Rancho Blessings

 This is a shot of the garden boxes looking northwest from the neighbors long driveway. Part of the barn is visible at the left. Behind the garden boxes is the well house. Directly behind the barn is the dog kennel but this pic is a day or so prior to it being erected.





A hog farm is moving into the neighborhood and directly ...across....the.....street from us. This ought to be...um... interesting.

 Ain't she a beaut?! One of the many yellow crooked neck squash wending its way into our world. It'll be canned or sautéd or perhaps even dehydrated for later use (we have a dozen dehydrators so there are options).




We are pleased with our new 10' x 10' dog kennel/trash protection system. No more trash strewn from here into the next county. I just don't have time to do the cleanup work. I posted "KEEP OUT" signs but someone forgot to teach the critters to read. *Sigh*

The "igloo". What a handy gadget. She's covered with "SnoCoat" sealer and stiffened up a bit too. The new door and new floor are solid as a rock! We will park our gas and kerosene cans, propane tanks, and yard tools in here. The near end has 24" shelves while the opposite end is open for the cans. There is an option to get a diamond plate ramp, too. I may just use a chunk of plywood. Who knows.


"You've got bees!". If we can keep the ants defeated and if we can keep the bees happy, there should be a lot of honey around here next springtime. So far, so good. Yes...we do have an "EpiPen".

"Hey! A wascally wabbit!". Yeah...we have our share of wabbits around here. I killed and cleaned one a couple of years ago. It didn't taste at all like the ones from Kansas. Toooooo gamey for this old not-so-great white hunter. Perhaps at another time when the dog develops a distaste for what's now on her menu. She seemed to like my lovingly prepared rabbit back then.

We have corn in the ear so it won't be all that long before we can chunk an ear or two into the pot. I usually smother my ears with butter, salt, and pepper. It usually takes awhile to clean up my diligently engineered mess (two days is too much, eh?) so we don't do corn on the cob all that often.







Once in awhile I just feel like sharing some of the blessings that are happening here at the ranch. That’s particularly true when I sometimes rant a bit about how tired we get from being as busy as we are (is that proper sentence structure?).

We are truly blessed here at “Rancho Relaxo”. For instance, our garden is taking over the neighborhood. For it to grow at all is a major blessing given that we couldn’t beg the thing to cough up much of anything last year. Connie just harvested a handful of zucchinis and yellow crook necked squash for the sauté pan. They were quite good! The strawberries (remembering that we didn’t get a single berry last season) have overcome their hurdles and have bloomed to bounty!

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye (which really isn’t all that high as I recall but it is growing rapidly). The squash is taking over the place and “Connie the Canner” will be slicing and dicing herself silly and shoving parts and pieces into canning jars soon.

The Okra Winfrey (groan) is growing by seems to be a bit lazy this season (as compared to last year when it had been replaced [by the Gypsies, no doubt] with plastic clones that didn’t do anything but take up space). Once it kicks itself into gear, we should have plenty to can, fry, and toss into a gumbo.

You may recall that the word, “gumbo” is the original African name for okra. Seems that white folks didn’t want to be associated with anything that black folks like. Still, they did like the rather tasty corn meal breaded and fried treat so they simply renamed it to "okra" (probably a shortened version of "Oklahoma fried! Rah! Rah! Rah!"). How convenient. Some folks say that they don’t like the slime but I would point out that, if they have slimy okra, they are boiling it by itself and not with other ingredients. Fried okras isn’t slimy at all and is one of the greatest of summer harvest delights.

The bell peppers are healthy so we can count on them for spicing up our soups and chili. We have reds, yellows, and greens which should give us some options. Options are our friends.

We have resumed out beekeeping efforts. Our dear friend and brother, Dave Kruze and his wife, Maryann, brought over a herd of them not long ago. After helping them nab another swarm, we now have 4 hives with 9 boxes. The bees appear to be prospering and have not registered a complaint by leaving their digs. This is particularly true after we fought off an attack of small ants. A few weeks ago, the ants plagued another new hive to the point that they up and moved to another neighborhood.

I donned my white space alien bee suit, gloves, and huge screened helmet, grabbed my smoker, and fed my charges some sugar water (with nutritive additives) to keep them going until they can store enough honey to hold them through the winter. It is post “bloom” season and they may not find sufficient flowering around here to warrant sticking around for the long haul.

