Rancho El Invierno

Here's a batch of our birdie buddies chilling out and waiting for the next feeding frenzy.  Your really can't tell from this almost-photo that there are 90 hens in the coop. Something's rotten in the cotton because our egg production has almost ceased! We get 9 eggs from 90 layers who are the most well-fed and pampered birds on earth. We're doing a lot of chicken checking and fowl figuring to end the egg drought! This is the front run. I'll use a real camera next time. My cell phone's camera is rather disappointing (but then, it's a "dumb phone"). 

 Garden box number one. One of the next chores will be to add several inches of Racho composto to it to amp up its productivity. I need a tractor with a front loader around here! Our "Ranch Rhino" has a drag scraper and it does come in handy and I will soon (?) be stirring the pile with it. 

Garden boxes two and three. Number two (foreground) still has a tomato plant hanging on for dear life. I'm about to change that then will finish prepping it for winter. Likewise, the number three box still has a few bell peppers and a volunteer tomato plant that is actually thriving due, by and large, to the NEGLECT I've been showering upon it. I think that's the secret for making my gardens prosper. It'll be the last box to get overhauled. The number four box will get the same treatment except I'll leave the asparagus experiment alone.

Here's our dear rancho guardian again doing her best to keep things out of the hands of any nefarious ne'er do wells. Not a single creep has dared to touch those 16" Ford rims, the Toyota Camry, the carport, or the rickety wooden stand! All thanks to the projection of protection by an amazing animal! 

Notice how alert our pet protector is! Notice also that no evil being is even close to the decorative well house planter! Watch as the tree shudders and quakes and looses its leaves in awesome regard! Notice that even the grass is fearful and has moved completely away from her! 

Well! What a revoltin’ development this is (for all you [old] “Life of Riley” [1954-1958] fans out there). It’s December and I am not even close to being through with November! *SIGH*.

Things are moving along at the Rancho. We’re busy with the usual computer business, ministry, and ranching. Getting ready for winter keeps us out of trouble, I suppose.

Thanksgiving Report: T-Day has come and gone and it’s…Christmas time. It seems that folks are still putting their Halloween junk back in the garage when retailers start raining Christmas on us. I’m not even sure I saw much Thanksgiving advertising at all. That’s probably some kind of perceptual filtering, I suppose. All I know is that I took one bite of Halloween candy and the next thing I know, it’s almost Christmas!

Anyway…we had an extremely nice, quiet, and peaceful Turkey Day here at the ranch. That was actually “plan B” since we were going to take my mother out to “Hometown Buffet” (in Visalia…a real town) thereby dispensing with the usual Thanksgiving chores. However, she elected to be spared from the trip since it’s a 45 min. ride and because it would be crowded and noisy. In fact, even when we considered doing a local feast, the reasoning was the same; it’s just too noisy. So, “plan B” it was. Made sense to me.

Connie fixed a repast fit for royalty! Her genuine Hamilton Beach roaster-oven turkey nuker didn’t let her down and we ended up with a gorgeous, succulent, and tender bird. When you add to that a huge spread of trimmings and a pumpkin pie, you soon end up with mighty-well-fed folks! I ate so much I felt like one of Dick Tracey’s Irish friends: “Dick Tracey calling Heap O’ Calories”.

Three people can’t lay waste to that large of a feast so we figure we’ll be noshing on turkey and mashed potatoes for awhile. Turkey is our friend!

After a half day of visiting and eating, my mother decided she had sufficiently enjoyed the festivities and headed home. It was a really great time!

Chickening report: more things we’ve learned about chickening: chicken math: a hen and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half.  It makes sense if you just pay attention, count your eggs, count your days, and use simple division (still no results on how long it would take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick all the warts off a large dill pickle, though). 

We’ve learned that chickening isn’t exactly the sport of kings (a no brainer, methinks).  Oh, sure; there may be a weird “Chicken King” or two out there but we haven’t seen them at our modest ranch. And, experience has shown that you are either a “bird brain” or you are not. There appears to be no in-between. “Dark” is no longer when the sun sets; it’s now referred to as “chicken bed time”.

We’ve learned that our chickens are pretty birds and that they are dirty birds. Reckon that makes them pretty dirty birds. We’ve learned that chickens are fairly bright for being so incredibly dim. I’ve learned that being a “chicken dude” sort of has a ring to it.

Added to our repertoire of “knowledge of all things fowl” is the fact (uh-huh) that the chicken species can be traced back to the Pileated Peck’n Pooper (biological name, “Dirtybirdicus Magnificus Peckasaurus”.

And the last-but-not-least thing learned is that it’s becoming evident that some or even all of our birds are turkeys in disguise. Think about it: we added 30 8 month old pullets (including a few older birds who are already laying) to our finicky fickle flock. In total, the original ones were laying about 2 dozen eggs per day (down from 4 doz.!). After stuffing the new feathers into the coop and pampering them all like they were our first cousins, our production is down …another 30%...and dropping (this is a really good place to yell, “ACK!”). I’ll have to check more closely next time so I don’t purchase any more midget turkeys.

