January's thaw

It has been over a week that we have had a taste of springtime in January. Last Tuesday or Wednesday we had a Chinook wind blow through the Walla Walla River Valley and since then our daytime high temperatures have been in the mid-50's to 60° with nighttime lows being in the mid-40's.
It was also last Tuesday or Wednesday that I was pluggin around on Facebook and saw where Upriver Dale was planning on making a horseback trip through my front yard leading up into Cache Hollow on Thursday mid-morning. I ask him if I might tag along and so we made it a three-some with Dale's neighbor Hutch along for the ride. I didn't make the entire route with those guys since I had to make a school bus/sporting trip to La Grande that same afternoon. It was a wonderful ride and a great mid-week break for men and their steeds.

When I got back to the ranch, I fed and grained Misty as she had expended alot of energy and sweat trotting up the Ole Cache Hollow Trail.

Also when we got back to the ranch we found several mares and Derby laid out and sunbathing.

After getting everyone settled back in place, I had to make a quick dash to cleanup and hit the road for my p.m. girls basketball trip into the mountains.
Friday was another beautiful springlike day, and the beginning of my 4-day weekend, but with sore thighs and another school sporting trip to make to Umatilla that afternoon, I just stuck around the ranch and petted horses and told Misty how much I appreciated the ride of the day before. Again I gave her extra grain and hay to replace the calories she had burned the day before.
Saturday the weather changed and the winds began to blow in one direction and sucked in the other directions with the threat of rain, so Kittee and I made our rounds in town and went to Walla Walla to get a wireless router to accommodate Kittee's laptop computer with our new broadband Internet service. Gee does all of this upgrade work nicely, with the exception that Mozilla Thunderbird does not work with Charter broadband service, at least not for me. Saturday evening while Kittee was reading the logs of Lewis and Clark/Corps of Discovery, I was using her laptop 'puter and our new wifi home installation system to listen to old Neil Young concerts. With this much entertainment we didn't listen to NPR that evening.
Sunday the weather forecast was for improving weather conditions, so we had our sights set on getting in some horseback riding that day. After breakfast the weather conditions were still a bit iffy with some heavy clouds circling the area. Then about mid-day the clouds broke and we got a dose of warm sunshine on our shoulders, so we decided to grab a quick bite of lunch and saddleup, get ready to ride. By the time we finished lunch, the clouds were beginning to gather again so Kittee decided to work Nugget in the round pen for some warming up.

Thereafter, we decide... what the heck, let's go for a ride, rain or no rain so we headed up the Ole Cache Hollow Trail. Now, reflecting on Thursday's trail ride, Misty was still acting a bit herd bound as I took her out for the trail ride, and again on Sunday she really let us know that she didn't want to go up the road again. She danced, pranced, and did her backup Fox Trot steps for about 10 minutes before getting her straightened out and headed up the hill. But thinking about it, other that two trips to the Walla Walla indoor arena, this had been the second time she has left the herd in 8-10 months and she really didn't like the idea. Anyway we got her pointed in the right direction and the four of us had a very pleasant trail ride for 4-5 miles until we hit some high winds coming from the south, so decided to turn around and head back to the ranch.

Sunday we also reunited Summer, Rosey, and Raji with the mare herd. It had been a month 12/20 since we separated Summer and Misty from Goldie for Summer's weaning process. The reunion of Summer and Goldie was quite uneventful, as the only thing that happened, was Summer stuck her nose into Goldie's hip towards her udder and Goldie turned and made one nip at Summer. That is all she said, that was all that happened upon their reunion.
Monday, again the weather was most pleasant, but the wind blew. Since our horses are not shod, we were planning to trailer Nugget and Misty around the corner to ride in our backyard on the north side of the river, but with the wind howling, we decide not. I spent the morning dropping a ton of hay out of the loft and Kittee decided to begin her further training of Rosey by giving her the feel of a saddle being cinched onto her back. Rosey will be a two-year-old in April and has once before had a pony saddle place on her back. Both times of saddling-up Rosey has been a non-event. The pony and cordura saddles maybe weigh about 20 pounds.

You can click here to watch this process in action.
NOTE: you can watch this clip in HQ and full screen.

