Rancho Mud Boggo

We have a slightly more than normal snow pack on them thar hills. This shot was taken at the intersection of Scranton and Newcomb out by the P'ville Municipal Airport and looking NE. We had just departed the airport where we had met with some friends at our hangar.

If you promise to read the intro to the previous ten editions of Rancho Relaxo, I promise not to use the next five minutes of your time complaining about how fast time flies or how busy I am…though I’m tempted to do so anyway…really tempted…really, really, really tempted…….It’s FEBRUARY already!! 8.33333333 percent of the year is already gone and I haven't finished January's work! AAAAUGH! Sorry.…couldn’t help myself. Reckon I should be elated that I’m so busy rather than having so much time on my hands that I could make soy sauce from scratch.

Now that the loud noises have subsided….here’s the Rancho Roundup:  it’s February and all is well here at the ranch. Well…sort of. We're still waiting for that blessed state of "normality" around here. That could require some patience. I suppose that having to wade out to the hen hootch to insure that the egg factory doesn’t die of starvation could be counted as a plaint of some sort. But, not so much for the Ol’ PMA Rancher who, despite the ankle-deep mud and flooded coop, looks for the positive in all things Sometimes it’s a chore but he's hopeful and has few complaints (though they seem to be loud ones when he does). 

After all, the aquatic event wasn’t like a hurricane had hit; it was just a lot of rain dumped in one particularly low spot (and due, of course, to the genius who built the coop on the lowest place on the property). Had we had to rebuild the place I would probably have squawked a bit.

One thing that came to light during the mess was the need to re-secure the chicken wire and other mesh wire that is supposed to protect the base area from rat intrusion. I’ll need to get a man right on that….whenever he has a day off.

Rancho “to do” list: muck out the chicken coop. To his great relief, snowbird, Maynard G. Krebbs, is out of town until at least spring and can’t help; prune trees and vines (shouldn’t take longer than few hundred days to do that); prep garden boxes by adding about 12” of new compost. A nice front loader would help but a couple of young dudes needing some money will have to suffice (until the money tree I planted bears fruit); purge the irrigation lines, prep the sprinklers, and ready them for summer use; ready the burn pile that has been ignored for the previous three years…or ignore it for at least one more year (If I don’t procrastinate, I can immediately put it off until later); the huge load of yard sale tailings stored in the carport has to be hauled off…anywhere...the dump...Kansas…Iraq...just so it’s gone; pick the oranges or have them picked (I vote for the latter); service farm vehicles for spring including battery charging; start all small motors and prep for use this summer; fix the only-used-once 3.5KW portable generator so that it starts (otherwise, it’s an 85 lb door stop….I already have plenty of those); prep the 850W generator for emergency use; prep and start the wood chipper; prep weed eaters for spring use (one is almost new and fails to start…it’s a “weed watcher” now. *SIGH*). Prep the 14’ aluminum fishing boat….for another year of storage; practice eye closing so I can ignore the barn for another year and hope that the Gypsies sneak it and clear the place out; find more free range chickens so that we won’t run out of chicken poop to step in. That’ll probably hold me for awhile and make sure that my…day off… doesn’t arrive any too soon.

Princess Abbie report: my, oh, my. Our beloved coon hound is really making a name for herself. I was sort of hoping that that name would be a favorable one. However, our handsome hyper hound seems to be rather easily led astray.

The other day she, gleefully and with open paws, welcomed the neighbor’s two dogs, a whippet and an Australian heeler. She usually does that anyway. But, in her wonderlust, she totally abandoned her responsibilities regarding her guard duties. She was plumb lost in cavorting with her friends; for our coon dog, that isn’t a good thing.

It began one morning when the Ol’ Wrangler Ran let his birds out for a splendid day of free ranging. He pulled that trick off without considering that there just may be a threat in the area (and smartly proving that he really wasn’t a quart low of stupid). Within a short time, Gus, the heeler, crossed the street and forgot that he was heeler and he became a chaser! In no time flat, Gus killed at least three of our birds. I have reason to believe that Abbie, presumed to be a dog that favors coons and not chickens, joined the fray and killed one of the birds. We had hens….e v e r y w h e r e….it was raining feathers.

