The return of sunshine in NE Oregon

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

Views from around the ranch 6/7

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



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






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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy to have caught this guy in my lens

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

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


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

Kittee started ponying Rosey this weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ see video insert below ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace be with you,




Dale

Horseback riding 101 @ McKuster Ranch

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