And that's the way it is around the ranch this past week. Gee this warm January weather and sunshine really feels good. Think I shall go out and sunbath with the mares tomorrow.

Dale

January, sitting by the fire waiting for spring.

Our outdoor temperatures have moderated, but our January skies are mostly gray, and the ground is frozen about half the time. Most of my days are driving the school bus on morning and afternoon route, and feeding horses when I get home... asap mornings and evenings.

Last Wednesday here at the ranch we connected to the 21st Century by tying into Charter broadband cable/Internet connection. Gee, does that make a world of difference in how fast things move around here now. I can actually open and view emails coming at me that are larger than 250 kbs. I hope you have configured our new charter.net email address into your home puter by now. If not please drop me an email at the old oregontrail.net address before Thursday 1/14 and I will flash you our new Charter address.

Friday Kittee and I loaded Summer and Misty in the trailer and took Summer into Walla Walla for her baby vaccinations. We are now hoping that this will be the last trip we have to make to the vets until we start having pregnancy tests in the early summer.

This past weekend Kittee and I tried to stay warm, by keeping the home fire burning.

Saturday morning our outdoor temperature was sitting in the mid-30’s as Kittee went out to feed the herds and I prepared breakfast. During breakfast we moved the furnace thermostat up to 68º to really heat up the house while setting a fire to start in the living room fireplace after our work was done. After breakfast we shut the furnace off and went to work. Kittee and I re-arranged a couple of rooms in our house, and just stayed close to home for the rest of the day. While taking an afternoon break we noticed a herd of about 15 mule deer grazing on the hill in the backyard.

Saturday evening we had a delicious pot of chicken veggie soup that Kittee had put on earlier that afternoon, sit by the fire reading, then listening to a live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. Probably for the first time in a couple of months we raised our living room temperature to above 70º. After listening to the opera tenor Raúl Melo (see video attached), and the latest news from Lake Wobegon on A Prairie Home Companion coming from San Francisco we felt it would be fun to watch the Cali-forn-i-a Gov. Arny Schwarzenegger and Miss American Vanessa Williams doing their thing in the movie Eraser. This was quite an action packed thriller movie which followed our Friday night movie thriller - Enemy of the State very well. Lots of action, good stories back-to-back two nights in a row.


Sunday after breakfast we went to our indoor arena mid-day riding session. Kittee again took Derby and Nugget, while I took Misty. With the weather being cold and very damp I didn’t ride due to arthritis aches and pain. While Kittee was riding/ponying Derby and Nugget, I spent the time just petting and brushing Misty, Derby and Nugget.

FTR -- I marked the calendar to make note of Misty’s attitude the past few days. Late last week, actually Friday p.m. Misty and Goldie got into a kicking-pissing match with each other. This is not at all typical of Misty. The two trailer trips Misty made over the weekend, she was very reluctant to trailer load, again not typical of Misty. Kittee felt that she was having some early season hormonal mare moments. Misty is a very easy keeper as a horse, but we have not successfully bred her, I am going to track her cycles from this point in time and see if we can succeed in getting an Arabian / Paint breeding this year. This year we are hoping to breed 3 of our 4 mares, and being January we are trying to decide which ones other than Shaiela to bred, which is to be breed back to EAGLEFROMTHELIGHT as she didn’t take last year.

Today, we started with the house being quite chilled as last night’s fire had burned out. Looking outside we had freezing drizzle covering everything in ice at 5:00 a.m. After getting back from my a.m. bus route, the temperature was sitting at 38º as I was feeding the herds and about mid-morning the temperature went to 46º with sunbreaks. Made me think we were heading for March in a hurry.

Now as I eat my lunch of a large bowl of spicy curry-chicken-noodle soup I look outside and see the temperature is again at 35º and I can only see the silhouette of the barn and some horses.

And that’s the way it is around the ranch --- Dale

January '10... weather turns to muck, mud sucks

FTR -- our New Year weather continues to be Pretty damn crappy. Daytime highs are around 37º, with nighttime lows being around 34º, visibility is mostly gray and/or foggy - it's January. Horses are not very happy except at feeding times, goats are sad, cats are just laying around and groaning, bored, waiting for their next meal. Kittee and I are not doing too bad as we sit in front of our Happy Light each day waiting for spring to arrive. Weather forecast for the balance of this week is for more of the same, with a chance of overnight snowfalls. This time of year to go out and spend time with the horses and goats we have to wear our 16" muck boots as anything else on the feet will literally be sucked off by the mud, muck, yuck.
Such is life during the Muck Season.

