The heat wave has broken -or- was that my back?

Since Friday July 3rd, many of our daytime high temperatures have been 100º and more. Day after day, after day. The sunshine has been beautiful and all-in-all it has been a most perfect Arabian desert summer for our horse herd and even for our Summer. The only thing about this kind of July-August weather is we have to move early in the mornings or wait until sunset to have any work/ play time outside.

Last evening the weather broke, and for the first time in over a month we had rain. We had cool, wet rain all night long. It feels great. Since the end of June we could have caught all our rain in a tea cup and it would not have washed the dust off a car windshield.
Last evening after the rain started all the mares gathered in a small group, with tails towards the wind and protecting Summer. The Dynamic Palomino Duo didn’t seem to care about the weather as they turned into mud-puppies, solid chocolate covered colored mud-puppies. Forget their palomino registration, they are just brown head-to-toe horses today☺
Today our mid-day high temperature reads about 71º and it feels great, even though I am sure we will be heading for the 100º mark again soon.

This past week working with Summer has been a joy, as she now comes across pasture when called. She is now blending in with all the mare herd except for Shaiela who continues to show herself as being the royal bitch mare. But we have to consider… Shaiela is pregnant, uses her pinned back ears and snake head moves when communicating with everyone but Rosey.

This past week Summer has really started to show the shed of her foal coat. She is going to be a liver chestnut in the body and probably flaxen mane and tail much like her sire – Rusty. Her lower hocks are remaining light, maybe lightening enough to make me wonder if she might have all around socks. It will be interesting to watch this coloration progress in the next couple of months and so on.

Yep, looks like two black eyes on Summer this week☺

Last Saturday Kittee and I started pretty early, cleaning up and tacking the palomino duo. We left the ranch heading up the Ole Cashe Hollow Road Trail around 8:00 a.m. to beat the heat. Weather forecast was calling for 100+ temperatures for the day. We had a great ride for 2½ miles out, when we stopped and let Derby and Nugget have a break and some fresh wheat head munchies. Kittee and I were sitting in our saddles enjoying the day and our ride up the hill, I was proud of Nugget as he did a great job of keeping up with Derby on the up hill trek. Anyway, there we were, everyone relaxing, horses eating, Kittee and I taking a few sips of water when Nugget raised his head, pointed his ears, turned to the right and bolted… 0 to 60 in 8 seconds. I don’t think I even had a rein in my hands when this happened. So as we raced along the hillside I decided to bale out of the saddle, as the hillside would diminish my fall’s distance to the ground at whatever speed we were then traveling.

This is not a good situation to find yourself in.

Anyway, after everything came to a stop, I realized that I was not gonna ride or walk back to the ranch from here. I told Kittee that I was hurt, I could smell blood, then I could taste blood. Soon thereafter I was spitting blood and Kittee trotted Derby and Nugget back to the ranch to get an ambulance for my ride to the ER. At St. Mary’s we found that I had broken two ribs, punctured a lung, and bruised my sternum rather badly, so for the past week I have been laying low and learning to get up and down, and breath lightly without allot of chest/back pain.
OUCH! that hurt, still hurts, but I feel an urge to be back in the saddle in time for our cool, clear autumn weather. Cowboy-Up. Since last Saturday's crash, I am much more mobile today and find breathing much easier... I feel I am healing very well, but have a bunch of wadded muscles in my back from head-to-tail in need of Dr.Vu's needle therapy. I will finish my pain drug intake tonight and plans are to be feeding, watering horses and driving to Pendleton on Monday and Tuesday mornings for annual driver's training. Kittee is going to be visiting with her dad/ stepmom this next week.

And that’s the way it is around the ranch --- Dale

Wet saddle blankets -or- Summer: Chapters 3, 4, & 5

Except for Kittee having to make a weekday run into Pendleton, (a few of those days have been courtroom horror stories, that she tries to leave in PDT) we have been making the most of our July summer. The past three weeks we have had the opportunity to go horseback riding at least three days a week. WOW!! That has been fun and some great times to connect with our trail horses the Dynamic Palomino Duo - Derby and Nugget - taking us everywhere we want to go. It has been a couple of years since I have ridden Nugget since Misty has been my steady trail horse, but for the past three weeks Nugget has been my steed, and I have found him to be a joy to get along with. It has given me a chance to work with him on how to keep up with Derby. Two rides last week Nugget took the lead on the way out and actually gave Derby a run for his money, that was fun.

