Early Autumn 2010

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

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

Summer is 4 months old ~or~ winding up summer

Once again snow has covered the Blue Mtns. just east of the ranch today. I understand from talking with my boss that the Breaks of the So. Fork Walla Walla/ Tollgate (where Kittee and I were married) received 3" fresh snow this a.m.. Wind and some rain is blowing stiffly around our country and with this last weekend’s beautiful weather having past, it really feels like we are now headed for November with its gray, cold weather in our faces. Talking with my sister on Sunday evening -her birthday- she reminded me that we were both getting a bit older. I told her that I could feel it as I now feel the cold, more than ever, and joints ache... Burrr, looks/feels like winter is heading this way.

Last evening Kittee and I were very saddened to hear that our dear friend Cliff, in Walla Walla had died. This also added a chill to the pending winter, as Cliff always had a warm smile and a chuckle to go with everyday we spent horsing around with him and his wonderful wife Lila. Cliff, we will miss you; rest in peace dear friend.

With the change of seasons, I finished my over-the-road school sports/activities trips for this season, making trips last week to Baker, Pendleton, and Pasco, WA. Today there were some bus trips going over the Blues and having to be snow chains equipped. Yep, there’s snow on them thar hills.

As November rapidly approaches I am now feeding the herds twice a day, most days and will have to be on standby soon for those days that the snow blows, and the herds are fed 3 times a day. Good news… Sunday, I found a wooly worm in the haystack and it had only two very small black bands on its head and tail ends. Maybe this winter will be a bit milder and have a little less snow than the past couple of winters we have had here.

The other big news around the ranch this past week is Summer turned 4 months old and she learned to trailer load on Sunday. Oh she was so cute (again), learning to go UP and DOWN the trailer ramp. Horses don’t see very well right in front of their nose. Summer, for what she could see, knew that the way into the horse trailer was higher that the ground she had always walked upon. Like all horses, seeing a trailer for the first time, she was not sure about the world inside that big darken cave on wheels. First thing I did was to load Goldie, Summer’s mom into the trailer… that was easy. Goldie and I did that a half dozen times with Summer watching. It still appeared to be a mystery to Summer, as to what was going on with that mobile cave thing. After loading and off-loading Goldie a number of times, I put a flake of hay in the head of the trailer and walked away. Goldie was very happy to go in and out of the trailer at that point to grab bites of hay, and sometimes she would share with Summer on her way out. Last week Summer also started eating “large” mouthfuls of hay instead of her usual nibble portions.

After awhile of going this route with Goldie and Summer, I tied Goldie at the front of the trailer, put a halter and lead on Summer, and with help of Kittee working the butt rope, we began coaxing Summer up the trailer ramp and into the trailer. Again and again it was quite amusing to watch Summer making high steps trying to find the elevation change of the ramp.

again, and again...

After about a dozen entries we closed Goldie, Summer, myself up in the trailer, and Kittee drove around the pasture a bit so Summer and I could get the feel of being "trailered" around. I now know why horses can get a case of nerves (very sweaty) when being trailered for any distance.

Also while working with Summer on lead, I usually put a rope around her girth and cinch it up “tight” to give her the feeling of being cinched, hopefully to make her ready for the time to saddle-up, get ready to ride.

I polished off Sunday afternoon, working with Travis (our horse trainer) and Misty mare in the round pen, working on quick turn maneuvers, and working my horse at a higher speed. I am still a bit light footed on the gittyup, with my broken ribs telling me to hang on. It made a good workout for both Misty and me for this day, and I realize we have a way to go together before we start chasing cattle around the ranch. Kittee had ridden Derby earlier in the day, so she just sit back and watched Misty and I during this workout.

Other than these big happening during the past week around the ranch, Saturday Kittee took Nugget out to a Women's (horsy club) Only trail ride/obstacle course outing. She said that Nugget was the champ of the day, taking the lead in most events, as well as being his usually horsy eye candy. That’s Nugget, it is hard to find a horse better that he. I looked long and hard to find that horse for Kittee. What a guy!

Now, as I get ready to close this blog positing I look outside the office window and see that we are once again covered with sunshine and clear blue skies.

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

Our northeast Oregon trout season comes to a close at dark on Saturday 10/31, so the balance of this week after my bus runs, I hope to be working in the backyard –river– inviting all the legal size trout I can find, back to the house for dinner.

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

Happy Trails --- Dale

Back in the saddle again

Daybreak Saturday 10-10

The past couple of weeks has once again been quite busy for Kittee and I. Kittee seems to be having trials in the State, Tribal, City of Pendleton, City of Milton-Freewater courts on a weekly basis. I have my daily bus runs a.m. and p.m., making sports trips out of town a couple of days a week, I have been trying to go fishing in the backyard at least once a week, and now I am back in the saddle again. These fishing outings and horseback riding really feel good, as I have been laying low, putting on weight since my horsey wreck of August 1st. Here my fishing friend Jan holds her last hook-up of the day. On Jan's last two catches of the day, I showed her my Ketchum Release tool, and she found it quite beneficial in not having to handle the fish we catch.