We are checking all possibilities and doing some figuring (usually spelled “Googling”) to see what on earth is going on to inhibit our working girl’s eggs from making an entrance into our almost omelet-free life.

PS: Your Chicken is Dead: we lost one of our Rhode Island Reds the other day. We still have no idea why she croaked. It’s doubtful that she was egg bound. I think I would have noticed any particular odd presentation as I do try to keep watch over my girls. She may have been one of the older birds but I couldn’t tell and wasn’t about to do a post-mortem on her. The addition of the new pullets will cover the loss.

PSS: Your Other Chicken Is Dead, Too: some days are just…interesting …around here. Let me begin by saying that we go to great lengths to insure the safety of our critters at Rancho Relaxo. Prior to our chicken-ing endeavors, we were doggy-ing. Our Princess Pooch needed to be protected from herself and her boisterous instincts. So, we adorned her with an electronic romping range radius reducer (best known as an “electric fence” or “shock collar”). She can go just so far and, if she doesn’t obey the warning buzzer, “BAM!”, she gets a bite from the collar. She stays safe and…so does any other game outside her hunting/playing radius (her barking radius is much more extensive). So, just what does that have to do with a dead chicken? Glad you asked.

While seeing my mother off after our Thanksgiving Day repast, we turned around on the driveway to find dear Abby with a….mouthful of moribund chicken. She plopped it on the driveway and looked at us with a face that said, “I know what I done was…probably wrong”. Knowing her, in her rebellious little doggie heart, I bet she was saying, “Know anyone who wants to buy a slightly used chicken toy?”.

It was tacitly understood that we're dealing with coon dog here. What Her Naughtiness proved to us was that converting a huntin’ dog into a chicken sitter may prove to be a daunting task.

However, prior to locking her up in solitary confinement for a year, we had to consider that her shock collar may have been faulty. I took the thing off of her and found that to be the case. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been far enough behind the barn to pull off the chicken heist. After the new collar swap out, she tried to push the perimeter limits and the collar bit her like it was supposed to do. She calmed down rather quickly and is minding her P’s and Q’s…and chickens.

The hen was an older non-productive bird that I had let out to free range. She wasn’t even close to the coop at all when her free ranging was permanently interrupted. Looks like I need to post my old biddies on “Craig’s List” and find some crazy chicken lady who loves chickens and give them to her rather than toss them into the freezer.

Got pullets? Yep! Sure do! We just added 30 new pullets to the pecking order. I have to tell you; employing the suggestions of the folks at the feed store resulted in a flawless incorporation of our new birds. Usually, when you toss one or more new comers into the mix, they…mix it up. The pecking order has to be re-established and…they tangle feathers until the biggest brooder beats all. It’s likely that the old adage, “the feathers flew” was coined from this exact dynamic.

But, not this time. For one thing, the new pullets were about 7 months old or so, so were the same size as our other pullets (raised from chicks). For another, we simply sneaked (I’d use the word “snuck” but y’all would think I’m a hick farmer) the newbies in at night while the others were dozing. So, when daylight came, all the chickens looked alike and all chicken bullying was negated; all was well! Why didn’t I think of that?!

Our new crop of feathers is beautiful! There are few Rhode Island Reds but most appear to be Buff Orpingtons (or perhaps a Buff mix of some kind like the Golden Sex-Link). Some appear to be Catalanas or Productions which are light brown with darker brown heads. They are all so mellow! They must have been reared by “chicken people” since they aren’t afraid of us at all!

We’ve commenced to start our practice of letting the girls out of the run for awhile at dusk. They enjoy hunting and pecking (they’re secretary birds, don’tch know? N’yuk! N’yuk! I know. I know. Don’t quit my day job), and otherwise enjoying the break from the boredom of the coop. It’s also the exact time that our three free-range feral roosters climb the tree by the barn so they can begin their (hopefully) predator-free roosting.

The other evening, we opened the door and about 20 hens scrambled free of their digs (most of them simply refused the offer! Go figure!). One of the roosters took note and departed his perch from midway up the mulberry tree. He made a screamingly steep angle for his final approach and had his flaps and gear down. The brief flight terminated with a crash in the midst of the hens. It took a few seconds to get his feathers together and recover from his wing-bending ground loop. But, he soon got right down to business.

The little rooster went out of his flocking mind. Right away, he started struttin’ his stuff, crowing, and doing his spastic stud-dance for the hens. I think he thought he was a prairie grouse because he couldn’t quit dancing and trying to impress his batch of females.

His rain dancing didn’t get him any attention so he just leaped aboard a nearby chicken miss…and missed. The problem was that he picked a gal that was about 50% larger than he was and he ended up out of breath on the ground with a beak full of feathers and egg on his face. Well…that was disappointing to say the least. Of course, being cock’o the walk for the day, he didn’t allow failure to deter him. After all, he has a genetically engineered edict to replenish the world with chickens.

So, it wasn’t long until he attempted to mount yet another unsuspecting brooder-to-be. Danged if he didn’t pick another one who was larger than he was. No joy. He definitely had high hopes but the evening was falling hard upon his bravado so he was soon up in his tree crowing for his…accomplishments. Tomorrow, eh?

