will let my photos and video of the afternoon's activities tell the story.

As usual when I get into the mare herd there is always Rosey and Summer to greet me, shortly thereafter there is always Raji and Sunny by my side.

There is Moon and Misty

Shaiela

Jasmine

Goldie

Peaches

Goldie and Summer

There are a few girls here to be petted on a daily basis, part of my chores.

Leaving the mare herd, I went through our wildlife habitat recovery area next to the river and enjoy some of the blossoms along the river while looking for any spring Chinook spawning that might be taking place in the river now. Tis the season for salmon spawning.

Climbing down into the middle of the river, making my first cast of the day... Fish On! Appears it might be a good day for catching.

Fishing upriver, using a Copper John fly pattern and continued to catch maybe 30-40 pretty little redband trout, most in the 7"-8" size range. All were beautifully marked; red side bands, camouflaged back colors, with white tipped fins. It appeared to me that maybe no one has been fishing our ranch waters and killing fish this summer, but I didn't catch any of the larger 10" fish that were here a few weeks ago.

I do have the river well posted on our north and south side of the river. It appears that people might now be reading and respecting our private property boundaries.

I only made it up to the second fish weir today. While fishing the pool below the rocks I caught maybe a dozen fish and one hookup was caught on video.

Fish ON!!
(a video link)
~you can view at 480p and full screen~

This was my first time trying to one hand fly fish and one hand operate the video camera. Surprised what I got. You can click this link above and relive the last hookup of today with me.

I fished today for about two hours, then the two-way radio came calling. Kittee was home, and looking for me. I brought in my fly from the last cast and headed for the house. As I walked through our wildlife rehab area I spotted one of our evening fawn visitors.

Usually we have two fawns, sometimes three fawns visiting us as the sun sinks slowly into the western skies. Today I only "spotted" this one.

A day in the life --- Dale

A Sing Along trail ride, please join us...

2010-08-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today Kittee and I had a chance to get away from it all once again with our trail riding partners, Derby and Nugget.
Right after breakfast we put our boys in their trailer, (our tack was packed from a few days before) and headed for the hills. Again we hit the ole Cache Hollow trail to Kennear Rd to Lincton Mtn Rd and parked at the rock quarry. From there we headed for the old logging roads that switchback across Tollgate Mtn. Once again to head into the high country to beat the heat was a pleasure. These pictures will kind of tell our story...

Once back at home we offloaded our boys, sit out in the frontyard and had a beer while they enjoyed the fresh green grass under the shade of the silver maples.

This day's ride was so enjoyable that Kittee suggested that we take a ride up the So. Fork on Monday afternoon. That sounds like a good idea to me. Most of the people, the mtn. bikes, motorcycles should be long gone by Monday afternoon, so we went to bed thinking of Sunday's ride and dreaming of Monday's ride.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today Kittee had a half day of work to do in Pendleton, and then she came home for lunch and a ride up the river. Once again with our tack stored in the trailer, all we had to do was brush off our riding partners, pick their hooves, load up and we're gone.

Once again instead of me rattling on, I will let a few pictures tell the story of today's ride and near the end we offer you a trail riding serenade, hope you will sing along...

~Nugget's Spook~
(a video link)
~you can view at 480p and/or full screen~

Today Nugget seemed a bit hyped about our ride, and on the return to the trailer he took the lead most of the way. After making one of the last river crossings of the day he rushed to catchup with Derby and on the way had a little spook. The above video link of ~Nugget's Spook~ I hope will you a bit of the feel of riding a horsey spook. It was a fun spook ride, as the video camera went flying up in the air.

We fully recovered, Nugget, the camera and myself ;>)
Yee Ha, gittyup!!

As I type this I remember that at three river crossing we found spring Chinook salmon moving upriver. Tis the season for them to begin spawning in our Walla Walla River.

"Happy Trails to You"
(a sing along video link ~ join us)

Today the weather was a bit cooler, and riding upriver felt grrrrrrreat. Kittee even wore a jacket to keep her bones from chilling. When we got back to the trailer the boys hadn't even worked up a sweat from the ride they had made.

After putting the boys back out to pasture, we sit back and had a wine cooler and as the sun slowly went down in the west, Kittee built a fire in the backyard fireplace.

Living in the Oregon Territory - August 2010

We then sit by the fire, had our dinner in the dark next to the warmth of the fireplace, waiting for all the stars to shine on us this evening.

It was a good day around McKuster Ranch.

And that the way it is -- Dale

Our Three Day weekend - Chapter III

2010-08-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day.

This morning we hit the deck kind of early after a very good night's rest, to prepare for a fishing trip with Downriver Sherry and Robert. They were dropping by to pick us up at 10:00 and we are heading for Shimmiehorn Pond. After a breakfast of corny grits, sausage, eggs, we took care of the horse herds, put together our lunch works and stacked up our fishing gear and everything else next to the driveway awaiting Robert and Sherry's prompt arrival. Like clockwork here they are at 10 o'clock.

Today we had another beautiful ride into the mountains through cool air and bouquets of wildflowers on our way to the pond. We arrived at the pond about 11:30 and promptly Sherry and Kittee geared up and went to fishing. Robert had sprung his ankle this morning and was moving rather slowly. Myself, I just don't get in a hurry as I savor the scenery and the moment of being alive.

It was shortly after getting to the pond, making a few cast that Sherry hooked up the largest catch of the day. After I got to the pond with my newly designed fly and made a few cast I caught a fish and creeled it. After that it was a while before Sherry caught another, then another, then another.

As the rest of us was spending our time casting and watching Sherry catch fish, we decided to take a beer break. Thereafter everyone fished on, but the bite got slow and proceeded to no, so we took a lunch break about 2:30.

Lunch was wonderful, with coldcuts, cheeses, mac and potato salads, beer and brownies. All a crew of fishers could ask for in the middle of the day, sitting in the shade on the top of a mountain. Temperature most of the day was registering around 64º.

After lunch with the fishing being slow for everyone except Sherry, Kittee and I proceeded to join Sherry... running around in the meadow grasses catching grasshopper - Sherry #1 fish catchers.

With that hopper Kittee caught the second largest fish of the day.

After putting hoppers on our hooks Kittee and I caught one more fish apiece, and the pond went dead, we then looked at taking another beer break. After a short bit of no catching, we decided since Robert's ankle was tired and swollen, Kittee's broken foot was beginning to hurt, we would call it quits and head back to the Walla Walla River Valley.

Today was a good day,
and we had lots of fun with the Sallee's.

After arriving home and off loading our gear, I cleaned fish, Kittee checked on the horses, we had a light dinner and called it a day; a weekend well spent. We were POOPED.

A link to:
Our Three Day weekend - Chapter II

And that's the way it is around the ranch this weekend. Hope you are having FUN.

Peace

Dale

Our Three Day weekend - Chapter II

2010-07-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day.

Temperatures are still hot around the ranch this weekend, so we rolled out early, I made a quick breakfast of hash brown potatoes and fried eggs to get us off to a quick start. Today the weather forecast was for T-storms and a little cooler that the last week. The horse trailer was still packed with our tack from yesterday's ride up the So. Fork Walla Walla.
Today we drove out from the house and turned up Cache Hollow Road and headed up Lincton Mtn. via Kennear Road. The mid-morning drive was very pleasant since the heat had not come on yet. Today we drove pass Big Saddle and motored on towards the Hwy. 204 rock quarry. From there we saddled up Derby and Nugget and headed into the mountain timber.

We didn't go but a couple of miles on Lincton Mtn. Road, and then turned off onto an old logging road the runs along the mountain above Upriver Dale and Cheri Cospers. Even though we didn't have any altitude change, it seemed that by leaving Lincton Mtn. Road, the breeze picked up and the air temperature was very pleasant. We rode round on this rim top of the So. Fork Walla Walla for maybe an hour just exploring and enjoying the off road experience.

Notice the sparkle in Derby's eye? He loved it out here.

Since a video is worth a thousand words, I will share some with you while I sit back and enjoy today's ride again...

McKuster Ranch's YouTube™ Channel

-most videos are HD-

and can be

re-sized for FULL screen viewing

Riding Lincton Mtn Road

Riding the old logging road

Again today after getting back to the ranch, we showered Derby and Nugget off and sit under the maple trees in the front yard, had a beer, maybe two and relaxed with our pets grazing on the sweet green in the yard.

