We're thinking about a "new" ride

Starlog 090608

It has been about a year that the Ford dealership in Pendleton closed. The Chevrolet dealership went bankrupt there at least a year ago and I understand that place is mostly selling Honda's now, so today Kittee and I went to Walla Walla, WA to look at cars and trucks today. Walla Walla is much closer to the ranch anyway.

Now we are very happy with the transportation we currently own, intend to keep driving what we have until they turn into ferrous oxide under our feet, but every once in awhile we get the urge to look and something "new". We are not so interested in something that smells like new plastic and leather, loses too much of it's retail value when it hits the asphalt pavement... just something that will be "new to us".

Walking round and looking at cars and truck for a good part of this afternoon, we begin to thinking about something different, something nice/fun to drive around just for weekends, neighborhood tours. Just a nice car or truck for getting around Milton-Freewater, going to Walla Walla or to Pendleton when needed. Gee, did we find allot of really nice rigs out there today, to consider bringing home.

A note about Walla Walla... lest we forget, Walla Walla is now one on the major sweet onion capitals of the world, and to commemorate this we find onions all around town these days.
For example...
Back to transportation... as our search today was taking us to downtown Walla Walla. Even though the automobile industry has been taking a real slump in sales recently, car and truck works were really happening in Walla Walla this weekend.

Main Street Walla Walla was closed to vehicle traffic and lined with cars and trucks. We found some for sale... some were not, but of course every car has it's price. Kittee and I were looking at the ones that were priced in reason and matched our taste.

There were cars and trucks lining East Main Street,

there were trucks and cars lining West Main Street,

and there were even a few nice bikes out there today.

Well Kittee and I ooh'ed and aahh'ed over almost all of the vehicles that were on Main Street today, and looked at some that would best suit us for our transportation needs.

First car we came up to when we arrived on Main Street was a burgundy/red ' 37 Cord...
This was a beauty, but just not for us as a touring car to drive off the ranch. It may not have even fit in our garage.

With my first new car having been a 1969 Mach 1 Mustang, I was kinda thinking of looking for one of these in the crowd. There was one...but was just not the same as mine, as it was blue not Jade Green and did not have the Cobra Jet "shaker" hood-scoop air intake system as my first new car had back in '69. This 'Tang was in good shape for a 40 year old, but just not the same as my first, to have and to hold- my car.

Kittee looking around found a really nice pickup truck, think it was a Chevrolet that would have looked nice pulling out of the garage at home, but it was a Chevrolet so maybe we best not; take it home.These days there is not a good new sales market for a Chevy, and buying an older PU truck, would probably mean we could be putting money into a hole.

Kittee's favorite car of the day was a real '56 beauty that had even shown up in a few magazine ads...
In the same stroke we both were rather fascinated by this little red '56 T-bird, but it didn't have a porthole hard top to go along with it. So we decided to wait to make an offer and look on further down the street.Since the '69 Mustang did not really meet my expectations I did find a nice Blue-'21 Model T that got my attention. Really a sharp looking ride that it is currently owned by a local Walla Walla couple and we now know how to reach them. Asking price for this beauty was only $10,000. Now my thoughts were that this would be the perfect classic to have parked in our garage, and bring out to make the necessary fun runs to town for postal and grocery needs. My greatest concern in looking at this particular Model-T was there are no brake drums on the front axles/wheels of this car, only the rear. Hummm something to think about (mechanical rear brakes only) on busy modern highways and hills of our area. I really liked it, but not sure if it would be practical to serve our needs.

Along with some of the cars and trucks that were available for buying, there were a few that were at this show and sale just for showoff...There was one really neat old beauty there with a metal flake paint job...
looking at it from one direction it was green,

looking at if from the opposite direction it was blue...

quite fascinating to look into.

on and on and on... allot of car and trucks to consider.

This was our 4th or 5th Wheelin' Walla Walla Weekend to attend and it is getting
better and better, each year. Yep, someday we hope to bring home one of these beauties for weekend travel just around our ranch neighborhood, and maybe over to your place.

Another fun part/ highlight of this outing today, was the tunes that were being played/ PAed across Main Street Walla Walla. Most of the tunes were from the 1965-75 vintage, but some were based in the 50's and a few of the WWII era. Kept allot of people boogieing down the street. All in all it was a good day, a very pleasant outdoor day as we finished our tour of Walla Walla by going by the new Thai City restaurant for our late lunch/early dinner.

Getting back to the ranch, Kittee and I headed back to the river to watch the salmon spawning, this evening we found none so we came back to the house after a little hike upriver and horse petting to sit by the backyard fireplace to finish our day's activity.

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

Rosey goes to the Fair

Starlog 08/26-31/08

This past week our SHAI AL BEY turned 4 months old. This week we received Rosey's registration papers from the Arabian Horse Association... so she is now official. This morning she made her first coming out "Debutante" horse show at the Walla Walla County Fair. This has been a very big week in Rosey's young life.

