“Rancho Relaxo Ipso Facto”….sort of has a ring to it, don’tcha think? I guess it’s because “the facts speak for themselves” here at the ol’ ranch.
Like…the fact that we had to get up these previous two mornings at …yaaaawn…. I gapped so much that, if I hadn’t have been stop-drilled at my ears, the top of my head would have fallen off. But, it was necessary because there was a lot of prep work to be done so the house can be painted and so that the back patio can be covered.
Talk about a cranio-muscular disassociation! My body threatened me with extinction if I crawled out of the nap sack. It told me that it was going to feed me to the alligators and take an hour to draw a crowd first. Of course, I knew it was lying since we don’t have any alligators here in this area at all. I may have believed it if it tried to scare me with being fed to the California
The painter will be here at the first part of next week to pressure wash the place then he’ll throw some paint at it. As part of the prep, Connie and I had to park some stuff in the barn that we had stored on the west side of the house in the shade and in reach of the lizards.
Then, we had to make a “dump run” which we do about every 6 weeks or so that our nice neighbors don’t think we are garbage collectors. The great news is that the dump is only about 1.5 miles up the hill from us. By the time we loaded the pickup and tied it down, folks were sure that they were staring at some of the Beverly Hillbillies clan.
Then, we had to move other stuff (some of if junque) to either in the barn or into the dumpsters. After some heavy breathing and sweating (I’m confident that there are better places to do both), we were able to see the entire 15.7’ X 38.6’ patio for the first time in who knows how long.
When finished, the covered-but-open patio will sport three ceiling fans and a new BBQ grill. The new grill has been stored for about three months in the 8’ X 12’ trailer out front. Every time I get in my van, I can hear the thing clawing at the door trying to get out. We have some dead steer meat and some live friends so we’re going to try to get them all together before too awfully long and break this big four-burner in. We are entertaining options of enclosing the patio at a later date due to all of the "global warming" making things so much colder here.
The tradesmen showed up at about armed with nail guns and saws and knowing how to use them. It was “Katy, nail the door” after that. All day we heard sawing, hammering, whacking, sneezing, and other loud noises. They banged so hard against my office wall that the power supply to my Ethernet hub was dislodged from the socket! It knocked me off the Net until I figured out what had happened. I sure hope there’s no extra charge for that!
Here at the ranch there’s another fact happening: we are under siege from gophers and ground squirrels. So, Ol’ Farmer Ran (“Farm, farm, farm. Farm, farmer Ran”…nice song by the Beach Boys. Maybe you’ve heard it) has his hands full with trying to suppress the opposition. To deal with the matter, we have the “OFR Varmint Eradication Task Force” consisting of a squadron of one guy, a hose, and a rifle.
Now, before you laugh your Huggies off, consider that Ol’ Ran is quite experienced with both hoses and rifles. And, experience makes all the difference. From an early age he grew up with both guns and hoses in his hands. In fact, later, as an experienced musician having a guitar in his hands, he experimented with naming his rock band “Guns and Hoses”. But, alas, it wasn’t all that popular so he returned to his roots in Country Music. Another band capitalized on the idea and became famous. Such a deal.
In any case, not everyone is up to the task of taking on a savage, grub-noshing, razor-toothed, California Pocket Gopher. In fact, one of the furry buggers chased Connie around the patio just this very morning! Gopher 1, Connie 0! She wasn’t a happy camper for losing that race. Nor is just anyone capable of taking on a sneaky, camouflaged, and fleet of foot, hole digging, fruit snatching, ground squirrel. Nosiree. But, OFR is up to the thankless and time consuming chore.
So far, the tally is 3 demented ground squirrels (they were crazy enough to show up at my ranch) taken with a scoped .22 rifle at 100’ and 5 pocket gophers flushed from the ground with a water hose and dispatched forthwith. Of course, there will be no discussion of the bucket of bullets fired without hitting anything other than Bermuda grass and dirt clods. The 6lb trigger pull on the Ruger will be remedied shortly.
Speaking of instruments of death, there is now a new one added to the full inventory of one rifle. Because the critters have ramped up their assault on the ranch, OFR just purchased a nice Mossberg 17 HMR rifle. This little baby is a big time “boomer” that fires either a 17 grain or a 20 grain slug at the spirited pace of about 2350 fps. This makes the humble-but-beloved .22 long rifle bullet seem to be bolted to the gun. It only travels o’er the sod at about 1250 fps. The Mossy will reach out and slap someone and be back home in a heart beat and waiting for the .22 to make up its mind what to do.
An unexpected fact is that we just bought a …hold on to your Studebaker, granny…BANJO! A friend of mine called me the other day and advised that a friend of his had a banjo for sale. Seems the banjo was all but new and in pristine condition and that the previous owner needed a few extra bucks. The Epiphone banjo (about a 200 dollar item) was flung my way for a mere 40 dollars! There was no way that I wasn’t going to buy the thing. I’ve already ordered the thumb and finger picks. I should be able to drive the neighbors and their dog crazy any time now.
Just about everyone knows that, when someone is learning to play a banjo, there is no such thing as “just a banjo” without a string of adjectives preceding it. You know what I mean: “Dash blast the gosh darn blankety heck! Stop playing that &^%$##@ banjo before both of you end up at the bottom of the lake!”. The poor beginner picker is in deep Dutch until he is at least capable of playing the theme song from “Deliverance”. It’s much worse than my leaning to play the fiddle. With the fiddle, all I do is keep the cats away.
One more fact…the saga, drama, excitement, building, and blessings will continue next time. Don’t fiddle with that digital frequency manipulator.