Thereafter Kittee took a short nap, I downloaded the camera, uploaded the videos I had made and then we both went out and worked in the yard and barn paddock until dinner. Turned out to be a busy day, in the middle of our three day weekend.

Today was a good day.
♫Oh give me a home here the deer and elk roam, and the skies are not cloudy all day♫

A link to:

Our Three Day weekend - Chapter I

Peace be with you,

Dale

Our Three Day weekend - Chapter I

2010-07-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day.
Kittee finished her work week yesterday, and today we were free to ride.

Temperatures are still hot around the ranch this weekend, so we rolled out early, I made a quick breakfast of dirty rice and fried eggs, while Kittee loaded the horse trailer with odds and ends. Just before breakfast I went out to feed Rusty, Jasmine and check out the boys.

Right after breakfast we headed out and prepped Misty and Nugget for our ride up the So. Fork for the morning. It was rather pleasant but was warming up fast, so we moved right along. Got the horses loaded and headed for the trail head. When we got to the trail head there was no one else in sight. We quickly saddled up our steeds and headed up the trail. Not long after we hit the trail a couple of women on mountain bikes came up on us and remarked how pretty our rides were, even though Misty had some dirty rolling scuffs on her legs, but what the hey she gets a shower when we get back home from our summer rides.

Today was our first outing up the river trail this year, so we only went a few miles up and then let the horse enjoy their ride back to the trailer. They always enjoy heading for home. Since this was a very comfortable ride for all, I just sit back and made a few videos from the saddle on our ride out. Since a video is worth a thousand words, I will share some with you while I sit back and enjoy today's ride once again...

McKuster Ranch's YouTube™ Channel
-most videos are HD-
and can be
re-sized for FULL screen viewing

Walking along the river trail

Jogging down the trail

Misty crossing the river

Misty and Nugget's river crossing

Steady Misty with a motorcycle behind her

When we got back to the trailer the sun had come over the trees and was heating the trailer up, so we de-tacked our rides and headed 10 miles back down the road for the ranch.

After getting back to the ranch, we showered Misty and Nugget off and sit under the maple trees in the front yard, had a beer, maybe two and relaxed with our pets grazing on the sweet green in the yard.

Today was a good day.

Happy Trails,
Dale

As the sun sets slowly in the west…

2010-07-27T11:38:00.000-07:00

Kittee and I got all of our weekend wanna-do’s done for this past weekend and went fishing. This past week the weather in The Oregon Territory has been hot and dry. Most days temperatures have been in the upper-90’s with no rain in sight, no clouds to hide behind. It was time to head for the hills.

Yesterday, after Kittee took an early release from her office in PDT, we ate lunch, packed up Subie with our fishing gear and beer and headed for the mountains. We had planned to go fishing all weekend, in the backyard or in the mountains but with other horsey activities going on and Kittee sporting a broken foot we stayed close to house / home.
So right after lunch we headed for the hills, and arrived at one of our favorite fishing ponds in the early afternoon. Kittee lined up her fly rod and headed for the pond ASAP.

On her second or third cast Kittee hooked a fish. I headed to the pond at a slower pace and on the second cast I caught a fish. Now in all my years of fishing this made for a very unusual experience, as we were fishing under the full moon phase, and I rarely catch fish in that situation. But right off the bat we were having fun and taking fish for dinner. After each of us hooking / catching a couple of fish apiece the bite stopped. There was still some fish activity, but we didn’t hook anything for quite awhile, so we stopped for a beer, chit-chat, rest our arms, got off of Kittee's broken foot, and took a break under a shade tree above the pond.

After our beer break, Kittee went back to fishing.

I took some time to get some wildflower photos and Kittee sitting by the pond, relaxing, fishing.

After I got the pictures I wanted I went back to fishing. A little later in the afternoon while I was fishing across from Kittee she motioned for me to look over my shoulder. Behind me was a mule deer doe trying to decide how to get to the pond for water. The doe backed away from our position and quietly walked to the other end of the pond, came down the hill and proceed to take water. What a pretty scene that was…

While fishing Monday evening there were quite a few thunder clouds moving around the mountains, but we got no rain on us. A little later in the early evening, Kittee and I started catching a few fish again and by the end of the day / sunset we had caught more than our creel limit of 10 but only kept 7.

Thank you Jerry for our new landing nets.
They are working great, and getting plenty of use.

On the way out of the forest we had a beautiful panorama of sunset views for miles, with fresh, cool mountain air engulfing the interior of the Subie. By the time we got home, about 10 o'clock it was too late to prepare a fresh trout dinner, so that will be for tonight. Looking forward to that.

On the way home we passed so many beautiful sunset panoramas. As we were driving along the Skyline Drive the air was so mountain forest refreshing. I wish you could have been here to see, feel, and smell our Pacific Northwest last evening.

Sunday, around here it was HOT. We made our plans to get up and at 'em early and go for a short horseback ride before the heat came on for the day. We rode Derby and Nugget up through Cache Hollow for everyone's exercise of the day.

After returning home we sit back on the sofa, read books under the a/c during the heat of the day. The high temp for the day looked like 101º HOT, here at the ranch and in town. We did get back out into the backyard just before sunset for an icy wine cooler to polish off the day, and catch the evening breeze coming from the Blues.

Saturday, in order to beat the heat, be had an early breakfast and saddled up Misty and Nugget, went for a short ride up Cache Hollow Road. This made a most pleasant ride, with plenty of trotting, jogging, and a little cantering along the way. Just a fun ride for everyone. After our ride we made a quick shopping trip into M-F, then came home and called it a day under the a/c watching Star War movies. Late Saturday evening we grabbed our beers and sit in the backyard watching horses and relaxing in the cool downdraft mountain breeze coming off the Blues.

Friday, started pretty early since Kittee had court duty in Pendleton for the day and I was to go after Shaiela, who had been at Upriver Dale’s for the week being bred to his Eagle – AHA stallion. We are hoping that we might get another Rosey out of this year’s breeding. After my acupuncture "needlework" appointment I just took it easy for the balance of the day, feeding horses and resetting irrigation.

I am so glad that I designed and installed our irrigation system to operate with buttons and valves; it was a lot of work putting it in, but makes life so much easier now. That counts as we get older.

Last Thursday, I was out with the mare herd and on the way back to the house got this pic of four (4) silly fillies here at McKuster Ranch.

Rosey 2 yo - Summer 1 yo - Raji 3 yo - Sunny 4 yo

These girls really do enjoy hanging around and playing together. It is a joy watching them during their running and horse playing.

Wednesday, was a fishing day with my fishing buddy Randy. Not long after we left the ranch and headed up Lincton Mtn. we ran into a few mule deer bucks along the side of the road.

Further into the Nat'l Forest we ran into wildflowers.

This day we took a friend of Randy’s with us and everyone caught their creel limit of nice trout, most being 10”-12” in size. On the way back home we spotted elk along the road… a cow and spike bull. They both started moving out too fast for me to get a picture of both of them, but I did get a quick shot of the cow. We also saw quite a few snowshoe rabbits along the way, but I didn't shoot any of them. Again, another beautiful day on tour through the Pacific Northwest forest with plenty of wildlife around.

Tuesday started early with Kittee off to work in Heppner, I had planned a fishing trip into the mountains. Along the way Randy and I ran into many wildflower bouquets. There was colors, colors everywhere once we got to the mountains.

Tuesday we actually packed up all our gear and got to the fishing pond, for a most relaxing day of fishing to find all our gear was locked up in the back of Randy’s new p/u truck canopy, and he didn't have the key. If this had not been his new truck, we probably would have used a rock on the lock, but instead we headed home, enjoying the beautiful wildflower gardens along the way.

... tis not all of fishing to fish.
- Izaak Walton

Monday, the BIG news here was… Goldie is pregnant x Rusty once again.

They bred on June 19-20, so we will be expecting a new horsey baby here around mid-May 2011. We WILL be waiting with much anticipation to see what kind of little horse Goldie and Rusty will come up with this time around.

