Well,
bless my deoxyribonucleic acid! Here we are looking at a brand spanking-new
year......again! Didn't we just have one of these...recently? It's 2016, for
crying out loud! What happed to 1969?! You know, "It's 1986!" has a
nice ring to it. But, "It's 2016"....makes a resounding thud when it
jackknifes off the end of your tongue and smacks the floor. That's the
perspective of one of the early "Boomers" who seems to have an
age-relate loss of pep in his schlep.
I really
don't mind another year. It's the "another year older" thing that
sticks in my goozle. I was recently pounced upon by a birthday and I don't
exactly feel like dancing naked in the streets like I used to (you probably
didn't know that about me, did you? "Hush!", Gene and Jerry!). It's
just that each new birthday arrives with so many unwanted "gifts" most of which include an ache or inhibit one's normal range
of motion or at least impede the velocity of that motion.
Now, you
know you're getting older when your wife says, "Honey, I moving a bit
slower today" and your response is, "That's OK, Babe. I'll catch
up". *SIGH*. It used to take only a short while to do the chores. Now it's
a few "short whiles" interspersed with lunch and a nap. Two *SIGHS*.
OK; enough bellyaching about age ...for now. I still have a few "frequent
bellyaching" points to use up, though.
We had a
really good Christmas. There was lots of food, of course, and we got to spend a
couple of days with the grandkiddies. They all got a lot of nice goodies from
the grandparents who think it not strange to spoil them from time to time. I
made sure that the eldest boy, Thatcher, had one of the Baofeng VHF/UHF radios
like the ones that we use here at the ranch for local communications (and that
I also use for ham radio use). He was elated, to be sure. If it all works out,
I'll assist him in getting his amateur radio license and he can use the new
transceiver on the ham bands too like "Ol' Radio Ran" does.
We even
got to take my mother out for dinner for Christmas. That was really nice. She's
87 years young now so we cherish each Christmas all the more. She still drives
though not at night and makes the "sale days" in town. She and her
next door neighbor head to the casino once in awhile, too. After a
year-and-a-half, she's doing well in the new apartment and has adjusted
marvelously. The other place was just way too big for her to handle all by
herself.
Lots of
food also means lots of calories and lots of calories means lots of weight
gain. I need to pay attention to that since people are starting to think I
converted our "Coop de Ville" to a "low rider". I was
wondering why the trailer hitch was dragging the ground so often. How many
*SIGHS* am I allowed? Perhaps I should betray my "Classical
Conditioning" (aka Pavlovian response) and not fully and gleefully expect
to consume-to-the-last-lick-and-crumb and enjoy so
much....good....tasty....hot....savory....delicious....wonderful....saliva-generating....spicy....nutritious....
diverse....FOOD. This....could take awhile.
My
birthday was pretty much a "jammy day". We decided to postpone a
birthday dinner and hunt one down some other time. It worked out well because
some friends invited us to "Cool Hand Lukes" in Tulare to share their
anniversary celebration. I did manage to stay in my jammies most of the day
but, did so much work that I went through 6 sets altogether. That next Monday's
laundry basket was bulging.
"EL
NIÑO" is starting to swamp "sunny California". If the
forecasters are correct, we will receive almost as much rain in the next two
weeks as we get all year. That should be interesting! It doesn't take all that
much moisture to turn "Rancho Relaxo" in to "Rancho Swampo"
as it is. Reckon we're battening down the chicken coop and breaking out the
dinghy. If we start getting "gully washers", we may need
to start raising ducks! At least our supply of "green" will not be
limited for awhile. Who knows; I may even get a chance to go ....fishing!
After a
few days of rain, it's obvious that "Lake Constance" is back with us.
The problem is that we have another even lower spot several yards west of this
lake. It's almost in front of the coop which makes life....interesting....for
the old folks who don't think that it's a great idea to have to don hip waders
to feed their chickens. It's deeper (as in way deeper) than "Lake
Constance". We're thinking about naming this watery inconvenience after
the ancient hidden Inca Indian lake high in the Andes Mountains (so hidden that even
Google Earth can't find it!), "Lake Kakapupu". That should put
"Rancho Relaxo" on the map, eh?