The past three weekends have gone something like this at the McKuster Horse and Vacation Ranch…
Since the 4th of July our weekend temperatures beginning on Friday have gone into the 100º range for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, so we get up and start early to beat the heat and take a ride.
Fridays we have headed up the OLE South Fork Walla Walla River trail. This trail follows the river for miles and miles through dappled-lighted forest and is a pleasure to ride into the early afternoon.

Up the South Fork River Trail

Each time we go up the river trail, we try to go a little further and one of these days we may reach the Wenaha Tucannon Wilderness Area, just on the other side of the mountain from the So. Fork River Canyon.
Saturdays we hit the trail early as we cross Walla Walla River Road and go out the OLE Cashe Hollow Road Trail. This is a short trail (5 to 13 miles) so we ride it pretty fast to gain elevation and get back to the ranch by early afternoon- before the heat of the day.
Sundays we either make a quick run back up the OLE Cashe Hollow Road Trail or work/school our boys in our riverside arena. We have also had a couple of weekday afternoons that Kittee got out of Pendleton early and we rode horses from the house for a couple of hours up the Cashe Hollow Trail. All of this has given us some nice quality time in the saddle with our geldings, and it feels like what you might consider living out of a horsey dude ranch would be like. Its home and we love it.

Derby taking a munchie break on wheat heads.

Summer: Chapter 3 - Our baby

Other than steady trail riding over the past few weeks, I have been working with my Summer on an every-other-day basis.
Last Thursday 23rd of July, Summer turned one month old. She is now shedding her foal coat and her true coat color appears to be a liver chestnut much like her sire's - Rusty. At this point the liver chestnut coat is showing around her eyes, her hips, and rear flanks with spots appearing elsewhere. Her front buck teeth are getting larger and the other day I could feel that her lower rear jaw teeth had come in. Yesterday "Upriver Dale" stopped by and I was telling him all of this and he made the comment... "Your in love, aren't you?" I said, "I guess so, now what do you mean?" He told me I was going on about Summer like a new father talking on and on about his new baby ;>)

Summer: Chapter 4 - Training

A couple of weeks ago I started work with Summer on the lead. She has been wearing a halter since the day she was born, so it has been pretty easy putting her on a lead rope. Last week will be the last time I can pick Summer up off the ground, and since then I have been using the lead rope to hold tight around her cinch/girth area. She should be ready for a saddle when that day comes.

All of our training session’s start in the barn foaling stalls, which has no distractions and is plenty large enough for a little horse’s training sessions. This past week I have been bringing Summer out to pasture to work with her in open spaces, and she has done great work. Now, on a lead we will circle the pasture a couple of times before I tell Summer she is doing good work, and thank you Great Spirit-Creator of All for this healthy baby.

Summer: Chapter 5 - Socializing

It was the 12th of July that Summer got to have Jasmine come into the pasture with her. That was interesting. As Summer was smaller that Jasmine, there wasn’t that much difference in height and Summer kind of wanted to be playmates. Jasmine was insulted that a little horse would consider her a full-grown pony to be a playmate. Since the 12th they are a bit more social with each other but still not best of chums. On the 19th of July we introduced Aunt Misty into Summer’s pasture. She and Jasmine had been pastured next to Summer and Goldie since we let Summer out to pasture.

Again as with Jasmine, there was not very much interaction with Aunt Misty and Summer. Misty is a slight bit possessive of Summer and quite protective of her around other horses over the pasture fence, but other than that there is really not a lot of interactions.
This past Saturday the 25th we let Shaiela and Rosey come into the pasture with Summer, Goldie, Misty and Jasmine. For whatever reason they all decided to go into the tight-quartered dry lot/ paddock to explore and run around.

