RANCHO BLASTO!!

This is genuine "stuff" lying peacefully on the floor after being flung from its resting place on the counter. It was on fire so it didn't mind.

The black junk that you see in the pic to the right is from the batteries themselves. I really didn't want to see all of the insides of a LI-ion battery today.

This is what's left of the LI-ion batteries that partially reverted back to their molecular state. The little headlight you see is a powerful LED that thinks it belongs on a Harley. I actually think it would work! It was to be hooked to the battery that was recharging.

Here is the now-unplugged charging unit to which the battery was hooked. You can see a scorched area at the top right.

What a mess.

What's left of the "b o m b" battery.

Another messy shot.

The second battery. There were two batteries in the one pack that powered the LED headlight. I really loved this setup but will need to find another source for headlights. This was a real confidence buster.






Well…..there I was (.....again........being wherever it was that I hadn’t started from in the beginning but not where I was when I last said, “There I was….minding my own business....” in the last Rancho update)......minding my own business and taking a 10 minute rest break from doing as little as possible on a marvelously beautiful 75 degree day that screamed “DAY OFF!!”. The allure of even the thought of that was a bit difficult to comprehend but we did managed to skirt much of our non-planned day as we could….up to a point. The “point” was when I had just stretched out on the bed to relax and wonder what I wasn’t going to do next. There was a loud “POP!” kind of like the sound of 24 gallon bottle of Champagne being opened. It grabbed my attention like a starving gorilla grabs a chimps last banana.

Thinking that maybe Connie had lost her grip on something that weighed about 200 pounds and it smashed into the floor (which should have spoken a bit more loudly to my not-quite yet foggy brain), I slipped back into “un-lax” mode. That lasted for all of about 15 seconds or so when another loud “POP!” scorched the air. Knowing that I couldn’t possibly have two 24 gallon bottles of champagne in the house, there was cause for concern.

 In only a few seconds Connie’s voice made a potentially disconcerting affirmation: “Honey! There’s a fire in the kitchen!”. The last time I checked, fires in the kitchen were not our friends. Before you could say, “Randy, you need to go into the kitchen and check out the fire and maybe do something about it before it burns the house down”, I was in the kitchen checking out the fire before it could burn the house down.

 The fire was on the counter of what we deem the “sewing room” (adjacent to the kitchen) and near the rear door to the outside. Thankfully, it was localized to about a 24” square area but fires double in size every 60 seconds. That meant that Captain Molasses Brain would have to refrain from thinking and simply allow his experience and instincts to take control.

 Just as thankfully, that did happen. I simply slid the stuff off into the floor (I have considerable training in “stuff sliding”) while directing faithful Head Cook and Assistant Fire Chief, Connie, to grab the fire extinguisher from the garage (only a few feet from the kitchen….and…yes…there will be an extinguisher much closer to the rear from now on). She dutifully complied while I did the “Loo-zee-anna Fire Stomp” on the mess. It sort of came naturally so I didn't have to think and I didn’t even need lessons (you would have been proud!). Hey! It could even be the next dance rage!

The fire extinguisher wasn't used this time as the fire was out by the time Connie returned with it. But, I then called for a pan of water with which to quench the still smoldering mass of formerly good stuff. “No need to drown the place, Ran”, I cautioned myself and merely localized the dousing. Still, it would have been comforting to have a charged 1 ½” fire hose at hand just in case things got out of hand. 

 While all of this was transpiring, I wondered what on earth would precipitate such a dynamic that would so rudely deprive me of my doping off time. Ah, then the 30 watt LED’s kicked in. Earlier, I had been mindlessly tinkering (tinkering is not working) with my motorized Schwinn Meridian trike and had pulled the compact battery pack from the headlight so as to recharge it. Some of you boys are already getting the picture on this. I had plugged in the Li-Ion battery to the charger which is located….near the back door on the counter in the sewing room. For whatever reason, the batteries malfunctioned and overheated which caused them to explode. Many thanks to Chinese battery manufacturer, Zing Pow Ding, for helping me lose my catnap and for the mess we had to clean up.

