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.