The show class she entered today at the WW County Fair was Other Breed Halter/Any Sex/Any Age, and there was quite a mixed bag of equines in the show ring, from Arabians to Paints to Appys to Minis, etc. Rosey being such a young foal had her dam to run the ring with her. Rosey in her class with eleven other equines took 4th Place today. As we get Rosey's show points standing these will be posted to her new SHAI AL BEY web page, that you can click to from this link.

Today was Rosey's second trailer ride to leave the ranch, and as before she did great. Arriving at the fair grounds in good form, and Kittee rode with me in the truck today.

Shortly after we offloaded Rosey and Shaiela, Kasey and Travis showed up and announced that the classes were moving fast and Rosey's class was due to show in about 10 minutes. Everyone then put the rush on and prepped Rosey for her "coming out" showing.



This made for a pretty exciting morning, and we see how showing horses could get in ones' blood, particularly if your horse places. Here Kittee is handling Rosey while Kasey handles Shaiela and a little kid wants to pet Rosey.

In the Show Ring

We decided on the way home from this show to enter our Rosey in the next area horse show which will be in three weeks.




This upcoming show will have an Arabian/age class that should narrow down the horses of our area that matches Rosey's age and Arabian only pedigree.

As mentioned above...

SHAI AL BEY

...turned IV months old this week.

In the process of tuning up for this weekend's show spot, she had quite a bit of fun playing and show training in and out of the round pen-(YouTube link) this past week.





































It is funny to see how much young horse energy she has but she still unwinds quite quickly playing in the round pen/ play pen as a baby.

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Other things happening around the ranch this week...

The grass in our front yard is turning green once again. It is about to match the lush green of our horse pastures.

There is just a bit of tweaking left to do on the rejuvenation of our house, but this past Friday the gutters went up and we no longer look like a construction site.

The other thing happening this past Tuesday was... school started in Northeast Oregon.

It was last week that I brought home the Double Deuce to make my school transportation rounds for this year.

a view from the driver's seat

Big news here is that I now drive a Big Yellow School Bus for the Milton-Freewater School District on a "full time" part-time basis. This should keep me pretty well occupied during the winter months between horse herd feedings, and will give Kittee and I some State of Oregon "group" employment benefits that horse ranching, solo law practitioner, and fly shop ownership does not offer.

Whelp, that is kinda the short and long of what has been happening around the ranch this past week. I hope to get to go fishing in the back yard this Labor Day Weekend, even though my back got very sore from putting up 25 tons of hay last weekend. Our weather this weekend has turned into Autumn - temps in the low 70's and a bit breezy, guess I may have to put on waders to jump into the backyard fishing holes. I don't think Kittee will be doing much fishing the remainder of this season. Her shoulder is still bothering her, as she keeps getting pulled around by foal and horses separating her collarbone from her shoulder bone. It is a pretty tough life here on the ranch... but someone has to do it.

and that's the way it is, around the ranch today --- Dale

A perfect weekend to...

Starlog 081708

This weekend the weather report was calling for HOT in our country.
This morning's Walla Walla U-B newspaper announced today 's weather forecast- "Sunny, High 102-110."

The course of action for Kittee and I for today was to eat breakfast, take care of chores- crank up the irrigation to keep horses cool, change out water the troughs, and head for Custer Law Office's a/c.

By 9:00 a.m. we were on the road heading for Pendleton. Kittee has a Class A Felony trial in State Circuit Court on Tuesday, and has been working her tail off most days lately from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. or later in preparation for this trial.
I had a load of ranch videos, that I had accumulated to upload to our McKusterRanchLife & CusterLaw YouTube channels. Since we are on slow-mo-dial-up ISP here at the ranch, I have created two YouTube accounts to expedite the process of uploading videos when I go into CLO.
Yep, it's called multi-tasking... a computer on the right hand and a computer on the left hand... getting the job done twice as fast. You can now click on either of the above YouTube links and view that portion of our current ranch video library.
I will be posting these video links to their appropriate/dated blog postings, in the meantime here is a quick link list of our updated YouTube video library. Don't forget that you can use the FULL screen mode button and high quality viewing option on most of these videos.

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SHAI AL BEY's birthnight- equine birthing - 1:01 min - starlog 042908

We have a filly- 1:01 min - starlog 042908

Rosey has teeth-  2:58 min - starlog 042908

Rosey's first steps- 0:49  sec - starlog 042908

Rosey learns to nurse- 2:26 min - starlog 042908

Petting Rosey's ears- 3:10 min - starlog 060808

Misty and Rusty- 1:41 min - starlog 060808

Shaiela & Shai Al Bey in round pen- 2:29  min - starlog 061508

SHAI AL BEY's bath- 2:00 min - starlog 072808

Thank you Goldie-  equine breeding- 1:44 min - starlog 072008

Rosey halter training- 1:58 min - starlog 080408

SHAI AL BEY playing in the round pen- 2:00 min - starlog 081008

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This is how Sunday went for us this week. A perfect weekend to... be indoors. After work was done in Pendleton we went out for Chinese dinner and saw a couple of PDT thermometer readings at 103° & 107° high temp in Walla Walla today was 108°-humidity was 15%- not a cloud in sight, so the weather report was right on.