And then Sunday before last was Log-to-Frogs Art Fair in Milton-Freewater. This is actually a full weekend of chainsaw art working. Kittee and I only took the cool of Sunday a.m. and went to town for some shopping and a walk through the wood creations.

Below a video clip of the Logs-To-Frogs happenings of early Sunday morning.

That Sunday afternoon we took Shaiela up to the Dale & Cheri Cosper’s to be bred with their AHA – EagleFromTheLight once again.

Sheyenne (Shaiela's sister) and Shaiela - at the Cosper's

A video clip of some of Cospers' silly fillies running around, and around as fillies do.

And so that the way it is around our world this past week. Hope to hear from you and of happenings in your world soon.

Happy Trails and Peace be with you,

Dale

Fishing with a new Cameraman

2010-07-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday downriver Robert and I found ourselves in a dilemma first thing in the morning.

The day before while horseback riding we had discussed, “what are we going to do tomorrow?”

We came to the conclusion that we should just sleep on the issue… Do we go fishing in the mountains, or go horseback riding into the timber towards Tollgate.

So it was decided that I would give Robert a telephone call at 7:00 a.m. sharp, and we would make our decision concerning… "what are we going to do today?"

Came to the conclusion that we had horseback riding available to us most days, but with summer vacation winding away, we should make the wiser choice and use our full day "OFF" for an out-of-town fishing trip. I had told Robert that I would show him a fishing pond on the summit of the Blues or we could go work a pond that had been stocked with triploid rainbow trout.

I had a few ranch chores to deal with, so after taking care of horses, (still breeding Kootenai and Rusty), and making a quick business trip into town, I dropped by Robert and Sherry’s on the way back from town to let Robert know that I was ready to go…

We had a wonderful ride pass Pilot Rock, and up into the mountains, saw a few deer, and the flora was gorgeous as we gain altitude going into the National Forest. When we got to Notellum Trout Pond, I gave Robert a hand replacing the leader on his fly line. Robert then headed for the pond and on his second cast brought in a legal size trout, which we released so as to creel 10 larger ones for the day. I lined up my rod and it took maybe a half hour before we saw another fish, I hooked a fair size triploid and creeled it.

Anyway, we fished on, Robert caught one more legal size, I caught a couple more triploids, while getting quite a few strikes then we took our lunch break in order to give the fish a break. During lunch I started thinking that I had brought along a 4-wt full sink line so we lined up Roberts rod with that after lunch and immediately he started hooking fish on his first or second cast after our lunch. Robert did hook up to a nice triploid a little later, but lost it in the weeds in the process of landing it. :>(
At 3:30 we felt that it was time to head home, after we had made two more cast apiece. Robert made a cast, with no hookup, I made a cast with no luck. Robert made his second cast with no luck, then I made my last cast of the day and found a triploid on my hook looking for an invitation for dinner with Kittee and I. After that cast we packed our gear, hit the road, and clean our fish along the way in a cold, clear running stream.

Now in the process of the day, Robert wanted to get a picture of me with our first triploid catch, so I agreed – For The Record. In the process, the camera kept taking funny pictures, and Robert wasn’t sure what was going on… why the view finder kept showing motion instead of the still shots he had just made. I looked at it and saw that I had left the mode on video from the evening before when I was taking pictures of Rusty and Kootenai breeding. This is what we got… A couple of Good Ole Boys out fishin.

;>)

Tight lines and good fishin,
Dale

Kittee turns 50-something

2010-07-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

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 83° with a 29 mph wind and gust up to 36 mph. I see that our eastern and western horizons are brown out of view with blowing dust. I think I shall continue to sit by the computer, until the winds subsides. 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. This evening when Kittee returns home I will go out and put Rusty and Kootenai together for them to again have a close encounter of the first kind. Their last encounter of 6/25-26 didn't work for us ~ them.

Looking over my shoulder at this past weekend, Kittee and I took it pretty easy, laid back. This was not our plans, as we hoped to be horseback riding most of the weekend, and had talked to downriver Robert about riding with us up into the timber on Lincton Mountain to beat the heat of this past weekend. We had thought about going trout fishing in a lake at the summit of the Blue Mountains on Sunday to beat the heat. All of that came to a SCREAMing halt, when Kittee (standing on a concrete floor) got her foot stepped on by Kootenai Saturday morning. We were at the vet's office in Walla Walla having Misty and Kootenai's pregnancy tested when that happened, and from there we came straight home. I put the mares out, Kittee came into the house, took an Aleve, a glass of wine, another glass of wine, and put her foot in the air for the rest of Saturday, Sunday, and another glass of wine. An unusual weekend of being totally kicked back, and laid out around the ranch, but with afternoon temperatures in the upper 90's I guess it was time to take a break.

Friday after Kittee's birthday, we just spent the day communing with horses, resting, and going to town to get Kittee's new OR driver's license. Gee did she have a tough time getting those things. I will have to have YOU talk with her about that situtation;>) I found it amusing being like a fly on the wall at the DMV.

Last Thursday, it was Kittee's birthday and she turned 50-something. I had invited some special friends to the ranch for a BBQ dinner and to celebrate Kittee's day. Most everyone started arriving around 5:00-5:30 and we had a most pleasant evening sitting around chatting, snacking, drinking, laughing, talking with horses, eating, sharing our warm evening and just getting another day older with each other.

The golden hue of this pic comes off the folks sitting here
and our natural western sunset lighting.

At our age it is kind of nice to think of days in golden terms, having fun. Older we all are, hopefully wiser, and happy.

Anyway that sizes up our past weekend.

It was last Tuesday and Wednesday that we had a contractor and crew come out and do a little work on our horse chewed barn. Each of the past few years, we have horses and goats trying to eat our barn during the winter when they have full access to it. This horsey chewing of wood is mostly due to horsey boredom. It will be interesting to see what they do now for winter boredom when the ground is covered with snow. We hope they won't be eating the face off of our 100+ years old barn any longer.
Since the 4th of July, hot and dry weather has come to our northeast Oregon Territory. Many of our days have now been in the upper 90's for the past week and a half, and I have run irrigation most days. Thank goodness for our push-button pump, my multi-valves system, and Big Gun delivery of irrigation.
Last Monday the 5th Kittee and I gave pony rides to the children and grandchildren of two of my co-workers. They came out about 11:00 a.m. and everyone gathered around and fell in love with Jasmine.

and then it was time for pony riding...

After the pony rides everyone gave Jasmine a hug and then went out to meet and pet the rest of the herd (except Rusty) and take a walk beside the river.

Sunday July 4th, Kittee and I rode horses around the ranch, before the heat of the day arrived. First there was Derby in English,

and then there was Sunny in western, this was Kittee second time for riding Sunny (a boarding mare)
and then there was my second ride on Goldie in western. Since coming back from the trainer, we have had such poor weather, or she was hormonal that I have not saddled up Goldie to put time in the saddle. She was again a very good girl and very sensitive to the bit and leg pressure. Maybe needless to say that I ride Goldie very carefully as we learn to connect with a saddle between us.And that is the way it is around McKuster Ranch. Wish you were here.

Happy Trails and Peace be with you,

Dale

PS. Kittee's foot is doing much better, even though she now has a hitch in her Gittyup, and a portion of her foot is still purple.

PPS. Did you have a chance to see the first blog posting I made today --- June 2010 recap

June 2010 recap

2010-06-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

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

Memorial Weekend '10

2010-06-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was just a hangout-around-the-house holiday for us. We usually have the Reed family come up from Pendleton to do a family BBQ with us on Memorial Weekend, but this year we made plans with Kittee's sister Kuon, and husband Dale, to make an overnight run for their place in Yamhill. With the advent of last week- Kittee taking Shaiela to the vet, we found that Shaiela had a pulled tendon in her foot and needed to be put on stall rest for a month with a twice a day dose of bute for a week. Our plans of going anywhere were turned around, flipped up-side-down by this child's injury. We spent our 4-day holiday resting and playing around home.
This worked out OK with me, since the week prior I had been on four road trips with different school's all day field trips. This last week of school work was typical of rainy Thursday's trip, when I pulled out of Ferndale School at 6:30 a.m. heading for Baker City and the gold fields of Sumpter, to return at 8:30 p.m. to Ferndale School, so for the weekend I was ready for a break. Kittee and I had recovered from our illness of the week before, which turned out to be much like a flu, and left us very much looking forward to this long weekend break of just resting and horseplay.
Friday, we started the day very casually since it was a rainy day. After breakfast we headed for Walla Walla to do a bit of shopping and worked our way back home with the weekend's supply of videos, groceries and beverage. I did buy a new Canon digital camera while out, since my old HP camera was more and more in the mode to give up the ghost. The new little camera is nice, it fits well in a shirt pocket, which I need for trail rides, fishing trips, and general outdoor photography. Friday afternoon after we got settled in I pulled out the owner's manual for the camera and started to figure out it works. Does a nice job but has quite a few whistles and bells that I have not been used to.

