Rusty rides again

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

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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

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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
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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