Boy! Am I pleased to report that the "Springville Inn" will be re-opening soon! Most likely, it will be the ONLY place between here and Visalia that serves a decent steak! No such mouth-watering meal any longer exits at my favorite steak place, "the Cellar". I won't ever go there again unless I want chicken fried steak or a half-chicken or perhaps a burger. Their steaks are inedible and are entirely different that the ones I loved for the previous 20 years. I was more than disappointed and will spare myself any further abuse. UGH. My previous trip to the "Oak Pit" will likely be the last one, too. I was grievously disappointed there, too. Not sure why P'ville can't cook a steak.
Here's a couple of "Cal-Fire" choppers getting ready for the fire season. A few minutes after this shot was taken, a Grumman S2F Tracker (modified for fire fighting) departed. Right after that, a Vietnam War era North American OV-10 Bronco (twin-turbine engine spotter plane) departed.
Here's our new box of peeps and chirps! They are adorable! It's little wonder that Connie and I are such "bird brains"! We love these little fluffy balls of stupid! Their bodies will grow but their brains are encased in Super Glue to insure that they are never used.
Well, frack my shale! It’s MAY!! Can you wrap at least one brain cell around that fact (you are exempted from doing so if it’s your last cell)?! I’m sitting here mentally preparing for winter and it’s almost summer. *SIGH*.
Reckon I’ll just have to find a way to play “catch
up” with all of the things that need to be done around here. Of course, it
might expedite the matter if the old yard sale’ers would cease bringing home
fantastic bargains that are flung at them wherever they go!
Rancho report: bargains galore! That seems to be the
springtime theme for this place. It’s really not that we mind being so blessed;
it’s just that you can only store so many treasures in any given size
chest. Our treasures have been so firmly packed into the chest we are concerned
for its structural integrity. If it were to give way, I can just see our
goodies flying into the air for miles around and sprinkling the area with
useful and wonderful free things!
During our latest foray (which consisted of a slow 3.5
mile drive to Springville), we stopped at a local yard sale (that really isn’t “news”
to you regular followers of Rancho Relaxo) where we met a nice lady who, with
her family, is moving to Seattle, WA. We had a great chat and shared that we
had children up near there and that we liked it up yonder.
We then proceeded to clean up on the swell stuff she
had exposed to sunlight. She wasn’t selling things as much as she was throwing
it at us so she wouldn’t have to deal with it later. Like my granddaddy used to
say: “Works for me!”. Fortunately, most all of it fit into the Toyota Camry. We
did have to go get “Tojo” and haul some stuff in it, though (e.g. the almost
new Weber BBQ grill for….ahem…5 dollars). That worked well since we knocked
over another yard sale a bit further up the road and strip mined it too (there’s
a reason we keep “Wooly Pully” hooked to the pick-me-up truck). The guy there
just couldn’t help himself; he just had to bless us! So, we let him do just
that and we loaded up! The old folks here at the rancho have a particular protocol
for when all those nice folks toss yard sale stuff at us: “Don’t duck!”.
Anyway, back at the first yard sale: we couldn’t
help notice that she had a couple of chickens and a beautiful newer well-built
chicken coop beside the house. It didn’t take long to entertain the idea of
asking about it as we had desired a separate “brooder coop” so we could raise
our own chicks.
We had done a lot of homework prior to building our “real”
coop. So, we knew that it was a quality find. That being said, we were willing
to invest 150 bucks or so in the deal knowing that, at that paltry sum, it was
a steal. All said and done, the lady said, “I’ll take (hold on to the OSHA
certified railing, ya’ll)…40 dollars for it! Fair and balanced Connie, not
wanting to take advantage of the dear lady, stammered, “No! Fifty dollars!” The
lady would have none of it. So, 40 dollars it was (see above protocol).
If that isn’t enough to precipitate an attack of paroxysmal
atrial tachycardia, we had also been looking for a pet carrier in which we
could carry a few chickens at a time. Usually, we just haul our large cage but
it isn’t always warranted and it always requires “WORK!” (Maynard G. Krebbs and
I agree that “WORK!” isn’t our friend). Guess what the soon-to-be-ex-neighbor
had parked in her yard? YUP! A beautiful perfect sized “Pet Taxi”!! Oh….she up and gave it to us! Zowie!
