RANCHO EXHAUSTO!

Man!! It’s been a long long month! In fact, I think this wasn’t an ordinary month; I think it was actually 60 days long! It certainly seemed that long to my exhausted airframe and aching muscles! UGH.

 Things started out smoothly enough, I suppose, but we had little hint of the “interesting” things to come. Who could suspect that we would soon be charter members of “Richard Simmons’ Rack, Pack, and Stack Weight Loss and Body Abuse Program”?

That “program” has just concluded. We quit! NO MAS! That was brutal! There is every reason to believe that this will be the last of the “pay me to abuse myself” yard sales for Ol’ Ran and his side-cook, Connie the Canner. I think we’ll just supervise next time! I’ll even spring for the pulled pork. But, I’m sure that I will leave the expending of mega-joules of perfectly good energy to others who haven’t wised up to the benefits of conserving such a precious commodity.

We started by hauling stuff around from storage in the barn and out back. “Out back” is the colloquial term we here at "Sanford and Son's" use for any place at, around, or near the back yard that can accommodate our yard sale treasures until they can be exhibited for sale. Most others call it a “junk yard” but, hey, what do they know?

After hauling, there’s the arranging. This year we personally had almost 20 tables on which to stack stuff and lacked space for 50 more boxes of stuff!! We never did get it all displayed for lack of room!!

Nevertheless, the visitors were completely unconcerned about our space shortage and threw money at us anyway (we didn't duck!). There were so many people that showed up that many were saying that the main event in Springville wasn’t the “Apple Festival” but our yard sale! Amazing!

Part of that dynamic was the fact that our next door neighbor is a professional seller who buys and sells everything from yard sales to storage rooms. And, he owns an auction house in town. He also had a huge sale at his place (he has since moved so it isn’t likely that next year’s event will be quite so large). If that isn’t enough to make waves in your gravy, the neighbors across the street set up a yard sale and vendor lot in their front yard! We think that some of the vendors who would have ordinarily set up booths at the festival set up shop there. There’s more room, just as much foot traffic (probably even more!), and much more room! Makes sense to me.

For three very long days we sold stuff and more stuff by the ton! It think this entire part of the Valley is completely stuffed out by now and won’t need any more stuff at least until next October!

There was a sad note, of course. Folks noticed that Maggie the Wonder Dog wasn't there to greet everyone. We had to advise that her career had ended. All agreed that she would be sorely missed and were saddened at her demise.

Then, Monday showed up. That was the day we checked for missing parts on our sore bodies. Even though they were all accounted for, we were fairly certain that the count was off at least a tad (though it felt like two tads to me).  We were really sloooooow to get things tidied up afterwards for two reasons. One was that we simply had run out of spizzerinctum. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s when Texans have a mouth full of barbequed brisket and don’t want to waste any of it by spitting it on a nearby soul by trying to say that word. They merely say, “ he’s tuckered” instead of using "He's plumb run out of spizzerinctum" in a longer sentence. Those Texans are pretty sharp folks if you asked me.

Another reason we were slow to pull up stakes is that people still stopped by for the entire next week to buy stuff!! Guess they hadn’t heard the word that the Valley had already been filled up with …stuff. That worked for us because, during the next week, we actually sold an additional 500 dollars worth of ….stuff (I’m not making this ..stuff…up).

All told we made enough to cover the expenses for the vacation to WA and Texas! After the pain in our bodies and souls is assuaged, I suspect that the need for a quick cash infusion to pull off a vacation may lure us back into the personal physical abuse profession yet again. We’ll see.

My guess is that the dynamic is much like having a baby. After going through the labor pains and delivery, no one in their right mind actually wants to do that again! In fact, I think that the government is lacing our drinking water and sodas with a “feggettabouttit” drug of some kind so that women won’t remember that sane people don’t do such things on purpose. Anyway, after the pain and mess is behind us, we probably will hatch another yard sale scheme and fall into our own trap. That's gotta be a cry for help. *SIGH*.