Dave advised that we should leave the bees alone and not take their honey this year but rather to wait until next year. We can do that. It’ll be worth the wait because we will have a lot of orange honey (we have large orange groves nearby and have 20+ orange trees here at Rancho Relaxo). Good stuff!

Connie just overhauled our bathroom. She put in beautiful white wainscoting and painted the upper wall light blue. That will look great with the new 24” sink, counter top, and new fixtures that replaced the 19” one that was there prior. Also, she had a local contractor put in a nice set of white built-in floor-to-ceiling custom shelves that match everything. We had a tall-but-narrow stand alone shelf in there but it wasn’t big enough to suit us. There were some other tweaks that she had them do and it’s looking sweet.

The computer biz is moving along. I’m still the village blacksmith but it’s obvious that folks like me will not be needed in a few years. The technology is simply moving on without us. That’s not a bad thing. I can always focus more on ministry and such. I will always have a “dinosaur” running though. Fat on the “Cloud” and small screen toys! I need a full-sized e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Yes, I am an old Luddite, but I don’t care! I am comfortable with being an old fuddy duddy and I’m not apt to change any time soon (we fuddies don’t  cotton to change)!

Speaking of ministry and such, our church is doing great! We just had our monthly pot-faith (sounds better than pot luck, eh?) which reinforced the fact that there are some great cooks in our group! I dialed in on some homemade chili and couldn’t seem to keep my spoon dry. Good eatin’.

We also have the newly re-instituted “Soup Wednesday” which is on the second Wednesday of the month. Looks like we will have plenty of “daily bread” around there. I'm keepin' my trusty crockpot warm and at the ready!

The church is growing and we have much peace now that they have a leader who is a man of peace. There is still a lot of things that need to be attended to but we are moving along steadily.

 

Then, there's the "igloo". The "igloo" is actually an old fiberglass cargo container retired from "Flying Tiger Airlines" (bought out by FedEx) that flew countless miles in the belly of a Boeing 747. It's rather large and can hold all kinds of things. So, instead of building a small storage shed (we actually tried that once before and ended up with a barn!), we overhauled the igloo. Now that it has been fixed up, it's easily movable without having to use a D-6 Caterpillar. It didn't take all that long until it was patched, painted, and parked and sporting a new exhaust turbine and some shelves. The plan is to keep our tools and fuels in there. Our gasoline, kerosene (we have a lot of kerosene lamps), and our propane tanks have been in the open air in the pole barn as of late but that's going to change now that we have a lockable storage shed available.  

And, wait folks, there's more (your "Ginzu Knife" commercial for the day)! Sitting out by the pole barn, there's a recently assembled 10' x 10' dog kennel that makes for a perfect trash container enclosure. A tarp cover for the top is on order so we can keep our trash and rubbish tidy and dry. The local critters (of which there are no few) will have to learn to survive without our assistance (and someone needs to teach them to look both ways when crossing the highway too because some of them ain't paying attention).

Connie and I have been yard sale’ing a bit since the weather has warmed up. Talk about blessings! We stopped at an estate sale the other day and loaded up on some goodies that included some vintage books. We got a stack of 7 vintage hard bound books for about ten bucks. After getting them home, I started stuffing them onto eBay along with some books about Corvettes. Within three hours we had sold one book for 12 dollars and we had a starting bid on another for 19.95!  Connie loaded up three dozen canning jars for....$5.00! Zowie! She also found a country style bench flower stand too (which she took home and repainted it and made it look like new)! It fits the rancho perfectly!

At one place, just about everything we bought was for 2 dollars or less in spite of the fact that some of the items were quite expensive (i.e. there was a 105.00 pair of women's high heels from Nordstrom's that straightaway went on eBay)! They guy even sold me a 300 dollar color video camera for an RV (so you can see while backing up and such) for ….get this…40 bucks. It wasn’t junk either! He didn't want to sell it at all but he was being forced to move because they had lost their home (there’s a lot of that going on around here) and were up against the clock and literally couldn’t wait for better prices. They had to be out in two days and were basically throwing stuff at us and we had sense enough to catch it. If that doesn’t make your yeast rise, the same man called us back the next day and asked us if we wanted the entire tailings of the yard sale! We assured him that we did because (most of) it wasn’t junk! Ol’ Ran hooked up the trailer and we hauled it off for him!

