A Sing Along trail ride, please join us...

Yesterday and today Kittee and I had a chance to get away from it all once again with our trail riding partners, Derby and Nugget.
Right after breakfast we put our boys in their trailer, (our tack was packed from a few days before) and headed for the hills. Again we hit the ole Cache Hollow trail to Kennear Rd to Lincton Mtn Rd and parked at the rock quarry. From there we headed for the old logging roads that switchback across Tollgate Mtn. Once again to head into the high country to beat the heat was a pleasure. These pictures will kind of tell our story...

Once back at home we offloaded our boys, sit out in the frontyard and had a beer while they enjoyed the fresh green grass under the shade of the silver maples.


This day's ride was so enjoyable that Kittee suggested that we take a ride up the So. Fork on Monday afternoon. That sounds like a good idea to me. Most of the people, the mtn. bikes, motorcycles should be long gone by Monday afternoon, so we went to bed thinking of Sunday's ride and dreaming of Monday's ride.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today Kittee had a half day of work to do in Pendleton, and then she came home for lunch and a ride up the river. Once again with our tack stored in the trailer, all we had to do was brush off our riding partners, pick their hooves, load up and we're gone.

Once again instead of me rattling on, I will let a few pictures tell the story of today's ride and near the end we offer you a trail riding serenade, hope you will sing along...

~Nugget's Spook~
(a video link)
~you can view at 480p and/or full screen~

Today Nugget seemed a bit hyped about our ride, and on the return to the trailer he took the lead most of the way. After making one of the last river crossings of the day he rushed to catchup with Derby and on the way had a little spook. The above video link of ~Nugget's Spook~ I hope will you a bit of the feel of riding a horsey spook. It was a fun spook ride, as the video camera went flying up in the air.

We fully recovered, Nugget, the camera and myself ;>)
Yee Ha, gittyup!!

As I type this I remember that at three river crossing we found spring Chinook salmon moving upriver. Tis the season for them to begin spawning in our Walla Walla River.

"Happy Trails to You"
(a sing along video link ~ join us)

Today the weather was a bit cooler, and riding upriver felt grrrrrrreat. Kittee even wore a jacket to keep her bones from chilling. When we got back to the trailer the boys hadn't even worked up a sweat from the ride they had made.

After putting the boys back out to pasture, we sit back and had a wine cooler and as the sun slowly went down in the west, Kittee built a fire in the backyard fireplace.

Living in the Oregon Territory - August 2010

We then sit by the fire, had our dinner in the dark next to the warmth of the fireplace, waiting for all the stars to shine on us this evening.

It was a good day around McKuster Ranch.

And that the way it is -- Dale

Memorial Weekend '10

This past weekend was just a hangout-around-the-house holiday for us. We usually have the Reed family come up from Pendleton to do a family BBQ with us on Memorial Weekend, but this year we made plans with Kittee's sister Kuon, and husband Dale, to make an overnight run for their place in Yamhill. With the advent of last week- Kittee taking Shaiela to the vet, we found that Shaiela had a pulled tendon in her foot and needed to be put on stall rest for a month with a twice a day dose of bute for a week. Our plans of going anywhere were turned around, flipped up-side-down by this child's injury. We spent our 4-day holiday resting and playing around home.
This worked out OK with me, since the week prior I had been on four road trips with different school's all day field trips. This last week of school work was typical of rainy Thursday's trip, when I pulled out of Ferndale School at 6:30 a.m. heading for Baker City and the gold fields of Sumpter, to return at 8:30 p.m. to Ferndale School, so for the weekend I was ready for a break. Kittee and I had recovered from our illness of the week before, which turned out to be much like a flu, and left us very much looking forward to this long weekend break of just resting and horseplay.
Friday, we started the day very casually since it was a rainy day. After breakfast we headed for Walla Walla to do a bit of shopping and worked our way back home with the weekend's supply of videos, groceries and beverage. I did buy a new Canon digital camera while out, since my old HP camera was more and more in the mode to give up the ghost. The new little camera is nice, it fits well in a shirt pocket, which I need for trail rides, fishing trips, and general outdoor photography. Friday afternoon after we got settled in I pulled out the owner's manual for the camera and started to figure out it works. Does a nice job but has quite a few whistles and bells that I have not been used to.

