Weather Report: We finally got a light dusting of rain last night. Nothing else I can call it but what I previously did: mad rain. It was just enough rain to mess up the windshield and make you mad. Rumor has it that the weatherman is being held hostage until he can produce some water (which I think he probably did …on the spot). At least the there’s no hurry in mowing the grass; there isn’t much to mess with.

Weather Report Deux: We finally got real rain! Reckon the weatherman paid the ransom and got his forecast finalized just for us and our dust. The final tally isn’t in but my guess is that we got a bit more than an inch of precipitation (update: we did get 1 ½”!). Even the south fork of the Tule River has a bit of flow now! Amazing.

There you have it, chicken lovers, kith, kin, kissin’ cousins, friends, family, folks, in-laws, outlaws, and the rest of the gang. Stay tuned and don’t even touch that dial. You won’t want to miss a single episode of “Rancho Relaxo”. Things could get…interesting. Now, a word from our sponsor, the new and improved, Rinso Laundry Detergent………….

Rancho Se Vende y Mucho Mas

This is a shot of Connie the Canner and Pastor John Appiah of Ghana West Africa. We were delighted to have Bro. John as our guest for almost two weeks as he shared his "Revive America" campaign with us. He also shared with the Pastor Henry Aguilar's Springville First Baptist Church. All were blessed! 
This was taken at the "General Sherman Tree" up in the "big trees" in "Sequoia National Park". 

Connie at "Tunnel Log". The rack of feet above her is a tourist group from Korea. They were all neck deep in cameras. 

Which Schwinn will win?! This one has  a pretty good chance once I mount my small engine kit on it! I bought this little cutie at a....yard sale (but you knew that) for less than half price! It had hardly been ridden and still has the little rubber thingamajigs on the tires! It'll make a great moped and will zip around Springville like a big dog! Actually, it can zip around like a puppy with the flu as long as I don't have to shove the pedals around.  

One big chunk of wood! 

Prepping for the big yard sale the day prior to the "Apple Festival". I really think we had as many people show up here as they did in town. 

Looking (north) toward the house. Folks are starting to set up their canopies and spread their tables with goodies. 

                                                                               

(Above) The front yard of "Rancho Relaxo" prior to being populated with yard sale'ers. It took awhile to return it to it's original configuration. 

"Kick-off Friday". The sale is afoot and all is well. 

The ranch hands only put out a small amount. Above and to the left are the only things we set out for sale. We just didn't crowd ourselves or flog the old folks and had a much nicer mellower time of the matter. A couple of years ago there were (gulp!) fifty boxes that didn't get set out because we didn't have room for them!

Yes! We have lots of clothes for sale! The rack is an above-ground swimming pool ring. That was Connie the (thinking) Canner's idea! It's purely genius! 

More stuff!

This is the area where we later had a jam session. Most of the amps and guitars are not in place yet. We had a blast! 

Anyone looking for stuff and such....found it. 

More stuff and such.











 Below is James and Fern Hill's 
site. They did well this year too! 

  
Abbie the Princess is also Abbie the Yard Sale Queen. Did she ever love the attention!! She was so spoiled that I think even her collar started turning green!

Well….Sally let your bangs hang down (for you Rose Maddox fans) and daddy let your mind roll on (Roof Top Singers, anyone?)! It’s….it’s….November!! To quote my old pal, Charlie Brown (usually after being blindsided by Lucy), “ARRRRRGH!”.

   Yard Sale Report: we had a great time again! Though we didn’t have quite as many “sale’ers” this year, the event still turned out well! Most were regulars but we did have a couple of newbies and they were tickled to have been a part of the gig. The weather was more than cooperative; it just couldn’t have been better!

   The music jam session was a bit light this year because we only had four musicians involved. Nevertheless, we had a good time of it. We’ll see about getting the word out more for next year.

   We also had the Rancho specialty for lunch and that’s pulled pork sandwiches one day and chili beans the next two days (an extra pot of the stuff showed up). This year, the pulled pork was provided by one of our “regulars” and a second pot of chili by the main "Chili Dude" here at the ranch (he wears a lot of hats, don'tcha know). The best pulled pork is from my favorite futuristic chef, Broth Vader, who does things up right with a pork butt. He uses “Pappy’s” seasoning and “Sweet Mesquite” to impart just the right stuff to insure that not a shred of his delicacy remains anywhere on the property after lunch.  Rumor has it he was seen sporting a Superman apron but that needs to be verified.  

   This year, the old sellers took it fairly easy and didn’t bend and over-extend body parts and brain cells getting our stuff out front. That meant that we weren’t utterly exhausted when the sale started and were still alive when it ended. I think this was the only year we weren’t tempted to never do this again. In the past, we always wondered why we didn’t just stop the elderly abuse program and go on vacation instead (which we did anyway). The show will go on next year because there are so many willing participants and because it’s just so much fun!