 There was sufficient energy release to actually penetrate the counter top in one small spot. The items that were ignited caused  major blistering as well. Most likely, the counter will need to be replaced. Black stuff and junk from the batteries was hurled across the isle and onto the opposite counter making for a bit of a mess. It could have been much worse, though, so we’re not complaining. Besides, I may not be able to retrieve my ten minute catnap but I can take two of them tomorrow, eh?

 A couple of days ago, right out of the blue (literally), we had a bunch of clouds cruise in from the east. Though there was no forecast for clouds or anything other than “sunny and clear”, the wind picked up to about 25 knots or so with gusting that gave every indication that we were in for a rehearsal of the previous (unannounced) blow. Great. Guess what it was time to do? Yep…we zipped out to the carport and took down the cover that we had just installed (with new rope) a few days ago. Want to know what the “bummer dude” catch was to this event? 30 minutes later the wind was calm. Can you spell, “GRRRRRRRRR”?

More “News to Make You Snooze”….we are suffering from a diagnosed “Slab Leak”. Nope….. that’s not when your ham shank is loosing its smoke flavoring all over the shelf in the fridge. It means that there is a water line leak under the concrete slab on which the house was built.

One option is to localize the event then start breaking concrete out, fix the leak, and cover with more concrete. The first impulse is to do that. However, because all of the pipes are copper and all of them have been sitting peacefully under the slab, any one of them may leak at any time. It may be a week, or a year, or a decade but there will be another leaky pipe.

 That possibility leads to another option which is to “plumb over”. That means the plumber will cut the existing water supply and re-pipe the place with the piping going over the and through the house. It’s twice as expensive as the other way but it all but eliminates above ground leak issues. We’re probably going to go that route and simply buy the peace of mind.

 The estimate is in for the roof damage too. The roofer from Bakersfield gave the insurance adjuster a quote of 2200 bucks and change. They, in turn, sent us a check for 700 dollars for the amount above the deductible. However, we had already advised the nice adjuster lady to contact us prior to having the insurance company pay us. If the amount was only a small amount over the deductible, we were simply going to just pay for the damages so we wouldn’t have a claim against the insurance policy which would make us subject to a rate increase. She didn’t do that. So, we contacted the claims agency and unwound the deal altogether.

As if that were not enough to feed your catfish, we had wanted to keep our business locally and got a couple of bids from our area. Come to find out, the local guys were half the price of the clown from Bakersfield! All things tallied, we’ll just pony up and get everything done ourselves.

Instead of repairing a 20 year roof, we’re going to replace it and have them install two nice solar powered attic vents while they’re at it. Those things are supposed to cut cooling costs by a few percentage points and I'm into the "saving" thing. We’ll still have to fix our fence and our well house gates and such but that’s no biggy.

That’s the story….going from blow to blast here at the Ranch and setting the stage for other overhauls. We'll end up with a completely new house if this keeps up! Stay tuned. The hits just keep coming.

 

HUH?!

. 

Limbs and such from our poplar trees on the west side of the house. We don't have room for a wood burning stove (bummer, dude) or we would cut and stack this stuff up for next winter.

 

 
 
 
 

Here we have a perfectly good lawn tractor being used as a door stop. The wind wrecked the hinges on the pump house and the door won't stay closed so we...exercised one of our options.

 

 
 
 
 
 



This is looking east toward the mountains. The debris is actually from the east side of the roof of the barn. Connie and I watched in awe as the wind lifted it up and dumped it on the opposite side. Then , it hurled a bunch of it at us and whacking our car and fence. I had to dive for the dirt to keep from getting smacked with one of the 2' x 10' slices of metal roofing. I can only do that once but I did do it well this time.

More roofing material. This same neighbor replaced the entire roof on his home which sits back to the left of this picture.