Since we were basically shut-in for the balance of the day, Kittee was my main photo subject for testing the camera. After dinner that day we watched a movie and a half.
Saturday started out the same as Friday, raining. This made about a week in a row of days with mostly rain for our daily weather conditions... not complaining, but it seems we are getting enough rain for the time being. Wish it would spread itself out into July and August, but that won't happen. Saturday morning was a bit cool with temperatures in the upper 40's so Kittee built a fire to sit beside most of the morning.

After breakfast relaxing, watching and waiting for sunbreaks

Kittee reading some SS worksheets, working on a client's claim.

Anyone out there needs help with Social Security claims? Kittee is phasing out her dom-rel law practice and is now working with (for or against) the Feds in Social Security claims.

Thereafter we spent most of Saturday running in and out of the house, to the pastures to visit horses between the warm 60° spring showers.
We have been asked from time to time if our horses are always clean and shiny. After a week of rains most days our palomino amigos look like this...
Now the above condition of horses can be quite typical on rainy days, but this weekend with off and on showers/sunshine, Kittee and I were quite entertained when after a shower all the horses, one after the other laid down on the wet ground and rolled with their feet waving high in the air. Made quite a site to watch ;>) horses with their feet waving through the air - cheap entertainment... except for the price of horses and hay. Anyway Saturday was just a catch can day, with high hopes that TWC's Sunday's weather forecast would be correct, sunshine for most of the day.

Sunday at 6:00 a.m. we went out to walk around the yard in the sunshine, there was not a cloud in the skies and all was springtime beautiful. A great day for cleaning up horses and going for a ride, out of our ranch's gate. I went out before breakfast and took some pictures around the yard with the bright morning sun on the driveway's flowerbed blossoms and Hawthorne tree.

After breakfast we headed out to catchup horses and prepare for our ride. After Derby and Misty were tacked up we warmed them up in the front pasture, just walking, trotting, cantering across level ground, green grass. Then we headed up Cache Hollow Rd. to see what we could find. It was a most pleasant ride and we began running into Western Tanagers. Until this year I think I have only seen two of these beautiful little birds around the ranch. Sunday we spotted at least 3-4 of the guys flying around while on our ride.

Pretty, pretty little birds. These pictures I took while riding Misty and trying to catch a bird with our new camera. Monday I was back on the river (which is too high/ fast to fish this weekend) and saw two more Tanagers.

This day's ride was most enjoyable, and we did find that the locust trees were beginning to bloom, but their blossoms were not open and diffusing their sweet perfume which smells like Niagara grapes (vino).

All week I was hoping to get to ride Goldie in the round pen, but with the weather and the pool of water sitting in the round pen that was not possible. So Sunday with the weather forecast calling for sunshine, I thought I might get the opportunity to ride my golden girl. But wouldn't you know it... with the bright warm sunshine on everyone's back, Goldie and Kootenai were showing signs of going into heat and were screaming at the boys. Silly girls.

Later in the day I did get a shot across pastures of Goldie and Summer stratching each others back.

Since Goldie's return from Chad's training, she and Summer have been the best of mother and daughter pair of horses. It did both of them a lot of good to be apart for 40-days. It is now hard for us to believe that Summer is now 11-months old and how tall she is getting. Though she is ¾ Arabian, she is showing her Quarter Horse ¼ in height and rump size. She is making a nice horse.

Monday was another on and off rainy day. Mid-morning we gave everyone their 3-months worming treatment. This went very well as I was able to worm Summer without having to halter her at all. She is such an easy handling horse, a pet, but not one to get in our pocket. She is making a really nice horse. Late afternoon did turn out to be pretty nice, so Kittee and I just sit out in the barn, watching rain showers passing through, drinking glasses of beer and wine while watching the horse herds play and graze.
Now with tomorrow morning's alarm to get up and go to work... I will have three days of school bus driving to run before summer's vacation.
Hip-Hip-Hooray!!! I do enjoy working in the school system.

So this is the way things have been around the ranch for this another holiday weekend.

Dale

Riding Goldie, and riding through lupine meadows

2010-05-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

During this past week around the ranch we once again got up to a high of 70º and mid-week I got some more gardening done by tilling, putting in tomato and pepper transplants. Today we are getting some very nice and steady rain so I hope maybe by Thursday, I can put in the remainder of the garden with sunflowers, more corn, squash, carrots, cucumber, beets, pumpkin, okra, and sweet basil seeds. The asparagus seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago have now sprouted and are about 3"-4" tall. With our lack of 80º-90º temperatures and rains this spring, I think my gardening will be right on track for warming temperatures and growing season in June.

This past weekend was rather laid back with horseback riding for Kittee and downriver Robert starting Friday, while I took the MacHi tennis team to tournament in Tri-Cities, WA. While in Tri-Cities I did indulge in a marvelous catfish feed at Granny's Country Buffet. Yes on the all-you-can-eat buffet bar there was whole (heads off) golden brown fried catfish. It was all I could eat, with a little room left for cherry covered cheese cake for dessert. Mmmm good stuff. It was almost dark before I returned home, so that was the day in a nutshell. Our high temperatures for this day got into the mid-80's... spring has broken through.

Saturday, started out pretty fast with a hearty breakfast of wheaty hotcakes, sausage and coffee, as this day we were going to visit Goldie and I planned to take a ride with her, my first. Not a big ride this day, but a chance to climb in the saddle and get a feel for what she had learned by working with Chad Henry for the past 20+ days or so. One thing we learned from Chad when we got to his place was Goldie was not a happy girl to be ridden when she was in heat.
We should MAKE A NOTE OF THAT.

Chad's warm up ride with Goldie
(a video link)
~you can view at 480p and full screen~

This Chad learned last week, as Goldie got kind of bucky with him. I told Chad that around the ranch Goldie is sometimes referred to as the "blond bitch" when she is in heat, so I knew of the attitude he was talking about. Anyway, Saturday morning we got to Chad's arena as he was bring Goldie out and prepping her to saddle up. Thereafter they headed for the arena and Chad took a few rounds in the arena to warm her up and settle her into a frame of mind to ride. Goldie is half Arabian, half Quarter Horse and some day her hot blood Arabian side shows. A fine horse, and dam of Summer. After Chad got Goldie into the easy riding mood, he brought her into the round pen and there I got to ride her. -see videos below- I found that Goldie is very light on the bit, and responsive to rein and leg cues. She is going to make a great ride, if I can slow her down a bit. I am not a fan of speed.
After leaving Chad and Goldie, Kittee and I made a beeline back to the ranch by way of Bordertown Tack store to pickup a few things and when we got home we grabbed a bite of lunch and saddled up Misty and Nugget for a ride up Cache Hollow /Kennear Rd to the lupine meadows of Lincton Mtn. Temperatures this day were in the mid-80's so taking a ride across the mountain felt great.

Riding through lupine meadows in May
(a video link)
~you can view at 480p and full screen~

After making this ride, we came home, washed off, backyard fed Nugget and Misty and headed to the Hopwood's for dinner. With Dennis and Sharon we strolled their farm petting their Mammoth Jack donkey - Sage (who has ears over twice the side of our mule Miles' ears), their horses, and visited with their flock of sheep and new born lambs. After dinner we sat round the table talking and again staying out way past our bedtime enjoying their good food and company.

