Rancho Boggo

Here's proud Gandma "Honey" with a couple of the newest additions to the clan. On the left is Miss Moira and on the right is shiny new Warner Phillip. Their parents keep feeding them so I suspect they will have grown considerably by the next time we get to see them (down in Harbor City). 

Here's Miss Moira enjoying life (since no one has advised her that she can't). She must know that she's such a cutie because she kept getting in front of my camera. 

This is the talented Missy, Cosette. She's an 8 year old bundle of ability to do just about anything including gymnastics (most of which hurt my eyes just watching). Being a "ham" is one of her best assets. 

Speaking of "hams", taking the stage must run in the family because little brother, Kuyper, gets in on the act whenever possible. He's tough to upstage and is a tougher act to follow. 

Well.....see what I mean? Here she is again hopping right in front of the camera! She's a cute as a button and sharp as any of the others in the Ginzu Group into which she was born. No flies on her pies at all. A really talented little pork shoulder to be sure. 

 This is leader of the "brat pack" (though not a single one of the Howden children are even close to actually being a brat), Thatcher. He has the newly acquired sobriquet of "teenager" and, as you can tell, he's lovin' it!  

Freshly minted Warner Phillip doing a little "granny shoulder" time. Looks like he's scouting out a place to burp. 

This is Thatcher's next younger sibling, Liesl. Like all of the Howden youngin's, she's talented and intelligent. She's not at all pensive in this shot. I just happened to catch her reading something. 

Kenny Leghorn on the job as the head Coop Keeper. He's pretty good about not letting the hens have any time to themselves. He's good at keeping the Pecking Crew as productive as any straw boss I've ever seen. 

Why......yes, in fact...I am talking to you! Dearest furry, loving, perky, bright, adorable, Princess Abby....we understand that you are bored. We know that you love to play fetch and tug o'war .....aaaaaall daaaaay long (when you're not protecting the ground from being sunburned). But, we are unable to accommodate those pastimes for now. It's just part of the hazards of living with energy-limited old folks. 

What we don't understand is why you think that shredding whatever object that you target with your canine teeth is an acceptable remedy to your boredom. We already have a 6 hp wood chipper that can handle that job and it's much more discrete in the matter.  It doesn't obliterate cherished and valuable items and is far too mannerly to ever arbitrarily obliterate a pair of expensive ski boots or expensive speakers. And, it's rather polite in that it does't leave steaming land mines everywhere. It never offends us or sends us to the brick wall against which we flatten our foreheads in an attempt to dissuade ourselves from hocking it to the Huns. So far, your cuteness and hyper-love puppy act have done well in keeping us from selling you to the Gypsies or trading you for a well-behaved slug. However, I recommend that you pay attention and forsake your foolishness as our patience has worn through enough to be able to read the date on a dime. 

Life is full of surprises. You just "pays your money and takes your chances". Here is the aftermath of the storm that blew through on Saturday morning just prior to opening up the second day of the big annual yard sale. We lost a 13' x 13' pop-up canopy as did another vendor. Another vendor had a smaller canopy that was damaged but not destroyed. Life goes
on. We still had a great turnout and had
a lot of fun. 

This is "set up" time at the ranch. It took almost two days to get our stuff together. My guess is that the old folks at the ranch have learned their lesson and that this is the last of the big back breakers. 

Here are dear friends and church family, James and Fern Hill. They are master "sale'ers". They are setting their sail and making ready for the weekend event. 

More of "Stuff Row". Lots of goodies. 

Here's Dumbo doing its part. Dumbo and Wooly Pully were both indispensable. 

Just about ready. This is looking from the driveway back toward the house (just off to the right). The shot below is just to right of this one. At the far back is the house.  

Still looking north towards the house while in the driveway but a bit more to the right which is eastward. 

 180 degrees from the picture above (looking SW). 

Looking north from near the highway. The house is directly in the rear of the picture and is hidden by the trees (shade is our friend). 

Same shot as above but just to the right (east) a tad. The little town of Springville is actually north of us. It's just over the hill in the background (about where the clouds are showing). To get there, we must first drive east around another hill. After 3.5 miles of winding road, we are in beautiful downtown Springville. 

Well.....after only three years (my! How the time does fly!), it appears that "old man Winter" has finally arrived. Thankfully, he was dragging a sky full of rain clouds with him. Reckon he was on an extended vacation or perhaps a sabbatical. Maybe it was merely a hiatus from his tough job of shoveling rain and snow on the various regions. In any case, our dear weathermen are rejoicing once again now that their forecasts include more than two temperatures and two sky conditions (dark and light).

That also means that it rained here at the ranch ......actually......it poured down like an Oklahoma "frog strangler".....precisely in time for our annual huge "Apple Festival" yard sale. I mean....just what would we have done without the torrential rains with gusting winds that took down a couple of our canopies? How would we have faired had we not had deep ponding  in our front yard and soggy goods to sell?

The turnout was ...uh.....dampened (I know. I know. It's a cry for help) so the foot traffic was down....way down. Compared to our previous sales, it was almost like we were wearing clown costumes while selling buffalo burgers at a vegan nudist colony. Guess folks didn't like "bog sale'ing". I suppose I wouldn't either.

Still, lots of folks (most of whom had to have been retards) defied the weather and got some really, really, really, good deals from our dozen valiant venders. That's also because the sellers really, really, really, wanted to sell their stuff. In some cases, the sellers threw stuff at the shoppers and hoped that they wouldn't duck. It was a real "house cleaning" event because all the wives wanted a clean house after this gig and that wasn't going to happen if "hubby boy" lugged it all back home.

