Rancho Junio

Here's a recording of Miss Peep. The video ended up goofy so only the audio was correctly recorded. Go figure.

Miss Peep has fluffed out a bit and doesn't look so scraggly now. She's happy and healthy and quite tame...which could get ...interesting later.

Miss Abby hates the "Evil Stream" and attacks it with all of her might. The stream sort of won in the long run, though, by merely filling her nose with water. This was one of the milder episodes.

It's kinda hard to see Lovey Dovey's chick but it's right up against and in front of her. There's another one just like it on the other side! Try clicking on the picture; it may enlarge. The reflexion in the window is Conehead the Barbarian who was cameraman for the day.

 If you have yet to see a sack of chicks, this is your chance. They are all cute and they are all Araucana pullets. They're called "Easter Eggers" because they lay light blue and light green eggs.










                                                                                                               

 Below is the new clutch of clucks checking out their temporary digs

                                             
                                       

BELOW: Miss Abby checking out the new pecking crew. 

Below: here we see Abby patrolling her beat that just happens to have three new chickens in it. Friend and fellow ham operator, Eddie Orosco, rounded up a rooster and two hens and stuffed them into our big cage. They were wild chickens found on his property. One thing, though; we are still trying to teach Abby the difference between "guarding" chickens and "patiently waiting for a chicken to escape". This doesn't appear to be a quick learn for a huntin' dog. 

   

This post is a bit long already but I wanted to include that we were able to escape to Torrance for a couple of days. It was so we could celebrate a couple of birthdays at the same time. Connie's daughter, Brandi, and her son, Cade, flew in from Seattle for the event. We all went to the Long Beach Aquarium which made everyone's day. There were lots of great pictures but Miss Moyra's took the prize. Can you spell "p-h-o-t-o-g-e-n-i-c"? 

Well, dip me in buttermilk and fry me done! It looks like another month has done slud into home (y'all check with Dizzy Dean fans on that one)! It's JUNE! The year is almost half gone and everything around here is two halves undone!

I've heard the month of June called a lot of things but  I don't recall that "merry" was one of them. And, none used complementary adjectives that I can recall. Perhaps they only allow that term to be applied for one month and that would be "May", of course. Maybe it's because June is one of those months that is so hot that it makes being merry rather difficult. Maybe all you can get is the "grinning grinning month of June. It got here way too soon!", eh?

We've had a really nice and mellow May, though, and it was merry enough. The temp usually hits the 95 degree mark in the third week but it didn't happen this year so it has been very pleasant on the whole. We don't break 100 deg. until sometime after the first or second week of June. Today, Tuesday, May 31st,  it's  98 and par for the course. However, Wednesday, it'll be 105 and Thursday, it will be 106.....not par for the course. That's a double bogey, if you ask me.  

Thankfully, my irrigation water is working and my plants are well watered. The tomatoes and okra need the heat but I don't. Look for Rancho Ran and Connie the Canner but just don't look for them outside. We're stocked up on all of the "ades", teas, and juices and are hunkered down for the duration.

 The garden boxes, planted in cooler days, are prospering and we're using some of our nice compost to help the veggies grow. At first there was a concern that the compost may be too "hot" for the garden. But, when "volunteer" squash, corn, and tomatoes started populating the entire pile, there was no doubt after that; I started hauling it to the rest of the ranch for use. 

This year we planted tomatoes (two types of regular and one type cherry), bell peppers (green, yellow, and red) , Anaheim peppers (as in, chili rellano), squash, and okra (two types....not sure why yet). For grins and just to see how they would grow, I planted a few red potatoes and some white onions that were on the verge of being compost. They're actually so cheap that it hardly makes sense to grow them but I like to tinker. If they cook up and taste better, we could easily become a spud farm. Hmmmm..."Ol' Tater Ran" sort of has a ring to it, eh? How about "Brother Spud"?

The squash are "volunteers" from the compost pile. There were seeds in the clean up from the Henhouse Hilton and they grew rather quickly. The  plants include a Kabocha squash which is called a "Japanese Pumpkin".  They're super nutritional and high in fiber and taste great. I transplanted three of them over to our garden box number 1 (nearest the barn). There's still a ton of them left out there and they'll likely own about a quarter acre by harvest time. They can get pretty large, too. You harvest them then let them set for about a month to "sugar up" and to mellow out. I can do that. 

