Home, Home, on the Rocks

Though tremendously busy (not a joke), we finally got to go flying last week. I hadn’t stretched a feather since Livermore! I almost forgot where the airport was located! HAR! The steed was the little 100hp low-wing Evektor Sportstar (like the one pictured) which is fine since I was only looking to fly low and slow anyway. She’s a delight to fly and hauls two folks in relative comfort. If I had waited any longer I would have been "ground sick" (sick of being on the ground). I'm a PILOT for crying out loud!

It was later in the afternoon when we lined up on runway 30 and it was a wonderfully warm and clear day. The air was calm and the conditions enjoyable in such a small airplane with a light wing loading. If there is any "chop" or turbulence when flying in an aircraft with a light wing loading, you can bounce your kidneys into your back pockets. You can believe that this airman prefers his kidneys and other body parts to remain where God glued them together.

After about an hour of treading the footless halls of summer sky and covering the land from Springville to Fountain Springs (roughly 30 miles or so one way), we headed back to the flugplatz (What?! You don't speak German?! Flugplatz=airport). The first landing was acceptable but really not up to my standards. It was more of an "arrival" than a landing. That means that I forgot how low the runway had been parked beneath the airplane when I took off. I flared a tad high and made a “beginner’s” landing. So, I just added come coal and went around the pea patch again. This time I found the runway and slipped the little bird back on the ground without rustling her feathers (or Connie's, tee hee).

“Rancho Relaxo” now has some new fruit trees….and some old worn out farmers. Oy vey! You’d think that I would get the hint that becoming a bee wrangler, building and maintaining garden boxes, cutting the grass, weedeating, and keeping my job as the chief mechanic and thunder bucket specialist around this place is enough hard work! Nope! I must be your basic slow learner. *SIGH* 

We had to hire a couple of young bucks to help us dig some holes, though. Ol’ Ran doesn’t do much shovel work. I can shovel a bit of BS with the boys now and again but that’s about all I can handle. These kids are good workers and appreciate the higher-than-minimum wage we pay. They are "Johnny on the spot" and usually are available which is great. Trying to accommodate our schedule is a challenge so we appreciate their help.

Six of the new apple trees now reside in a row along the west side of our driveway in a north and south alignment. Some of the new plum trees are out back just beyond the reserve 3,000 gal. water tank (required for fire suppression) and are aligned east to west. The apricot and pomegranate plants and the single fig tree have yet to be stuffed into the ground. Likewise, the 14 or so grape starts have yet to be dug in.

We’re still dealing with getting the stakes into the concrete that we call our front yard. They will be aligned north to south on the far west side of the front yard. Somewhere in the mix will be the new 6 new peach and plum trees we bought today. They were 75% off at Lowe's! What can you say when you are a "clearance sale" professional?! What was I supposed to do.....let some city boy get them?! Not today!

You can’t even imagine how hard the ground is here! Sprinkler spikes that hold a sprinkler in place won’t penetrate it. A pick ax won't work! We tried that! When the barn was built, the contractor had to bring in the big guns....a Ditch Witch trencher! Even then it almost wore out the poor trencher! Sprinklers with a base of some kind are all that can be used!

We have to irrigate for two days to be able to move any soil at all! Then, there are large rocks to contend with! That means that our grape stake holes may have to be reconfigured or larger holes dug to be able to remove the big rocks! More work! UGH. I would like to speak directly to the clown who backfilled the property with sand and rocks prior to the house being built! GRRRR!! Most likely, I would hurl vile epithets and large coconuts at him hoping that one or the other would hurt his body or his soul or maybe both. This farmer, though long suffering, has little patience with stupid and thoughtless people.  

The area on which the property sits was formerly an orange grove. There are still 25 or so orange and tangerine trees at the back of the acreage, in fact. One would naturally think that at least the rear parts of the property were tillable without dynamite. Not so. The other day, I had the two young aforementioned helpers arm themselves with a couple of shovels. They needed to move some dirt out of the way so we could assemble the last (4^th) of the above-ground garden boxes. They couldn’t do it! The ground was too hard! Get this…I hauled out a big electric jack hammer. It couldn’t handle the job in a timely manner! I had to soak the ground all night to get it to comply! Maybe we should change the name of this place to something like “Hard Pan Alley”, “Pumice Palace”, or such. 

You may want to stay tuned to see what happens when all of this fruit ripens in the future. I certainly can’t wait…..uh-huh. Connie is preparing her canning equipment for the big event. She has a huge pressure canning/cooking unit, a big stainless steel vacuum sealer, and 5 or so dehydrators! Come harvest time I’ll know exactly where she’ll be! She'll be up to ears in corn (heheh, the boy can't help it) and up to the top lace on her apron in okra, squash, zucchinni, tomatoes, and fruit galore! We can then smear some of the home-grown honey and real butter on some fresh hot bread or biscuits thereby securing our reputation as a real ranch. MMMMMMMMmmmmmm!

I’ve been breaking in the dehydrators by making beef jerky. Oh, man! Not only is it good stuff, it’s relatively inexpensive. I’ve slowed way down though because the price of lean beef has really gone up. Really lean beef is now selling for more than 4 dollars per pound. It’s still far less expensive than buying the store-bought stuff, of course. If Ol' Ran had any initiative, he would buy a 12-14 lb chunk of top surloin steak at "Smart and Final" for 3.69 per pound and rustle up a large batch of jerky. Maybe on my next day off, eh?

Hang around for the next hard-working but hopefully not so harrowing adventures of Rancho Ran and his faithful and sweet sidecook, Connie the Canner.