Summer is here.

For The Record... "Summer" is here, and today is her birthday. Summer was only 3-4 days off the 11-months gestation period for horses - breeding to delivery. Goldie and baby are doing well.

It was about 1:45 a.m. this morning that Goldie woke me up pacing and shitting all around the barn foaling stall. I knew something out of the ordinary was going on as I was waking up. I turned on the flashlight and she had her tail cocked to the side, so I felt it was time for our new baby to arrive.

First thing I did was to check Goldie's udder and found milk dripping... a sure sign of we are getting close to having a baby.

I radioed Kittee on the walkie-talkie that we were about to have a baby, "can you come and help?" In a very few minutes Kittee was at the barn and shortly thereafter Goldie's water broke and she began showing a hoof.

Shortly thereafter Goldie laid down and went into labor. What a good girl she is...

At that point everything begin to move very fast as we then saw two hooves begin to show, and then a little horse's nose... this delivery was going perfect. Thank you Goldie and Mother Nature.

Shortly thereafter I was wiping off our new little filly "Summer" and holding her in my arms. For the next half hour Goldie and I went through the imprint process to make this little one ours.

Goldie was quite protective but sharing of Summer. Because it took awhile for Summer to start nursing (Goldie kept pointing her in the right direction), Kittee came back to the house and call Dale Cosper to come help with directing the nursing process. Dale and I worked with these two for a bit and decided that Goldie and Summer really needed to be left alone to work out the process for themselves -- very interesting. Goldie was boss mare and a most naturally good mother in this situation.
Yep, turned out everyone was just getting in the way of Goldie, Summer, and Mother Nature. After Dale and I left the foaling stall, we could not ask for the process of mother, foal and nursing to go along any better. Dale left at daybreak (Thank YOU Dale), about 5:00 I came back to the house, made a pot of coffee and laid down for a little nap.

About 7:15 Kittee awoke and joined me in living room with a cup of fresh coffee for both of us. After the coffee helped us become functional once again, we redressed and ventured back to the barn to visit with Goldie and Summer.

After Kittee and I watched Summer nursing some more, I stepped into the foaling stall and continued to pet/imprint Summer for life. Shortly thereafter Summer laid down to take a nap. Kittee and I then left mother, baby in peace, quite and resting.

Kittee headed for a short day's work in Pendleton, I came in to work on this blog posting and will go back to the barn to check on both our girls again shortly.

Summer is a ¾ Arabian – Quarab and will be registered with AHA. Summer’s AHA papers will show top and bottom her lineage with the Arabian horse of legend-- Bask+. Her sire Adrenaline Rush is the get of the phenomenal palomino AHA Fire-n-Ice. On her dame side she is a descendant (front page) of the Quarter Horse legend-- Doc Bar. With this her breeding we expect her to be a fine long distance endurance riding beauty. A horse anyone that enjoys spending a day in the saddle will love to sit this girl… for the long run.

So this is our prize, given us by Rusty, Goldie, and the Great Spirit - Creator of All. Follow this link to view the creation of Summer.




















Today, our weather makes a most perfect birthday. This morning, under clear starry skies the temperature was in the 50's, this afternoon the temperature is to be in the low-80's with pure sunshine from sunrise to sunset. It should be a great day for turning mare and baby foal out to pasture, and myself I hope to get a short afternoon nap in the front yard hammock, then get some horseback riding into my day by saddling up my Misty.

Since I was doing most of the handling of this little one, we don't have allot of pictures, and just a few videos, but I shall share the first ones here, and invite you to visit Summer's web page as it develops in the very near future.

A day in the life around McKuster Ranch --- Dale

Sleeping in the barn -or- we're going to have a baby

Since my Mom left town, the past couple of weeks has been rather busy. I have been making trips to Walla Walla twice a week to get acupuncture treatments, Kittee has had a lot of court trials in Pendleton and La Grande, and for the weekends we try to work/play with horses.

Latest updates on Goldie is… she is very pregnant and now due to deliver at any moment. These days Goldie is unable to stand with her legs straight up. The past two nights I have spent with Goldie trying to get our rest while sleeping in the barn.
This experience is much like camping with a roof over my head. Last night, the first night of summer was quite windy and cool, so I know much of what it was like that Kittee experienced last year in April waiting for Rosey’s arrival to the ranch. Our weather the past few days has been much like late-April/early-May rather than the first weekend of summer.

