Rancho Dusto

Ain't she a beaut?! We figure that it will take until about the year 2525 (if man is still alive) to sell enough eggs to break even on this gig.

 This is about as close as I care to get to there being a chicken playground at our ranch.

Heeeeere, chick, chick, chick! These little gals have already eaten enough chow to satisfy a herd of elephants. Something  tells me that I need to start looking for "options" concerning chicken feed before my eggs start costing 20 bucks apiece. I do have some ideas.

That's just wood shavings on the floor of the coop. We just found out that the sawmill above Springville will give us all the sawdust we can haul off for free.....free is our friend.

Ol' Gardenin' Granny. She now has a bunch of green goodies in the boxes (bless her sweaty little heart).

Here's Wooly Pully loaded with some hay for the roosting boxes. We're at the local feed store in Porterville.

The framing is finished for the lattice work. They just finished the gate for the center section. It has two parts with each part folding in the center and it's supported by two large casters on each part.

    Our tradesmen getting it all together.

HAY!! This is actually rice straw instead of wheat straw. The feed store was out of the "regular" stuff. I doubt if it will make a difference to the hens.

 Abbie (aka Princess Sniffasaurus) checking out what's happening in her realm. She pays attention! No Gypsies allowed!

The longer section of the patio with the framing in place.

Sometimes...even a princess needs a nap. I'm of a ready mind to rename the place "Rancho Nappo".  We didn't even have to train her to do this. She's actually only following what she sees us do.









Here we are....again....staring April in the face. I could have sworn that March just got here. Does this line sound familiar? It should; I've used this same gripe a number of times these past few years. Really....it's not that I'm out of things to say. It's just so bloody unbelievable that summer is almost here and I didn't even get to wear my leather jacket this year!

Reckon we can all rationalize that we're one month closer to the end of the earth, eh? I mean....even if it takes awhile, the end will be here (scientists estimate at least 1.75 billion years). I have plans until then.

Things are "moving along" here at the ranch. Our irrigation water will be turned on in a few days. By law, all ditches in CA have to be shut down for three weeks and cleaned. I don't mind it except.....they do it right when I need to get my garden, trees, and lawn watered before everything croaks. Gee....thanks, guys.

The water comes from the Tule River. Guess what? The Ol' Tule is at...zero flow....again. We're out of snow and therefore, out of water. This will make year three that the Tule has suffered this condition and things will not be pretty at all. This is an unprecedented drought condition so I suspect that water rationing will be just around the corner.

 One cannot but feel quite sorry for the good folks down on the flat land in the Valley. In some places, they are still receiving water...by truck! Some have had to move on while others are toughing it out because they can't afford to relocate.

 We "Foothill-ians" tend be thankful for being somewhat sequestered (though not really isolated) from the flat and featureless farmland near us (the Foots and the Flats really do get along). The water dynamics, though related, are not identical. Most of us get our water either from SPUD (Springville Public Utility District) which gets its water from the Tule River and/or from personal  (Rancho Relaxo) or corporate water wells (e.g. Del Oro Water Co. based in Maglia, CA just north of Paradise...I know.... I had never heard of the place either and I've been to Paradise more than twice). Not sure where SPUD gets its water if the river actually dries up but my guess is that they have a well or two up their sleeve.

That's a good thing...sort of. The Valley floor has dropped at least 4 feet since I was in high school thanks to the interminable sucking of water from beneath our feet (another good "straight line" that will be forfeited by the Rancho comedian .....for now).

It will be interesting to see how the new draconian water legislation enacted last year will affect us. If I understand correctly, the STATE now has all authority over all water and has the "right" to control and dictate all production and usage. In fact, if you have "too much" water (i.e. if you have more than "your fair share" of water), the state can TAKE/STEAL whatever it wants and leave you lacking and without sufficient water so that someone else will have their water needs met. That way, we're all equal. 

Moving along to the chicken forecast (B'GAAAK!)......looks like fair feathering in the near future with much plumage developing not long afterwards (noooot quite ready for the 6 o'clock news). The coop is finished and our plumage producing pullets are neatly stuffed inside and happy as larks. We toss in batches of fresh chopped veggies that we get from a local store to help balance their diet. It'll do until they can get out and stretch their legs and hunt down some bugs and such. The greens are the trimmings and culls from the store's produce department. They give it to us and they don't have to mess with it. It's a "win win" deal. Add to that the "chick starter" and some scratch and you have some well-fed pullets who are preparing to start production. Lay me some money! Ol' Rancho Ran will have to sharpen his egg marketing skills soon.