Since we were basically shut-in for the balance of the day, Kittee was my main photo subject for testing the camera. After dinner that day we watched a movie and a half.
Saturday started out the same as Friday, raining. This made about a week in a row of days with mostly rain for our daily weather conditions... not complaining, but it seems we are getting enough rain for the time being. Wish it would spread itself out into July and August, but that won't happen. Saturday morning was a bit cool with temperatures in the upper 40's so Kittee built a fire to sit beside most of the morning.

After breakfast relaxing, watching and waiting for sunbreaks

Kittee reading some SS worksheets, working on a client's claim.

Anyone out there needs help with Social Security claims? Kittee is phasing out her dom-rel law practice and is now working with (for or against) the Feds in Social Security claims.

Thereafter we spent most of Saturday running in and out of the house, to the pastures to visit horses between the warm 60° spring showers.
We have been asked from time to time if our horses are always clean and shiny. After a week of rains most days our palomino amigos look like this...
Now the above condition of horses can be quite typical on rainy days, but this weekend with off and on showers/sunshine, Kittee and I were quite entertained when after a shower all the horses, one after the other laid down on the wet ground and rolled with their feet waving high in the air. Made quite a site to watch ;>) horses with their feet waving through the air - cheap entertainment... except for the price of horses and hay. Anyway Saturday was just a catch can day, with high hopes that TWC's Sunday's weather forecast would be correct, sunshine for most of the day.

Sunday at 6:00 a.m. we went out to walk around the yard in the sunshine, there was not a cloud in the skies and all was springtime beautiful. A great day for cleaning up horses and going for a ride, out of our ranch's gate. I went out before breakfast and took some pictures around the yard with the bright morning sun on the driveway's flowerbed blossoms and Hawthorne tree.

After breakfast we headed out to catchup horses and prepare for our ride. After Derby and Misty were tacked up we warmed them up in the front pasture, just walking, trotting, cantering across level ground, green grass. Then we headed up Cache Hollow Rd. to see what we could find. It was a most pleasant ride and we began running into Western Tanagers. Until this year I think I have only seen two of these beautiful little birds around the ranch. Sunday we spotted at least 3-4 of the guys flying around while on our ride.

Pretty, pretty little birds. These pictures I took while riding Misty and trying to catch a bird with our new camera. Monday I was back on the river (which is too high/ fast to fish this weekend) and saw two more Tanagers.

This day's ride was most enjoyable, and we did find that the locust trees were beginning to bloom, but their blossoms were not open and diffusing their sweet perfume which smells like Niagara grapes (vino).


All week I was hoping to get to ride Goldie in the round pen, but with the weather and the pool of water sitting in the round pen that was not possible. So Sunday with the weather forecast calling for sunshine, I thought I might get the opportunity to ride my golden girl. But wouldn't you know it... with the bright warm sunshine on everyone's back, Goldie and Kootenai were showing signs of going into heat and were screaming at the boys. Silly girls.

Later in the day I did get a shot across pastures of Goldie and Summer stratching each others back.

Since Goldie's return from Chad's training, she and Summer have been the best of mother and daughter pair of horses. It did both of them a lot of good to be apart for 40-days. It is now hard for us to believe that Summer is now 11-months old and how tall she is getting. Though she is ¾ Arabian, she is showing her Quarter Horse ¼ in height and rump size. She is making a nice horse.