"Hey! Anybody seen my shingles?" We got off light on the deal. There were some missing shingles and the flashing has to be hammered down but not much else.

We just replaced this fence a couple of years ago. A chunk of roofing from the neighbor's barn hit it. This is Connie's clothesline area.

The neighbor also lost half of his oak tree. Later, the fallen parts were cut up and stacked then hauled off.

 
 



This is the front carport without the canopy. We had to pull it off during the big blow so that it wouldn't sail off to the coast.

The "Minnick Computer Services" sign was propped up against the white wagon wheels and presented such a "barn door" when the wind blew that it shoved the wheels over. They are mounted in concrete too.

Because the wind was blowing from the east, the limbs and branches fell away from the house. That was nice.

 

That's the neighbor's house to our west and this is the west side of the house. The metal on the ground is from the barn to our east.

Anybody want to buy some good used shingles?

It was mighty nice of our neighbors to babysit our tree limbs until we could get them all cleaned up.

 

Another casualty of the big blow

The canopy for our carport ended up on the front porch when Connie drug it over there to keep the wind from stealing it.

 

I don’t know about everyone else, but Connie and I are standing around (running around, actually) shaking our heads and wondering where on earth the time has been going. It’s like being on a bullet train where you get on and, instead of taking hours to complete the trip, you’re there in no time plus a pit stop.  Perhaps Stephen King was correct and the Langoliers are chomping away at the minutes and hours. 

 The first of the month just got here and yet…..we’re in the middle of the month already. We greet the day only to find ourselves ready for bed in what seems like only a couple of hours. The year is ¾ used up and it’s as though we have accomplished so little. That probably wouldn’t be such a big concern except that there is still so much to accomplish.

 F’rinstance, though I did complete the trike project, Connie’s trike is patiently waiting to be assembled and the motor is certainly abiding in silence so that it can be allowed to express itself in noise and bluster.

 And….there are the longsuffering trees that could use a nice drink of water. They don’t complain though their portion is river water (and we know what fish do there). They’re a bit stressed but then, I would be too if I were starting to wilt around the edges.

 And....we now have to account for the repairs from our big blow. That was a mess. The neighbor is having his roof replaced on both his home and his old barn. The east side of the roof of his barn (400 free to the east) ended up in our yard. One chunk of corrugated roof hit our van and scuffed the paint on the back and top as it flew into and then over it. How nice that we had just had the rear re-painted and the previous damage fixed. Then a 10’ x 2” x 4” rafter flew over and landed on our (newer) back yard fence and smashed a section of that. It’s a smallish area for Connie’s clothesline with cute white fencing (until now).

 And….we have a few trees and a couple of vines that need to be replaced simply because they croaked on us. Try as I might, I’ve only been able to kill a very few plants while the rest of them mock me with their leaves and limbs and thrive anyway. For whatever reason we did lose a couple of apple trees (saplings), peach and plum trees, (ditto), and a couple of grape starts that failed to thrive. The rest of the 12 vines are struggling but I suppose that that isn’t any wonder given the fact that our front yard area is about as fertile as a Sears parking lot. I’ve had to maintain a pretty strict water regimen lest I end up with dried grape leaf table ornaments. Ah, but that’s some of the problem; I’m having difficulty with the “strict” part. I just don’t recall that term being used much in connection with my name. “Strict Ran”…naw…not much of a ring to it.

 And….the pump house lattice gate hinges were trashed when the wind wrenched them free and commenced to violate them by whipping them like a red headed step child. It may be best just to pull them off and replace them rather than try to fuss and fight with them to straighten them out again.  

 And….we’re dealing with a roofer who will be replacing the shingles that were hustled into the next county. While we’re at it, we have determined to install a couple of solar powered attic vents to help assuage the cooling costs during the summer time. We estimate a utility savings of about 3-5% or so. One of the vents will go on the garage so that our stored goods will remain usable for a longer time. The barn sports two nice ones and we like them and the idea of their being self sufficient. The ones we’re eyeballing have a life-time warranty (I keep wondering whose life).