Sunday, a.m. I turned up with a GI bug - hit me hard. Maybe one like Chad had been struggling with this past week. But it put me down for most of the day, meanwhile Kittee worked with Rosey, Raji, Shaiela, Derby and Nugget. Our -Dynamic Duo- now make quite the set of shiny pasture palomino bookends. By the end of the day Kittee was whipped, or maybe she was beginning to feel the GI bug. I grabbed my boot straps and pulled myself up and out of bed late in the afternoon and went out and spread about 1500 pounds of fertilizer over the back 10 acres of pastures. Rain is in the forecast for the next few days so I had to make my move as turning on the irrigation is not the same as rain when it comes to putting fertilizer into the ground.

Last week some of our flowering trees and bushes were on the wax and wane. We have had some crazy weather this spring, April and May have been more like a usual March, while February and March were much like our normal Aprils.

This year the lilac bush bloomed very poorly,

the Hawthorn tree is trying to make a showing,

and the Dogwood is doing better than last year.

My video time... My first ride on Goldie.

And that's the way things have been going around the ranch this past week.

Peace

Dale

Springtime, and my thighs are sooo SORE

2010-05-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

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

I just had to laugh...

2010-05-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

and share these with you.

Below are a few very short video clips made by my "new" camera-person (new to the camcorder that is).

Much like the people that find they have been talking into a live microphone after their speech has been given, these recording are quite amusing.

;>)

I shall not mention a name associated with these video clips, but there is a possibility that you might think you recognize certain voices. Please do not ASSUME anyone in particular is speaking while the videos are being made.
Thank you.

Hope you enjoy.

Peace be with you --- Dale

PS. The following videos have not yet been rated by the MPAA.

Parental Guidance maybe advised.

Maybe just a little better, but still working at it.

Test, test, test...

Now getting the hang of how the camera works...

I did not go fishing this weekend.

2010-05-02T21:20:00.001-07:00

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.

Horseback riding 101 @ McKuster Ranch

2010-04-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

This past weekend began last Thursday with the arrival of Miriam, our dear friend from the westside metro area, to visit the ranch. She and Kittee met here after getting off work that afternoon. I was on a school sports bus trip to Boardman, and found when I got home that Kittee and Miriam had feasted at our local La Ramada Mexican Restaurant for dinner. The leftover made a very good dinner for me upon my return home. Thursday evening we just sit around visiting, and making plans for Friday.

Here's looking at you
from a
horsey weekend.

Friday, after running my a.m. bus route I came home and stirred up breakfast for myself as Kittee and Miriam had already had breakfast after having slept in late for the morning. They were calling it their weekend OFF. After breakfast we headed for Walla Walla. There I spent my time helping on the trail-riding course of the annual spring show of the Northwest Quarter Horse Assoc. while Kittee and Miriam went into town and did some round-the-rounds and shopping. Friday afternoon, we were planning on getting in some horseback riding after my p.m. bus run, but the winds started kicking up and we decided to just sit it out and have a few beverages, dinner, and call it an early night in preparation for Saturday's activities.

Saturday, our plans were to horseback ride, ride, ride. After a breakfast of very whole wheaty hotcakes and sausage, Kittee and Miriam had an a.m. appointment in Walla Walla for a pedicure. They were only going to be gone for a couple of hours and upon their return we were going to groom, saddle-up our rides and ride, but again we found that the wind was very cool and gusty. So for most of the rest of the afternoon we made walks out to the pastures to just pet and play with horses.

I laid around with some of the herd while sunbathing

Kittee and Rosey played soccer for awhile

Kittee laid around stratching Kootenai's chin

A bit later while we were eating a late lunch, downriver Robert and son Adam came up and wanted to visit with Nugget. They spent most of a half-hour petting, grooming, and walking Nugget around his pasture.
While Nugget was getting so much attention, Kittee petted Derby and Miles the mule.

Again most of this day was quite windy with wind chill, so we shelved our plans for horseback riding, I build a fire in the house fireplace and continued to make frequent dashes to the pastures to pet and play with horses. Saturday I also watered the garden since our rainfall around here has been quite sparse lately. After watering the planted rows of veggies, I laid water on the 125 ft. asparagus row, planted my asparagus seeds and soaked that row again well with anticipation of warm sunshine to help get it sprouting and growing. We lost our original asparagus row when we built Rusty's keep on top of it.

Miriam and Kittee spent most of the afternoon playing cards, with the occasional outside visit with horses.

After their card playing they mixed up a couple of drinks and took in a video, while I was on the computer doing something.

Saturday evening we had a delicious dinner of onion, garlic, olive oil, stirred in with mixed veggies over large plates of pasta and thereafter Kittee and Miriam visited while I fooled around on the ‘puter and watched 60's-70's YouTube concert videos. Our plans now were to put in a lot of time with horses on Sunday, and to get to bed for a good night’s rest before this day got too late and into our Sunday’s plans.

Sunday was a beautiful day from start to finish. I fixed breakfast for all – corny grits, sausage, eggs and biscuits. Thereafter Kittee and Miriam did their things while I made another application of Round Up along / between the garden rows to kill unwanted weed and grasses. By the time I finished, Kittee and Miriam were working on grooming Misty for some riding time with Miriam.

When I got back to the barn I was able to catch Miriam playing / petting a couple of our fillies.

After all that petting Rosey was just a bit tuckered out.

Now here I will let the next series of pictures and the McKuster Ranch YouTube channel tell the story of Miriam’s progression with horseback riding this day.

Sitting in the saddle, testing stirrups

On lead in the pasture getting in tune with Misty.
(video link)

On lead in the round pen getting in tune with Misty.
(video link)

Miriam and Misty having fun on their own, no strings attached.
(video link)

Miriam did VERY WELL with handling Misty. If you watch the videos don’t forget that you can increase the resolution to 480p and make the presentation FULL screen, which makes a pretty nice video show of this day around the ranch.

Links to McKuster Ranch's One-Day horseback riding course -
Horseback Riding 101a -- 1:06 minute
Horseback Riding 101b -- 1:05 minute
Horseback Riding 101c -- 54 seconds
Horseback Riding 101d -- 18 seconds
Horseback Riding 101e -- 48 seconds
Horseback Riding 101f -- 1:25 minute
Horseback Riding 101g -- 47 seconds

On an annual basis, we ask Miriam to spend some time with our foals so as to make a year-to-year comparison of development. Here are pics of her stands with Rosey.

April 2010

June 2009

July 2008

Sunday afternoon after lunch and Miriam hit the road for home; Kittee and I saddled up Derby and Nugget and played with these guys right up until beer-thirty. We did some trotting in the arena, Kittee did some cantering/ jumping with Derby while Nugget and I did the limber-up and rail course at a jog. I have found Nugget to be much slower and stiffer than Misty in working these courses and I intend to work with him more on limbering up and moving faster.

McKuster Ranch
YouTube links

After working in the arena (pic on the left) I then took Nugget out to pasture and did some walking, trotting and cantering through the open space.

After Kittee finished with Derby’s workout everyone headed for the barn, for the horses' buckets of sweet grain and our first round of beers.

The late Sunday afternoon felt great sitting in the sunshine, watching the horses and life go by at a leisurely pace. We were quite impressed with the progress that Miriam had made with riding Misty this day, as we continued to sip in a couple of Sangria wine coolers. I told her we would be glad to continue into Horseback Riding 102 if she wish to return next weekend. As the sun begin to sink into the western skies there was a little overcast so I suggested to Kittee that we build a fire and stay out for awhile, enjoying the rest of this day and another wine cooler.

And so we did.

Since I started this blog posting with the ending of the work week on Thursday, I will finish it with the work to be done on Monday, being a run, run day. I had cut the irrigation pump away from the irrigation weir and put in a butterfly valve last week. This week I hoped to be able to put the system back together again. So today in preparation for fertilizing pastures and the new irrigation season, I had talked to downriver Robert about coming up to give me a hand with this project. I found out how much of a hand/ help I really needed trying to align the pump's intake pipe with the weir's outlet pipe without being able to use a movable compression coupling. I was told that the pump weigh about 100 pounds… I don’t think so!! But Robert and I got the job done, THANK YOU Robert, and now I only have to replace one butterfly valve fitting of which I have put in maybe 20 around here in the process of laying all the irrigation water lines and mounting the Big Guns to cover our 16+ acres of pastures with water.

Glad this BIG and heavy job is done.
That pump ain't light.

