Knots To Us!! Or, What to do When It’s Raining Tin and Two by Fours!!

There I was, minding my own business in front of my computer and  totally in command of my small world when, all of a sudden, I hear Connie’s strained voice making a declaration: “It looks like the wind is going to carry away the carport!”. “Well”, says I to myself. “That can’t be a good thing”.

I must admit that I didn’t even bother with the “wind alert” that she gave a little while earlier. The wind came up a bit and presented itself as nothing more than a front passing through. I peered out my window at the waving tree branches then quickly ignored it. I’ve been in Oklahoma where the wind gets serious and we aren’t in Oklahoma.

Then, no notice was taken as the winds began to whip up and become formidable. After all, this is “sunny California”. We don’t allow strong winds in our neck of this “Golden State”. Uh-huh.

The first sight of our carport listing like sinking aircraft carrier was enough to light a bit of a fire in my stride. Had the concrete footings been any lighter the neighbor would have had a new item on which to hang Christmas lights this December.

 We quickly moved the Camry so that the support poles wouldn’t modify the paintjob like they did the van some months ago. The second thing was to undo the beautiful tie-own job we had recently accomplished when we installed the new canopy. Before we finished the wind grew from about 30 knots to 45 kts and was gusting from there. It wasn’t a pretty sight! Stuff was being blown into the yard and all over the place. We actually had a difficult time standing against it.

Connie grabbed the canopy (or at least it looked like she grabbed it. It may have grabbed her) and both ended up on the front porch where they were somewhat protected. In just a short time, the porch would be a shambles, though.

Being rather unafraid of the wind, I ventured out back to take a couple of pictures of the mess. As I was gawking at the neighbor’s barn, half of its roof lifted up and came tumbling over! Then, a 2’ x 10’ section came flying (literally) at our place. I had to dive for the dirt to avoid an episode of sidewalk surgery by a tin scalpel. That was interesting. That was hardly enough to faze an old huntin’ dog like me but Connie persuaded me that the grandkids will need me later so I should at least make an effort to stay alive by returning to the shelter of the patio.

There are at least ten large pieces of tin from the barn that ended up here so far.  We need to count the two long two by four’s that ended up against the house, too. Most likely, I’ll stack stuff up and let the neighbor fetch his building material later.

The neighbor also lost half of one of his oak trees. It snapped in the middle and fell off. We lost a large section of one of our large shade trees and a lot of smaller limbs off the other shade trees on our west boundary. We called our hired hand and he’s ready to come up and help.

I must admit that I have never ever seen 60+ knot winds in this area. That’s bad enough but it appears that peak gusts are hitting around the 70+ knot region. That there is a mighty stiff blow! It’s still more than just blustery outside as I’m writing.

 Dear friends, Fred and Deanna Piazza (a couple of miles away) just advised that their power is out. They called and found out that the power company expected to have the power returned in a couple of hours. We actually knew that because our power went out not long after the blow started. It didn’t bother us because we have the residential generator that came on immediately and the UPS batteries were there for our computers (saving them from a hard shut down). However (isn’t there always a “however”?), the Internet Service Provider is without power so, Ol’ Ran can’t access the Net. So goes life. At least I can finish up some writing and such that needs to be done and a couple of other things that are waiting with bated breath for my attention.

The forecast for today was for a 20% chance of scattered thundershowers. It was really interesting because we didn’t get anything but a bit o’ spit for rain and no lightening or thunder. High winds were not in the offing. We’ve been lied to by the weatherman before so it’s no biggy.

Last night, on the other hand, we got rain and a thunderstorm (if ten minutes of gentle rain can be called a “storm”).  Connie and I sat on the front porch swing for at least an hour and watched the lightning march toward us then sort of slide to the east. It would have been nice to see some lightning bugs but we’re a bit out of their territory. We were quite certain that the lightning would come our way. In fact, it was within a few miles but then it simply skirted us. “Ground strike” lightning isn’t good for your health so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. It’s just that I love a good thunder-buster.

Maggie the Wonder Dog isn’t a weather hound at all. She ran around restlessly for awhile but, when the winds became boisterous, she hunkered down behind a chair on the patio and called it a day. You couldn’t have moved her with a D-9 Cat. We were sure she would want to avail herself of “Maggie’s Mansion” doggy house where little could possibly bother her. But, she avoided it for some reason and stayed in the open and behind a wooden chair (which protected her from nothing but Boeing 747’s the best that I can tell). I’m starting to think that the dog is a silly goose.

A check on the Net (after the power came up) for a news update showed that the entire south San Joaquin Valley got hammered with a thunderstorm today while we were enduring our mini-hurricane. There was a lightning-precipitated power outage that spanned 6 counties! They also suffered a deluge which caused many traffic issues.

The messy storm found its way to Kern Country where it washed out portions of Highway 178 in Kern Canyon. Fresno got more than its share of grief and one man was struck by lightning (and, thankfully, survived). Their power won’t be restored until well after midnight, according to PGE.