   Chickening report: as stated prior, you learn something all of the time when you’re a bird-brained chicken hugger. Recently, we learned even more about our cackle fruit factories. Did you know that chickens are a direct link to dinosaurs? No joke! As part of their studies, they (those ever-brilliant nerdniks that live to screw with chicken’s minds) even strapped a long dino-tail on one to see how it would walk (“Grab a camera, Nate! We can put this on YouTube!”). It walked like a dinosaur (wouldn’t it have just blown their minds it had walked like an Egyptian?). The best that scientists can tell, our birdy buddies are linked to the velociraptors. That really makes since to me. I sorta wondered about the genetics that has led to our pea-brained egg donors.

   Now, Rancho Ran is rather science and engineering minded. That means that he has personally and scientifically determined through great research (uh-huh) that our birds are veloci-craptors. Somehow, that seems just so very reasonable and accurate. I just love science.

   We are getting the coop ready for winter so that they don’t freeze their feathers off. (you haven’t seen “ugly” until you’ve seen a naked chicken).You have to rake stuff out then stuff other stuff in to make it all nice cozy for the clucking crew. About half of the needed wood shavings are in place but the old folks at the farm are having to first stock up on spizzerinctum so they can complete the task.

   Part of that dynamic is hanging heavy duty plastic sheeting skirts to keep out the elements. Warm hens seem to lay more eggs so some sort of flameless heater will be parked in the coop part. They faired quite well last winter but there were only a few really really cold days.

   As you can surmise, “chickening” includes some cut-and-try efforts, some sifting through old wives tales (would that be old tales told by old wives?), surfing through the Internet (that now is no longer controlled by Americans…not sure who to thank for that insanity) for hints, and just trusting your instincts that chickens will trust their instincts. For instance: it was determined that it would be a good idea (from the “Idea Guy” himself, no less) was to let the older hens out for free ranging. They don’t lay eggs anymore and it is costing us to feed them for merely occupying the “Henhouse Hilton”.

   So, experiment we did. We knew that the ousted hens would come home to roost at dark (didn’t I hear an old wives tale about such a thing?) and it was just about that time. “What would happen”, says I, “If we let the others out for a short time prior to dark and let them scratch around a bit?” The thinking was to not have to herd any of the “outsiders” inside or let the “insiders” outside while trying to do so (if you didn’t get that, I’ll try to type more slowly next time. You’re welcomed).

   Anyway, the twin chicken sitters grabbed a couple of seats and commenced to watch “Chicken TV” for awhile. It was great to just sit quietly, enjoy the peace, and watch our clucking kin-to-dinosaurs scratching and pecking away and blissfully doing whatever comes naturally. Surely enough, when it got darker, they just sauntered back into the coop and not a feather was left outside. We’ll likely make a habit of this since it’s so relaxing and since we can’t seem to make it to the front porch swing.

   Miss Abbie report: as you can guess, she was in her element at the big yard sale. She got loved on and her head scratched so much she was almost bald. I was quite surprised that she didn’t track down and haul off a few things while the sellers weren’t looking.

   Maggie the Wonder Dog would do that at every yard sale.  If there was a stuffed animal or toy within her realm and reach, she would quietly pilfer the plush item and customize it to make it her own. The customization process was the immediate ripping out the eyes and subsequent dismemberment of the rest of the torso. Silly pooch.

   Lately, I’ve been teaching her the benefits of immediately responding to my call to come. The first benefit is the lavishing of attention and petting. The second was a treat. However, I have been sneaky about it and made a game of it. The treat is actually hidden in my hand or peaking from a pocket so that she has to find it. You know, you just can’t hide things from a huntin’ dog. It just isn’t going to happen. Her x-ray nose almost immediately finds the goody and she owns it. But, that’s OK and it’s a hoot to watch her dig around in a frenzy trying to get her treat while I pretend to not know a thing about why she’s so excited. She’s learning to come on command and that’s a good thing.

   Melt down report: as previously reported, we had a freezer that managed to find itself without electricity for a couple of weeks. So far, the most likely cause was due to an episode of TMD (transient mental density) on the part of the resident egg collector who failed to notice that the circuit breaker had blown. I don’t care what part of Earth your spaceship landed on; it isn’t going to be a good day when you discover a freezer that is packed to gills with things that have been rotting for a week or more.

   When I opened the door, the smell from this rot box was almost overwhelming. It’s surprising that we’re not cleaning up vomit to this hour. There is reason to believe that the cockroaches were packing up and migrating south. It was already fairly late in the evening and wading through the stench until the early morning hours was just not going to work. The old Rancher didn’t have the spizz to deal with it. Besides, if I had tried to pull that off, Connie would have had to dip me in ammonia first then Clorox next to make me smell better.

    Reckon it was a stroke of genius (or maybe a stroke of lightning) but a remarkable idea hit home (ideas abound at our house but the remarkable ones are as rare as...hen’s teeth. N'yuk! N'yuk!). The plan was simple enough: just refreeze the stuff (neutralizing the smell) and, when you have time and spizz, haul it to the dump in solid form! Doesn’t that just torque your toga?! That was such a grand idea that everyone was amazed (all three of us, though Abbie was just doing it by association, I suppose)! By and large, it worked out that way.