When we got home, we were almost stunned at the
treasures we hauled in for a next to nothing investment! Other than almost
dancing naked in the street and a bit of reveling and rejoicing, you could have
heard a pin drop.
Princess Coon Dog Report: our hardly principled, precious,
and precocious pooch laid into a big baying session the other night at about
9PM. Since the noise appeared to be coming from the chicken coop area, I was
particularly obliged to pay attention to the matter. I grabbed my genuine 6.99 (plus
.0825% tax) Chinese-made rechargeable LED flashlight and my .177 caliber pump
pellet rifle (a man can’t take chances, eh?) and fearlessly headed into the
fray.
Well…it wasn’t really a fray yet. Abbie was ferociously surrounding a
gray ball of fur that was huddled against the trunk of a conifer tree next to
the coop. The limbs of the tree were impeding her progress but she was still
trying to reach and rout the intruder.
At first, I thought it was a small bunny wabbit.
But, when the ball of fur turned its head toward me, I instantly recognized the
long nose and razor-sharp teeth that it flashed. Once again, Abbie had cornered
a local opossum. My lightning-fast mind new that I wasn’t packing enough
armament for this fracas. I started to saunter back to the house to get a “real”
gun which would be my tack-driving Ruger Model 1022.
Just as I turned, I heard a raucous racket that told
me that the game was afoot. In no time, Abbie flushed this rather dangerous
critter into the open where she instantly had him in her metal mangling jaws.
She proudly trotted off into the dark and another part of the yard not
suffering me to assist in the matter or sharing her lifeless trophy at all. Abbie-1;
opossum-0
Our love dog seems to be on a roll because, today,
she kick-started another bought of baying. I heard her getting down on
something but couldn’t quite identify where she was at. After a short time of
tracking, I found her underneath a large pomegranate tree that resides
alongside the neighbor’s concrete driveway (he lives up the hill behind us).
Underneath the tree was an old mostly-mashed rusted out bucket of some kind and
it had Abbie’s nose stuck in it and trying to make progress.
Not being afraid of most things smaller than me, I
hoisted the bucket up and…sure enough! There was a “fuzzer” in there (a Rancho
Relaxo colloquialism for “ground squirrel”). I couldn’t help but think, “This
oughta be interesting!”
It took a few shakes, but the brown fuzzy critter
came flailing out into the open. Quicker than you can sneeze through silk, Abbie had the brown bane in a crushing death lock. Abbie-1; Fuzzer-0
It may be that she was just warming up to these feats of
usefulness because, a week ago, she strutted by me in the back yard while flaunting
a dead mouse in her mouth. Abbie-1; Mouse-0. My desire is that she continues
earning her "Kibbles" by significantly reducing the rodent population.
Chickening Report: our girls are doing well and
production is about up to par, all things tallied. I still need a day off so I can
contact a nice chicken-loving lady who will care for the ones who have outgrown
their usefulness. Some of them will still occasionally lay an egg but, at that
rate, the eggs end up costing us about a buck each. Try to convince a real
business man that that is a swell way to do things.
Also, there is something I hadn’t anticipated: some of
the older birds are “crackers”. These goofy fowls will crack open a fresh egg
and consume the contents then consume the shell. It’s not only the older
biddies that do that but it appears to me that they are the main culprits (and
I could easily be wrong so I’m still checking things out).
Ol’ Rancho Ran, the chicken doctor: I’m not a true scalpel
slinger. I’m just not up to speed on doing surgery of any kind if it involves too
much more than perhaps removing a deeply-embedded splinter (though I do recall
relieving the pressure from a blood blister under my thumbnail by burning a
hole in it with a red-hot paper clip….that was fun…uhuh). It’s not that I’m squeamish
(having spent a goodly amount of time n the paramedical profession). It’s just
that the qualification for carving on living things seems to be a bit above my
pay grade.