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

Peace be with you -- Dale

Tripping and Gardening – Spring ’10

2010-04-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Spring is getting sweet around the ranch

2010-04-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

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

April is green, the Blues are white & Duke WINS it all!

2010-04-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

A view of the Walla Walla River Valley after snowfall

across the Blues - 5 April.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once again this blog posting is mostly For The Records...

What a game... What-a-game, we had last night. That had to be one of the best collegiate championship B-ball games of all times.

Duke WON!!!

Did you see that?

Last Thursday Carolina lost the NIT championship game. I must make mention of that, sad but true. My Ole Home Team, the 2009 NCAA National Champs... loss.

Duke was not to play until Saturday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This past week around the ranch life has been pretty relaxed. Since April 2 all of our nice spring like weather of February and March has turned into high winds, some heavy rains, splattering snowfall, a hail storm with pellets larger than green peas that turned the ground white. For the most part the weather around here has turned to yuck in the past week. April 1 we had a beautiful sunshiny day with the forecast of winter heading our way for the weekend. Friday morning started out rather iffy, sunshine with the sunrise. I had a MacHi softball trip scheduled to Union, OR for the afternoon and evening. By the time I was halfway through my a.m. bus route, we were getting some high winds blowing, and splattering snowfall across the area, and moving easterly towards Union. Weather forecast was for 3”-6” of snowfall across the Blue by nightfall. Well by the time I finished my a.m. route, the trip to Union was cancelled. The baseball trip going to Stanfield, was cancelled. The trip going to Ontario was cancelled. The BIG 24-schools annual track meet held right here in small-t0wn USA, Milton-Freewater for the past 72 years, was cancelled at noon. That was the first time in 72 years that this had happened. So that defines what our last Friday's local weather was like.

Saturday a.m. feeding before the wind blows.

Saturday started with sunbreaks throughout the area. After breakfast, Kittee called downriver Robert and made plans to horseback ride in the arena for the morning. I was off chores and riding duties due to a knee injury, which had occurred earlier in the week, without my knowledge of how, why, or where (?). Kittee and Robert made a leisurely 2-hour horseback ride out by the riverside, and they claimed that most of the time in the arena the wind did not hit them.

I continued to put in some time on our Walla² Fly Fishers’ Facebook site. Our Walla Walla fishing club is not doing a website, but I am putting together a monthly Blogspot site of club happenings and a Facebook site of area/regional fly fishing interest. It is enjoyable to be working up a new fly fishing club for our home waters in Walla Walla River Valley. I joined Kittee and Robert outside after their riding time and we noticed a small herd of mule deer in the stubble field across the road sunbathing and relaxing.

Saturday afternoon it was a NCAA Final Four Duke basketball game to enjoy and I really enjoy being on PDT- not staying up half the night to watch sports being played on the east coast / ACC. Duke Won!!

Sunday Kittee handled the ranch animal chores to give my knee a chance to continue healing. Throughout the day she was in and out of the house about every 20-30 minutes or so dickering around with horses, cats and goats. After breakfast I read the morning newspaper, listened to A Prairie Home Companion and then spent most of the rest of the day tying flies for the upcoming trout season. The past couple of years Kittee and I have almost depleted our supply of stillwaters flies, so the time has come to re-supply our fly boxes with Elkhorn Lake Specials and starting a supply of Chironomids. This got me thinking about going steelhead fishing in Washington on the lower Walla Walla before the season closes April 15th. Steelhead are not worthy table fare this time of year, but the hookup can be fun to play.

Monday it was a back to school day, and for Kittee a day in court. After my p.m. bus run I fed the ranch critters and waited for the BIG --- NCAA National Championship game with Duke in the running. What a game. Did you see that?

Duke Won!!!!

Yep, I will have to say that I have really enjoyed having high speed Internet connection over the past month, particularly with two ACC basketball teams playing for the Men's NCAA and the NIT national championship games. What a thrill.

Today I took my palomino mare Goldie (Summer's dam) off to the trainer for 30-days of under-the-saddle workout. I am looking forward to riding in her saddle upon her return in May. Goldie will give us five riding horses on the ranch when she returns, which is kind of necessary when breeding three/four mares on an every other year basis.
She is such a dappled beauty when she's washed up... Don't you think?

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

Happy Trails and Peace be with you ---
Dale

Spring Break '10 is over & Duke is sweeping the NCAA

2010-03-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Go Duke!!! ~~~ Go Carolina!!!

Having been raised in North Carolina, being an Ole ACC fan,
it is hard for me to turn my back on these two teams,
and my ole pal Dr. Bob who played for Duke
in his undergrad days while being tall.

Go Duke!!! ~~~ Go Carolina!!!

I just finished my nice long stretch of Spring Break 2010. It actually began on Thursday the 18th as school was out of session that day and also Friday the 19th. What a break.

Thursday, I made a road trip with the MacHi Track team to Pendleton for a major division meet. It was a beautiful day for running track events. After dropping the students off at PDT High School I dropped the trip bus off at the Caterpillar shop to be worked on. Kittee came out to the CAT shop, picked me up and we headed for downtown PDT for a very good lunchbreak. I spend a bit of time running around town buying our 2010 Pendleton Round Up tickets, some Stretch Magic for tying flies, and some spicy Bloody Mary mixer to make red beers when I got home, and for Spring Break. Round Up tickets- there were NONE available for Friday and Saturday's rodeo, and only a few for Wednesday and Thursday. I bought tickets for Thursday's show and there are no seats yet assigned. What I got was a voucher for money paid, as the Round Up Grandstands are being rebuilt and added on to for this year's BIG event.

“Let’er Buck”!!

This should be quite the show year for the 100th Anniversary. This year will make my 57th year of showing up at the Pendleton Round Up.

“Let’er Buck”!!!

Friday, Kittee had Milton-Freewater city court in the a.m. and that afternoon we did some horseback riding with Downriver Robert in our riverside arena. That same afternoon, our dear friend Kasey, home from college, dropped by and had her first Rusty ride. She is now only the second person to ride Rusty, so that was exciting to watch, not scary. After Kasey settled into the saddle, she kept saying "Dale you can ride Rusty... he is easy." I told Kasey that she can ride him all she wants to, and I hope by the cool of autumn I will be riding him. Our handsome Arabian stallion - sire of Summer.

A frame from our YouTube video of Kasey's - Rusty ride
and YouTube video of Kasey's - Rusty ride II

A beautiful end-of-winter afternoon.

Saturday and Sunday Kittee started coming down with a cold, the weather was beginning to turn back into winter, so we spent most of our time indoors those days. Saturday evening I missed all of the Carolina B-ball game but saw that we won and are still in the NIT Tournament. Hip-hip-Hooray.

Sunday we had a few sun breaks and I was able to get a full blooming photo of our driveway daffodils.

as once again Sunday the mountains to the east went snow capped.

The first part of the week –Spring Break– the weather was early spring-like crappy, cool, some sunshine with showers.

Monday and Tuesday I bussed the MacHi Girls’ Softball team to Boardman, OR for a two-day tournament. The eastern view of the snow capped mountains as we left Milton-Freewater was a beautiful eastern Oregon Blue Mtns. site. Traveling west on I-84 the Washington Cascade snow capped mountains were visible most of the way to Boardman in the morning sun. There the weather was favorable, mostly clear and dry with plenty of pollen in the air, when we got to Boardman. Monday with an afternoon shower, the hay fever attack was not too bad, but Tuesday being a very nice sunshiny day, the hay fever clobbered me. I had to spend half my day watching the ball games from inside the bus. The MacHi girls made a winning sweep of the tournament, with a slight close call -Pilot Rock comeback- half way through the last game. Go Girls!!

Wednesday I was pretty whipped by the Monday – Tuesday hay fever attacks, so I spent most of the day Wednesday and part of Thursday indoors working on our Walla² Fly Fishers Facebook site.

The Facebook site is progressing well and on Friday and Saturday we had some splendid fly hatches around the ranch, so that gave me some great specimens to expand the fishing club’s site with fly hatch info.

Thursday we had a pretty horses sunset to enjoy.

Friday we also had a good day on horseback in our arena. Kittee still has a sore foot from when she sprained it a couple of weeks ago so she has been riding easy in the stirrups, and Misty and I are working more and more on leg and rein control, without using the bit very much. We were getting good at that last year before I had a wreck on Nugget and busted some ribs. Friday evening I polished off the day watching Duke win over Purdue...