Some of the "wasn't junk" stuff, was in a "junk box" that he was planning to take to the e-waste depot in Porterville. I advised him that I had an e-waste pile that a local man hauls off when we call and that I would be glad to take it for him. He was thrilled. I was thrilled too when I dug thought it and found a like-new cassette player. I guess his son was not all that excited about the old technology that has served so well for 40 years but I was! It can be used to record teachings at church until I can get a digital recording studio set up. A Compaq laptop was also in the mix. It was DOA but the power cord will sell on eBay for 10 bucks or so. The screen will sell for 25 dollars or more. There were other items of great interest in there that I didn't overlook.
 

At another yard sale, I picked up a box of “junk” electronics for 10 dollars that had four wireless LAN adapters in the bottom of it (each worth 30 clams)! There we also wireless access points, a wireless router, and all kinds of other goodies for a wire head like me. Then, there was yet another box of similar stuff that no one wanted so I bought that one for 15 dollars. I then tallied the two boxes and I quit counting when I got to about 250 dollars worth of stuff! Not too bad of a day for an ol’ computer dude, I’d say!

Last week a friend and client of ours got a new computer and called us to set it up for her at her place of business in Delano (about an hour southwest from here). After doing all of that, she gave us her old computer which actually had nothing wrong with it (her granddaughter hopes to inherit the new one and didn't want the old one. No problem). So, we now have a nice (though older) computer, flat screen monitor, mouse, and keyboard! Such a deal! We usually give stuff like this away to folks in the church after I tune it up and maybe even upgrade the operating system to Vista (seed to sow, don’tcha know).

Newly hatched grandbaby, Moire Annaliese Howden, is fat, happy, and sweet as a bucket of cupcakes. She is about 10 weeks old and couldn’t be doing better. Her parents are quite proud of this fifth edition to their clan. We went down to see the dedication at their church not long ago on the evening before Mother’s Day. The rest of the grandkiddies are doing great too!

Anyway, that’s the news from “Rancho Relaxo”. Stay tuned to see what is happening around here. I know that I can’t wait to find out just what new blessings will arrive and how the soon-to-arrive hog farm will work out without anyone getting killed. I wanted to do what the sign said and give them a shout “for more info” and ask, “Reckon how long will it take you to move back out?”.

Likewise,  the Schwinn Meridian (adult) tricycle is almost assembled. Can’t wait to take her for a stroll. Most likely, I’ll let the 1.25 hp Honda motor do most of the work, though. As you may have already noted, I am convenience oriented.

Don't touch that dial.

 

 

Whale of a Deal!

We’ll….it was about time Ol’ Ran and Miss Connie got out of Dodge for a few days for some R&R (or, more accurately this time, S&E, sleeping and eating). It had been quite awhile since we had flown the coop (and were still associating with a few turkeys) so I decided to just ditch the rancho and go to the coast. Farm livin’; that’s the life for me, to be sure. But, I knew that the air is nice and clean at Morro Bay. Besides, we really did need a break from the Valley and our work load. We had so much on our plate that we were getting gravy on the floor.

Not only that, besides having dirty air to breathe, a rancho (at least this one) just doesn’t have any whales to watch! Guess what? Morro Bay just happens to have whale watching tours this time of year! Zowie!

It has been about 25 years or so since I’ve been on a boat and out in the Pacific Ocean to watch gray whales migrate along the coast. Connie had yet to have the experience so I wanted her to have the chance to do so. I was about to call it a “pleasure” but “experience” is a bit closer to reality this time around. We ran into some real life hindrances almost from the git go.

Our usual protocol is to have everything ready the night before. Then, in the morning, after milking the cows, feeding the chickens, and bucking the hay (you ain’t buyin’ into this part are you?), we load the hoopie and head out for whatever part of a map is still stuck in the 1982 "Rand McNalley Road Atlas".  

Actually, we know the way to Morro Bay. It isn’t all that far at about 188 miles. That’s “just around the corner” in California terms. Anyway, we loaded up the dump-van (slight smaller than a dump truck but used for much the same purposes) and forged ahead.

The problem is that we started out entirely too tired and taxed to attempt this gig. Despite our high hopes, we started with a “low battery” which simply drained more from there.