You
should see the eggs flying out our door! It's amazing! The demand for the eggs
from "contented chickens" is booming! Folks can't seem to get enough of
them! That's wild considering that we started with a only a few thoughts of
keeping maybe four hens to supply us with a few fresh eggs! Less than a year
later, we have a poop palace and nearly 60 happy spoiled hens (I still don't
have an exact count)!
As of
now, we're getting 6 dozen eggs per day or more. The gals are surely glad to
reward us for our good care of them. Growling Gertie vociferously protests when
we snatch her goodies but does little else to hinder the theft. Screeching
Scarlett, on the other hand, makes much ado about our purloining and puts up a big fuss and uses her beak as a weapon. I always win (albeit with a few peck marks
in my paw).
As soon
as the weather permits and is concurrent with our spiz tank level
(spring?...summer?), we'll add the 27' extension to the run. It was supposed to
have been built months ago. Alas, events conspired against that notion and our
plans are delayed. After that, I really can see us obtaining more layers for
our egg emporium. I'm not sure where all of this is headed but I'm not going to
hinder the momentum. If folks continue to move and need a new home for their
layers, we'll continue to adopt them. I'm most confident that we won't run out
of people who eat eggs.
One thing
that I do know is that a man who has eggs during "hard times" has
options (did I mention that options are my friends?). Eggs will be a barter
currency along with our garden veggies, oranges, dumquats (they're dumquats
until I can figure out what the heck they are) which are plentiful, fresh
honey, freshly-caught fish (assuming that the vender bothers to go fishing,
eh?), and Connie's canned goods. That's one of the reasons I have so many rods
and reels in store. They make for "beads and blankets" to trade.
There are other income streams in the making.
Though
there are others selling eggs in this area (we only recently found that out),
we doubt if their hens could be as well-fed as ours. They get "lay
pellets" (specially formulated feed for layers), hen scratch (guess we now
know what makes hens do that), veggie table scraps (Abbie gets the meat
products), and the produce tailings (including fruit) from a large supermarket!
If that's not a rounded out diet, I don't know what is! Connie even
steams up some rice for them from time to time! After it cools, she fluffs it a
bit then we carry the tubs out to "the girls". They are delighted to
see us and a couple of them even mug us when we walk through the door! No
kidding! They fly up and try to land on the tub and be the first to get their chicken
chow. We've both gotten a face full of feathers at such times. It's a hoot!
Connie
had a small dish pan/tub she used to feed the b'gaaks the other afternoon.
After we left, one of our smaller pullets stood on the side and it flipped over
trapping her underneath it! I didn't find out about it until the next morning
when I went in to feed them. I saw the upside-down tub and picked it up. When I
did, the little white Leghorn sped out like a bullet! She was a happy hen, to
say the least!
The Ol'
Luddite computer dude bit the .50 caliber bullet and took a step into the
future with the Windows 10 upgrade. He had been dragging his feet until his
tennis shoes wore through but he finally relented. I really hated having to
upgrade but I just can't seem to get around ...progress. UGH. None of my
equipment is broken so just why should have I have to fix it?! However, in
order to keep up with the times and my client's computers, I need to know how
to everything works (I think I've run out of *SIGHS*).
At least
it won't be as bad as "Vista". I hated "Vista" with
protoplasm-plectorated pressurized purple passion. It is the "pruritus ani" of the computer world as far as I'm
concerned. It was a great operating system as long as you were merely using it.
However, if you had to fix it, you had to pack a lunch because Microsoft hid
all of the tech buttons and it took all day, lots of hair pulling, and a couple
of tooth grindings to find things! Thankfully, my hair grows fast and it
recovered the bald spots. I'll still likely need a couple of tooth implants.
I had to
pull my big stud horse custom quad-core Windows 8 box off its place of honor.
Then, everything was backed up on a 2TB external drive. Since it was Windows 8
and not 8.1 (and isn't upgradeable to 8.1 at this point), it wouldn't upgrade
to Win 10 (though Windows 7 will! Go figure! Thanks, MS!....grrrrrrr). So, I
had to do a fresh install of Windows 7 then downloaded Win 10 after loading Win
7 updates aaaaaalll daaaay long (400+!!).