Here's what that's all about: one of my layers has been growing a large bulge below one eye (which then soon forced it closed). It kept
increasing in size over the period of a few weeks so a decision was made to
remedy the matter. At first, it appeared to be an infection so a liberal
application of “triple anti-biotic” salve was made a few times. That didn’t
work so it only seemed reasonable to assume that it was time to lance the thing
and relieve the pressure.
The cute little buff was hauled into the “operating
room” (the kitchen where the lighting was sufficient for such difficult medical
procedures) where my Exacto scalpel (hosed down with alcohol) was readied. A
small incision was made in the bulge with hopes that all kinds of infected gunk
would gush out but that didn’t happen. Instead, after a second small incision
was made and only blood came out, it was determined that the bulge wasn’t an
infection; it was a tumor. The bird’s incisions were daubed with antibiotic
salve and the remainder of the surgery was canceled.
We’ll keep her under surveillance but, in time, the
tumor may prove to be uncontrollable. In that case, I’ll make sure that she
doesn’t suffer and that she comes to a tasty end. We hate it when reality
strikes but we make the best of it and have decided that some of the girls, out of necessity, are becoming "future food".
Now, don’t let your “Huggies” slide because I’m not
through with this narrative yet! Before I could get the “Rancho Relaxo Report”
published, a friend from church called and had us come over (today) to pick up
eleven 3-4 day old chicks! Can you handle that?!
We stuffed them into the…new (FREE)
“Pet Taxi”….and trucked the (FREE) chicks home (have I mentioned that FREE is our friend?)! Connie made sure that they’re well-fed and resting
comfortably in the kitchen! Yep…that would be the same kitchen that Connie the
Canner avowed would never see another tub of chicks again! Silly her.
Of course, her vow quickly melted when she realized how
much she loved cute, tiny, fuzzy, little, two-legged, peeping, critters. She also
knew that some of these little ex-huevos would be roosters and we need roosters, too!
Rancho 'Puter Crasho: recently, Ol’ Ran dodged the
proverbial bullet when his computer failed. My 2TB hard drive (running Windows 10) on my main computer crashed (no more "no name" hard drives for this tech!). I hadn’t
conducted a serious backup in…well...too long. That isn’t a good thing when you have
as much important and irreplaceable things on your hard drive as I do. "Ran The Computer Man" won't be winning this year's "Amazingly Bright LED" award.
The hard drive failed to detect in its native
environment (hint: this is not a good thing). So, the protocol is to dismount
the thing and park it in a hard drive dock so that you can remotely access it.
Except….it was detected but wouldn’t allow access to the files/data (hint
number two: this isn’t a good thing either). It means that, most likely, the
hard drive is physically compromised and you can bid it “Adieu!”...or "Adios"...or "Auf Wiedersehen"...or "Addio"..or "Tchau"....or "Прощай". Swell.
But, I’ve been lied to by computers many times so I
wasn’t about to take this bad news lying down (after 60 years or so, I am still
not sure that I know what that expression means unless it has something to do
with getting up to fight again after having been knocked down during a boxing
match…any suggestions/ideas?). I was going to take the bad news standing up
(albeit with perhaps a bit of moisture in the corner of one eye and a slight trembling of the lower lip)!
The first thing was to perform a “check disk” which
was successful. Again: my other partition (XP. I dual-boot with two hard drives: XP on one and Win 10 on the other) would detect the drive but would not allow me to access it.
At this point, it was still a certifiable door stop (door stops are not my friends).
The next step was to conduct a “system file check”
and that, too, was successful. That did the trick! I was allowed access to the
drive so a full backup was made to one of my Toshiba 3TB external hard drives. Wheew!
That was a close call!! You can call me, “Mr. Backup” from now on! I was so
thrilled that I did the “Twist”, the “Mash Potatoes”, and walked like an
Egyptian for 20 minutes!
Well….there you have it. That’s the latest from “Rancho
Relaxo” where things can
get…interesting.... and where…you just never know.