Over the New Year holiday, Kittee and I spent our time petting, feeding the outside critters, watching indoor videos and for the Really Big Event of the holiday weekend, we went horseback riding at the Walla Walla Fairground arena. There we spent the best part of two hours, riding, troting and cantering Misty, Nugget and Derby. It made an enjoyable outing. This was the first time I had been riding in about three weekends, and the past couple of days my inner-thigh muscles can re-tell the story of those two hours of riding time.

Last week I had a knock, knock, knock upon the front door and it was our downriver neighbor, Robert dropping by and asked me if I wanted to see a Bald Eagle on the river. We made a quick run downriver and spotted the guy here in this picture...
between our house and the Sallee's house.

During this past weekend, maybe Sunday as we were loading horses into the trailer, Kittee spotted another very large Bald Eagle flying over the backyard river. Against the bluff, we could see his large black wingspan and white head and tail feather very well. He had several hawks pushing him upriver, but the eagle and it's size was quite impressive. Wish I could have gotten a good picture of that bird.

Goldie and Summer are progressing well with their weaning process. They both are in free pasture; Goldie with the adult mares and Summer with two fillies, four goats, and two Shetland ponies.

That's the way it is around the ranch this past week --- Dale

Summer and the Winter Solstice

Last Sunday, after playing with horses most of the day Kittee and I separated our baby Summer from her mom to be weaned. They had both been kept in the barn’s infirmary stall since the week before and their visit to the vet clinic for knee injuries. Both are doing very well, and have healed well from their injuries. During this weaning process I kept Goldie in the barn stall to continue her knee medications and give her some confinement from Summer. For a day or two they called to each other from 30 yards apart, but not so far apart as to stress either of them out by a long distance separation. Aunt Misty is keeping a vigilant eye on Summer during this separation period.

Monday was the Winter Solstice above the 45th Parallel and for a couple of days this past week we had sunbreaks that gave us a ranch sunrises around 8:30 and a sunset at 3:05 with no aurora borealis sightings. Summer's foal coat for her first Winter Solstice has been very adequate for this time of year as she is very plush and soft to touch, and has never shone any sign of shivering. To celebrate the Winter Solstice this past week I brought home some fur tree boughs from upriver Dale's but they have offered no fragrance to the house. The high note on this time of year is... now that we have passed the solstice, it sure is nice to have each day getting longer, and I will be glad when they are warmer.

Ginger, Misty and Summer behind bars

It was Tuesday or Wednesday that I let Goldie out of the barn stall, and she went nuts for about 10-15 minutes running the fence lines along the pasture that Summer was in. After she settled down a bit I haltered her and lead her to the rear pasture to keep her distance from Summer as I was going upriver to help Dale work with his ranch website for the balance of the day. Going into the riverside pasture Raji wanted to join Goldie so I let her. Together they ran, with hooves and dirt clods flying in the air for about 5+ minutes. This was the most that Goldie had run since she was maybe 6 months pregnant; she worked up a pretty good sweat with this workout. After Goldie had settled down I put another half dozen mares in the pasture with her and Raji to keep company for the while. After all of this had settled down I headed up river to work with Dale.

Thursday, Kittee took the day off and we played with horses. The weather forecast was for clearing skies, cool crisp dry air, and warm sunshine on our shoulders for the balance of the week. So our hopes were to be horseback riding maybe by Thursday noon, all day Friday and Saturday. But, our winter weather did not break… it's December, the ground is frozen, the skies are mostly gray, sometimes foggy, and sometimes flaky fog falling on us most of the past week.
Anyway, come Thursday we had an invitation to spend the late afternoon and evening with family in Pendleton at cousin Worth and LeBelva’s house.