Monday was another on and off rainy day. Mid-morning we gave everyone their 3-months worming treatment. This went very well as I was able to worm Summer without having to halter her at all. She is such an easy handling horse, a pet, but not one to get in our pocket. She is making a really nice horse. Late afternoon did turn out to be pretty nice, so Kittee and I just sit out in the barn, watching rain showers passing through, drinking glasses of beer and wine while watching the horse herds play and graze.
Now with tomorrow morning's alarm to get up and go to work... I will have three days of school bus driving to run before summer's vacation.
Hip-Hip-Hooray!!! I do enjoy working in the school system.

So this is the way things have been around the ranch for this another holiday weekend.





Dale

Springtime, and my thighs are sooo SORE

Well once again this weekend we stayed pretty busy around the ranch, Friday through Sunday.

Last Friday, there was no school in session in Milton-Freewater but I put in a full day's work as I had a sports bus trip to Stanfield, OR. I took the Central Middle School Track team there for the final conference tournament. The day was fairly pleasant with some off and on sunshine and a little breeze. Central Middle School had a good day, for their final meet of the year as they won 1st place in the Boy’s, Girl’s and Overall competitions. We came home with a fist full of Blue Ribbons for their day’s effort.
While I was on the road/ track all day, Kittee had court in Milton-Freewater Friday morning, with only one client showing up… everyone else got a bench warrant issued for their arrest, upon sight by law enforcement. With this lack of courtroom activity, it allowed Kittee to come home quite early. She and downriver Robert did a little horseback riding in the mid-day, and work on a bottle of wine thereafter. Did I ever mention that the Walla Walla Valley was a world class wine tasting location, with more than 100 wineries in our valley?
When I got home it was time for dinner and a beer, so we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for a beer and dinner. After a feast for dinner we headed home and watched the rest of 2001: a space odyssey, Kubrick must have had to tasted some good LSD during the making of that movie. After the movie we turned off the light and called it a day, tomorrow was going to be a very busy day.

Saturday, we slept in late having our coffee in bed around 6:30 waiting for 7 o’clock to roll out and do a quick breakfast of corny grits, eggs and sausage, before Kevin the farrier was to show up. Kevin got here at 8:05 and we went to work on horses.

~ Summer at 10 months old ~

Kevin and Summer working together 5-8-10

Kevin and Summer's first farrier work session 11-1-09

Kevin is a farrier extraordinaire. We have had several
farriers to work on our herd, and we found that those guys
couldn't handle horses properly, or do their job well.
Neither has been the case with Kevin's work.

We had our three trail horses to shod, the rest of the herd to trim and with a lunch break we finished up around 4:30 p.m. – beer thirty. We took the rest of this day off with a pot of leftover beef stew for dinner. Sunday the weather forecast was for rain, rain, rain but we were hoping to take our three trail horses with their new shoes out for a mountain ride.

Sunday started with the sun rising over the eastern mountains. All week there had been a fresh snowfall on the Blues every morning and that is where we had plans to ride on Sunday. After Saturday afternoon’s blast of sunshine Sunday morning there was no snow in sight from our kitchen window. So after a hardy Happy Mother’s Day breakfast of wheaty hotcakes and a side of sausage we proceeded to round up our tack and horses and load the trailer under perfectly blue skies with no winds. What a beautiful morning it was. After loading everything/everybody, we headed for Big Saddle on Lincton Mtn., which is maybe 4 miles from the ranch.

~ Views from Big Saddle ~

To the southwest, Basket Mtn...

to the east, Blalock Mtn...

to the northwest, the rivers basin.