   But (why is there always a “but” in the equation?), there are always complications that spring up. One thing that sprang up was the fact that we had to first empty “Wooly Pully” prior to loading it with buzzard bait. Starting a hard job by warming up with another hard job didn’t exactly make his ranchness dance in the street.

   Emptying the freezer wasn’t too big of a deal. You just toss the frozen stuff into the wheelbarrow and off you go and “Connie the Cleaner” (one talented lady, eh?) scrubs it up like new. But, another springy thingy was that the freezer was a huge one (we’re into big things here at the ranch).

   Now, it may have escaped notice by some but Ol’ Ran retired his “Superman” cape a few years ago and swapped it for an apron (fashioned by hand by “Connie the Sew and Sew”…did I mention that she’s a remarkably talented lady?). That and a few encounters (OK. OK… a large number of encounters) with the dreaded “Steak-tonite”, the bane of all of us super-fellas who were once “heavy lifters” (we’re now heavy lifters), has sapped my strength by a lot.

   That’s a real problem because most of us boys seem to not have gotten the message that large things still weigh a lot and that old dudes in aprons shouldn’t be trying to lift them (“Fantasy Land”: a mental time machine where the thought that youth and strength never fades is never far from us old boys. *SIGH*). 

   In fact, they probably weigh even more than they used to because of the newly discovered “Law of the Discombobulation of Gravity”. This law was proposed and clearly explained by dear friend and brother, Ben Garwood (a retired expert in not being retired), and confirmed by “Old Dudes Unanimous”. It simple states things get heavier in direct proportion to the age of a man (women usually aren’t stupid enough to lift heavy things because they grab a man. So, they are exempt from this law). 

   I was wondering why my 40 pound sacks of chicken scratch were getting so heavy. In times past, it was nothing to toss such “light” sacks around with one hand (it still took two hands to toss the 80’s and the 100’s, though). Now, it definitely takes two hands or one hand and hip and “tossing” isn’t usually factored in. I suppose there is there such a thing as dragging a sack of scratch. But, I’ve yet to encounter a guy who is old enough to have to do that on such small sacks (it's just soooo comfortable here in "Fantasy Land").

   Anyway, the freezer had to be moved from the back of the barn to the back yard  (you don’t really think Ol’ Ran is smart enough to put it up front, do you?!) so it could be cleaned by “Connie the Cleaner” (and you thought she was only good at canning!). Using the furniture dolly and strap, Ol’ Ran, the ex-Superman and current non-champion fly-weight lifter, attempted the task. All was well until (sometimes I hate adverbs) the freezer decided that it had had enough wrangling and attempted to escape by inching to one side. From there, it wrenched away from my marshmallow-strangling grip and rolled over. Ever try to stop a white whale with hinges from rolling over? Me either and I wasn’t about to start. “Thar she blows!”.

   The inglorious “thud” of the freezer smacking the ground was probably felt in Springville 3.5 miles away. But, locals don’t recognize earthquakes as being such until at least one dish rattles. No one called. All is well.

   When the cleaning is finished, we’ll plug in our newly-righted ice cream keeper and see if it will continue to be in our employment. I’m looking forward to restocking it with goodies (steaks are my friends) for next spring and summer. Who knows; I may even break out one of the BBQ grills! The preference is for the propane fired grill since the old rancher is decidedly more…ahem…convenience oriented…than he used to be. We’ll see.

   Well, there you have it, friends, neighbors, kith, and kin. That’s the latest from Rancho Relaxo. Stay tuned and don’t spend too much time with Pokeman Go because things could get…interesting.

Rancho Crasho, Blesso, Scratcho, Melto

There I was at 20,000 feet....below the clouds. Fokkers to the left of me...not so much. Fokkers to the right of me....not sure but the neighbors are pushing their luck. Fearlessly (read, "stupidly"), the intrepid dolt dove straight ahead into the targeted okra formation. Ah, but a vile and wily enemy had planted an intercept: an evil trap with which to defeat the simpleton lawn tractor pilot....poison ivy! Think about it (you may as well; the enemy didn't require much thought at all); what better trap could you set?! How perfectly camouflaged! How nasty and effective! 

I had managed to do something that no one around here had thought possible. That was to not only find a poison ivy in this area (it's usually a bit further up the hill) but to actually abuse myself with it! The only conclusion we could come up with is that it migrated into the garden box from our compost pile. A few days later I looked for it but couldn't find it. It's there; I just need to hunt around and will do that when I clear the garden box for next season (wearing a long sleeved shirt and gloves, to be sure...I'll be armed with a flame thrower).

The effects began the next day and, boy!, did the popcorn hit the fan! My arm was on fire with the predictably fierce itching accompanying it. My lighting-fast mind began singing the '60's song,  "Poison Ivy" ("Well, late at night when you're a'sleeping poison ivy comes a'creeping' all around"...can I get a "thumbs up" from all you old people?). I wanted to slap myself but figured that "swimming in an ocean of Calamine lotion" wasn't such a bad idea after all. However, hauling around a pink arm wasn't all that appealing so I sought alleviation by other means. Aloe Vera seemed to work well in my case (I shoulda been a dahktah, eh?). 