There we found everyone doing well, Worth, LaBelva, cousin Lynn, Lois, and Lois’ granddaughter Lucy, my Aunt Pat and Lois’ mom Elsie was also there.

































































Once again LaBelva managed to spread another Xmas Eve feast, of turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, salads, pies, cake, chocolates, etc. before us for our over-indulging pleasure fix. I do believe that everyone made at least two passes at the spread of food, even Kittee. Lois brought along one of her extra large huckleberry cheesecakes which Lucy and I tried to warn everyone that we thought there was something really wrong with that cheesecake, and they shouldn't eat any of it. (The problem that Lucy and I thought we found with that cheesecake was that there may have been just too much wild huckleberry filling layered on top of the thick cheese layer, on top of the graham cracker crust.) I don’t think anyone listened to our warnings, so Lucy and I ate our share of cheesecake, and maybe that of Lynn's daughters. Both of Lynn's daughters were spending their holiday weekend in Dallas, TX where they called this family gathering while driving through a Texass snow storm. As Kittee and I were leaving the party, Worth gifted us with about 10+ pounds of elk meat, LeBelva with a loaf of banana bread, fudge, and some holiday cheer. Thank you, Thank you, LeBelva and Worth.
After Kittee and I returned home we went out, fed the herds of horses, goats, and cats, and wished everyone a happy Xmas eve. We didn’t have anybody talking back to us, so not sure where that old story came from.

Xmas day we spent with the horses, goats, and seven cats. Treating everybody with extra hay and sweet grain. Again we found nobody was talking, but felt sure that everyone appreciated their treats and hugs for the day.

Saturday, we had plans to go to the movies. After feeding the horses, having an eggnog latté for breakfast we loaded up and headed for Walla Walla. We had heard a week or so ago on NPR about the new sci-fi movie Avatar . WOW!!!! This movie has a Lucas Film connection, and was previewed by Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and George Lucas. The movie very much reminded me of, but was nothing like the ET and Star Wars epics. What a movie, and quite a story in looking at (and it will jump out at you) the powers of greed pursuant the US Industrial-Military complex of our times and that of 150 years from now. If you enjoy movies with lots of action, a tender love story, an odyssey with 3D effects, YOU should see Avatar in 3D (not plain screen)… quite a trip without leaving town.

Today after a breakfast of eggnog lattés in bed, Kittee and I got up, went out to feed the herds, and for breakfast we had cups of coffee and each a nice slice of peach pie. Mmmmmm good. Thereafter we went out to fire up Blue and hookup the horse trailer for Kittee to take Derby and Nugget to the Walla Walla Fairgrounds arena for a morning ride. I did not go on this run as the cold and fog has given me too many arthritis aches and pains to be outdoors for 2-3 hours in the cold and falling fog. I stayed home and played with my Summer, Misty, Goldie and Rusty this morning.

Goldie's Summer

Our Summer
Rusty's Summer

Summer at 6-months old

This afternoon we will be watching movies lounging in our home theater and drinking a beer or two, with a big bowl of guacamole and chips between us.

And that's the way it is around the ranch this past week. I am still on school holiday break for the upcoming week, with an out-of-town bus trip to make to Pendleton on Wednesday. The weather forecast for that day is snow, snow, snow.

Hope you and your have a safe and Happy New Year,
Dale and Kittee at McKuster Ranch life

Coming out of the deep freeze, into the snow.

It was a week ago Saturday we had our first dusting of winter's snow... very light but frosty. Kittee was in conference in Portland so she missed it. I took pictures of this dusting for the McKuster Ranch records of 12/5.
Last Sunday Kittee had returned home, she and I had the option of going into Walla Walla and riding our horses at the indoor Fair Grounds arena, or to ride in our riverside backyard arena. Sunday was a very nice day and this is where we stayed, riding with our pets, enjoying our day, around the ranch.

12-5-09 snow dusting

We had a most enjoyable ride that afternoon, Kittee was riding Derby bareback, and I was taking Misty in and out of cantering gaits and doing 180° and 360° circles, and a few fast up-to-the-fence stops. This made for some good adrenaline rushes and riding practice. Misty and I are still working on doing cattle work around here. After our riding session Kittee and I sit in the backyard talking with horses and having a beer, just relaxing in the sunshine… with a weather forecast of changes to come. After our sunbathing, the temperature was starting to drop so we went ahead and blanketed the horses that had blankets.
By Monday morning our outside temperature had dropped to 7°, with the weather forecast being, highs in the teens and lows in the single digits for the rest of the week.