Saturday, Starlog 081608
It was hot. Temperature in the barn's shade was 99° at 11:00 a.m. Kittee spent most of the day at Custer Law office working on her Tuesday trial. I stayed home working around the ranch in the a.m. hours, and editing videos during the heat of the day. Kittee got home around 3:30 p.m. and we headed for town to join in on the Milton-Freewater's Muddy-Frogwater Days Festival. It was nothing but hot at 4 o'clock. We went to the festival primarily listen to Bandit (the band we heard in Walla Walla a few weeks ago), but the temperature was hot, even under the park's large shade trees, the speakers were too loud for us to enjoy sitting around to enjoy the music or the shade so we kept moving. On our way out of the festival we did stop at our local library's book sale, did a little shopping, and then headed for our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner and a/c. Waiting for dinner we read over a couple of the neat books we had just purchased about movie history and Cajun cooking by Chef Paul Prudhomme.

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Our housework's has progressed along very well this past week. The contractor have finished all the roofing, and finished the siding on the front of the house, with very little siding left to complete on the remainder of the house. This next week they will probably finish mounting the ice guards and putting on the guttering.

Yep, we have once again started watering the lawn and there is signs of green coming through the dry/brown grass we have lived with for the past couple of weeks.

This weekend it's been hot... the HOTTEST weekend of this year; a perfect weekend to be indoors.

life around the ranch --- Dale

Lilly came to visit the ranch today

Starlog 081008

Today our next door neighbor, Lilly and her mom Toni, came over to visit Rosey and ride around on Jasmine. As you can see Lilly is a pretty good ponyback rider at 5 years old.


Kittee and I started this day quite early, as we were having coffee in bed around 5:15 this morning, then we hit the deck... up-and-at'em around 5:30. I came up with a new recipe for a delicious weekend breakfast a few weeks ago, so again today we had McKuster Ranch Apple French Toast with sausage and robust northwest coffee. Mmmm good stuff. We will share it with you the next time you are here for breakfast.
Our McKuster Ranch Cider is still flowing very well when well chilled during these hot summer months.

Back to today- right after breakfast, we threw our dishes in the sink, and headed out to work with horses and ponies. First horsey works was Kittee with Rosey while I took a few pictures of them. I had Rusty's keep to muck out, grass to mow, and then helped the roofer for awhile as he was finishing up his job here today, so my horsey works was short ordered today.

Rosey is XV weeks old today.
Rosey now stands at 11.3 hands tall.

It is interesting to see how fast Rosey is growing and how she "stacks up" to the Arabian sisters- Raji who is a one year old, and Sunny who is two years old.

Kittee put her in the round pen and worked her like a little champ.
Rosey will have her first show at the end of this month, so Kittee is putting her through the ropes, in preparation of going in front of the crowd and judge(s).
Go Rosey!



You might notice that in these photos that Rosey is showing more and more of her bay colors.

This week Rosey got her registration papers back from AHA --- her official/registered Arabian Horse Association name is SHAI AL BEY as we reflect back to her lineage with AHA World Champion- SIMEON SHAI (grandsire), and her Varian AHA Horse of Legend- HUCKLEBERRY BEY (great-grandsire).

SHAI AL BEY playing in the round pen- 2:00 min

After SHAI AL BEY finished with her round pen work she went out to pasture and Kittee brought Jasmine in and prepared her for the riding session with Lilly.






Lilly spent probably a good 15-20 minutes in the saddle with Jasmine today, and plans to come back in a couple of weeks to ride some more. For a 5-year old, she is quite well connected with our horses and ponies.
















After her pony ride we took Lilly and Toni out to pasture to meet Rosey. While petting Rosey Auntie Misty came over to check that all was going well with her baby niece and the strange faces that had come into the pasture. Then Aunt Goldie came over to bid ado to everyone.




Goldie even got very friendly with her greetings to Toni.

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Have you heard the NEWS ????

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Goldie and Rusty, are expecting a baby in June '09. It appears to me that Goldie is now a bit kinder, more gentle, less of a blonde bitch (somedays) now that she has settled into being pregnant. It was really quite amusing on July 21; Goldie was exhausted from her one night stand with Rusty.
Anyways, we are excited that Goldie is in foal. Check out the above NEWS link to get a look at her baby's first picture.