Many times we have ridden the horses from the ranch to this point and beyond, but today with the horses' new shoes and winter soles on their feet we thought we would give them a break. Off loading at Big Saddle we headed up the mountain and for the timber. -see videos below- The ride was fun as all three of our steeds had just come off fresh pasture grasses and were ready to run and play in the cool, fresh, clear mountain air. From the vistas on Lincton Mtn. we could see the Walla Walla, Columbia, and Snake rivers basin/junctions. Quite a site on a crystal clear day… no rain and very few clouds, just beautiful blue skies with scattered cotton ball clouds. We rode on until we reached the timber and there watched a cow Elk cross the road and decided that would be enough for this first day of the 2010 trail riding season. We expected to see quite a bit of snow at the timberline, but we found none on our ride, even though there was lots of mud puddles in the road from the snowfalls of the past week in this area. We trotted most of the way back to the trailers, being horses love to move out -fast- when they get the idea of we're going home.
Returning home we put our rides out to pasture, and we proceeded to kick back and have a couple of libations for the balance of the afternoon. During this time I closed off our roadside pasture from all others and put Rusty out to run. He ended up doing very little running as he had to check out every manure pile in the pasture and wonder who left it there. While he was jogging around we had a car to stop and watch him moving. This happens a lot here as we all the time have people stop and start taking pictures of our place. Anyway this car turned around and came back to the house and ask about that beautiful horse in the pasture. We told them he was our Arabian ranch stallion – Rusty. They wanted to know all about him. We told them of his background/ pedigree and that we had one of his foal in the back pasture. They wanted to meet Summer. We now have a potential buyer for Summer, but I told them not until she is one year old, and Goldie and Rusty breeds us another. I will hate to see my baby leave here :>(

Anyway by the time all of this was over I asked Kittee what time she thought it was and it turned out to be 7:00 p.m. Yikes! and it's three hours later on the east coast; I needed to try to call my Mom again to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. By the time I finished talking with Mom, it was time to put the horses back in their places, Rusty in his keep, have a bite of dinner and hit the sack. Mondays start very early around here, at least for the next three weeks.

This morning, I got out of bed, hit the deck, showered and ran my a.m. bus route with no pain. Now, usually after riding as much as we did yesterday I have sore leg muscles, (much like the day after the first snow skiing outing of the season) but this morning I was fine. I thought maybe I was in pretty good shape from regular rides around the ranch arena area. But getting out of the driver's chair of the bus upon my return home, I found out different... Oh my aching thighs, feel like they have been worked over with a meat tenderizer.
Today after my a.m. bus rounds the skies were very dark and gray. I was hoping to put in a garden row of green beans and corn on Sunday afternoon, but that didn’t happen, so today I was in a go mode to beat the rain I saw heading this way. I was able to double till two rows before the rain started and got my beans and corn planted in fresh tilled /wet soil. Later this week we are suppose to have temperatures heading into the 70’s, maybe 80's for the first time this year. I hope this will spur my seeds and effort to grow and produce abundantly. Amen.

And that’s the way it is around the ranch this past weekend.



Anyone have an idea of how to steady a camcorder
while sitting a trotting horse?

♫ Happy Trails to YOU until we meet again ♫

Peace be with YOU,




Dale

Summertime around the ranch

Except for our blazing hot Forth of July weekend when the temperatures around here reached 102°, Kittee and I have had a very busy past week/10-days of comings and goings. 4th of July weekend we found some movies and stayed in the a/c for most of the mid-day hours.This works well for us as we do not like to get into any holiday crowds, regardless of the season.

Last Tuesday as I was coming in from watching Summer and Goldie, I noticed allot of bird noise in the front yard Hawthorne tree. Looking around I see five Western Kingbird chicks out of their nest and sitting on a limb together. The remainder of the week Kittee and I have watched these chicks stretch their wings as they fly across the road and around our barn and paddock area. They keep going a little further from the nest each day.


I showed these guys to my Aunt Pat as we were heading for the Walla Walla Airport last Tuesday for her trip back to visit my Mom in N.C. and the old family (per-Revolutionary & Civil War) homesteads of eastern Carolina. Their big plans for this trip was to take part in the 150th Anniversary of the families' Oak Plains Church festivities. They were both very young lassies when they attended the church's 75th Anniversary, and they still tell stories about that occasion.