It appeared that Shaiela wanted to take possession of Summer. Goldie had no appreciation of that concept, and everything settled out very soon. That is when we brought Rosey into the pasture with Summer and again really nothing happened.

Yesterday afternoon we opened the gates so all the other mares and Miles could coming into pasture with Summer, Goldie and the rest and again nothing happen as far as interactions.

The three-amigo Arabian silly fillies -Rosey (1-year old), Raji (2-years old), Sunny (3-years old)- were rejoined and started playing together, but everyone else seemed to make no difference around Summer except Miles. He came over to say Hello to Summer and Goldie appeared not to want Summer to have any part of associating with a Long Ear - mule. Goldie pinned her ears, dropped her head, turned her butt and started kicking at Miles.... a definite signal to stay away from MY baby, sending him on the run. There was no questions asked, as to what that was about ;>)

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Last weekend, after our morning horseback ride up the Cashe Hollow Trail and lunch, I did a guided fishing trip up the So. Fork Walla Walla with our newly formed fly fishing club Walla² Fly Fishers (FFF) of Milton-Freewater and Walla Walla fly fishers. This was a very nice mid-afternoon outing and a great chance to cool off as we wet waded the upper river.

So this is what I mean, when I say that for the past couple or three weeks our home/ranch has felt like a vacation spot with our own bed comfortably insight. We find it hard to think of going anywhere further than our own backyard.

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For-The-Record: I have now completed my 12 session acupuncture treatment with Dr. Vu in Walla Walla, and finding that I am resting much better at nights. I am no longer losing sleep, having to get out of bed every couple of hours and walk around because of acute lower back pain. I will highly recommend that if anyone out there is experiencing chronic pain from head to foot, go find a highly qualified acupuncturist and get relief, without the pills that make you feel numb and dumb. I will now be going in to see Dr. Vu every other week for awhile mostly for the euphoria of his needles therapy, and touch up pain relief. It's amazing!




Before I let you go, I want to show you this bit of computer generated artwork. This picture came from the index page of our McKuster Ranch website and there it is a full panoramic view of the upper Walla Walla River Canyon. I sent this photo to a person last week in full size and this is what they got... and they sent it back to me, very interesting and I thought quite artsy. With the internet transmission it compressed the picture to produce this. Does anyone know how/why did it do that???




Now as the sun has sank slowly into the west I shall close this chapter of the comings and goings of Kittee and Dale.
Whistling right along... ♫ Happy Trails to YOU, until we meet again ♫

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

Walla² Fly Fishers in action

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.

Yesterday a small group of the Walla² Fly Fishers went fishing up the So. Fork Walla Walla River. Air temperature in the canyon was about 80°, the water temperature was 58°, and the sky was full of sunshine. To the best of my knowledge everyone was hooking- releasing fish (C&R) and having a most enjoyable afternoon. During this meeting of the Walla² Fly Fishers, no minutes were taken, no motions were made and since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is the rest of our story in the order of events...

Alex with the first hang up of the day.

Dan with his out-of-town guest from Baltimore, determining a good fly pattern to use.

I strongly suggested to the group that when fishing the So. Fork you wear jeans, cool & wet for the summertime...

In the many years that I have been fishing and horseback riding the So. Fork I have come up on maybe a half dozen buzz-tailed critters. This day was one of those times. They are heat seekers (for food) and wet jeans helps to take a fisherman's legs out of their - seeking/see ya /got ya- scenario.


This guy pictured above was about 16-18" long -- I didn't get too close for measurement -- with a buzz attachment of about 1' -- it cross my path between Dan's (above) and Lauri's (below) fishing spots. At the end of the ring-tail on the right of pic carried the buzz attachment.

Lauri appeared to be in her own fly fishing world.
Lovely world, don't you think?

Below is Herb working with the finesse of his 2wt. bamboo/fiberglass rod.

After catching up with Alex and several other guys just above the third ford, I let everyone know what to expect by fishing further upriver, and that I was going to head back to the ranch and play with my baby... horse that is

Summer - July '09

Taking an afternoon break on the river with the guys --- 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