RANCHO AÑO NUEVO

Well, here we are kicking off a new year and looking forward to what 2014 has in store for us. I’m now officially another year older and, presumably, another year wiser. That should be interesting to watch.

 An old Chinese blessing says, “May you live in interesting times”. An old Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times”. That certainly applies to this day and time. I'm tempted to think that the year 2014 must be the Chinese “Year of the Snake” because there are so many of them trying to run (read, “trying to destroy”) our nation. Maybe the Chinese are on to something.

What is my “resolution” for the New Year, you ask? I’ve made a resolution to never make another New Year resolution. I think I can keep that one. The decision to just do what I’m supposed to do anyway seems to be working so far.

For instance, instead of declaring a diet, I just let my membership in the “Oreck Smorgasbord Strip Mining Club” lapse. Voila! The buffets are now safe from losing money and Ol’ Ran is dragging out his next smaller sized britches. I’m still wondering if Connie will complain about it this summer when I’m not protecting her from the scorching sun by blocking out half the sky when we walk together. Correspondingly, there will be less heat in the winter time too. Hmmmmmm. I suppose I can just buy her a new pair of long johns for Christmas.  

Our hired hand, Gary, spiffed up the place the other day. The ranch was starting to look rather mangy but no one can say that the Clampetts live here now.  No, sireeee. The burn pile needs to be addressed, though. It has been patiently awaiting the torch for about 3 years now. I think it’s relaxed its guard and I can sneak up on it and light it off in a few days and make quick work of its demise. That’ll make the “back 40” look much better not having that pile of tree trimmings, grass cuttings, and what all stacked up in a pile.

It may seem a bit amazing to some but…..we’re still waiting for winter to arrive. It has been wonderfully (though unseasonably) warm lately. When I went to turn off the heater prior to hitting the sack the other night, I discovered that the heater hadn’t even been on all day or any part of the night! It was midnight, for crying out loud, and the heater hadn’t been on at all!

That also means that we have yet to load up a day with our winter “Tule fog” that our San Joaquin Valley is noted for. It’s not that we miss the bloody mist; it’s just that it usually arrives around Thanksgiving Day and shows up regularly until about the end of February or so. We haven’t even had the usual “high fog” which reduces forward visibility to about 1 mile.

If that doesn’t just dust your dungeon, we’ve just experienced our driest year on record. There’s no snow on the mountain, no water in the rivers, and no prospects of change or hope for rain. This could shove food prices through the ceiling by next harvest time. One California politician called the matter dire. Since the San Joaquin Valley is the produce capital of the country, that prognosis is rather scary.

The Democrats think we should resolve the issue by shutting off all the river and canal water except for three cups per farm or ranch so we can insure the survivability of some of the huggable watery denizens. I disagree and do protest and believe that the survivability of we humans should be a priority over small slimy fish. Silly me.

We still have water in our irrigation ditch out back which comes from the Tule River but we don’t take it for granted. There should be enough to keep our oranges from croaking and to keep the frogs in the front ditch croaking. I need to soak all points in between but can’t seem to get my duck in a row and get it done. I think the dumb duck is lazy. The lawn looks mowed and trimmed but rather anemic and about ready to receive its last rites.

The apple trees are looking puny too. After being planted for almost two years and after all of the baby sitting they’ve had they haven’t grown an inch that I can tell. *Sigh*. I reckon that, if I didn’t have a brown thumb, I’d have no thumb at all.

It’s likely that old ranch caretakers, will reorganize the barn this winter...or this spring...or this summer...or this next fall. We’ve calculated that there is just about room enough for a can of tuna to fit in there before we run completely out of space. If we reorganize, there may be room for a second can. We’ll see.