Anyways...

It was Saturday before last that Kittee and I awoke to a most rosey daybreak (see above) which made a beautiful start for our day. This day for breakfast we had some seasonal O'Henry peaches, some of our backyard walnuts, other special ingredients and a pat of butter in our bowls of hot oatmeal. Just like our apple bread French Toast, this breakfast too is much like having dessert to start the day. Today we planned to ride horses. Yep I had healed enough that I wanted to get on my gentle, sweet, Misty mare. Actually I was hoping to do this before October 1st, but with the rains and snow of the week before, my broken bones and back didn't feel like getting on a horse. Anyway, this day was the day to saddle up Misty and try my riding ability once again. In the warmth of the late morning, Kittee had been riding since just after breakfast, I brushed Misty off and tacked her up for a short ride.
This felt good, and once in the saddle I did not feel the broken ribs. That was a good thing.


Now it has been since August 1st that I was in the saddle on Nugget, and it was way back in June since Misty was under saddle, so we kept this outing rather short and sweet, mostly for Misty's sake, since I am sitting on her back sporting a big round gut these days. After our rides and lunch Kittee and I went down the river to a plum orchard and picked some more plum for ourselves and the herds. The weather forecast was for a hard freeze to be heading our way, so we knew those tree ripened plums were not going to last for long. That day we picked maybe 60 pounds of plums.

The next day, Sunday we were hoping to ride again, but the weather turned to gray and wet, then it turned cold once again... really cold for several days. So for Sunday we spent playing cards and watching a movie or two. This was our season's second cold snap, and overnight temperatures dropped into the lower 20's. Monday the skies had cleared but our irrigation system looked like this...
By Monday afternoon our clear blue, cold skies were turning gray again as I was taking a sport trip with the MacHi girls soccer team to Umatilla. It was a nice ride, but a bit chilly to sit out and watch the game.

The team once again played a good game, but when they came back to the bus everyone was covered with plenty of heavy clothing and many of the girls were wrapped in blankets. It was turning cold at 5:30 that day as we headed for a submarine sandwich dinner and our way home.

On Tuesday, I once again climbed into the M-F school's trip bus and made another trip to Umatilla, the day was cold and wet. But this time I was taking the Central Middle School girl's volleyball teams for a three match set of afternoon volleyball games inside the gym. We stayed much warmer on this outing, and the games were good and pretty even. Again, I think... this is not a bad way to earn extra money and pay for our horses' upkeep. As the ole saying goes... "The least expensive part of buying a horse, is buying a horse."

Now as we get back to this past weekend, the entire weather pattern has changed and once again life in Northeast Oregon is nice and balmy. This weekend our temperatures were in the low 70's with plenty of sunshine to go around. Saturday Kittee and I rode horses in the riverside arena and back pasture. This time I put Misty into a nice jog as we circled and wove the arena track. Gee do I feel that workout in my legs today. Kittee rode Nugget in the arena while I was prepping Misty to ride, then she cantered him through the pastures to put some wind in their faces. Saturday evening while playing cards and listening to NPR's A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor a guy came knocking at our door and presented us with a photo of the lower 18 acres spread of McKuster Ranch that had been taken from a helicopter this past early spring.

He did take some money for the photo, but we thought this was a nice picture of the place, less the bluff and our back of the river 60 acres of cattle range. I can see from this photo and also a few weeks ago while putting up No Trespassing signs that next spring I have a couple of pastures that need to be reseeded. But this past year was our seventh year at the ranch, so it is about time to re-groom some of our pastures, and I am still tweaking the irrigation system to cover most of this ground. Having a farm/ranch with livestock is an eternal job.

Sunday, we were just going to groom horses before Kittee had to get ready to make a trip to Eugene. Then our old next door neighbor came by and invited us up to his place and to pick apples and pears. So we closed up shop here at the ranch and headed up the river to visit with Rick and his family and pick fruit. We picked about two bushels of apples, two dozen pears for us and about two bushels of holey apples and pears for the herds. By the time we got back to the ranch it was time for Kittee to clean up / pack up and head down the trail to Eugene for an attorney's conference on Monday and Tuesday. This afternoon I hope to get in a little backyard fishing after my p.m. bus route, and the rest of the week I am making school bus sporting outing to Baker on Tuesday and to Pasco, WA and Pendleton, OR on Wednesday.... busy, busy, busy,

and that's the way it is, around McKuster Ranch these days --- Dale

PS. To answer your question... Where is Kittee in this picture of Dale going fishing in their backyard? Kittee is not fishing. Kind of sad tale as it was a fly fishing outing that brought us to our beloved McKuster Ranch to begin with. Kittee has not done any fishing since a sunny Sunday afternoon in June. Is there anyone out there that wants to go fishing with me???