The second day was the opening day for the "Apple Festival" so things picked up....sort of. The traffic on the highway was noticeably light so everyone knew that this would not meet the level of participation that we had last year. The festival itself suffered as well. Hopefully, things will remain positive and folks will return with high expectations next year.

We had covered everything up as before except for the clothes on the large display ring. That was because the chance of rain was rather low so we figured that all would be well. Silly us. Our "Indian rock" forecasting was rather lacking because it started pouring cats, dogs, and an occasional coon at about 5 AM when I woke up my coffee pot.

Connie, ever the one to be positive and to make lemonade out of lemons, said, "Hey! Our clothes are freshly washed in natural, clean, clear, pure rainwater! We can charge double!". I had to admire her spunk so I told her, "You make the signs, Hon". She must have gotten sidetracked because I didn't see any signs that day.

The good news is that we had a great time of food and fellowship! We even had musical entertainment! The food was BBQ'd pulled-pork and Brother Ran's "Boy Howdy!" special pulled-pork recipe! It was all trimmed with home-designed pork and beans, chips, and tater salad. No one starved during the event! The music was "Duggin's Citrus Express" which is Jim Duggin and Susan Newsom. I've played bass guitar with them a lot in times past so it was a reunion of sorts. Also joining the tune time was guitarists, Jim Bailey and James McCartney. We had a great jam!

Connie wanted to give us one last shot at harvesting a few more greenbacks by opening up on Monday. That wasn't unreasonable despite the additional stress on the aging airframes. Last year, we actually did very well during the week following the official yard sale. In fact, our proceeds while "closed" that year surpassed those received during any one day this year. Thankfully, the herculean efforts this year did culminate in our ability to pay for very nice Christmas gifts for the family. That's "OK" in my book.

So, open we did. Up went the signs and Connie manned her station while James and Fern Hill manned theirs. A third seller, Leanne Chapman, completed the bill (guess who manned his office and was slaving away on computer repairs?). Sales were surprisingly light so a lot of stuff ended up being given away. By the end of the day, it was agreed that the party (and the self-abuse) was officially over.  

The chickens didn't seem to notice the wet weather. It would seem that, despite their having been fed like royalty, they haven't increased in intelligence; they're still stupid. Nevertheless, they are happily pecking, clucking, laying, and mindlessly doing their part to add to our compost pile out back. We're harvesting about three dozen eggs per day now and have clients clamoring for all of them.

There was a discussion about perhaps adding a few more cluckers to our clan. Tending to such an increase may not fit into our already over-extended personal energy resources and time-strapped schedule. More feathers means more beaks to feed and more beaks to feed means lugging more loads of Layena and scratch. The eating of more chicken chow means more chicken mess and more chicken mess means more shoveling for Rancho Ran and Canning Connie. So, we're thinking that we don't need to take the advanced class on doing the "Poop Scoop Boogey" nor do we need any more practice lobbing around 50 pound sacks of fowl fodder. The matter may be reconsidered after we add the new 20' extension to our run and/or if the demand appears to warrant reconsideration (read: if we can at least break even on the deal).

The ham shack is progressing albeit rather slowly. That's due to the demands on my playtime because of the yard sale and such. A nice small but deep shelf was added (purchased at a yard sale, don'tcha know). It's the right size so that some of the heavy gear (e.g. a power supply) can be parked on the top and smaller stuff on the lower part. 

There's plenty to do including soldering my dual-band VHF/UHF mag-mount mobile antenna together. It needed to be overhauled and now it merely needs a few minutes of soldering to be functional. Maybe on my...next day off.

 I finally made a few contacts on the 40 meter phone band but the noise level has been extremely high so even those were limited. At least the SWR on that band is dead flat at 1:1. Not bad for a glued together 40' chunk of 300 ohm TV twin lead and an antenna tuner. Most likely, an 8' section of twin lead will be hung vertically at each end of the dipole. That will create an antenna similar to a "curtain" antenna. It's still a simple "bazooka" folded dipole but the extensions are vertical. It should help tune the 80 meter band and will further help to lower the SWR on the higher bands as well. 

The head hamster hopes to string his new 100' long G5RV dipole soon so he can optimize his performance. That will require a 20' ladder, nerves of steel, and some hardware. I have the ladder and hardware. So far, I'm dealing with nerves of a lesser tensile strength than steel. Not sure how to resolve that issue.

Then, he'd like to fire up the ancient Yaesu FT-101E tube rig (from '78) and give it a go too. The Yaesu FT-817A QRP (low power) rig will have to wait until I have the time to dial in a long wire antenna or buy a pre-tuned trapped vertical. There are at least 5 antenna tuners hanging around so there are options.

It is the assessment of this old ranch hand that the people of our nation need a checkup from the neck up. Connie and I recently went to Lowe's and were utterly stunned to find, not Halloween or Thanksgiving goods for sale, but Christmas decorations! Is it just me or was there a time when we took holidays in the order the calendar presented them? Halloween is still almost two weeks away! Thanksgiving is more than a month away! What have these people been smoking? If this keeps up, it would take little imagination to see a huge Christmas sale the fifth of July!

There you have it. All is well at the Ol' Ranch. The yard sale, the computer biz, the chickens, the church, the dog, the bees, the trees, the old folks, and what all, are doing well and prospering. Stay tuned to the next episode of "Rancho Relaxo". Things could get....interesting.