We also tried eggplant last year and were fairly successful. However, we failed to develop the desire to deal with them. Not sure what that was all about since I do like them. It may be that we've stopped cooking as much around the ranch. When we do, it's likely to be breakfast.

Connie loves pole beans, green beans, and snap beans so we may plant some next year. This year, she bought a ton of green beans at almost give away prices and canned the entire lot of them. We have green beans and plenty of bacon to toss in with them.

During this past few years, we lost a number of trees and vines due to the drought and people running over them at last year's yard sale (it's really difficult for drivers to see a tree at high noon when nothing else is around, don'tcha know). So, the ol' ranchers stopped by the Porterville High Plant Sale and loaded up some woody goodies for our homestead.  They include two Granny Smith apple trees, two Dorsett golden apple trees, a Bartlett Pear tree (we're waiting for a lonesome partridge to happen along and adopt it. If not, we have lots of doves around here), a two nectarine trees (to complement two others), three Red Flame grape vines, and a couple of cherry tomato plants that we potted away from the garden boxes. I've long since forgotten what type the first batch of apple trees were but I seem to remember "Fuji" and something else ("Ju-Jitsu"? N'yuk! N'yuk!).

The two Dorsett apples trees are planted in between the three Crepe Myrtle trees at the front of the yard that abuts Highway 190. Since the highway noise is formidable, we're hoping that the extra trees will aid in attenuating the conversation-killing racket.  I call it "Rancho Ran's Edible Noise Suppression Project". 

Previously planted vines included the Thompson Seedless and some other types that only God knows because my memory (which must not have been paid enough) quit doing its job some time ago.  There are 19 vines in all including two on each side of the pump house. There are also a couple of apricot trees but they aren't doing so well after being transplanted when we built the barn. A few citrus trees will likely be added as well since we did lose a few during the "browning of Springville" weather events.

Because of the new (good) compost and rain, we should have a great harvest. I'm truly sorry that Rancho Relaxo didn't have a compost pile started several years ago! The thought was there but we were short a few days off with which to initiate  that program. Anyway..... late summer will be a busy time but we're already getting huge, sweet, tree-ripened plums from our trees out back!  Plums are our friends!

It's "hens-a-many" time around here....again. Not to be outdone by the Jone's (who don't have a single chicken on their property), we piled on more pullets to the Pecker Palace. "Why for?" you ask? Well.....it's like this: we're having to cull a couple of cannibalistic cluckers from the herd. They like to peck open the oval-shaped fruit of other hens' labors and devour the innards then the out-ards. If such an attitude should spread to the general population, we'd have a real dismal deal with which to deal. There'd be no eggs to sell; we'd have to sell big egg-fattened hens instead. 

The two egg busters are incarcerated in one of our big solitary confinement cages awaiting their fate. The jury is still out but most likely we'll give them to the guy who supplies our produce . We could just make room for them in the freezer (which was suggested by some) but that's not as likely so far. We're more likely to kill the old red rooster before we do that (our current rooster is white so it could be awhile). Besides, it takes time (which is lacking around here) and effort (which is doubly lacking around here)  to do that and it's cheaper to just buy one for $.89 per pound (considerably less than the $122.50 for ours).

This egg eating weirdness is sure evidence of extraterrestrial chicken body snatchers if you ask me. We're going to be on heightened alert for other suspicious activity at the ranch like chickens trying to assassinate other chickens by pecking them to death and such. The only hole in my argument is that aliens smart enough to get to earth probably wouldn't pick a stupid chicken to snatch. I mean...there really are options. 

If that isn't enough to rattle your cattle, some of our birds are getting a bit long in the beak and will be retiring from egg production. Their new line of work will be as stewing hens but my guess is they won't last long at the new job; they're just too stupid to do much else other than cluck and lay eggs. I'm not really sure that I want to pay "dry" hens for their clucking talents so they'll need to go away. That also means that they will need to be replaced or Rancho Relaxo will be selling used chicken coop parts because we've run out of eggs.