Get this….the temp was 109 degrees which broke a 122 year old record for August 19. This kind of weather is extremely rare for here. 

Well…anyway…...after a couple of hours of “adventure”, I just walked outside and was greeted with a warm gentle summer breeze and a full moon. The sky has hardly a cloud in it. Life is once again beautiful at Rancho Relaxo. At dawn we clean.


(No pictures yet. My cell phone is holding them hostage and I need to hack my way into it and recover them)

 

 

 

 

 

Update From the Ranch

The  tomatoes are taking over this box! We love it! In the box at the rear is more okra.

 

 
 




To the right is the recently replanted box. Connie pulled up the zukes and planted other stuff (peas and green beans)  next to the peppers (on the right/east side) and okra (a couple of plants at the rear).

 The Ranch Rocket. I just took my first excursion outside the sight of home. It's 2.6 mi. to the nearest gas station so that sounded like the best place to go. It took about 8 min. to get there so that's about 22 mph. 22 mph was hot stuff in 1905!

 

                                                                                   
Here's some newly planted peas and green beans
next to the flourishing strawberries (left).

 

All is well here at the ranch. We’re (still) staying busy to say the least. What with the ministry efforts, the computer biz, keeping up with blogs, and holding down the fort, there's not many mushrooms growing under foot.

 

Our garden boxes have finally paid off. The time of harvest is upon us and Connie is getting her canning goodies together. She has already started putting up zukes and other squash. But, the tomato harvest is going to pounce on us big time and soon at that. The okra is producing some really nice pods but Ol’ Ran has yet to whack it up and fry some of it. Connie may be able to can some for later use in a gumbo or such.

I really want to roll some okra in cornmeal and fry it in an old iron skillet (which we have on hand). It’s best when fried in bacon grease too (not on hand but doable). That’s the best as far as I’m concerned. Talk about yummy stuff! There just doesn’t seem to be enough time or the priority has yet to be confirmed, I suppose, for me to “get a man right on it”. Good stuff any way you want to slice it.

 “Home Town Buffet” usually serves breaded okra but….ugh….that stuff is little beyond chicken feed. No self-respecting CIO (California Improved Okie) would touch that inedible mess. For okra, go to "Golden Corral" but make sure you have a very very empty stomach to start with or you will risk "buffet bloat syndrome" from over eating (I over eat anyway). 

 

Speaking of "Golden Corral", we recently knocked over the one in Bakersfield on Ming Ave. Oh, my! GC has long been my favorite buffet. Nothing else even comes close to it.   

Anyway, Connie’s also doing some dehydrating. There’s her peach “leather” that has turned out really well. It’s easy to do. You just toss your fruit and a dab of lemon juice into the food processor and pour the puree onto a flat thing and dehydrate. She even gave a go at drying onions. The initial tally on the onions was about 30 pounds which rendered a few quarts of dried goods. The place smelled like a hamburger stand for a few days!

As she sliced away while sitting at the kitchen table, she used a small fan to blow the fumes away. However, she failed to notice that she was loading the kitchen with those same fumes! I walked in from upstairs and into the kitchen and…..Wheeew! My eyeballs lit on fire and died! A small price to pay for a large supply of dehydrated onions which you can toss into a soup.

We haven’t done jerky in awhile for whatever reason (though it probably starts off with “Randy is sooooo  lazy…..”). I just sent the last of my previous batch to Brother John Appiah in Ghana West Africa. He loved the stuff and couldn’t get enough when I shared some with him last year.

A this point, we have 7 dehydrators and are looking to pick up one of the larger semi-commercial square 7-10 tray units. They’re not all that spendy so two of them will easily take the place of the smaller round ones we have.

For the fall crop, she just planted some green beans and peas. There’s also winter squash in the offing. There may be some other veggies that are planned but I don’t recall what they are at the moment. I’m not sure when winter actually gets here. It doesn’t really get cold until about January 1^st or so (I think I wore my leather jacket three times last winter and only twice because it was actually cool enough to do so). Since our garden boxes have responded to our pleas for cooperation, we are going to put them to good use.

We are (obviously) heading in he direction of being self-sufficient here at the Ranch. I’m not necessarily thinking about subsistence farming but it won’t hurt to have a backup plan. Hopefully, we’ll even be off the grid too! That may be a couple of years off yet but we’ll see. We’ve been looking into the deal but haven’t been convinced to take the plunge. for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, we’re not sure of the installation and configuration of the solar panels. Nothing seems to fit around here. We have two acres but ….no room to put solar panels. There’s no room on the roof of the house or the barn either.  We do have the residential generator. That little baby is my friend. What a handy gadget!

According to no few experts, there is every reason to suspect that the economy may crash (my! Isn’t that comforting?). So we want to have at least a head start on the matter of survival and for protecting ourselves from those who think we ere crazy for doing so. When they get hungry, they will want to redistribute my groceries and just let us starve to death. They will have to get past an awful lot of lead and Maggie the Wonder Dog before that happens.

