Kittee is L-? years old today

Stardate 070808
OK, in case you didn't get it... in those bygone days of Roman rule L-? = fifty something. We need not to be any more specific than that, as time marches on.

Today was the perfect day for a Kittee's birthday. Skies were as blue as Kittee's eyes, the sun was bright and warm as the glow showing on her face- picture above, and all the ranch horses and I were happy to be with her all day.

We started our day with a good strong cup of java, and then Kittee proceed to sit in the yard watching horses graze and having her bowl of huckleberry granola for breakfast. Afterward we walked through the herds, putting on fly mask, and pony grazing muzzle-mask. Had allot of fun chasing Ginger around for about 10 minutes to catch her and put her muzzle-mask on. That was fun as together Kittee and I took very few approaching /chasing steps but kept Ginger moving along -running around the horses- until she gave up; huffin/puffin and just stood still for the mask. Funny, silly little ponies.

After everyone was situated for the day with fresh water, plenty of green grass, we begin working in the garden until the temperature got July hot. Kittee loves this time of year- the heat thereof- she generally says "it very pleasant and about 85° outside" when actually the thermometer shows it is more like 95°+ and it's pretty freakin HOT.

After working in the garden, I turned on the irrigation for horsey comfort, we had a bite of lunch and got ready to spend the rest of the afternoon in Walla Walla. There we made our first stop at the "Ice-Burg" ice cream parlor/snack shop for a root beer float. Mmmmm, that was good, our first of the season. We have been talking about making root beer floats at home for the past couple of weeks. The "Ice-Burg" is an interesting soda stop. While we were there, they had Elvis Presley singing on the outdoor stereo and the old car-hop area has now been converted into a very small parking area for those that wish to order their treats at the front window and enjoy the ambiance of just sitting at this little drive-in. Picture this, they now have drive-thru windows on both sides of the building for the folks that do not wish to leave the A/C of their SUV's and walk up to the service windows. Kittee and I felt that the "Ice-Burg" is probably a 50-60 year old landmark of almost city center Walla Walla.

Next stop was to head for Staples, and Kittee got a new laptop Compaq computer; very nice machine... Windows Vista, large hard drive, CD/DVD read-writer, etc.

From Staples, we made a beeline to a favorite area restaurant for dinner. We went to Kelly's with our friend Miriam last Friday evening and our dinner was so good that Kittee wanted to have seafood fettucini again tonight. I had to agree with Kittee that this evening's dinner dish was better that the wonderful one we shared on Friday... had more seafood and salmon tonight. While waiting for our dinner to arrive, we had a cocktail and asked the waitress to hold off on dinner until Kittee had time to play/setup her new puter.

After dinner the air was a bit hot sitting in the sun, so we pulled the hammock and lawn chair into the shade of the front yard maple trees and sit back and relaxed see above picture.
As soon as the sun began sinking in the west, Kittee, Sylvester and I went out to check on the garden's growth for the day, thereafter we went out to check on the herds and our baby- Rosey.

Rosey is now taller than the ponies, not quite as heavy by a few hundred pounds. She spends more and more of her time grazing these day and trying to act like a "big" horse. The other day I watched her running, running running around the pasture and through the mare herd for maybe 10 minutes steady on. Just having fun being a little horse.

After the sun had set slowly in the west, we started rounding up our "stuff", turned off the irrigation works, headed for the house and called it Kittee's Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Kittee
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As you can see in these blog pictures, Kittee is now carrying her arm in a sling on an almost everyday basis. She still has a banged up/sore shoulder from the flying lesson given her by Shaiela and Rosey. Part of today's activities was trying to get in to see a doctor to take a look at the shoulder... no one available until September or October.
Needless to say we have not been horseback riding in awhile. Good news is, that my broken ribs of last July's bucking ride are almost healed (?), and hurt very little anymore... as time marches on.

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Looking back over the three day Fourth of July weekend, we had a pretty busy time and received two more boarders on Monday 7/7.