Wednesday was Kittee's birthday (follow this link for details). Our trail ride with Derby and Nugget that day was so enjoyable that we felt that we had to do much the same for Friday.

Friday, right after breakfast we groomed Nugget and Derby, loaded them into the trailer, made a U-Turn in our driveway and beeline for the upper So. Fork Walla Walla River trail.

We had left our tack in the trailer from our Wednesday's ride so getting to the trailhead and easy. Again Derby and Nugget were champs as we headed up the trail, past the back country river cabins' and on to Bear Creek Trailhead. At that point we made a left turn and headed up-up-up. This was a beautiful forest trail ride and the trail was very clean and clear to travel. After a couple of hours in the saddle we made it to the Bear Creek Saddle meadows. The trail was about 5 miles long from the BLM day use parking lot, up to the saddle, and it has an 1800' elevation change.


Here we took Nugget's tack off as he was a bit heated. Kittee and I shared a turkey-bacon sandwich wrap for lunch as Derby and Nugget grazed on tall grasses and allot of sweet red clover.

Some younger folks of the area also call this area the "Cub" Saddle for the remains of an old Piper Cub airplane that still sits in the saddle meadow.

After lunch-grazing, a cooling off period we saddled-up again for the ride back off the mountain. We let Nugget lead the way back off the mountain this day. Many times when Derby sees that we are heading down the "going back to the trailer" trail, he really wants to step out and I didn't feel like chasing he and Kittee off this mountain today. When we got back to the trailer, we gave the boys a river watering break, some hay, we washed the trail dust out of our throats with a couple of beers and sit back and took a break for awhile. This made another nice back country outing for this week, a nice ride for July.

This day we passed only two guys on trail motorcycles on the side of the mountain on the Bear Creek Trail. The rest of the trail and world we had to ourselves, our horses. We did catch Dale and Cheri walking around outside their place on our way back to the ranch, so we stopped and paid them a short visit/a recap of the day. By the time we got home and unloaded the boys it was a bit after 6:00 p.m. -- a full day's outing.

Saturday, the weather forecast, once again was for it to be hot. Kittee and I made plans to get out early with the boys and spend the morning hours riding in our riverside arena before the heat got too high. Whelp, when we finished breakfast, went out to greet everyone in the pastures we found Derby and Nugget laid out flat as pancakes, in their pasture. They were tuckered out and ready to take this day off, and with that so were we. Mid-morning we made a quick trip to Walla Walla, stopped by the video store on the way home, and for the rest of our 100° Saturday we stayed indoors and watched movies. Saturday evening just before sunset we did get back outside to watch/interact with Goldie, Summer and the boys.

Saturday evening after sunset we watched another movie until midnight. Gee that is awfully late for us, and on Sunday we are planning another trail riding day with the weather forecast saying cooler and maybe T-storms.

Sunday morning the air was much cooler and a few raindrop were on the bedroom window when I got out of bed for the morning paper and to make a pot of coffee. This day we were not in a rush to get too much done but hopefully go horseback riding, even in the rain. By the time we finished breakfast and went out to groom Nugget and Derby, the clouds were breaking and there were some sunbreaks. Again having left our tack in the horse trailer, we only had to brush the boys off and pick hooves and walked them out to the trailer to saddle-up and get ready to hit the old Cashe Hollow Road Trail, at our front door. This trail goes through some wooded area and then through the fields of amber waves of wheat, particularly amber this time of year.

At the top of the Cashe Hollow Trail, we can overlook the Walla Walla Valley, centered on Walla Walla, WA. in the valley background.