There’s just so much to do in 2014 that it's a real challenge to one's faith and stamina. The 60 rods and reels need to be overhauled and readied for service, a stack of fishing tackle needs to be organized and put into boxes, the ham radio shack needs to be populated and readied, the antennas, including my new G5RV dipole, need to be strung, the antenna tuners need to be readied, my discone antenna for my scanners needs to be mounted, the tractor needs work on the exhaust manifold, and my shotgun needs to be shined.

I've got some nice HF/SW, VHF/UHF receivers and a couple of smaller VHF/UHF Yaesu ham transceivers. But, I need to park them where they're more usable than here in my smallish shop that is stuffed full of computer oriented things. I keep the small SW receiver handy but don't want to hook up the big Icom R7100 VHF/UHF receiver in here (big is not an understatement).  

Also, the two BBQ grills need to be buffed up and readied for use and the new long propane fuel hose needs to be installed on the gas grill so I can use the “hundred pound'er” tank instead of the smaller onboard 20 pound’er. You probably noticed that I refuse to run out of fuel when I run the grill. If I did it wouldn't be the end of the soap opera because I still have the standard charcoal grill. But...that's not as convenient as the propane grill. Have I mentioned that I'm ....convenience oriented?

Next, the recording studio needs to be set up. I have the computer and software all set to go and most of the soundboards and other equipment is at hand. That stuff will be set up at the workstation behind my main station where I slog along working on ailing computers. I’ll be running an XP machine for that and, believe it or not, will use a KVM switch to alternate with a Windows ME machine so I can have access to some older but still valuable software (and much of it is easier to use too). They will be hooked up to a big beautiful Sony flat screen monitor. I love it because it’s a square one and great for graphic arts. When you use the 16X9 screens, you get a stretchy distortion and it throws your design off.

After that (or before), the ministry recording and duplication will need to be established. And, the books I’ve authored need to be finished and published, and the songs that I’ve written have to be recorded and a copyright obtained. I think I’ll just have pizzas delivered for a few months so I can just stay home and work. 

Connie’s 1.5 h.p. 4-stroke Honda powered tricycle with the front basket, special seat, headlight, and tail lights needs to be assembled. That takes most of a long day (barring lousy weather, an attack of the Gypsies, or, more likely, being smitten with a hunger pang). Then, there are two two-stroke engines that need to be mounted on two other  bikes. Have I gotten to the part about needing to take care of the poor neglected hangar at the airport yet? Sheese.

And, there’s the normal home maintenance. For instance, I was jockeying my genuine made-in-China plastic toilet seat yesterday when it suffered a catastrophic bilateral hinge separation. Now, it’s been awhile since I’ve ground looped a toilet seat but I still did a pretty fair job of dragging a wing tip and beating up the pilot in command. He suffered a bit of airframe bending and a little reshuffling of his tail feathers. The thing needs to be replaced before my wife tries to fly this thing and augers in. I’m going to get a “real” one tomorrow.

The bees need to be kept, too. When you have a herd of bees, you just can’t ignore them. We’ve had help and advice from professional beekeeper and brother (he’s a professional at that too!), Dave Kruse and his wife, Maryann, are back out here from back out there in South Dakota. South Dakota, you may recall, is the place on the map that no one…no one (except those that live there and they certainly plan on keeping it that way)….knows anything about other than the weather (which has two seasons, cold and colder) and that there are “bad lands” there. I heard a rumor that the place is so conservative that it’s against the law to have a Democrat even show up anywhere in the state.

Anyway…..it appears that, if we don’t raise the rent, the bees will stay around for awhile and bless us with some great orange blossom honey. We ended up with about 15 quarts of honey last year so we’re expecting at least that much this year. We’d better ….we’ve baby sat these little winged critters and all but bottle fed them for almost a year now. Dave checked the hives the other day and there is enough honey to tide them over until the next bloom. “Ol’ Ran the Bee Man”….sort of has a ring to it.

So, that’s the latest from “Rancho BeesWax-O”. Hang around and see what’s down the pike for Rancho Ran and his sidecook, Connie the Canner. It should be…..interesting.