Last Friday our friend Miriam from the Portland area came in for a getaway to the country. She arrived here as Kittee and I were finishing the afternoon of horse baths. Over the weekend Kittee and I broke in our new horse/pony wash station. Kittee washed Ginger and Nugget and I washed Misty and Goldie. All went well, even though we had to work together on getting Goldie to stand steady in the wash station. After she got used to standing in the station she did fine for her first real bath.

After Miriam got here, I mixed up some Fuzzy Navels and we proceeded to sit back and relax before heading out for dinner. Being the Forth of July, we felt that our favorite Mexican restaurant would be the order of the day, hip hip hooray. Miriam always enjoys the La Ramada when she makes it out to M-F. As we pulled up to the restaurant we noticed that it was closed. We could not figure out how they could justify closing a real Mexican restaurant on the "Americans" Fourth of July... don't think we have ever seen it closed before except for Xmas. Anyways, we proceeded to pull through the parking lot and headed on up the highway for Kelly's restaurant. The weather was very mild (all weekend) and we had a most enjoyable dinner on the outside patio at Kelly's. The drinks were good, the seafood fettucini was good, and the company (folks we knew and did not know) were very enjoyable. Hey, Hey, Hey, get this... Miriam (now a two-time-grandmother) got carded when she ordered a Fuzzy Navel for her before dinner beverage. Hey, Hey, Hey ladies... wanta get a rush, go to Kelly's for dinner. By the time we got back home it was time for another round of Fuzzy Navels and then we called it a day.

Saturday started early for Kittee and I, and we let Miriam sleep in, until mid-morning. I was up by the sun about 5:00 a.m. and went out to commune with the horses, particularly Rusty. After our strong cup of java at about 6:00, with a wild blueberry granola breakfast, we were out taking care of horses, ponies, water troughs, and puttered around in the garden for awhile. At about 8:30 Miriam was up, so we then strolled back through the mare herd talking with everyone. Miriam had a good chance to pet our baby- Rosey. After the morning rounds were done, we got ready and headed out to the CTUIR Pow Wow at the Wildhorse Casino near Pendleton.

To stay out of the mid-day sun, I spent a couple of hours at the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute reading books, while Kittee and Miriam spent their time watching Pow Wow dancing and drumming, looking for real Native American jewelry. By the time all of this was done, it was time to head back home and get ready to go to dinner, since all we had to eat this day was breakfast. This evening we took care of business at home and headed for La Ramada, Mexican restaurant once again. This night they were open, and we had our usual feast of good food.
Returning home we just blobbed out in the lawn furniture until after sunset. Thereafter called it a day... done.

Sunday, was quite a busy day. Sunday morning breakfast was previous dinner leftovers-- for Kittee and I it was seafood alfredo, and for Miriam's it was her vegetarian creamy pasta dish. Mmmmmm good stuff, again.
I started preparing for another McKuster Ranch BBQ for the evening. I had prepared most of the food works over the past couple of days so Sunday was easy "fixins" of just working on the chicken and pork ribs in preparation for the smoker.

After breakfast everyone went out to pasture to bid ado to the herds, and Miriam had a formal introduction to our handsome Arabian stallion -- Rusty. Miriam and Kittee also walked back along the river and took a perch at Contemplation Station. Before she had to bid farewell Miriam spent some time petting Rosey, and begin to think that she needed to find a place in northeast Oregon to retire to. Life is different here, and we love it.

Dave also from PDX country showed up about mid-morning to pet and groom his two Arabian girls. He was on too tight a schedule to be able to stay on for the evening's boarders' BBQ. Dave told us he couldn't take it anymore and was moving to Hermiston in October.

The rest of our day was taking care of small chores around the ranch and preparation for dinner. Around 6:00 p.m. Kasey and Travis showed up, shortly thereafter Jennifer, Henry, Leila and Gary got here for horse petting and another round of BBQ ribs with the side dish trimmings. This little party broke up next to dark with a breeze coming off of the Blues, and the air was cooling off quickly. Since most of the food prep had been done the days before, there wasn't much cleaning up to do and Kittee and I headed to bed shortly thereafter. It was a good day.