That takes us to week two; that’s clean up week. Keep in mind that we had not really recovered from “work week” yet. No, we weren’t baby sitting the place as during the sale. But, we had to stay close to home if we could. And, we still had to attend to the computer business and church. “Long days and short nights” sort of sums up the deal. We were already bushed coming into the clean up part. I felt like I had gone six rounds with Tyson and lost both ears in the match!   

Ah; and there was a catch. There’s always a catch. This time it was a weather forecast that predicted rain. How about that? No rain for 8 months and …..it rains during clean up week! So, old slow-boat-to-China had to get a move on and get stuff stowed; there were only two days to work with!

Now, Ol’ Ran doesn’t like doing two week’s work in just a few days. His body votes against him every time he even thinks about such silliness. But, since I just happened to have a "Federal" brand .357 caliber bullet handy, I had to bite that bullet and git’r’done”. Well, my gitter was rather rusty and in need of repair so I knew that this could be a real “event” of some sort. It wasn't a pretty sight at all.  My bet is that there were folks swearing that they had seen Grandpa McCoy limping around the place.

Stuff that didn’t sell (I’m truly getting tired of that word, aren’t you?) had to be either hauled off to a friend’s perennial yard sale or tossed into “Heffalump” for storage (that’s our big white 6’ x 12’ covered trailer, in case you didn’t know). Other stuff (sorry) had to be tossed into “Dumbo” for the trip. “Dumbo” is our beautiful newer 5’ x 8’ covered trailer. We’ll be pulling it to WA and TX. Connie advised some friends that it looked like “Heffalump’s” baby so we named it “Dumbo”.  

Next, we had to haul other things (“Thank you, Brother Randy!”) back into the barn and others went onto our large back covered patio. But, not until a large stash of boxes was parked under the carport to protect them from the looming threat of precipitation. These will alll be dealt with at a later time when at least most of our body is operating nominally (which could take awhile....I was thinking perhaps less than a year).

Then, the trash and the huge supply of empty boxes had to be manhandled. Boy, that was fun. That’s right up there with pulling blackberry bushes up with your bare hands. Thankfully, we were able to conscript a couple of fellas who were willing to trade some sweat for a few ducats which really helped us more than a metric ton.

By the night of the rain (10PM now and still waiting for the first drop that was supposed to be here no later than 6PM), Ol’ Ran and his faithful sidecook, could barely move our sternocleidomasoid muscles. We could breathe but it hurt to do that too.

Speaking of rain, the forecast is for 100% rain tonight. We are supposed to get at least ½” and perhaps more. It’s about time! The city fathers were getting ready to change the name of my home town to “Pruneville”. That’s not good. 

Not long ago it seems that I overheard a guy saying that we had been without rain for so long that he was ready to sacrifice his virgin daughter to the goddess, Pele, but that he couldn’t afford the round trip airfare to Hawaii. Maybe he hit the lotto, someone bought his tickets, or maybe there’s another dynamic at play here (as in many many folks praying). In any case, it will be great to get our area wet again. It’s been so bad that our green frogs are turning brown to match our lawns. We suck up so much dirty air around here that, when we sneeze, everyone ducks to avoid supersonic dirt clods. It’s not a pretty sight.

 In a couple of months, in all likelihood, we’ll have our greenness back and the river will be a real river again with water in it. And, we will have disengaged our short term memory insuring failure. We will have forgotten the hardships of spring, summer, and most of fall. All of God's "chillin'" will rejoice at the moisture and relish the coolness of the winter and early spring. Life will be good again.

So, there you have it, neighbors; the latest from Rancho Dusto and its ranch hands, Ol’ Ran and his sidecook, Sweeter’n Honey Connie. Things are likely to get….interesting… and soon at that because we’ll be headin’ out for yonder on November 9^th. There’ll be lots to share.