 And…wait folks….there’s more (your Ginzu Knife commercial for the day)! We are getting ready for the big “Apple Festival” yard sale that we host each year. Most likely, there won’t be quite as large a turn out as last year but this will still be a major event. There could be 15 or more venders this year as compared to 22 last time. Some folks have little to sell and others have little time to spare. Connie (“Yard Sale’er in Chief”) has been prepping for this thing since the last one ended and is getting her boxes in a row. It’s a tough job but…I support her all that I can …when I have time…and if my pom-poms are working. A big hug usually works now and again.

 It’s a hoot because we go dumpster diving for boxes when we go to town. We’re getting good at it! I could change my name to “Delbert” so they can call me “Delbert the Dumpster Diver”. Has kind of a ring to it, eh? On one occasion, we ran across a dumpster in the ally (downtown) that had a ton of personal items in it. I appeared that it could have been the tailings of a broken relationship where the gal pal tossed her bad boyfriend’s goodies into the trash. There was some really nice “stuff” including clothes for our yard sale and even a couple of things for eBay. You just never know what you’ll find. In any case, it evolved into some free money….free money is my friend.

 Speaking of water…there is no (N O) water flowing in the Tule River below Springville. It’s almost eerie to go to the Lower Globe Road bridge (.6 miles down the road from us) and see puddles of water instead of a stream. There is a small flow into Springville but the ditch company siphons off what little water there is for its clients (among whom are the Minnicks). This is the driest season in recent history (at least since the 1930’s when they began keeping records). We received less than 6” of rainfall this season (about 11” is the norm). A couple of T-storms in the high country helped a tiny bit but it still only manifested as a trickle by the time it got to us. The trout are seen hitch-hiking to the lake.

 Contrast that with places like Oklahoma where they have seen a few times when the rain was falling at the rate of one inch per hour. In other words, they get is much rain in one day as we get in one year! In the rain forest area of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, they get around 200 inches per year! Talk about “green”!

 Not long ago, Longview, WA was undergoing a “drought” and folks were complaining. I was unable to wrap a brain cell around their “problem” because they only got about 30” of rain for the year and had the confluence of the Columbia and Cowlitz Rivers at hand. And, unlike California, there was not so much as a smudge of brown to be seen. Hmmmmmm. Wonder what those folks are thinking?

 In any event, things are mighty brown around town (his says with a frown as he wears his britches upside down). I’ve started trying to do the “drip irrigation” gig and will probably stay with that. It would be nice to just use the “soaker hoses” too but the ditch/irrigation water has a lot of particulate matter so it clogs all the filters/screens and small holes in the hoses in short order. It works great for about 5 minutes. There is a screen at the weir but, for some reason, it still isn’t 100% effective in junk removal. That is actually an issue even when using the impulse/impact sprinklers. I’m always having to carry a crescent wrench around so I can pop off the sprinkler and clean it out or replace it. It’s a full-time job (which fits right in with my other two full-time jobs).

 But, that’s part of the point; I don’t have time to keep up with all of this stuff the way that it needs to be done. Some of our orange trees are getting stressed and I don’t like that. Our oranges are usually as sweet as candy but not this time.

 Also, we have four loquat trees that have yet to have anyone (wonder who) harvest them. They produce a marvelously sweet fruit and are so bountiful that some of the limbs break down. They would be excellent for canning but I simply can’t get to it and they go to waste. I hate that. Now that we have our canning and dehydrating supplies and equipment pretty much ready we can (hopefully) prevent this lamentable loss next season.

 Our tangerine tree is a mess, too. The fruit is almost dehydrated on the tree. Eating one is like eating a shoe box dipped in Kool-Aid that has not sugar added. I was able to put some water on it for a few days and let it get a good soaking. We won’t lose the tree but I think it’s still mad at me.