So, the Henhouse Hilton now has eight new Araucana pullets added to the population. The Araucana's, as you may recall, are the "Easter Eggers" of layers. They lay light blue and light green eggs. I'm still not sure how they pull that off but I'm not at all interested in being close enough to an egg factory to find out. All but one pullet is dark with tan trim while the standout is all white.  

And, stand out she does.  When we first got her, she had been wounded by the other pullets. Not sure why chickens peck on the weak ones but they do. I'm just glad that all of that evil melts away in the frying pan.

So, we sequestered her inside in the kitchen and will keep her there for a few weeks while she heals up and gets a heap o' spoilin'.  Connie has basically adopted the cute white feathery, pecking, cheeping machine and is now a "chicken grandma" (she's building quite a resume', eh?). It sits in her lap peacefully cheeping and peeping (and other "-ing" things), while eating out of her hand.

We weren't sure what to name her. I mean, don't you have to name your pet? We named a few of the other non-pet hens so we decided to give this little pin-feathered female fledgling a name too. One of the first ideas was "Bonna Araucana" (banana-fanna-fo-fawna). It really has a nice ring to it but it's a bit too sophisticated for a small pile of big feathers to be. Since she is incessantly peeping, her official name will be "Miss Pecky McPeep-Peep". But, I can't help thinking that her unofficial name will be "Miss Peep". Knowing us, that will soon devolve to just "Peep" in no time at all.

As I walked into the coop today to feed our herd of feathers,  there was a brief realization that, when younger,  I wanted to be a chick magnet. And now .....I am one. Um...I'm not sure what went wrong here... but I think I need to be a bit more specific with the desires of my heart. *SIGH*

The "Miss Abby" report: our coonhound is a hoot. She's still a small bundle of big energy. I think we could tie a bowling ball on her collar and it's unlikely that she would notice. Apparently, she's getting to be a pretty good watchdog. It must be from all that practice defending us from angry wisps of smoke, neighbors a half-mile away, vicious doves, eerie night sounds, sneaky grass- filching bunnies, rogue lizards (no...not the band) ever bent on invading our barn, sly encroaching snails, and such.

All of that training has added up to her being able to take on the "Evil Stream". That would be the stream of water that gushes forth from the water hose....the non- evil one, I should think since we purchased it at Weiseneberger's ACE Hardware (and you know that only good things come from there). Her inner pit pull comes completely unglued when I open the nozzle when trying to fill the water jugs to insure that we don't have powdered eggs around here. She morphs from being our cute princess into a little snarling, fanged, short-haired, two-toned acrobat! Her fangs snap, slash, and glisten as they tear the heart out of the rushing stream. This savage assault is performed during a violent Lomcovak tail-over-tea kettle maneuver that could take the "10" at any Olympic or aerobatic event! Yet, the best I can tell, and after several attacks, no water has ever been injured during any of this incredible violence. Only God knows what goes through that pooch's noggin. I suppose we should be thankful since we haven't seen any lions and tigers and bears (Oh my!) around here.  

Lately, she has been bored. That isn't a good thing for a hound that's higher strung than Dwight Yokum's Telecaster. She's taken to high-jacking empty cardboard produce boxes that were stupidly placed within the radius of her electronic range limiter (note self.......pay attention, son). Did you know that a coonhound can take great delight in disassembling a box and making it look like it had been run through a razor-sharp ceiling fan? So, I guess now she can be called a.....boxer (I know! I know! It's a cry for help).

Know what? She didn't do these things while she was nursing and rearing her puppies. Reckon we could....naw. Just a passing thought. I forgot that we've retired from puppy sitting.

Summer has pounced upon us and there's a lot still to be done and a not a lot of spizz to go around. So, we're taking the "Lazy Fair" approach......we're old, we're lazy, and we think that's fair. We do the best we can with what we have to work with (with supplements from tradesmen and such). Sometimes, amazement comes upon us when a little extra progress has been made. Albeit, it does come with extra energy usage that had been previously allocated for another time. In such a case we usually feel like a rag mop after a hard day of being drug across 43,560 square feet of flooring at a WalMart Super Center and call for "nap time".  Naps are our fiends. 

Well, neighbors, that's the latest from Peck-istan. Stay tuned and don't touch that changer thingy; things could get....interesting.