Monday, everything begin to settle back into place with the exception that we were to receive two new Arabian fillies on the ranch.

Kittee headed off to work, and about 8:30 I received a phone call from the equine transporter that he was about an hour from the ranch with sisters Sunny and Raji. After offloading these girls, the transport driver and I walked them around the pasture to introduce them to the fence line, water trough, salt block and grass. Raji the yearling probably ran a mile circling around me as I walked her around the pasture perimeter on lead.
They appeared to be quite happy to be standing on firm ground again after their ride from Scottsdale, AZ. Upon their hitting the ground I realized the had not lived on pasture grass before, so I made a quick trip to town and was able to find some prime eastern Oregon grass hay to cut into their diet. They are doing very well now.

Thus another weekend and Birthday in the lives of Kittee and Dale

It's freaking hot today!!!

Stardate 06/28-29/08

Summer has struck McKuster Ranch this weekend in a big way. Since Thursday our afternoon temperatures have been rising by 10º a day. Thursday we were in the upper 70's, Friday we were in the upper 80's, Saturday we were in the mid-90's and this afternoon the ranch thermometer shows 100º outside, in the shade as the A/C came on.

This morning we moved pretty quickly, situating the horses and irrigation for a hot day. After getting everybody/everything in place it was most pleasant sitting out under the maple trees with coffee and the Sunday morning newspaper, watching horses' play.

Shortly after having our breakfast granola while sitting on the front lawn, one of our boarders- Jennifer showed up with her brother and family. They were camping at Harris County Park on the So. Fork of the Walla Walla this weekend. This was a very cute family of visitors with a three year old little girl, and a set of two-year-old twins. While they were here the little ones did a front yard pony ride with Kittee, Jennifer and Jasmine, and had some petting time with Jennifer's horses.

After Jennifer and family left, Kittee and I turned on the front lawn sprinkler, moved our chairs to within showering range still under the shade of the maple trees, opened our beers and enjoyed the shade and shower until about noon. By then it was getting hot, and we came into the house for lunch, A/C, and a nap.

This afternoon Kittee had to pack up and drive to Portland to handle a court trial there tomorrow morning. YUCK!!!
Suppose to be about 100º at PDX today, with the west side humidity this will feel about like CLT, NC... nothing like our pleasantly irrigated front yard/Walla Walla River Valley. Kittee and I are both glad that we don't live in or near those two high rise concrete slabs any longer. We just thank the Great Spirit- Creator of All most everyday for our home, our space, our blessings.

Today Rosey is nine weeks old and is doing very well with blending into the mare herd and pasturing on her on. She is a really neat pasture pet now, and will come readily to being called. Yep, she knows her name, she gives a nay when we call her and knows that loving & petting feels good to little horses. She's our baby. This week we are to have two new arriving pasture boarders from AZ. These are two Arabian sisters -- one a yearling and the other a two year old. So with Rosey, Shaiela, and the two new arrivals we should make a very interesting second (Arabian) mare herd.

Picture on the left is Rusty tossing his head/mane. Arabians like to toss their heads allot, and stallions throw their heads and flaunt their manes quite a bit as Rusty does here. It is really funny watching him when he gets around mares, and arches his neck and throws his head in a most stallionlike manner.
With the weather forecast for today being 100º I canceled Rusty and my training session with Travis for the afternoon. It was a good time for Rusty to just go out to pasture and spend the day relaxing and grazing outside his stallion keep.

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Yesterday was our Blue Mountain Flycasters club's annual Kids' Fishing Day outing. Each year for the past four we join with ODFW and have a designated kid's fishing day at a beautiful well stocked trout pond about 35 miles south of Pendleton in the cool of the mountains.