This day we left the house around 10:00 a.m. and made a three hour ride to the top of the road and down the Kennear Road Trail for a mile or so. We got back home and had the boys saddles on the racks shortly after 1:00 p.m. By this time of day the afternoon temperature was 95° and it felt like Sangria cooler time as we watched the movie -- The Cooler with William Macy, a pretty neat story. For the movie intermission we prepared a delicious seafood fettuccine dinner, using plenty of seafood, butter, Chablis, and Alfredo sauce to cover the pasta. Mmmmmmm good stuff. After the movie the T-storm clouds were beginning to buildup and the wind was blowing pretty steady, so Kittee and I went out to visit horses and enjoy sitting out in the storm with its wonderful light show and thunder boomers all around us. As the rain got heavier and cooler we came back into the house to finish our day/ weekend by having another viewing of the movie -- Crash.

and that's the way it was around the ranch this past week --- Dale

Back on the trail again...

Our #1 priority for yesterday was to be on horseback and riding up the Ole Cashe Hollow Trail. We started the day with our favorite breakfast of apple bread French Toast, sausage and coffee. Weather was perfect, skies were crystal clear blue, with pure sunshine on our shoulders, and morning temperature in the mid-70's. Right after breakfast we hurriedly rinsed off our plates and headed out to pastures to catchup our rides for the day.

Misty and Nugget came to the hitching rail like old pros, ready to go. Before we hit the trail we took both horses out to the riverside pasture and arena. Kittee rode Nugget around the pasture chasing about a dozen Canada geese feeding in the pasture, I took Misty to the arena. There Misty and I warmed up as she had not been under saddle in over a month. After going through several drills, I took my feet out to of the stirrups and dropped Misty's reins out of my hands and proceeded riding her just using leg cues with weight shifts. She did very well following these cues and we worked the arena course for about a ½ hour. Kittee was quite amazed at what Misty and I had accomplished --"Look MA, NO hands". After this warm up we headed for the trail.

Since this was the first time off the ranch for the season we followed the Ole Cashe Hollow Trail up to the 2½ mile mark. There we let the horses graze on some lush grass and a bit of wheat at this turnaround point.

In the background of this picture is Walla Walla, WA and The Palouse. After our ride we washed the horses off, gave them a quick spot of grain, for ourselves we had a smoked buffalo steak sandwich for a quick lunch and headed for Walla Walla to do some shopping.

Returning from Walla Walla we rushed around getting things done waiting for our horse trainer Travis to show and work with Rusty and boarder Sunny. After a full day of riding and work, Travis had not shown up so Kittee stopped for the "rest" of the week. I proceeded to finish mowing the lawn, cleaning up and watering the garden.

After my work was done I brought out the Pawley's Island Rope hammock for the season and went into a semi-conscience state of relaxation, with a bit of applejack on the side.

As our spring weather has settled in we are now getting garden sprouting and the lilac bush and Hawthorn tree has bloomed this past week.






























Before the evening breeze turned from the west to blow down the Walla Walla River Canyon our afternoon temperature reached a balmy 85º, the first time over 80º this season. Believe me, after a hard day of riding and/or work, it feels great to have the cool breeze off the mountain coming through the yard and house to finish the day.

For the record: Saturday, Kittee worked on the continuing destruction of our indoor bathroom shower while I attended our forth Walla² Fly Fishers meeting.

This Saturday afternoon was a get together of fly tying and lawn fly casting practice. Everyone felt that it was a beneficial meeting for all. We had 16 in attendance for this meeting. It gave all of those attending a chance to get to know each other as our group continues to form.

NOTE: A blog has been created for the Walla² Fly Fishers. Please follow this Walla² Fly Fishers link to follow the development of our local fly fishing club.

Next weekend we have my Mom coming to town, and with that event we will have the family from Pendleton coming up for an afternoon of around the ranch activities and BBQ ribs and chicken. Once again here at the ranch, BBQ is my description of meat/smoke/sauce preparation - No. Carolina style, taught to me by my Grandmother from eastern Carolina - the birthplace of BBQ.

That is the recap of the coming and going around the ranch this week.
Hope you will come out and join us for a BBQ-ing some time.

That's life around the ranch... Happy Trails.