After almost four hours of abusing our sweet cheeks, we arrived in Morro Bay. It was Thursday about 6PM  which means that it was later than planned due to unforeseen obstacles. There was jsut no way to break away any earlier. So, we cashed in our reservation at the “Travelodge” motel (so we could wake up and smell the curry) and took up camp. In almost no time, I was “un-laxed” and in bed catching up on a bit of the “History Channel” (we only watch TV when traveling or when at someone else’s house). At about 8PM, our tummies began to let us know that the last of our “Taco Bell” lunch was gone and that we had forgotten to eat din din.

“Oh, man! Back to street clothes again?”, I asked Connie. “Can I just go in my jammies?”, I asked with my lip hanging down so low that I could suck a marble out of a gopher hole. “Not today!”, she declared tersely. “We don’t need the pastor of our church getting bailed out of jail for being goofy and stupid”.

“Well, I guess you’re right but I don’t get arrested for being goofy and stupid when I have my street clothes on so what’s the diff? Besides, every other person I see in Wal-Mart has their jammies on”, I argued as plaintively as I could.

She looked at me right straight into my pretty brown eyes and, with all wifely authority (which is usually employed to keep husbands from making fools of themselves), “You’re not in Wal-Mart and you are not a Wal-Martian so get dressed”. I did get dressed but it didn’t make my dinner taste any better.

Near the motel is a super nice restaurant called, “Dutchman’s” (a different sign outside says, "Flying Dutchman"). Though only six blocks away, we drove there. Talk about “tired”. Sheese.

They had cioppino (Italian seafood stew in a tomato soup base) on the menu so, since I hadn’t had a cioppino since 1985, I opted for that. Connie dug into their primo fish and chips. My opinion is that their fish and chips excels all others in Morro Bay and Pismo (25 miles farther south). The only place that I can think of that was as good was in Pismo and its no longer in business. I found out later from a friend that we could have gone to "Jocko's" in Nipomo but it was a bit late for that.

Having taken care of alimentary enhancement, we promptly retired for the night. We hadn’t done anything but drive and eat and were bushed. Lights were out at about 10 PM.

The next morning saw me heading across the parking lot for the coffee pot in the motel office (seems I overlooked the one they provided in the room in the dressing alcove. Swell). Lo and behold, the office was not open for their continental breakfast though half the day was gone. Actually, it was 6:30 AM but the day was well started and most motel's offices are open at 6 AM or so. A peek at the fine print on the office door advised that they would open up at about 7:30 AM. Great. That must save them a lot of money on breakfasts since most people are usually gone by 7 AM.

With eyes only partially pried open I trudged across the street to “Carla’s Country Kitchen” where it only took five minutes to be waited on though the place was far from busy. It looked like it could be a long day in Morro Bay. I didn’t know how right I was. Anyway, the service was lousy but at least the coffee was nasty. The stuff was akin to tractor crankcase oil. John Deere would be proud.  

You would think that I would learn from such experiences. Nope. After Connie rounded up her ducks and, after loading up the van, we drove the few feet across the street to “Carla’s” (I am not lazy. But, I am convenience oriented).

You know, doesn’t it make sense to think that, in a tourist town, a café or restaurant needs to be something special and that it should stand out from the average greasy spoon that can be found in every modest sized city in America? I’ve been to “Carla’s” twice now and this will be my last time. The chow was middling but I didn’t come almost 200 miles for merely OK food.

This brings us to a “Randy Rant”: for one thing, biscuits are to be baking powder biscuits and not yeast biscuits. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, call yourself a “country kitchen” when you serve city biscuits. I would give the place a pass if they had called themselves “Carla’s City Kitchen”.

And, for another, gravy is supposed to have a taste. I maintain that, even if it tastes like it was made in the bottom of one of my grandfather's waders, it should have a taste. Paste has no taste. The only place I've found whose gravy was worse was a small diner across from Lake Cocolalla, ID (between Couer D' Alene and Sandpoint). Theirs tasted like wallpaper glue.

It is also my perception that food (especially hash brown potatoes) should be served at least warm enough to make one think that they were cooked the same day. I was disappointed enough to just leave the stuff on the plate but I was also Scotch enough to finish my plate and not waste the food. Sorry, Carla. You won’t be seeing Ol’ Ran again. Because the service was (barely) reasonable and the food arrived in a timely manner (unlike the previous time), I give them "2 Stars".