Ordinarily, she just rousts the birds thinking that they’re tennis balls sent from God so she can have a rollicking good time of fetching them for us. Reckon being a “chicken keeper” is beneath a princess’ calling.  So, it was lockdown time for “Camp Leghorn” and time for Abbie to spend the rest of the day on the chain gang.

We happened to know Gus’ owner who just happened to live next door to his father-in-law who just happened to be the husband of the lady who owns the local “Hamburger Stand” (we call folks who own a burger stand, “good neighbors” and you know that we’re going to get to know them). The owner wasn’t home and neither was the father-in-law. But, we had the number of the lady at “The Hamburger Stand” (in beautiful downtown Springville) and called her up. She sent her husband and nice neighbor, Bill, right over.

Come to find out, he had recently dealt with Gus assassinating several of his free range chickens. So, he was rather sympathetic. In fact, he actually paid us for the dead birds and advised that Gus was probably going to be moving out of the neighborhood…soon. See ya, Gus!

We still intend on allowing the chickens more free range time. However, Abbie will have all temptation for feather fetching removed by being tethered to her palatial doggy house. That will leave our pretend layers to free range without being jacked up.

When it was all over, and despite the restriction, she still had that special bounce in her step and that “let’s all play!” look in her eyes. Not today, Abbie. It took three days to gather up all of our “missing in action birds” and aren’t really sure we aren’t still missing one or more.

Chickening report: well…as stated, it’s mighty wet out there. The front (newest) run was totally flooded while the second run was a bog. The coop itself was merely wet. It was the mud mush that made things…interesting. I have to wear my galoshes each trip out or risk having Connie call the fire department to unstick me from the mess. All of that mud also creates a bit of a hazard for the birds. I was concerned that, with so much of it, I’d step on one of my hens and not see her again until springtime. And, wait, folks; there’s more: we’re supposed to get more rain next week. So, Captain Cluck will have to spend more time chuckin’ cluck muck into his truck…YUK.

One of the casualties of the aforementioned feather wreck was our beloved free range rooster, Harvy Henbanger. He was the last of the four feral fowls that we got from a friend. He would faithfully stand watch all day long over the coop and wait until his girls were let out for awhile at dusk. That was his call to action and he was most diligent in his duty. He was a hoot to watch and was at least half the reason we watched "Chicken TV". He will be sorely missed. Connie will likely be cruising through “Craig’s List” to find some replacements (that would be free replacements, of course).

My friend, Eddie (KE6PK - from whom we got the previous batch), has more feral birds and needs fewer of them. When the weather warms up a bit, it’s likely that we’ll raid his place for more bug and grub getters.  

Due to the warmer weather, the lack of predation, the fact that I dropped the hint about really needing some "chicken noodle soup", or for whatever reason, some of our ladies have remembered that they are layers and not roosters. Egg production has increased back up to the two dozen or more per day (we got 30 today!). We’re not back up to the more than four dozen goal yet but we are hoping to re-attain that previous standard. They really need to start earning their scratch or we may be canning more chicken around here.

Connie the Canner report: as usual, her canning pots have yet to cool down. Those canning vessels are as hot as a space ship's rocket tubes that just landed on Mars (for all of you "X Minus One" fans out there). She just advised that she canned enough carrots to keep Bugs Bunny alive for a century. Carrots are our friends! I think we have more glass invested in canning jars than Schuller has in the “Crystal Cathedral”. But, the Minnicks will never go hungry, eh, Doc?

She was finally able to get all of the Christmas stuff stored in the barn from whence it came. It’ll be “Valentine’s Day” soon so there will be new decorations going up. Rancho Relaxo will once again be a bright and happy place to celebrate the holiday.

Since spring is right around the corner (have I mentioned how fast time flies?), I need to assemble her Schwinn Meridian trike so we can both go motoring around the place. My Meridian (aka the “Ranch Rocket”) is up and running great but needs to have the cobwebs blown out once in awhile so that it doesn’t get a severe case of ignor-itus and just up and rot. I suppose removing the inch-deep covering of “Springville insulation” would help, too.

There you have it: the latest from “Rancho Relaxo” where life is good (in between the “life is interesting” part), all the men  (that would be me) are strong (I created my own dictionary), and all the women (that would be Connie the Canner) are sweet (yes…I do listen to “Prairie Home Companion”), and all the children are above average (that would, of course, be the grandkiddies). Don’t touch that thing-a-ma-jig that changes the e-mail settings; things could get…even more interesting.