This one was not a nail biter...

Saturday, we just hung out around the ranch doing one small chore after another. I have been working on our pastures, Kittee worked a couple of horses in the round pen and washed Sunny’s mane.

Sunny is an Arabian boarder from AZ and her mom Jaz has given Kittee permission to ride her through the summer. Sunny and her sister Raji have been here for almost two years, and will be returning to AZ after the summer heat wave for Jaz and family to ride.

Saturday we celebrated Summer’s eight-month birthday.

Sunday after a breakfast of sausage gravy biscuits, eggs and coffee we headed out to groom our rides for the day. Downriver Robert came up and worked on Nugget and thereafter we had a most enjoyable riding session. Again I worked with Misty not using stirrups or reins in the arena. After that bit of schooling we went out to pasture, where I found Misty a bit unwilling to follow my cues so she really got a good workout. I too enjoy these arena & field workouts as it is a time of connection with my horse, and a chance to work up a sweat for both of us. Lately I have had to downsize my blue jeans, and that is feeling better.
I did get to watch the Duke against Baylor game from the get go Sunday, that was a good game.

Once again the mountains to the east got snow capped Sunday night. Made it cool getting back on the bus, going back to work at 6:30 a.m. Monday.

So all and all, over the Spring Break I had a chance to get most of the pastures I wanted to re-sown, I got the garden sprayed with Roundup and a few rows burnt off with the Red Devil torch, and found that as the lawn grass is getting taller, that I have a dead 8-year old battery in the lawn tractor. Gonna have to go to town soon for a battery and propane.

Now with the garden ⅓ prepped, as soon as it stops raining, I can spread horse manure across the burned off rows and in a couple of weeks I will be tilling and planting... fresh veggies for '10.

And that the way it has been around the ranch
during Spring Break ’10 --- Dale

Finishing off Winter with March Madness

2010-03-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

This past week has been busy, busy, leading up to Spring Break.
Last Friday Downriver Robert came up and did some mid-morning horseback riding, while Kittee was defending the Rights, the Wrongs, and the nearly insane, in Milton-Freewater city court. She had a good morning working with Judge Sam and hardnose Prosecutor Dave. Not long after court and my afternoon bus run we sat back, put Kittee’s foot in the air and had a beer to celebrate TGIF. Thereafter we headed out to do a split hamburger and sweet potato fries, a beer at Kelly’s for dinner. Had a wonderful dinner w/tip for less than 15 bucks… for the both of us. Now that is what I call frugal, and having fun.

Mid-Week ACC Basketball @ McKuster Ranch

When we got back home Kittee wanted to watch a movie, and I had an appointment to watch ACC basketball on our new high speed broadband Internet connection. Tonight was the second ACC b-ball game I got to watch during the past week, and since Kittee brought home a new wide screen 'puter monitor this evening it was almost like sitting in the Greensboro Coliseum in realtime. Gee, we are really enjoying our high speed cable connection with whole house wi-fi.

NCSU beats Clemson in a close one...
Yeehaa, good game, good beer

But due to our busy, busy outdoor schedule after Friday evening, I didn’t get back to watch any further ACC basketball tournament. I was really hoping to watch the Carolina and Duke games but it didn’t happen. I do plan to follow our ACC teams through the NCAA tournament play. GO DUKE!!!

Friday evening on our way back home from Kelly's we hit a few snowflakes, Saturday morning's daybreak showed snow on the eastern mountains...

Rusty coming and going... running his mini-pasture, he enjoyed
seeing the fresh snowfall on the eastern horizon

The mare herd working on breakfast after some heavy
overnight rain and fresh snow across The Blues

Saturday, we started the day with coffee in bed, Kittee's foot elevated for a day off. I went out to feed the herds, take the above pictures, then came in to put together a hardy morning breakfast of hot yellow grits with whole kernel white corn, bacon, sharp cheddar cheese, and eggs, before our farrier Kevin was to show up. Again like clockwork, Kevin was here at 9:00 a.m. to trim 60 hooves to start his day. All of this went well, with the slight exception of Summer. She wanted to be just a little testy that day, but she did A-OK for a baby horse, and holding all four feet up - off the ground.

Saturday afternoon, it was a bit chilly outside, so I spent the afternoon working on creating a Facebook page for our Walla² Fly Fishers club. That was interesting, and I hope will help keep everyone in the club posted/reminded of what's happening in our Walla Walla River Valley fly fishing world with the click of a mouse.

Sunday, another day which started much like Saturday with my feeding the herds, taking a few pictures of the new snowfall on the mountains, down to the 2000’ level, while Kittee's foot was elevated. After feeding the herds I put together a relaxed morning breakfast of hotcakes and sausage in preparation for another horseback riding day. Again Downriver Robert came upriver, caught Nugget, I called Misty in out of pasture for her tack- saddle/bridle, and Kittee brought in Derby to test ride her banged up foot in the stirrup, for the first time in a week. All went well for everyone as we had a rather slow start to this day, late breakfast, and easy riding time.

Misty and I were the only one’s to push our talents in the saddle as I ran her through the arena obstacle course as though we were chasing cattle, and racing barrels. LOTS of fun and good exercise for both of us. With our jogging, cantering, and running the obstacle course Misty did not work up very much of a sweat that day with mild air temperatures of mid-day, but when she took her saddle off she rolled. That is as much of a ritual for her as getting a scoop of sweet grain after a morning of fun run.

After Misty's after-ride-roll, she gets hugs and kisses.
Such a sweet pet, a sweet ride. We love these horses.

This past weekend everything around here was looking a bit more like spring with daffodils almost in full bloom, the willow tree in the front pasture and the lilac bush next to the house is starting to leaf out. Sunny a boarder mare was showing some signs of being in heat, and Rusty had his nose/curled lip pointed towards the sky.
Spring is in the air.

The Fairy Ring in our front yard made a complete circle this weekend.

Our afternoon temperatures Sunday were in the mid-50’s as we sit out sunning, Kittee with her feet up, while everyone had a beer to wash the arena’s riding dust out of our throats, from our late morning, mid-day riding session. Life is tough around McKuster Ranch, but someone has to be here to handle the situation.

Sunday afternoon, I sprayed our ½ acre garden area with Round Up, as the grass is growing well in there right now, and it is nearly time to burn it off and start tilling. Hope to be planting Sugar Snap Peas, chard, lettuce, etc. soon.

Monday, again after my a.m. bus route Robert and I rode horses and after my p.m. bus route I worked on fences until time to go to the watershed council meeting.

Tuesday was about the same work schedule without any horseback riding for that day. Tuesday after my p.m. bus run I sprayed 5 acres of the riverside pasture with Round Up as I will be harrow/spike raking it and re-sowing that pasture in new grass the next couple of weeks, as well as fertilizing our lower 18 acres for spring green horse munching.

Tonight's dinner- St. Patrick's Day '10, I have just put the lid on a boiling 2½ gallon pot of Irish style potlicker comprised of a corned beef brisket, potatoes, onions, 8-quarters of two green cabbage, salt and pepper. Now going out to feed the herds, with plans of a pint of Henry's Classic Dark brew and dinner when I get back in. It is now 7:00 p.m. with plenty of daylight to play in. We love Daylight Savings Time around here.

Busy, Busy, Busy as today was the last day of school before Spring Break and there is plenty to do around the ranch, pasture work, garden work, irrigation work, horseback riding, fishing, fly tying. Starting tomorrow, I have 11 days out of school--- winter is over, Spring Break is here. Gitty up!

That’s the way it is around the ranch this past week, and daylight savings time has felt GRRRRReat all week. --- Dale

Early March '10

2010-03-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we stayed close to the ranch, riding and tending to our herds of horses, goats, and cats. Kittee had last Friday off ~out of court~ so we had downriver Robert come up and together we rode the arena with Derby, Nugget and Misty. It was rather uneventful, as we trotted everyone, then Kittee pulled the saddle off Derby and rode him bareback while I cantered Misty a few time halfway around the arena. Robert broke Nugget into a trot a few times. After our riding session I jumped on the school bus and made my p.m. run.