The trike is still in testing stage solely due to my foot dragging. A couple of days ago I gathered the courage to ride it about ¾ of mile down to a friend’s house. All went well. I’m still having an issue with the right rear fender staying aligned with the tire so that it doesn’t rub. Not sure what that’s all about. I straighten it and it twists back out. A small nylon tie may obviate the matter. Not sure yet. I’m getting used to the crowned roads and am becoming more used to the uncomfortable feeling of leaning with the trike instead of riding upright like on a bike. I may invent training wheels for it.

Since we just got our helmets, Connie says I can now head down the hill 2.6 miles to the “Eagle Feather” convenience mart/gas station/stop and rob. They sit up off the road (Highway 190) on a hillside and their driveway has about a 9% or greater grade. Though the little Schwinn hummer has a 1.5 hp motor, the gearing and clutch configuration may be such that it won’t haul my 220lb (dry) airframe up the hill. I may have to mount the other sprocket and lower the gearing somewhat. Or…how about a JATO bottle attached to the rear frame? No more worries about going uphill!! Zowie!

The only real complaint I have about the trike is the size of the gas tank. The dinky thing only holds about 16 oz of fuel (two cups!). Well….that’s great if you’re using a weed eater. Otherwise, I have to keep putting gas in the thing all of the time! I’ve refueled it twice since I built it and haven’t really gone anywhere! If I go anywhere beyond a couple of miles or so, I’ll need to bring along a small gas can (locked to the basket, of course. Wouldn’t want the Gypsies to steal it).

Our water situation isn’t critical yet but it doesn’t look good at all. The Tule River is still at a standstill. It’s just a bunch of puddles now. Ugly. They’re also dumping water from the lake to appease the irrigation demands from downstream. It almost looks strange to actually see water in the river below the dam. How weird.

There is still enough for us to be able to water the front yard. I did let it get good and brown first so that the neighbors and ditch tender would know that I’m doing my part to help preserve our “California gold”. So far, the drip irrigation dynamic has sufficed for the time being for our trees.

Our bees are still doing well. This time, we actually smoked the little critters prior to feeding them. They were all nice and calm after that and left us alone. You may recall that, the last time we tried to befriend our hives, they chased us out of their neighborhood. Dear friend, Jim McCrory, suggested that we make sure that our hives have not been commandeered by “killer bees”. We hadn’t thought of that! He suggested that we check with our mentor who then advised that we just misjudged the matter in that we caught them at “bed time” (which spooked them) and that we should have smoked them first. DUH. Live and learn. Next lesson, please.  

We then discovered that killer bees have migrated as far north as Kern County (the county immediately adjacent to  us on the south) and that was in 2007. So, it is a real possibility that such a hijacking of our hives could happen. Oh, well. Maybe we could just have a bumper sticker that reads, “Our killer bees can whip your spelling bees”.

Connie’s birthday is coming soon (too soon, according to her). I’m not sure that someone’s 65^th birthday is what’s called “coming of age” (tee hee) but she will be 25 years beyond the “Big Four-O” on the 28th of this month.

 

As part of our celebration efforts, we hope to make it to the quaint and historical little burg called “Julian” out in the high desert hills about an hour southeast of Oceanside (just a bit north of San Diego). Julian has all kinds of neat places to visit and to spend a bit of time lolling about. They have an old gold mine that you can tour and a special famous pie shop (did I mention that Connie loves pies?). The museum is one place we want to visit as is the old time photo place where we can get our picture taken in sepia tone. That way, we can prove that we're old!

 

They have a couple of places there where you can rent a horse, too. However, the last time I rode a horse (1987 as I recall) my body threatened to auction me off to the lowest bidder if I ever did that again. And, that was almost. ..gulp...thirty years ago when my body didn’t need so much Super Glue to hold it together! It remains to be seen whether or not I have the guts or gumption to be a cowboy for a few minutes (or seconds, depending). I may just leave my Stetson and Tony Llama’s at home. Most likely, I’ll just mount the old Ford van and holler out the window, “Hi yo, Plutonium away!” (the Lone Ranger already has “Silver”, don’tcha know).

 Eldest son, Jeff and his wife, Sandra, are prospering as owners of “The Cattle Baron Cafe”. Just perusing their menu has me ready to pack up and move to Abilene! Those folks back there know how to eat! You can check them out here: http://www.cattlebaroncafe.com/. If you don’t have a fire in your tummy by the time you leave their site, your wood is wet.

Daughter, Trixie and her 5 young’ins will be stopping by for a two day visit next week. They are returning home from a trip to Washington to see siblings and their families up there. We hope to get the grandkids a bit more acquainted with Rancho Relaxo while they are here. They may like to ride on the old Ranch Rino tractor and such. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there’ll be a BBQ grill fired up during their stay. Her husband, Dan, couldn’t make it as planned but may be able to come up at a later date.

 

Stay tuned for more comic relief from Rancho Relaxo and the Yo-Yo Twins. We’re a million laughs and counting so far (I just need to figure if folks are laughing with us or at us. HAR!).