In only a couple of weeks I'll be back to normal and my arm won't look like it had been marched across by Paulus' 6th Army. Note to self: pay attention, Ran.

"There's nothing like having a smart dog around the house", I always say. Here's Miss Abby getting her Windows 10 update training. Can't quite get her interested in MS Word but she's really into Snoopy, Scooby Doo, Clifford, and Astro. 

 For all of you former "Panthers" and "Villians", here's a shot of the new roundabout at Highway 190 and Reservation Road. Yes; that is "Success Market" in the background.   

Dash blast the gosh darn blankety heck! It’s October! Do the math on that; .5833 percent of the year has been chewed up! I still have haven’t finished spring cleaning! Reckafretcha peckaloomer (uh…you’ll probably need to confer with a Martian friend for the translation on that)!

Anyway….let’s ditch the floggenschmoggen and go straight to the Rancho update: have I mentioned that things could get “interesting” around the ranch? Thought so. I mean to tell you….it really has been an interesting month! The major issues have been contained but it has been quite a ride. Not that everything has been a mess. No, siree. We’re quite blessed around here. It’s just that, in the course of human events, mas mierda (you’ll need to confer with a Mexican friend for the translation) happens. Let’s take a look.

 On the whole, all is actually (though finally) well here at the ranch. In fact, even the weather has decided to be our friend. We’ve experienced very unseasonable coolness lately. Not a single person has complained! Imagine that! My experience has been that it doesn’t get below 95 degrees until after the third in September and even then it can shoot up a bit. We had a day in the high 70’s only a few days ago! Amazing. Today was 91 degrees but no one in this area considers that “hot”.

We have “Ol’ Swampy” to keep us cool. She’s the big evaporative cooler who dutifully blows cool air into our domicile so that the old folks don’t move to Alaska to cool off. But, even she had a problem not long ago so we had long-time friend, Darrell Blasingame, to send a man over to discover what the issue was. Come to find out, the pads were hardened by our high mineral content water (looks like the ranch will need a water softener, eh?). We replaced the pads (a mere 200 dollars since they were “special” ones…I should say!) and went about staying cool. Or, so we thought.

Something still wasn’t quite right. Though things were a bit better we weren’t staying as comfortable as what we remembered. So, we called Darrell again and he sent the same guy out to see what was happening. What he found was that same hard water than had hardened the pads had clogged the water distribution lines. He cleared those and our comfort level was restored. Staying cool is expensive but, at my age, it’s worth it. I ain’t suffering through the summer! Period!  In a few weeks, we won’t have to use it at all. That’ll be sweller for this feller.

The Ol’ Ranch Hand Report: when, in the course of human events and gardening, you do everything right, you’ll very likely encounter a load of remmelschmeissen (you’ll need your Martian friend again). I had already known that there were many loads of things that I didn’t want to encounter in this life but didn’t know until now that remmelschmeissen was one of them. This one was a painful load! I’m certainly glad that I now know yet another load to eschew.

Now…on Mars, that’s a real word and, as they say, a really floggynoggy one at that. To make it a little less plebian on Earth, you can just say, “…encountered a load of mixed animal dung, manure (with emphasis on the horse veriety), guano, and fowl droppings from a variety of species”…all in a figurative sense, of course (witty folks, those Martians). You could even shorten it to, “…a load of zoo doo” which is much softer and gentler on the ear (Ol’ Soft and Gentle Ran, they call him) and takes less time to express. My apologies to the Martians in the crowd; I’ll be working on improving my spelling.  

Boy! Did I ever encounter it, too! It, in turn, not only encountered me, it attacked me! To make a long story longer, the attacker was none other than poison ivy…in my garden box…the one that I personally planted…without ivy…poison or otherwise. Arrrrrgh!! I don’t have time for this!

How it got there is a mystery so far but I’ll ponder the matter while my red leprosy fades into a distant past. Most likely it migrated from the compost pile and flourished with the okra. Fortunately, the itching wasn’t all that bad this time. The previous infection was about 50 years ago but I remember "swimming in an ocean of Calamine Lotion" because of the severe itching (that’ll teach me not to go swimming in Tule River in the canyon above Coffee Camp, right? NOPE!). I was concerned this time about being mistaken as Groucho’s brother, Scratcho Marx.

I have it from an extremely knowledgeable source that the fading can be in only a few days if you apply an ancient Native American remedy made from the leaves of a manzanita bush. We have one here at the ranch according to Connie the Canner. Ol’ Pharma Ran will give a report when he can.

Computer Dude Update: as usual, the “Grand Exhausted ‘Puter Poobah” has managed to be blessed at all times and even when it seems they are bad times. There was a really great blessing that came our way recently. In fact, three really neat blessings (haven I mentioned that I’m really really into neat blessings?) came within a short time!