Sunday was our first day of summer at the ranch and the day was mostly cool- temperature in the low 70's, damp, and quite windy. Kittee and I spent a little time sitting in the barn yesterday, watching the herds running - grazing the riverside pastures while Goldie was gently nuzzling both of us like a courteous 1000-pound puppy looking for head rubs and body strokes. Kittee made a big pot of chicken-veggie soup for the day, that we ate for lunch and dinner; and will again later this week as it get better with age. I was pretty zapped from my first night “sleeping” in the barn, so I had several naps throughout the day. With the weather feeling more like late April than June, we spent the mid-afternoon through the evening hours indoors watching several movies.

Saturday, Kittee and I had a most enjoyable mid-day riding Misty and Derby in the riverside arena. Kittee did some bareback riding on Derby and I did a little trotting on Misty using NO stirrups or reins for guidance control. This type of riding is becoming a lot of fun with Misty, as we are learning to connect with each other more and more all the time, with time spent in the saddle. After riding we had a rather laid-back late afternoon just watching horses, and I did more prep work on Goldie’s foaling stall.



















Silly Arabian fillies at horseplay -- Raji (two years old) on the left, and Rosey (yearling) on the right. These girls are best pasture buddies/ playmates.


















Thursday, Kittee and I got to do something that we have wanted to do for many, many years. We spent the evening at the Walla Walla County Fairgrounds watching the US touring group of the Lipizzaner Stallions Show. We both greatly admired the show we saw as children; Walt Disney's movie The Miracle of the White Stallions. This evening's horse show production of classical music, and dressage horses with heads held high, made a most enjoyable evening under the stars, with our seats being center stage and on the second row (no one walking over/on our toes). NOTE: if you follow the link above to the Lipizzaner website, be sure to let the Blue Danube Waltz load as you visit their site - a very nice website presentation.
Friday morning I got on the Internet and ordered Kittee and I our own DVD copy of The Miracle of the White Stallions... to be here by this Friday, which should be our evening's entertainment at that time.

After the show we stopped by the Stone Hut sports bar (our first visit) for a beer and a really great tasting burger. That stop will be worth trying again, but we really could not understand how anyone would have use for six (6) TV (?) playing in a room at one time.

Wednesday evening, we had our farrier Kevin at the ranch working on a few horses with as much time and daylight that was left in the day. He will be returning this Wednesday evening to work on trimming the rest of our herd's hooves.

Tuesday evening, I had two guys from Walla Walla out to the ranch to discuss the formation of our new Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) chapter/club in Walla Walla. After talking about the business of club formation and alternative electric power sources, we took a walk back to the river to survey the possibilities of fly fishing in the backyard ASAP. Eventhough the water looked great, it was still flowing a bit too fast to drift a fly or stand steady on the river rocks. Maybe in a couple of weeks, we should be hooking fish out back.

Monday evening, I went to our local Walla Walla Basin Watershed Council meeting, and there we had the head honchos for the “green” power company looking at putting in wind turbines across the Blue Mountain foothills south of our ranch towards Pendleton. Not sure this is a good idea.

Last weekend (FTR - 6/12) I took Shaiela upriver to the South Fork Horse Ranch for her to bred with EAGLEFROMTHELIGHT to see if we could make another Rosey for our 2010 foal crop. She was covered on Saturday-6/13 and Sunday-6/14. Dale brought her back home on Tuesday.

♫ Happy Trails to you, until we meet again ♫

And that’s the way life is around McKuster Ranch this past week --- Dale

We are going to have a baby...

Starlog 080808

Big news this week.....

****FLASH****

Goldie is in foal!

Rusty and Goldie spent the day and night together -July 20 & 21- pasture breeding in a most natural setting and made a ¾ Arabian baby.
Goldie went to see Doc Doug Corey today and it was confirmed that she is pregnant. As per her ultrasound picture she was 19-20 days settled. We're gonna have a baby!

Please join us in hoping that all goes well with this pregnancy and next June we have a health, sound palomino (we hope) Quarab baby. Our baby will be ¾ Arabian with *Bask++ top and bottom; ¼ Quarter Horse/Doc Bar breeding from Goldie's pedigree.













;>) EXCITING

Thank you Goldie and Rusty- 
equine breeding- YouTube video - 1:44 min

a day in the life at McKuster Ranch -- Dale