There it is, our first snow of the season... burrr.

This morning as I was firing up the Double Deuce, I noticed that there was frost on the neighborhood pumpkins, our first of the season. We also found that we got our first dose of snow across the mountains, east of the ranch with yesterday's daybreak. Burrrrr, it's getting chilly. I understand talking with hunters at the coffee stop this morning that Tollgate received 6" of fresh snow this weekend.

This past week has been fairly busy for Kittee and I. Kittee had allot of court trial prep to get ready for; as this week she is in trial everyday, and I stayed busy prepping the ranch for the onset of winter, already.

Sunday morning after feeding the herds (For The Record - we started feeding hay on Saturday when the rain started and the temperatures begin to drop) Kittee and I spend half the morning watching it rain and playing cards with the cats...

or maybe I should say that I spent the morning playing cards with Kats.
The weather did break later in the day, with clearing skies and plenty of sunshine so Kittee and I went to a neighbor's plum orchard and picked maybe 30-35 pounds of plums for ourselves and the herds of horses and goats that live here. After pitching out maybe 6-8 pounds of honey sweet and juicy tree ripened plums to the horses, we then sat basking in the sun in the backyard and watched 10 mule deer strolling the backyard bluff. Since I knew deer hunting/rifle season was opening here on Saturday, and I spent part of last week posting all of our property with No Trespassing signs. So while watching the deer in our sanctuary, we noticed one doe's head and ears behind some rocks being stationary, (while all the other deer were moving all over the bluff's draw) we thought something might be wrong with her (maybe rifle/arrow wound) so we hiked to the back of our property to check out the situation. When we got to the top of the draw, we spotted 7 of the deer (six does and one buck) and they all moved off, around the face of the bluff together including that stationary doe, so we felt that all was well.

Friday and Saturday were winter weather prep days around the ranch. The weather forecast was for wind, rain to come into the area and snow to hit the mountains by Sunday morning. Friday I made sure that all our hay was tarped well and finished harrowing the rest of the pastures before some a.m. drizzle began to fall.

Thursday was a most pleasant day weather-wise here in Milton-Freewater. That morning it showed a threat of showers over the mountains, but after my a.m. bus run and some horse herd work, I headed into town to make a bus trip with the high school girls' soccer teams. We had 100 miles to go to the west for a full afternoon of soccer in Boardman next to the Might Columbia River. Nice dry country this time of the year in that desert area. I had the opportunity to sit back in my bus' driver's captain chair and watch two games of well played girls soccer. Got pretty exciting...


MacHi, has some of the best soccer teams (girls and boys) in the state, so as expected the varsity and JV teams both won their games. I found this to be a most enjoyable way to earn a living for this week.

Last Wednesday, a new Walla² Fly Fishers club member came out to the ranch and we fished for awhile after my early run bus route was finished. It was a pretty afternoon, but temperatures for the season had already begun to drop. That afternoon the air temperature was 64° and the water temperature was 46°, quite a change from the week before.

With the onset of the full moon, the drastic drop in air and water temperatures, Jan and I had a pretty slow fishing day. The river and atmosphere was beautiful, but with only one hook-up apiece and a hour and a half of 46° leaky wader experience, Jan was ready to call it a day. I didn't realize that she was persevering, getting her river legs, casting stroke timing in sync, and while hiking around with a cold wet foot. A tough little fly fishing lady, but she has fly fished Alaska, so she know what she is doing.

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

December 6th @ 60º F

This weekend may have been our last weekend of beautiful Fall '08 weather. The weather has been very pleasant here this past week with several morning of heavy frost, and afternoon's being shirt sleeve weather.

Friday Kittee and I took care of business around the house after going to Walla Walla and looking at some tile for a bathroom makeover. Friday evening after my bus route, I got home worked in the garden, fed horses and we went back to Walla Walla for the evening of our Annual Banquet of the NWQHA.

This past week I have been moving the asparagus out of Rusty's keep and into a new garden row. Allot of this work was removing/moving the horse manure from around the asparagus plants that came up in Rusty's keep last spring, digging out the crowns and moving them to their new home turf. I was quite surprised at the size of some or the crowns, and glad to see that as I spread them out we will have a full 100' row of fresh cut asparagus to enjoy next spring. I have also been amazed that Rusty did not eat all the asparagus as it emerged this year. He only nibbled a few of the fern-leaf tops, leaving me many flags to follow to get to the underground crowns.