mid-day high in the barn = 19°

That is just what we got for the entire week. After all week of sub-freezing temperatures and everyone looking for the next free meal, the mare herd got a bit pissy.
Thursday, evening when I opened the gate for feeding, I noticed that Goldie was limping/lame. Taking a closer look, I found that she had been kicked in the knee. This looked like an infirmary stall up in the works. When Kittee came in she looked at Goldie leg and we decided to put her and baby Summer into confinement until we could take her to the vets. Fortunately we had a vet appointment on Saturday to take in Shaiela for a pregnancy test and Summer for her first round of vaccinations.

During all this process we have discovered that Summer maybe a “Hunter/Jumper” athlete. Once before when she was maybe three months old, we came home one day and found her in the barnyard paddock, which is not where we had left her.
Last Friday when I got home from my school bus route, I found her in the barnyard paddock… not where I had left her. Being separated from her mom and stirring with the rest of the mare herd, she was a bit jittery/spooky, which was unlike her regular behavior. In the process of trying to catch her, she jumped the barnyard paddock –no climb– fence once again and I saw the jump. Sad thing is she scrapped her knee on the top wires of the fence while making this jump. After this episode I put ointment on and bandaged her knee for the night until we could make the scheduled vet appointment on Saturday morning.
Saturday morning I was up and making coffee at 5:00 turned on the furnace, and went back to bed awaiting for the house to warm up. Got up again at 6:00 to get Kittee and myself a couple of holiday eggnog lattè to enjoy while continuing to warm up under the electric blanket. With this get up we found that our world which had been frozen solid for a week had turned white in the past hour or so.

12-12-09 snow covering

After breakfast we loaded mares and foal and made an uneventful horse trailer trip to the vet in Walla Walla. All of our girls, Goldie, Summer and Shaiela all loaded well and Summer went for her first real ride. At the vet’s we found that Shaiela was not pregnant, Summer’s knee was scraped but with no cuts and Goldie did have a puncture wound at her knee. Everyone got a good BILL of health… that came to over $500. OUCH! That felt like a bite on my butt. Well, that’s life with these very valuable 1000-pound pets, and we will just call this our Christmas to each other and these three horses. Having finished our horsey chores here at the ranch, we turned around, went back to town to pickup some videos, and get some cold weather foodstuff for the balance of the weekend/ this next week.

shot from our office window- deer on the backyard bluff

Late yesterday afternoon we made a ride upriver to visit with Dale, Cheri, and some upriver neighbors to celebrate Dale’s upcoming birthday. We had a very pleasant get together with all and coming home (about 9 miles) we did not pass another vehicle and the road. Told Kittee that the ride made me think of taking a most comfortable, well-heated ride down a snowy lane. While at Dale and Cheri’s a Chinook wind began to blow and our temperature went into the upper 30’s by the time we got back home. After getting home, feeding the herd, we watched a video and call it a day, a night, our weekend.

Today after my a.m. bus run the bus has frozen back into its pre-trip condition to look like a large yellow icicle.
This afternoon we have a winter storm warning becoming effective at 4:00. OH for joy, for joy, tis the season for freezing, and only one week to go before winter is here.

Life around the ranch this pass week, was very cold --- Dale

Summer at 5-months old

This past week was a week’s vacation from my school bus chores. Speaking for myself it was rather relaxing, with sleeping in late a few mornings, working and playing with horses during the mid-day. With the seasonal re-introduction of eggnog at the Safeway store, Kittee and I now start everyday with an eggnog lattè. Mmmmmmm, what a treat to start the day with.
Our baby "Summer" turned 5 months old last Monday.

Well, in northeast Oregon we got sucked into the 21st Century a bit deeper last week. In order to furnish the Californicators with more electricity, there has been a massive host of wind turbines popping up in our area. Last week they turned on the marking lamps to a number of new installations and these things are now visible to our horse herd all night long. These things are about 9-10 miles away, but it bites my butt to see RED night light pollution in our Oregon Territory to satisfy the California oink, oink electricity hogs. Calfornicators, turn off the lights and your computers when you leave the room. What a waste to our beautiful Oregon Country skyline.

I shall descend from my soapbox now.