The first was from a long-time friend of Connie’s who lives down by the lake. Apparently, the folks where she works are replacing some desktops and laptops and other peripheral equipment (like a beautiful expensive wireless keyboard and mouse combo and a couple of Sony flat screen monitors!) but were just going to throw the old equipment out as e-waste. She asked if she could have it and they advised that she could. So, she gave it all to me! Zowie!!

I immediately overhauled one of the laptops and gave it back to the nice lady since she and her son needed one. The second laptop got overhauled and I gave it to my mother who, though 88 years old, is interested in “staying in touch”. My guess is that she wants it for the games, too (heheh).

Next, I overhauled one of the late-model desktops and will sell it for about 150 bucks or so. The other nice desktop needs a capacitor replaced on the motherboard but should be fine after that. I’ll do that on my…day off (uh-huh). Both desktops have nice dual-core processors and plenty of memory for Windows 7, 8, or even 10.

A second blessing came when two clients donated their inoperable desktops to me. One had a dead motherboard and the other a crashed hard drive. The one with the crashed hard drive had a superb high-performance quad-core processor so I jerked it out of the case and installed it in the other guy’s custom case. Perfect fit! I sold that little hottie to a previous client for 200 dollars.

The third blessing was from the guy from whom I purchased all of my ham radio equipment. His uncle was a friend of mine who had owned a hangar a few doors down from ours. I bought the entire station with the exception of some things that he intended to keep. Well, he decided not to keep them.

He called me and asked if I could come and pick up some stuff. Boy howdy! Was I surprised! Sitting there all nice and handsome was a like-new Icom IC-730 transceiver with its power supply! Next to it was a gorgeous like-new Drake MN-2000 antenna tuner (worth about 500 bucks!). Then, there was a like-new 23” all-in-one HP Pavilion 23 desktop! I’ve wanted one those babies for awhile but wasn’t about to spend any money for it. It may end up in my ham shack! Next, there was yet another desktop which was a newer HP with a dual-core processor and an abundant 6GB of RAM!

That brings us to the box of goodies that was tossed into the mix. It included a like-new expensive d-Link dual-band router and all kinds of other peripheral equipment. When I asked him how much “color” I needed to toss at him, he said, “Nothing. I just wanted to give it to you” and went on to explain how it made him feel good to bless others! Amen to that! Get this; the worth of the equipment he gave was beyond the value of the price I paid him for the other ham gear (from some months ago)!!  It’s a good thing he didn’t mind getting his neck hugged! We went straight home where I dug into the goodies with alacrity (after exchanging my old Huggie for a new one, natch)! 

OK…we’ve covered the “Blesso” and the “Scratcho”. It’s time for the “Crasho” part. Wanna know what happens when you use a computer? They break (trust me; I’m a professional). Oh, by the way: they break at the most inconvenient and least opportune time, too. Sure, some of you (even some of you Martians) have been lucky and had your box pick a special time to fall apart so it wouldn’t be an inconvenience. Not this time for the Computer Dude.

I was cruising along as usual getting things done when I had this ugly warning sign pop up. It advised that Windows had detected an impending hard drive failure. My first thought was, “Oh, that’s nice!”. I’ve got a ton of things to do near the end of the month and I’m going to have to re-build ‘Big Bertha’... again!”

Actually, the rebuilding part is the fun part. I do that for recreational purposes. However, the thought of losing an immense (I think a dump truck load qualifies for “immense”) amount of data (1 TB), pics (110 GB), music (100K+ songs), et. al. (misc. bunches of GB’s) could have been daunting. The good news was that I had already made a partial backup not long ago. I learned this lesson 7 or so years ago when my main rig went down hard and it cost me about 1,800 dollars to have the data retrieved. Lesson learned. I keep about 12 TB of storage around since I believe in not only backup but overkill backup.

So, I commenced a full back up knowing, that, after the notification, a hard drive failure could present itself in an hour, a day, a month, or even a year. After about four days of backing stuff up on a couple of healthy large external drives, I was confident that, should the drive fail suddenly, I would get to tinker with it. Off to bed I went. The next morning, I turned the monitor on (I leave my big rig running all of the time unless a reboot or service is required) only to find that the crash had happened that night. 

The great part about this was that I got to repair my XP installation! The box is configured to boot to either XP or Windows 10. However, the XP install had thrown out some default settings and was no longer automatically installing the normal drivers for the mouse and keyboard (which means you have zero access to the otherwise fully-functioning system). But, I  fouind no need to risk jacking up Windows 10 by trying to do a boot repair on XP. I think there would be little if any trouble at all but there was just too much on the line to experiment. And, it wasn't my day off. 

The XP repair was made then a 2TB internal hard drive was mounted.  Win 10 was installed (which automatically configures the dual-boot environment) and then the software customization process was advanced. All things are good go for now and any software needed will be installed on “as needed”. Big Bertha is now cruising right along smooth as silk. 

And, I get to run XP on a hot dual-core box with max RAM. For you tech heads (and you Martians, of course), XP can only “see” and use a little more than 3 GB of RAM. So, the other 5 GB of RAM are there but aren’t used until the reboot to Win 10. The XP install is as slick as they get and, because its lightly loaded, it’s almost like magic to use! I can’t wait to get an Internet service where the speed is at least 50mbs (my ISP just upgraded to 2.5mbs nominal). My mother in Porterville will have Internet service 20 times faster than mine! ACK! Maybe I need to visit her more often, eh?