The other
day I downloaded Win 10 on one of our laptops too. After that, I downloaded the
Win 10 upgrade onto my other big quad-core box (Dell XPS420) without doing a back up.
That goes against my grain since I'm "Joe Backup" on just about everything
and even have backups of my backups. I just don't have....time....to do that
right now. So, I'll take a chance that there will be no jack ups on the matter.
It wouldn't be the end of the word if it did fail the upgrade and mess
everything up. As long as the hard drive is healthy, I can still access it from
a hard drive dock and back up the data/pics/docs et. al.. Then, it just
requires a clean install of the operating system. I can do that in my sleep.
Blessings
continue to abound here at the Ol' Ranch. My five printers (all had been given
to me!) have been real troopers but a couple are "long in the tooth".
One has just given up and fallen by the wayside and, after checking for
remedies on the Internet, probably isn't fixable. Another recent addition (HP)
works well but doesn't print my church bulletins correctly. It's kissing
cousin, another recent addition, (HP) printer does the same thing for some
unknown reason. So, I can't use either for the bulletins and jerked both of
them offline and stacked them elsewhere as backup printers (with one of them
probably ending up in my Ham Shack in the barn).
We also
have a nice beautiful Epson that is thumbing its nose at us. It recently
started smearing ink all over the paper and when it was done with that, it
started jamming. It appears that the ink cartridge carriage is fouled and needs
to be cleaned but I'm not at all sure what's causing the jam (did I mention
that I hate jamming printers?). Off the shelf it went.
In the
mean time, my main mule, "Big Bertha", a hefty HP 7400, was acting up
by showing a "carriage jam" error! Thankfully, I was able
to do a bit of RPRM (Randy's Printer Resuscitation Magic) and it revived (which
surprised it and me). She's gliding along smoothly now and hasn't even
hiccupped. Who woulda thunk that threatening to play my banjo to a printer
would have shocked it into obedience?
Still, I
needed another reliable printer because some of these ink slingers are prone to
just up and gag or fail right when I need them. I now have one! The other day,
a client called for me to set up his new printer. The older printer (actually
only a few months old) had shown a "print head error" message that
couldn't be resolved. I installed his new printer and he asked me to dispose of
his old one. I usually haul that kind of stuff out to my e-waste pile. However,
when I got it home, it dawned on me that I may be able to spend some time
tinkering with it to see if it was salvageable ("Old Tinkerin' Ran",
they call him).
I ordered
some cheap ink and installed it. Then, after checking online for ideas about
how to fix this thing, I attempted a print head alignment no few times. It was
"no go" all the way; the printer was not going to yield to my
finagling. "Hmmmmm", says I. "There must an option here".
So, I contacted HP Support who, after a brief check to see what the issue was,
advised that they would send a replacement! Works for me! Imagine my joy when the UPS stork delivered the new "baby" a few days later! FREE printers are my friend!
If that
doesn't just mash your mangoes, a big new high-performance Canon
"Maxify" MB2320 just hit the front porch today! We figured that,
since we had an extra bullet to bite, to just do that and buy a printer (I've
only purchased one printer in the previous ten years). Connie found an
expensive, gorgeous, and high performance Canon Maxify online for half price
and free shipping so we bought it (50% discounts and free anything are my
friends!).
It didn't
take long for Ol' Printin' Ran to have it stuffed into the slot where the two
little "locals" sat (i.e. "non-wiress" - USB only). She's
staring right proudly in my eyes as I type. She's a real showpiece and prints
almost as fast as a laser printer (I have one of those in the ham shack but I'm
still overhauling the computer for over there)! I'll likely finish my bulletins
early just so I can give her a test drive! This baby and the new HP Officejet
Pro 6830 will definitely make life much easier for the old folks. We've got
options (did I mention that options are our friends!).
There you
have it, neighbors: the latest from "Rancho Ran the Rooster Wrangler"
and his side-cook, "Canning Connie the Chickenator". Stay connected
and don't touch that router; things could get....interesting.