Our tour boat, christened “Dos Osos” (Spanish for “two bears”…huh?), was provided by “Sub Sea Tours” of Morro Bay. I couldn't help but giggle to myself about the name of the place. I guess I was envisioning watching whales from under the ocean. The departure was scheduled at around 9 AM. We thought to arrive early lest there be any surprises (old people hate surprises).

The day was bright and sunny with a light offshore breeze. It was a bit of shock that we didn’t have the marine cloud layer that is so typical of the coast. We later learned that whale watching had been cancelled for the previous week or so due to high winds.

The craft, powered by a pair of 25 hp Honda engines, was a nice 33’ barge of sorts that was capable of seating about 22 people. Given that dynamic, I was pretty certain that we weren’t going very far and weren’t going to get there very fast. You just can’t beat the laws of physics when there’s that much parasitic drag at your disposal.

Though a sunny day, and though the seas presented only minor chop, it was rather cool, to say the least. We had dressed appropriately in anticipation of the cold but we should have been more prepared. Connie wasn’t able to enjoy the event due to focusing most of her energy on maintaining enough body heat to stay alive. This will likely be her first and last time to brave the ocean blue on an open barge. 

After heading north up the coast from Morro Bay for about an hour, we spotted a whale! “Thar she blows! Eleven o'clock!”, bellowed the captain  as he pointed off the port bow at the spout of a gray whale. I think he derives great joy in yelling that knowing that his passengers will be giving great reports of their exciting whaling adventure with Captain Ahab. I quickly glanced about for a flensing knife but didn't see one.  

The captain wasn’t at all a crusty old sea salt as one might imagine. Rather, he was an affable and quite humorous middle-aged fellow with a quick wit (sharpened no doubt by years of practice before a captive audience). It was difficult to hear him due to the ambient wind and motor noises but he did try to clue us rubberneckers in on whale migration and such. He was quick to point out that floatation devices were available and that, should trouble arise, he and the first mate would quickly don them and swim to shore to get help for us. What a hoot!

After bobbing around about 1.5 miles directly offshore from Cayucos (home of dear friend and professional musician, Alen “Jackson” Wallen), we fell into the “deal of the day” when a juvenile gray whale began breaching not far from us. After the rash of picture taking,  the first mate/deck hand/tour guide advised that it was probably the first trip north for this whale and that he was breaching to get his bearings. For whatever reason the whale was doing his thing, it was quite spectacular and worth the hardship to see this marvelous creature cavorting in the ocean.

The timing was rather perfect as it was soon time to head back to the harbor. The captain pointed our little wave masher south while we all gabbed about how fortunate we were to have seen the whales. All-in-all, I really can’t complain as we did get what we paid for and a bag of cold wind. We did a lot in only 3.5 hours and it only cost us about what most couples would spend for two trips to a theater to watch a movie and buy a bag of popcorn (we have been to one move in two years and experienced “sicker shock” even at the matinee price).

 

Speaking of popcorn, as an aside: a large bag of popcorn is now $8.50! You can get a "deal" by purchasing a large popcorn and soda for a mere.....$13.50! None for me, thanks.

Now, get this; we debarked and strolled the one block to the parking lot. We got in to the van, looked at each other, and said, “Is it nap time yet?”, and promptly took a nap for an hour. There wasn’t enough energy between us to even get out of the parking lot.

Our hope was to head north to Cayucos and see “Jackson” and his wife. It has been a couple of years since we had the opportunity to hug their necks. Also, when at the coast, we usually track down a yard sale or two and then knock over a couple of thrift stores while we’re at it. That didn’t happen. With only a quick stop to refill my Diet Pepsi jug, we headed straight home without even stopping for lunch.

When we arrived back at the ranch, we had hoped to just settle in and recover from the trip. That didn’t happen either. Business and what all kept us hopping (I hate to hop) until 11 PM at which time we simply collapsed into the rack. It took a week to recover.

My guess is that there may be no elective long distance trips for awhile. We did have to go to Harbor City/Torrance for grandson, Kuyper’s, birthday party the next day (Saturday) but we just took it easy.  Two long trips in just a few days is too much fun for the non-dynamic non-daring duo from Springville.

Stay tuned for the next event(s) coming from “Rancho Relaxo”. It could be …..interesting what with the garden blooming wildly and all.