Saturday started much the same as Friday; while I prepared breakfast, Kittee went out and fed the herds. After breakfast we call downriver Robert to see if he wanted to ride with us, he did and so he came up, we groomed our horses and headed for the arena. Again we had another beautiful warm, sunshiny morning to enjoy the great outdoors. I got back to the arena with Misty first, we got warmed up and before Kittee and Robert got to the arena Misty and I were trotting the arena, and I was putting her into tight circles... to the left and to the right while staying in a trot. Misty and I are working up to making these moves at a canter run in the near future. When Kittee with Shaiela, and Robert with Nugget got to the arena, Misty and I were ready to make a couple of passes around the arena in a canter. Everyone is connecting with their steed much better now and we started talking about riding the Ole Cache Hollow Trail on Sunday, or maybe heading out across the backyard and working our way up Bowlus Hill.

After Kittee and Robert made a few laps, walking Shaiela and Nugget around the arena, Kittee had her stirrup fall off. (?) Not sure how that could happen... but it did. So Kittee stopped Shaiela and dismounted. Oppppps, in the process of dismounting she twisted her ankle and heard a snap. With that happening, Kittee politely said... OUCH! and a few other words. She instantly knew her riding was finished for this day. Kittee immediately got off her feet and put her foot up. As I went riding by, to catch and put up Shaiela, I did take a few pictures of her enjoying the morning's sunshine.

Robert and I continued to make a few more laps around the arena, but soon our riding was done so we threw Kittee on Nugget's back, hopped her to the house and passed her a beer as we tack-down and put away our rides for the day. After everything was put away and we settled back with Kittee, her crutches and a beer, Robert ask if we would like to take a break that evening and come down to have dinner with he and wife Sherry... join him in having some very smooooooth Kentucky pain reliever. We thought that would help Kittee's painfully delicate condition well.
Later in the afternoon Jennifer came out to play with and trim Ginger's hooves. Ginger is still with Kittee and I for the winter, and we consider her "our" pony even though we sold her to Jennifer for a buck. She and sister Jasmine have had a wonder winter sharing their pasture once again with the herd of goats, and visiting over the fence with Derby, Nugget, Summer and the herd of mares.
Saturday late afternoon, Kittee and I had a most pleasant evening with Robert and Sherry, watching the sunset from Robert's favorite sunset viewing station, sipping whiskey, having dinner, and then watching a BBC nature DVD. While watching the nature documentary, Sherry brought out servings of the best pineapple up-side-down cake, I think I have ever eaten. This evening of physical/spiritual therapy did work well for Kittee's ankle injury.

Sunday was our scheduled day for late winter worming of the horses. Kittee was taken out of this picture with her foot wrapped in ace bandage, and walking with crutches. Fortunately for me Robert and offered to help with our worming if Sherry had nothing else planned for Sunday. Sherry didn't, so he did. Now worming a herd of horses ~17~ is not a bad or really hard job, but it is much better when there is another set of helping hands to make it happen. Thank YOU, Robert for your help. After our worming session, Robert and I saddled up Misty and Nugget and rode for about an hour, before the wormer started kicking in and made our rides start feeling a bit puny.
NOTE: We have been keeping Goldfish in our stock tanks since last summer, just to help keep the tanks clean and eat the algae/ horse food scraps. Two days after worming, all the Goldfish in one of our mare's water tanks were dead. Reading the fine print of the pamphlet that comes with the wormer, it says that the stuff can be very hazardous to aquatic life. So we learned... the residual wormer paste in the horses mouth can KILL fish. FYI -- FTR
By the end of this beautiful late winter day, the good news was... Kittee was able to hobble around without using crutches, even though her foot was still swollen and tender. I was able to get a few late afternoon shots of the progress of the daffodil bloom late Sunday afternoon. I did notice this past Friday on my bus run, that the daffodils in town are now in full bloom. It has felt and looks like spring is here, even though Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights has snow in the weather forecast for here and the mountains to our east.
Monday Kittee was able to walk around in a bedroom slipper and drove to work and back home well. Sunday and Monday nights the mountains did re-cover with fresh snow. Hopefully we are on our way to getting a good 10' spring accumulation on the hills.

And that's the way it is around the ranch this week --- Dale

February 2010

2010-02-28T19:32:00.001-08:00

It has been a month since I made a posting to our ranch life blog. I wish I could say that it was because I have been spending allot of time in the great outdoors in the wonderful February/ springlike weather we have had in the past month. I will have to say that this February has been as beautiful as any in recent memory. Looking back over the month, I think we had two to four days with morning frost here at the ranch. Most days were covered with sunshine by late afternoon even though many days started out with gray, sometimes rainy and foggy weather conditions. Except for the few days with frost, our low temperatures have been in the mid to upper 30’s with high’s ranging from lower 40’s to mid-60’s. The grass has begun to turn green, growing in the pastures, on the bluff and horses have been pecking at the grass nibblets between morning and afternoon hay feedings. Everyone here is in good flesh for this time of winter.

Today was another gloriously beautiful day with sunrise coming through our bedroom window at 7:00 sharp. Skies were clear all day with afternoon temperatures near 60. This evening we had a very clear, not colorful sunset at 5:15 sharp as I was looking out our bedroom window. We now have a full 13-hours of functional daylight everyday. Today our downriver neighbor Robert came up and horseback rode (see video attached) with Kittee, as I felt like I should hold off from horseback riding another day or so while recouping from my 3-week-old chest/head cold.

Kittee and I started this month with high hopes of horseback riding every chance we could get. It worked well that way for the first week of the month, then I started getting sick with a chest cold, which turned into a chest/head cold, then Kittee got it. This last week of the month I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, so Thursday I went to the doctor and got some medication to clear/clean the mess out. Kittee began to improve on her own Wednesday. As this weekend came around we were both doing much better, health wise.

This month we spotted our first robin in Rusty’s keep on February 7th, and a week later we heard Redwing Blackbird songs from the tumbling muster weed field across the road. Throughout the month we have had flocks of Canada geese and ducks flying overhead many times a day, the ringneck pheasants cocks have been crowing throughout the days from the brush and bunch grass, and lately in the evening the owls begin their mating hoots to each other. Last evening I spent out with the mare herd after dark, watching the full moon rise and petting the girls all around me. Except for the morning foggy chills, it has been very much like early spring and the fruit growers in the valley have become quite concerned about their fruit trees and a way too early budding season now developing. Smokey has also found plenty of gopher mounds to keep an eye on for fresh meat during the past week or so.

During the past couple of weeks of feeling bad, and days being chilly and damp, night still being long… there was something on the FaceBook ditty, that provoked a lot of old family pictures to come to surface. I posted a number of photos to my Faceback album and I think three of my favorite are...

Grandparents
in '51

Parents in '48

The McKids in '64

and the McKid's home in N.C. probably in April in bloom

During this month of illness, Kittee and I have had a chance to watch quite a few videos, some from the public library, some borrowed from friends, some bought from a local video store going out of business.

One that I was quite intrigued with was Unlocking The Mystery Of Life -- a study into Darwinism and intelligent design. Looking at natural organism’s rotary motors that spin at 100,000 rpm, and the complexity of DNA. If you can find this DVD, try to get a chance to watch it. It will give you allot to ponder on... How did this world happen to be??? I don't think it was by chance and chemistry, coming together in a warm briny cesspool spinning through the universe. A very interesting video presentation of natural facts.
Also in our video watching we borrowed from a friend two really good PBR story videos --
8 Seconds and Cowboy Up, both really good stories and
8 Seconds is the true story about the life of Lane Frost.

Now with three weeks of being "under-the-weather" during our beautiful February, I have spent the last two day "raking" around the ranch pastures and garden, and see the work I have cut out for me in the month of March. Hoping that winter doesn't come back around and bite us in the butt, with all the outdoor work and play I need to catchup on. This is a quick shot of the driveway daffodils this day 28 February.

Let me not forget to mention the stonefly hatch we are having around the ranch this week. Today I encountered quite a few stoneflies while at the riverside arena, and then when I got back to the house I found more stoneflies around the back porch, sitting on the picnic table. 'Tis also the season for the spring stonefly hatch...

And that the way it has been around the ranch this February 2010 --
Dale