A nice cool place to be yesterday as Pendleton was getting hot mid-morning as I was going through there. Kittee with her busted shoulder did not attend the activity this year. She was expecting Jennifer and family to come by yesterday, so she felt that she would do best by holding down the fort.
It was a good day to be in the great outdoors and the fishing/ catching was good for most of the kids.

While this is a non-fly fishing event, we do have folks that want to get a feel of handling a fly rod and tying some flies. Our club's Prez Bob Wolfe is a good guy for sitting in front of a fly tying vise and showing anyone how to make a trout fly develop. Bob is also a pretty good hand at getting trout to play with his flies.

Another part of our program for this day is to help kids learn how to clean and ice fish to make the trip worthwhile when they also get home and pull out the frying pan.


Here club member Bob Clabby has been a star player over the past years by putting his hand on the knife and pulling fish guts in demonstration of how a smooth easy cleaning process is done.

Along with trout fishing there is water play and a bountiful chowline to help make the day go easy.While standing around we had a fella asking yesterday, just how did we manage to create a deal like this; where the weather is beautiful, fishing is good, and food is furnished? I told him we should just call it a "hellavadeal" and keep on fishing and smiling.

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This past week around the ranch has been a good one with the exception that I found out Wednesday that Misty was not pregnant, so we will have to try again next year with her and Rusty. Now waiting for Goldie to go into heat, maybe will breed her to Rusty and hoping Shaiela to go into heat soon to breed her back to Eagle. Our experience with our baby -Rosey, we are still thinking strongly of trying to have two foals for next year. Baby horses are just so neat to have around, and maybe someday we can even make a buck or two, from our breeding program.
Happy Trails to you.

a day in the life around the ranch --- Dale

Rosey is VIII weeks old today

Stardate 062208
This was the second day of summer and it was beautiful. Last night we had a very good rain storm come through the area and it seems to have pumped a fresh dose of green into everything. Today sunrise coming over the Blue Mountains onto the ranch was at 5:45 a.m. and sunset over the northwestern wall of the Walla Walla River Canyon was at 8:30 p.m.

This past week has been much busier than usual, as I found myself making three trips into Pendleton, not getting nearly all my farm chores done for the week. This week I had two days of fire camp crew/bus drivers' training, and a third day in Pendleton to chauffeur Kittee to her office as her shoulder is still giving her pain by the end of the day.

Our garden seeds are now beginning to sprout well, and it is about time to make a second seed planting of beans and corn. This past week most of our days were in the lower to mid-80's and with irrigation on the crop, all seem to be in the grow mode now. So far this week the green beans, squash are coming up well. Corn (planted the same day as the beans) is showing a few stalks out of the ground. This year I am using regular 5/8" soaker hoses to irrigate the garden and this seem to be irrigating the seed rows and transplants quite well. We are not growing garlic this year even though we have plenty of garlic scallion left from our last commercial crop. These I plan to pull and cure in July and re-establish a garlic crop (not commercial) for next year.

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Rosey is still in the fast grow mode. It is quite amazing at how much height she gains each week, and today Kittee and I discussed that we are going to have to start treating her more like a horse than a pet, because of her size/ development. It is to the point now that we can walk into pasture with Rosey and do anything we want to with her, without much horsey reaction. This is a neat thing as she is 150 lbs baby but maybe a bit too much touch-and-go as she grows into 900+ lbs horse.

Rosey now comes to her name being called, she is grazing grasses, sticks her muzzle into the water trough and plays in the water as well as drinks freely. A really interesting thing happened today; we brought the mares onto new pasture and everyone really enjoyed the lush wet green grasses, and broad leaf grazing. Well in all of this Shaiela developed a belly ache and laid down for awhile. During this time Rosey tried to nurse Aunt Misty, of course to no avail but Misty did let her try.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is Rosey, Rosey, Rosey, but right now
she is our baby.

Kittee runs a comb through Rosey's forelocks while she cat-naps.

Rosey now has four upper and four lower baby buck teeth, and eats almost anything she desires.