Today the roofers finished installing and putting the finishing trim to our new metal roof. We are looking forward to having this roof last us as long as we are able to live here... forever, Amen.

The siding/ window guys will maybe finish with their work by mid-week; so they say.
We are really happy with the new~fresh look that our home is getting over the past few weeks.
Again today we had people stop in front of our ranch and started taking picture of the place. Not an uncommon occurrence. We feel we are quite blessed to be able to call such a place as this "our home".
Yeah, yeah, yeah, our front yard is looking pretty dried out/brown right now, but once the workers are gone we will again turn the irrigation back onto the lawn. Right now our pastures are much more green and lush that the lawn in front of the house, it looks kinda funny as we drive up to the place. Not hard to tell that the horses have priority around here.

a day in the life at the ranch --- 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

Watching Rosey grow...

Starlog 0801-0308

This weekend we had planned to make our annual trip into the Minam River Valley in the heart of the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area. Since last March we had been looking forward to disappearing into the middle of nowhere... Northeast Oregon. We had scheduled our full three day weekend to set camp at/in our favorite tepee next to the Minam River, and horseback ride all over the wilderness valley.
Sad to say this didn't happen.
Instead last Thursday Kittee and I went to Walla Walla to see one of our orthopedic surgeons about her ongoing achy shoulder (yes, being over 55 with horses as pets/rides we now keep two orthopedic surgeons on call at all times). Calling Dr. Bob, calling Dr. Francis... which state are you practicing in these days? Anyway, the X-rays confirmed that Kittee has a separated shoulder/collar bone received during the last flying lesson she took from her mare. Doc said she will live, she will remember her flying lesson, she should get much better, feel less pain as time marches on. Therefore we are making our horseback riding trips the past few weeks very short and smooth back country road riding.

Friday, our farrier Kevin Walker came out right after breakfast and trimmed the hooves of the girls from AZ and Rosey. Again Rosey is still growing like a weed, and that includes her little horsey hooves. All went well handling these guys and their feet. Afterwards, Kittee and I proceed to wash horses, Nugget, Derby and Goldie. Goldie received her first full fledged bath and mane/tail shampoo. She felt so good and pretty after receiving all that pampering...






































that she pranced, danced, ran and kick with exhilaration and prettiness.

We are hoping that Goldie is now our pregnant mare by Rusty so after her bath she went out to pasture with Nugget and Derby.

Goldie

Nugget

Derby

Yep, that is our three palomino amigos and they really do bond together as three (like birds of a feather), more so than with the rest of the herd.

Saturday, was a day with Rosey. Shortly after breakfast Kittee took Rosey into the round pen (without Shaiela) and worked her making turns and stops. This session went very well as Rosey seemed to enjoy being put through the paces without her mom being in the way.

Rosey is now XIV weeks old.

Afterwards Kittee took her out to pasture and begin working her with halter/ show training. This she was a bit reluctant to preform at. Video will show her kicking and bucking ;-)

Rosey halter training- 1:58 min

After the pasture exercise, a little later in the day Shaiela and Rosey got a refresher course in trailer loading. Shaiela acted a bit like a horses' ass, while Rosey was rather mild mannered about loading up...























After loading mom and baby in the trailer, we drove around the pasture for awhile getting Rosey used to starts and stops.



This past week the weather has been most pleasant for late July. Every night it has felt good to sleep under the sheet, blanket, and bedspread. There were some morning that it was rather cool, almost chilly. Sunday morning was rather cool and clear, so Kittee and I went for a short ride up Cache Hollow Road. At about the mile and a half point Misty began to balk and wanted to go back to the barn/pasture. I fussed with her for awhile and decided to end the argument and go home and work her butt good. So when we got home, Kittee opened the gates I stayed in the saddle and I rode Misty back to the arena. There we worked for maybe another hour going through cue practice, walking and jogging all the way. After leaving the arena I brought her up to the round pen and with her still in tack, she ran for another 20-30 minutes. By doing this little exercise with Misty, I plan to teach her that balking on the trail to return home will only lead to a lot more work that walking the trail for enjoyment. We may have to do this a few more times, but I feel that she will get the message soon.
The rest of the day Kittee and I just relaxed. We sit around with a couple of beers for the afternoon watching the guys working on the roof and chimney, and with no guest coming for dinner we kicked back Sunday evening and had Margaritas through the sunset hour. A very relaxing day.

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Around the house this past week, we had the roofers, brick mason, and siding guys here. The place is in a construction mess, but things are beginning to shape up. Everyday our home is looking fresher, and cleaner with the "new" being applied from top to bottom.

































That is kind of the way it is around McKuster Ranch this past weekend.
Looking forward to begin doing a bit more fishing in the near future, as having fished the backyard twice this past week, and both evenings my last hookup were beautiful 12"-14" redband trout.

and that the way it is ---- Dale