Last week was beautiful weather-wise, with highs in the upper 50’s most day and lows in the upper 30’s, plenty of sunshine. Tuesday and Wednesday our horse trainer – Travis came by, which allowed me to get a bit of mid-week riding in with Misty. We are still into cattle rustling training (maybe that should be re-phrased… cattle penning training) with Travis. While he was here, he saddle broke Sunny a boarding horse, and saddled up Raji a to be 3-year old boarder we have here.
This past week I got my confidence up enough to put Misty into a canter and attempted to make a 180° turn. We did it once, and that was about as much excitement in the saddle that I need to handle at this point in time/training. I am very pleased to say that the riding feels good and diminishes most of my lower back pains, just about as much as acupuncture treatments. Thursday night and half the day Friday we had rains, our round pen got swamped so I was unable to ride in there for the rest of the week.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day we were invited to join some upriver neighbors to share late lunch/dinner with them. Kittee and I had a most enjoyable time with Connie, Jerry and one of our very best young riding friends, Kasey. It was such a pleasure to be with these folks this day and we went with the instructions of "bring nothing with you". I find it really nice to be obligated to take nothing when invited to a feast and a party with dear friends and family. In this way the day starts relaxed and remains relaxed through the end. Again we ended up staying out way past our bedtime, and I was glad that I had put out hay that afternoon so the horses could have dinner by the 8 o’clock dinner hour (that is very late for them as well). When we got home all I had to do was open the gate to feed dinner.

Friday, with everything on the ground being wet, we made our in town rounds, and that afternoon cooked our turkey dinner to be picked upon for the balance of the week. I prepared the turkey and stuffing, while Kittee worked on potatoes, gravy and a large apple crisp. While all was cooking, we played cards and listened to rock-n-roll on the stereo. After dinner the outdoor cats were so happy with their turkey treats for dinner.

Saturday, we had made plans to have Kasey and her Bow from Montana, to come to the ranch and we were going riding. Kasey may try her hand at riding Rusty, with his Arabian saddle or her English saddle, but this week was too wet. I also had made plans, for Friday a.m., with a friend to smoke some wild Alaskan salmon that he had come upon, but that got rained out until Saturday. The smoking of salmon and petting of horses kind of overran my schedule of horseback riding, so Kittee, Kasey, and Sloane went horseback riding in the fields behind our bluff, while Randy and I had another beer and waited for the salmon to finish smoking.
After all the above activities and lunch were said and done, Kittee and I took the time to celebrate Summer with a 5-months-old birthday party, with allot of hugs, kisses and green grass grazing.
Sunday, our main objective was horseback riding in the arena, either in Walla Walla’s indoor arena or in our riverside arena depending on the ground conditions. The ground conditions here at the ranch were great, and the weather conditions over our heads was wonderful. So we spent the best part of two plus hours running and jumping our rides. Just having fun.













This is when I put Misty in the 180° turns at a canter, and worked her in quite a few 360° turns at a trotting gait. After all our riding we made a quick lunch of a couple of beers and the smoked salmon pastè that I had made Saturday night for this day. After lunch we got really energetic and wormed all the equines. This we usually do early in November, after a few killing frosts, but this year our weather has been warm and wonderful since our mid-October quick chill. After we finished worming everyone, Kittee had a procession coming at her for more pets and maybe more worming paste/treat(?).
To polish off this afternoon... I had found some October plums in our cool storage pantry this past week, so Sunday late afternoon I threw out/handed out plums to everyone's delight.

Yesterday was again beautiful outdoors and for the first time since my August 1st horse wreck I pulled out the OLE weed-eater and machete and went to work on a blackberry bush that had overgrown a portion of our electric fence. Again last evening I put out two meals for the mare herd, one for last evening’s dinner, another for this morning’s breakfast.
The weather forecast for today was for a.m. fog, giving way to afternoon sun breaks. I am glad I put out breakfast yesterday evening as today we are cool, gray and mostly damp with fog. Can't even find the bluff in the backyard this morning.

Now this looks like December.

But wait, the weather forecast is correct...
as I finish this blog posting I look out the office window and see that we are now lining up to get sun breaks for the rest of the day.

♫ Home, home on the range, where the skies
are not cloudy all day ♫

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