This weekend Kittee spent time working with Rosey on halter leading and direction changes. Being eight weeks old it is amazing at how well Rosey responds to her training.

More and more each day she is shedding her foal coat, and we can see clearly that she is going to be a BAY filly. She is showing a gorgeous golden brown body coat with black from the hocks down and black tail and mane/forelocks. It is hard not to pet and stroke her as her coat is as soft and silky as it shows in this photo.

a day in the life without leaving the ranch--- Dale

Rosey ***Chapter VII****

Stardate 061508

Today Rosey turned seven weeks old.

Yes, the V in the title of this blog is to remind us of Rosey's lineage to Desperado V.

No, this is not a PhotoShop makeover of Rosey wearing a cap. There are days now that she walks around the ranch wearing a Blue Mtn. Anglers -flyshop- cap.

Yesterday we introduce her to the entire mare herd, and all went well. There was allot of running and loping, but everyone settled down and all is well.

It appeared that Aunt Misty was glad to help Shaiela watch the incoming mares, as Rosey and Shai kept their distance. Misty (who has been pasturing with Rosey and Shaiela for a week) stayed in between the non-bred mares, and made sure that all was safe and sound for Rosey. We have a strong feeling that Misty is now pregnant x Rusty, and will take her to the vet to confirm this in the next week or so. It was a very interesting blending of mares with our baby Rosey. Ho hum, no big deal, as everyone settled in and was happy with the new pasture grazing area.

This evening Kittee and I had a short photo session with Rosey and will blend these shot into this blog.

Big news for today----
***Flash***
Goldie our 5 year old Quarab mare went under saddle with our trainer Travis Webster, for the very first time this evening.Before Travis got to the ranch this afternoon I brought Goldie out of pasture and worked her in the round pen making outside and inside turns. Just a warm up session before Travis arrived, and she was so easy to work with. As the afternoon was pleasantly warm (in the mid-80's), I did hose Goldie off a couple of times to cool her off and expose her to water hosing (she takes it very well). When Travis got here, he put her right to work using bridle and bit to train her to give to the bit, disengaging her hindquarters, and sacking her out with the round pen tarp. All of these exercises were a first for Goldie and she took it well. Within 30-40 minutes Travis had Goldie under a saddle blanket, then the saddle, and shortly thereafter Travis was in the saddle. OH, what a beautiful sight... wish I had pictures to share of this experience. I wanted to wait for Goldie to be 5-6 years old before we started her under saddle, and it appears this time has paid off well.
I asked Travis to evaluate today's training session, and he feels that Goldie is going to make an eye catching, well mannered trail/arena horse. Easy/ready to learn and obey. With her Arabian breeding she should be strong as an endurance ride, and with Doc Bar as her Grandsire, she should command attention as a beautiful, well-bred, palomino western pleasure horse. She is still/will always be my 1000 lb. golden equine pet that always come and follows me around the pasture when I whisper her name.
Have I mentioned that Goldie and I fell in love at first sight the first time we met? What a special creature. I am now so looking forward to Travis putting more saddle time on Goldie, and thereby giving me the time in the near future to ride her.
Kittee and I now think that we may not breed her with Rusty this year, but wait a year. Hard decision to come by, as Rusty to bred Goldie was the main provocation for buying Rusty. Decisions, decisions, it can be a hard life sometimes, but someone has to do it.

Anyways, today was a most pleasant day at McKuster Ranch, as Leila, and our new boarder Kirstin came out to work and play with their horses.
This past week Kirstin came on board at McKuster Ranch with her cinnamon Appaloosa "Lassiter". Today she came out and rode Lassiter bareback round the pasture for awhile and then sit and visited with Kittee and I for quite awhile thereafter. A most pleasant afternoon and evening with all.

Back to our baby Rosey...
today is another "birthday" celebration


We are finding that Rosey is such a joy to work/play with as she is such a dear little sweetheart.
We did measure her at seven weeks old and she is now 10.1 hands in height.