There are a couple of new "chicken stands" for them too. The stands are your basic 2" x 4" boards with 4' closet rods between them to make a place for them to park when the mood strikes. Two have three rods and the other has 5. The chickens are diggin' em so far. There is a taller "tree" too that has several 18" rod branches for them to tinker with.

 Our contractor, Rob Sanford, and his crew did a great job on all of it. He took the time to look up some coops and such and had a lot of input that helped glue all of this project together. I think his other half, Bonnie, is looking to have him fix up their place with one of these now!  

The "Abbie Report".....Princess Abbie is now firmly entrenched in our hearts and ranch. She has endeared herself to us despite a poopy start (I would have preferred rocks). Talk about frolicking and romping! Our pampered pooch can have more fun in a few minutes than I've had all year! What a hoot! Though not having a GPS, the lay of the land is now part of her programming so she keeps track of what's on her farm. Not much slips by her...especially the coons (though we haven't seen any as of late).

She and I do the fetch thing and, when there is enough energy for Ol' Ran to work with (which is about as likely as finding a box of chicken lips in a mile-high snow drift), we do Tug o' War. In only a couple of minutes it dawned on me that....I wasn't playing with the dog..... she was playing with me! Needless to say, she runs rings around me. It's usually my nap time right after that.

Her intelligence also appears to be increasing with every passing day. I've not seen such a sharp doggie. She's all but a mind reader and seems to be one step ahead of us most of the time. Looks like I need to sharpen my trusty-but-rusty Ginzu knife.

And......her ability to love us seems to grow day by day. She thinks we hung the moon and it isn't likely that we will try to change her mind any time soon. She is loathe to leave us and hates it when we depart. But, she always greats us with great joy when we return from town. However, we'll need to work on the part about French kissing her owner when he isn't paying attention. Doggie tongues are just tooooo long! We're still dialing her in so the next update will likely be a bit more detailed.

We're short another apple tree. Seems someone or something/animal or such took exception to the sapling tree's attempts to survive the drought. I found the tree this afternoon stripped of its branches. They had been ripped off rather traumatically and I can't really account as to how it could have happened. It was almost like it had been run over with my lawn tractor but the grass around the tree was still un-touched. Weird. I'll likely re-plant it since it has hardly grown at all in three years anyway.  I lost a couple of others in the past couple of years so we're down to 5 of the 9 that were planted. I have a shovel and have some options so....no worries. 

 Missing also are a peach tree and three plum trees. I re-planted two more replacement vines and added three more. There are three more nectarine trees yet to be planted too. We got trees!........ including the small pomegranate tree that not even the drought could kill!

 The garden boxes are thriving, I'm pleased to report. Connie is babysitting them with much TLC and insuring their ability to turn into an abundant harvest. She's already think ahead to canning stuff. We don't call her "Connie the Canner" for nothing!

Wait until you see the new patio addition! Since we will have chickens ranging about, it became rather obvious that our nice patio would be a target for indiscriminant yard birds who have no shame at all. That means that we would be having to clean the patio and every....single....thing.....high....and ....low almost every day. With the local rancher's waning energy reserves being tightly husbanded, that's not gonna happen. So, our lightning-fast minds concluded that the patio should be enclosed with a latticework of some kind. 

We checked with our contractor, Rob Sanford, who advised that it would be a great idea and would be a straightforward project. And, since he was already here and working, he could start immediately upon completion of the coop. He did just that. In a few days we'll have a chicken resistant patio that will be safe from critters and most varmints. Hey....I may even break out the ol' barbie and cook up a storm (I like my storms medium rare, don't you?).

The materials are all here and much of the framing has been done. The main swing gate is finished and the two end gates are just about ready. Most likely, a drop roll screen of some sort will be hung so we can block the sun in the evenings and keep the skeeters out. We'll see.

Stay tuned. The heat is rising....the water is lowering....things could get....interesting around here.