Saturday we very dutifully set our sights on horseback riding again through the wheat fields in our backyard. The weather was perfect, mostly clear blue skies, and the thermometer on both ends of the house were reading 60º. Again we thought about taking Derby and Misty to the top of Bowlus Hill, but Misty got kicked in the leg by a shod horse this week, and I felt that it would be better not to stress her by climbing a hill like Bowlus Hill, so we just casually rode the harvest trails, enjoying the scenery and wide open spaces.

Trail pictured above is looking over Kittee's left shoulder, as we get to keep an eye on our mile high wedding site at the Breaks of the So. Fork.
Below is a view of Bowlus Hill, (on the far left) from our wheat field riding range. The harvest/combine trails make a great place for us to ride and watch for gopher holes and animal borrows.

After our afternoon ride we got back home in good timing to give a little sweet grain to most of our "needy" horses, catch our NWPR 3:00 p.m. edition of Prairie Home Companion, from The Town Hall - NYC which was a very good show this week. Thereafter we headed upriver to the Cospers to help them with their new ranch website works. While there Cheri served a delicious roast beef dinner, with pumpkin pie dessert and late evening ginger sugar cookies. A most pleasant evening with Dale and Cheri. This past week Dale and Dale and Cheri got about half of their website operational, most of this web work job should be completed this next week.

Sunday began with our seasonal eggnog lattés while soaking in bed for awhile. Outside temperature at 8:00 was 51º and skies were cloudy. Today's weather forecast was for rain to be moving in. After a second latté we rolled out of bed and Kittee went out to feed horses while I worked on breakfast. Our plans for today was to go to the Walla Walla arena and ride, but since it was warm and the rains were not here this a.m. I told Kittee I would stay home and work on moving the rest of the asparagus. So after breakfast Kittee loaded Derby and Nugget and headed for the arena, I grabbed the shovel and wheelbarrow and started digging up more asparagus crowns.
About 1 o'clock I had maybe a half dozen crowns left to bury, and the rain began. Just about perfect timing as now this weeks transplants are now being very well soaked with a warm December rain of this afternoon/evening.

It didn't take long after the rains began, when the horses that were scattered in the pastures, all headed for the barn and stood around grumbling about the afternoon's wet weather changeover.

So our first week/weekend of December '08 has felt much more like springtime than heading into the fringe of winter.

a weekend in the life at McKuster Ranch --- Dale

November's Gold

The activities at McKuster Ranch are beginning to wind down with the advent of November, and it appears the wet season has returned. Most everyone in the horse herd is covered with a nice coat of dirt/mud. Most of the Cottonwoods on the river are now in gold, the Sugar Maples in our front yard are mostly bare of their golden leaves as we have had rain and wind the past three days almost stripping these trees. These maple leaves must be sweet as the goats and horses love to eat them as soon as they blow into the pastures. Warm temperatures the past few days have made a very pleasant Indian Summer in northeast Oregon.

This past week was the closing week of our '08 trout season here at the ranch/ Northeast Oregon. Because of the activities around having a new foal this year, Kittee dislocating her shoulder, we did not even purchase a 2008 fishing license to fish anywhere other that our own backyard this year. The two blog entries that follows this one gives details of those two afternoons of fishing I had on Wednesday and Friday, as I finish off this season.

Rosey turned VI months old this past week. She has been weaned from her mom for about 2 weeks now and she is doing very well on her own, with Aunt Misty at her side most of the time.
Rosey is still just as sweet, and soft a pet as every, even though she is a bit more muddy these days. Her coat is starting to look a bit winter shaggy, she is putting on a winter hay belly, as are most of the other horses here, and she has a few skuffs on her face since she has been living on her own. All in all she is still a most adorable little horse, and it is a joy to hug our baby.















































Rosey still spends much of her time taking small naps while out in pasture, but also enjoys hanging out with Raji her yearling Arabian filly buddy.

We still have three of our horses, Rusty, Shaiela, Derby showing Pigeon Fever, but their abscess wounds are greatly improving, as they are being medicated twice a day with a good dose of sulfur drugs. Today as I was washing Rusty's abscess wound I was holding his head in my arm, and he like Rosey showed complete relaxation and confidence that everything was alright. It is neat to have this kind of rapport with a stallion.

It was last weekend we did have a couple of very nice afternoon horseback ride up Cashe Hollow Road, and I rebuilt the front porch which Kittee had taken off the front of the house before it was re-roofed and new siding applied this summer. This past week I worked on putting gutter guards on the gutters at the back of the house... putting the finishing touches on the outside of our house.
You might notice from the photo below that even the late afternoon sun adds a golden glow to the house.
So with plenty of hay in the barn most of the outdoor projects completed around the ranch we are about set for winter, with the exception of bringing in more firewood. I have been making arrangements to gather a couple of cords of wood and hope to have that project completed by the middle of November.

Happy Trails to you until we meet again.

a week in the life at McKuster Ranch --- Dale