As Rosey is now shedding her foal coat we see that very likely she is going to be a bay filly, following the coloring of her sire and two grand sires. We are also most intrigued with her ears as they have the most distinct tip curls, which we think is coming from her Varian Arabian background.

Shaiela & Shai Al Bey in round pen- 2:29  min

Well, as the sun sinks slowly in the west this evening, we got a telephone call from Arizona asking if we had room in our pastures for a couple of Arabian fillies. We made a quick "head" count and found that we now have 17 equines here at the ranch and in a couple of weeks two of the Morgans that moved here from Arizona will be moving on as their owners (RV travelers) are leaving town. So come the first of July we will be looking forward to have two new Arabian mares (a 2 year old and a yearling) here at the ranch. This should be an interesting pair for Rosey to blend with. We also had a woman stop by a week ago or so and ask if we could keep a couple of horse for a friend of hers living in San Francisco. If these California horses show up we will have full pastures for our 2008 season.

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

Junuary 2008

Stardate 061008

Last night the wind blew, the air got colder, it started to rain, and we turned on the heat pump. This morning while preparing breakfast, looking out the kitchen window, the clouds began to lift off the mountains, and there was a fresh snow cover at the 3000' level.

Yep, there is fresh snow on them thar hills today.

Our weather has been a bit screwy this spring. Much more cool and damp than usual. We have had only three wonderful weekend breaks of spring/ summer like weather when the temperatures went into the 80's and 90's.
This year we have had a few warm weekdays with the temperatures in the lower 70's, but by week's end we have more rain and cool temperatures move across the area.

What we thought a few weeks ago might be our last night by the backyard fireplace, turned out not to be. Over the past couple of weeks we have had a number of evenings just sitting by the fire, enjoying - watching the sunset.

Last week we begin working in our garden by putting in nice transplants on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday it begin pouring rain as we were covering the plants with soil. Thursday I begin to plant seeds (radish, beet, carrot, lettuce, swiss chard, etc.) and yesterday I was planting bean and corn seeds. Now I am looking for a row of 80 degree days to make things grow. This year we have Kevin Walker and his young family helping in the garden and as I told he and his wife last week, we have not lost any growing time this year since we have had mostly cool, damp weather up to now.

This morning we woke up to NPR news and the regional announcer made a comment along with the weather forecast that this season's weather appears to be more like Junuary than June. Please don't think we are complaining here... we will be glad for this Junuary weather when we get to July and August and the temperatures hit 100 degrees and there is no rain or snow insight.

With rain now falling, a breeze blowing, the furnace is running and Kittee taking it easy on her shoulder, we are thinking about taking in an afternoon matinee of the new Indy Jones movie.

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To finish this blog posting for the goings and comings of the rest of this day...

Kittee and I did make it over to Walla Walla to catch the mid-afternoon matinee of the Indiana Jones - Kingdom of The Crystal Skull. We found this movie to be very entertaining, and should be viewed on the big screen to center yourself into all the action. Wow, a lot of Steven Allen Spielberg action in this one.
After the movie it was time for dinner and our Northwest Quarter Horse Assoc. meeting in Walla Walla so we just motored across town to take care of this business. We had a good membership meeting this evening, but Kittee begin to feel the pain of sitting up all day so we had dinner and left the meeting early. We did learn at the meeting that there was 5" of fresh snowfall on Basket Mtn. and 14" on the mountains around the ranch today (see pictures above & below). The garden should have gotten well soaked by the heavy rains today, so we should see some seed/ planting development as soon as we get warm weather.
After getting home I went out, moved the horses and fed Rusty. As the sun was sinking slowly in the west I was able to get a few good pics of the sun on the mountains to our east and a rainbow that had formed to add colors to the golden hue at the end of this day.

We are so blessed by the Great Spirit to live in such a beautiful open air golden cathedral as ours. Some spring days as today we have rainbow braces on the sky. This past week we had 3 evenings with rainbows, of which two evenings were with double bows arching our Walla Walla River Canyon.