Tech side note: XP was designed to run on (at a minimum) a Pentium II 233ghz processor and 64MB of RAM. Since XP was released about three years after the Pent. II, it was under development at the time using the Pent. II. To this day, one of the cleanest and fastest machines I’ve ever operated was an XP box with 256MB of RAM and a 750ghz Pent. III processor (lightly loaded, of course). It was a real blitz bug!

I still have access to all of the super nice software that was on there before the crash. But, times, needs, and attitudes change. All that needs to be done can be done for now. It's nice to have my old friend, XP, up and running. It's something of a comfort factor for me. The old "Puter Dude" is a bit strange...but then...you knew that. 

Chickening Report: Our chickens are on strike or something. They aren’t laying but about a fourth of their usual number of eggs. Some are molting which we found may account for some of the reduction. Not all of them are molting so I figure it must be a sympathetic molting issue, eh? I haven’t run into a “Caesar Chavez Chicken Union” yet. So, no worries there.

I don’t know. I do know that we need the regular production since our egg clients are used to getting their eggs in a timely fashion. It wouldn’t take much of an imagination to see my front yard filled with the same nice folks that covered Dr. Frankenstein’s yard outside his castle. But, they would be demanding eggs (yes….they are that good!)! 

I take really good care of them and feed them well. I speak kindly to them and encourage them to keep up the good work. Maybe I should take my guitar out there and serenade them to see if that would work. How about I hum them a hymn?  I think I’m being silly.

The Princess Abby Report: you know, you just can’t help but love a dog that’s sweeter than a bucket of cupcakes. She thinks I hung the moon and I’m not about to convince her otherwise.

I’m working on setting up the other transmitter for her electric shock collar/electric fence so we can extend her range further north but not further east. That will allow her to protect our garden boxes that the ground squirrels are digging (literally) and feasting on and our chicken coop as well. We lost one of our feral chickens the other day but Abbie’s range was limited (she’s into live chicken toys). So, she wasn’t able to apprehend the offending critter.

She still wins all of the tug-o-wars and is still lightning-fast at “fetch”. And, she still has a penchant for barking at night…late at night…most of the night. Ugh. I really do understand. We do have lots of “wild things” out there which a good coon hound like her would dearly love to chase to Texas (which, of course, is the reason she wears a shock collar).

It’s also noteworthy that she fears nothing…as in N-O-T-H-I-N-G…which is also a problem. She’s a “coon hound” not a “coon fighter”. As powerful as the little girl dog is, I am not at all comfortable turning her loose in a one-on-one with a big bandit. When coons are cornered, they don’t back down; they fight and fight hard. So, the Ol’ Rancher will to protect his pretty princess and continue to spoil her until she just can’t stand it (which should be in about 30 years or so. She is such a sponge).

Well…that about takes care of all but the Melto event. I hope that all of the sheisenbogger (sp) that has been happening will be concluded in this one month and not follow me into October, December, or into town. If it does, it needs to bring a smaller dump truck, too.

Now, the "headlines": when we came home from church the other night, I had to make a quick run to the barn. Now, imagine just how high my interest was piqued when the lights didn’t come on. OK…no worries. My technical expertise is quite high in the category of “flipping a breaker switch” (I got good marks in that, don’tcha know). When the breaker box was opened, it wasn’t a pretty sight. I switched the lights on but, uh-oh, two other breakers were off! That’s wasn’t a good thing because we have a freezer in the barn (you don’t eat all your food if you have to walk over there to get it, eh?).  

Fill in the details part: the light in the chicken coop had been off for a couple of weeks and I hadn’t had time to fix it (still waiting for a day off so I can get some of these things done!). I reckoned that the other breaker was for the coop and the other breaker was, indeed, for the coop. But…just what was the other breaker for? Uh-oh! Rancho Ran knew he was about to have an...interesting...evening.

Did you ever have one of those “Chinese Chant Revelation” moments? That’s where you whack your forehead and say, “O-wha-tay-foo-li-yam”. I had smelled something “dead” for several days but had thought it to be from someplace else; silly me. The revvy hit me like a ton of individually hand-fired Texas bricks; the other circuit breaker was for the freezer! It had been off for …gulp…two weeks! That’s just enough time for everything (as in …everything) to simply melt then dissolve into bags of wet rotting messes. 

That late at night, and my propensity to not deal with huge masses of rotting stuff (day or night) led the same quick mind to come to the rescue. I simply reset the breakers and will wait for everything to get rock hard then haul it all to the dump: no smell, no mess. 

Freezer clean up time will soon be another ranch chore. But, we need the freezer and I don’t dare leave too much food in the house where some hungry rancher would eat it! HEHEH.

So, there you have it, friends, relatives, neighbors, kith, kin, and Martians. The latest from Rancho Relaxo and Rancho Randy and his sidecook, Connie the Canner. Stay tuned 'cause things could get...interesting'er.