 Maggie the Wonder Dog (“Maggasaurus” for short) is still happy and healthy and still as sweet as a box of Ju-Jubes. She’s still goofy too but at least she’s worthless. She loves us and we love her so all is well in the pet department. And, apparently, so is her crop of fleas. The poor dog has been treated (twice) with that expensive goop that you apply along the spine area and she is still suffering. There is a new collar that is suppose to work miracles at killing fleas so I’ll try to get one. I think it has an army of nano-bots parked inside that flood out and track down the fleas and whack them with tiny laser weapons. The dog will turn me in to the ASPCA or PETA if I’m not more mindful.

 I have a new espresso maker! She’s a beaut! It’s a “Melita”/”Salton” brand. Talk about a “deal-and-a-half”! We were in the thrift store the other day and Connie saw this white espresso maker sort of hiding behind some other appliances (all of her kitchen stuff is white including my small old espresso maker). When we looked at it, it was new! Well, it was the white version of the black model that we recently acquired as a backup unit! That meant that I could ditch the small one for this one that has more control over the steam for frothing! This particular model retails for 119.95 (on sale for probably 89-99 bucks, no doubt)! We purchased it for….6 bucks! Of course, I had it on the counter in no time and making great espresso coffee with which to please my discriminating palate (uh-huh). It brews in less than half the time of the other one, too! Zowie! It makes enough foam to cover the entire kitchen counter, too….but I only did that once. I know how to use it properly now.

Most of the time the coffee used around here is a blend of “whatever dude” that I have around the place (many pounds of many roasts, grinds, and brands). For instance, lately I’ve been using a 50/50 blend of med-dark roast Folgers “Columbian” coffee mixed with a 50/50 blend (pre-blended) of generic S&F “French Roast” de-caff and regular “Espresso” dark roast. It’s produced a truly excellent coffee latte’. Another experiment was using Folgers “French Roast” with a generic “French Roast” de-caff. Interestingly, the Folgers “French Roast” is a bit lighter than the usual FR. To me, it’s more of an “Espresso” roast because it doesn’t have the deep black oily presentation. In any case, it was a fair cup of java but I’ll likely just use it (Folgers) in the regular coffee maker (my little white four cupper) for now.

“S&W” brand used to have a “French Roast Columbian” roast that was the bee’s knees but they stopped marketing it for some reason. I loved that stuff! When still playing music with the “Cedar Grove Bluegrass Band” with Don and Shirley Gerber, Shirley would brew us up a jug of that stuff and …my oh, my! …what a treat! After they discontinued it, we were all bummed out.  However, I did notice that “Town and Country Market” has recently started carrying “S&W” “Dark Roast Columbian”. My guess is that, if it’s not the same exact coffee that I miss so much, it’s close enough to be used in an espresso maker for making latte’s. We shall soon see since our church is right around the corner (literally) from there!

The “borate bombers” are flying over again. We have a fire up on the “Western Divide” not far out of the “Peppermint Creek” area. Thankfully, it’s not a large one like the latest “Rim Fire” at Yosemite. It’ll be the largest California fire in our history when they finally stomp that one out. It’s amazing to me…the forests have been around for….how long?....and we come along and try to “save” them by “managing” them. So, what happened when we started tree hugging? We are losing millions of acres of forest and kill who knows how many animals. Brilliant, eh?

 Earlier this summer, there was a fire only a few miles from here on one of the hillsides near the lake. The bombers swooped in and brought that one under control in no time. It was just the brown grass and a few trees and not a forested area. My guess is that the fire only scorched about 150 acres or so. It was uncomfortably close to the “Montgomery Ranch” estates, though, and the good folks there were probably sweating bullets and changing “Huggies” for awhile. This entire area is a tender box so everyone is in “high alert” for fire hazards.

Stay tuned for more of who knows what. It could be interesting.