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

Rosey ***Chapter VI***

Stardate 06/07-08/08




Rosey says Hi!

She wants you to know that today is her "birthday".

Rosey is now six weeks old as I type this week's blog tonight. It is quite remarkable to see how much she has grown since her actual Birthday of April 27.

YouTube connection to Rosey's 6 weeks old "birthday" video.

In just six short weeks she has grown from a leggy German Shepard size foal into the small horse, that we have running around the ranch today. Rosey loves to run, she is eating some solid foal food, and grazing a little on grass now.






It is hard to believe that a creature can grow this fast, on their way to being 900+ pounds.








Saturday morning we had a new pasture boarder to come on board. This is Duke, and he comes with Leila and her other gelding Calvin which came to McKuster Ranch the 10th of May.
While Leila was getting Duke settled into pasture, I went out and mowed the west side driveway back to the CTUIR fish lab. While back on the river, which has been too high of water to fish this season, I check out the fish structure we/the CTUIR/BPA placed in the river last August.

All looks like it is holding well, with a few more pieces of trees debris hanging in the structures placed by the CTUIR.
I am now looking forward to the end of spring runoff and having the opportunity to jump into the river and see what will be holding in all the new fish structures we have at the ranch this year. Anyone there that wants to go fly fishing with me?

Saturday we also went upriver to visit Rosey's "grandpa", Dale Cosper to see the 6 or 7 new foals he has for this year's crop. One of his foals is a double first cousin of Rosey, and looks much the same but with a darker coat. We had a very good visit discussing horses, Rosey's pedigree, breeding Shaiela again to Eagle asap, and the race at Belmont Stakes.

After getting back from Dale's we made some nice action videos of Rosey that will be placed on YouTube in the very near future. We hope you will return here soon to connect with them, as I shall link them into this week's blog.

In looking at the video clips made this weekend we can see where Rosey might very well develop into a Country English Pleasure horse with her ability to move in a prancing/show out trot (from her Simeon Shai background), and also made some nice athletic running/spin turns (from her Desperado V background). We feel that we might have a very precious gem developing right before our eyes. Also as she is beginning to shed her foal coat, it appears that she may be a bay. A healthy, strong bay Arabian filly... that is what we were hoping to get from our breeding program.

Petting Rosey's ears- 3:10 min

Ooopps, in the process of making these videos on Saturday we had a little accident here at the ranch.
Kittee was in the saddle on Shaiela (first time in almost a year), and they were chasing Rosey around the pasture. Rosey went into a canter, Kittee let Shai slip into somewhat of a canter and immediately Kittee found herself dismounted, and spitting out grass and clover greens. Thank goodness she/we do wear our riding helmets while on horseback.
The rest of the afternoon Kittee spent sitting in one place, very still and medicating her pain with whiskey and aspirins. ;>)
We have learned that this home remedy beats the aches and pains of a quick horse dismount; much better than running to see a doctor for pills that will make one numb and dumb.
Anyway, all of this is just a part of equestrian ranch life. When all was said and done it led to a smile on Kittee's face .

Back to today, it was quite another busy Sunday here at the ranch. Kittee and I started the day out with coffee and breakfast, petting (see above pictures), feeding, grooming our horses. Misty went into the pasture with Rosey and Shai. Otherthan ponies and goats, Misty is Rosey's first real pasture mate. We did talk with Dale about bringing down one of his mares and foal to keep Rosey company with her own kind.

We are beginning to believe/hoping that Misty may now be pregnant by our stallion Rusty. YouTube connection of Rusty and Misty running around together. We have now put Goldie in a pasture with Nugget to have him tease her into heat/breeding, so that she may be breed by Rusty. We are already looking forward to having our 2009 foal crop.

Mid-morning Don and Arlene came out to do some work with their horses. Don made his first/quick ride up into the wheat fields with Marque, while we sit around and chatted with Arlene. Shortly thereafter Jennifer came to work with her horses until mid-afternoon. I mowed the house lawn, and the arena. During this time Leila and her dad Gary dropped by to visit her Duke and Calvin. They stayed for awhile to sit, chat, have a taste of our McKuster Ranch Cider, and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Leila drove home since Gary had more than one glass of cider ;>). Almost right on the dot Travis showed up at 5:00 and we had our training session with Rusty for about an hour. Before Travis and I were finished our friends Marilyn and Gene from Pendleton dropped by with several pizzas in hand for our dinner. This was their first time to come out and sit with us at the ranch and it was so nice to have them here. We had a good evening of chatting, watching horses play, having a glass of cider, and munching on pizzas.
It turned out to be a very full and busy day, as we watched Gene and Marilyn head off to PDT just before dark. Thereafter Kittee and I cleaned up for the night, she hit the sack, and I am up getting this blog underway. Getting weary, gotta go soon.

another day in the life at McKuster Ranch --- Dale

A day at Lehman Hot Springs -or- I'm just tripping through time

Stardate 060608

Today I took a school bus load of kids from Pendleton's Sherwood Heights Elementary School to Lehman Hot Springs. This was my last school bus "trip" for this school year, and I found it most enjoyable... reliving some days gone by.

My co-worker Carolyn driving Linus and I driving Lucy, took two bus loads of kids, teachers, parents to these hot springs, in the middle of nowhere, near the northeast Oregon Gold Rush country. While there I told Carolyn of my earlier experience at Lehman Hot Springs some years ago and remembering the old rustic log lodge that once stood at this site.

Now, let me tell you a bit about what I know/ remember of Lehman Hot Springs... it was about 50 years ago that I made my first trip into the middle of "Nowhere", OR and my family spent the day at Lehman Hot Springs. Today it is not quite the same as it was then.

I shall digress just a moment... while growing up I had a love for log cabins/ log lodges and always wanted to live in one or the other. I could remembered in my childhood, there being a rustic log lodge that set in Northeast Oregon in a large Ponderosa Pine forest somewhere near the Pendleton area. I also remember at about that same trip in time that the old headlights-on-the-fenders logging trucks that came out of the forest were fully loaded with 3 sometimes 4 huge log trunks on their trailers. Today it is not quite the same as it was then. Now the late model air conditioned logging trucks come out of the forest carrying 50-75 sticks (like teepee poles) on their trailers.

Anyways, back to Lehman Hot Springs (interesting info link)... upon moving to Oregon, I asked my aunt where might there be that log lodge near the Pendleton area, that I remembered from my childhood. She told me it was probably at Lehman Hot Springs.

It wasn't too long after telling Carolyn about my early experience around these hot springs that I noticed there were pictures on the walls of days gone by. Walking around the room I saw the old rustic log lodge of Lehman Hot Springs. Asking the manager about the lodge, she told me that it had burned down many years ago, she had never seen it herself but had heard people talk about it. This day gave me a trip through time. The picture above of this resort is dated 1899.

Today these hot springs are piped into three concrete bathing pools and one cold water swimming pool. Today the water temperature in the upper pool was 114°F, the middle pool temperature was 104°F, the lower pool was 90 something degrees and the air was full of snow. Yep, when we got to the springs this morning at about 10 a.m., it was snowing. During the day we may have had 10% sun breaks with mostly rain and snow showers throughout the day. Upon leaving the hot springs at 3:00 p.m. it was snowing... that's living with the weather in Northeast Oregon; usually in April and May. It was a perfect day for kids to play/swim in the great outdoors of our beautiful Oregon Territory.

This was an enjoyable day trip, as the drive along Hwy 395 is quite beautiful this time of year. Driving through Ukiah, OR (for the first time in years/ since moving to Milton-Freewater) little there has changed, except a couple of businesses' doors had closed. Upon getting to the hot springs, I was able to take a few pictures of the kids at water play (with Carolyn's camera), and had time to read some of a horse textbook. A rather relaxing day at work.

a day in the life --- Dale