Rancho Se Vende Mucho Mas y Mas

 We're getting ready for the the big annual yard sale that we hold during the "Springville Apple Festival".

Along with the stuff on the tables above, we have these, too. It's about a tenth of what we usually haul out for sale.

 To the left, you see one of our other participants getting her goodies ready. She did really well again this year.

Another view but from the opposite end of the driveway. You can see "Tojo" the pickup in the far background. It's a mighty handy gadget to have at a yard sale.

To the right, we see the post sale mess that we usually have to deal with. No biggy though; we just took our time and got it all cleaned up. 

Take a look at this nice clean yard and then compare it with the pics below.

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A "just because" pic. This is our porch swing which is sometimes the viewpoint for "Chicken TV" if the Squawk Squad is around in front.

The resting garden boxes. We'll prepare them for action next spring.

Some of our girls basking in the shade.

We get some really pretty sunsets at times.

Here is the front yard and it's fully populated.

Lots of stuff....everywhere.

More lots of stuff.

Getting ready for the kickoff.

Susan Newsome getting ready! She's a pro!

Leanne Chapman had the most stuff and she sold a great deal of it!

What do you do when your above ground pool liner gets leaky? You take the poles and make a clothes rack out it! That was a "Connie Idea" and it has worked marvelously for the previous 5 years!

These here are a bunch of pichers (sic)

Another picher.....

Lots of'em....

 Never seen so many of 'em....

  

 Never run out of'em........

 

Wheeeew!! The end of pichers......

Here's one of our latest rooster additions. I'm not sure why but I've been calling him, Pedro. I think he is the offspring of an escaped fighting game cock. We could have some really weird looking chickens around here before too long.

And, tossed in for good measure, a "sign of the times" courtesy of our local Wal-Mart.

Well! Kiss my glockenspiel! It’s November!!! I can hardly believe this flogginshmoggin! .8333% of the year is gonzo! Oh, well…..may as well just tighten my schlunkendorfer and get used to it. *SIGH*

Well…we did it again! The big annual “Apple Festival” yard sale is a done deal. Everyone had a great and peaceful time of selling and...... eating! Most of the setup was done on Wednesday and Thursday and we were all ready to go on Friday morning at 8AM. From that moment on, there was no lack of foot traffic.

In fact, we even had considerable foot traffic late in the day on Sunday! That’s not common of us. We stay open until almost dark anyway and people do stop and they do buy stuff. But, this time, lots of people were still milling about, shopping, and importantly, buying.

Connie and I had far fewer tables set up this time. We just simply couldn’t get everything out on display that we had hoped. Perhaps we can do so next year (which will be here only too soon, I should suppose). All things tallied, we actually suffered far less stress than usual but were still utterly exhausted by Sunday evening. It takes about a week to totally clean up and re-pack and haul stuff to the Salvation Army or such. A lot of the stuff will be stored in our hangar for now.

Every year we, as the hosts, get first crack at things for sale and this year was no different. What was different was that we didn’t need our pickup in which to haul things off. A couple of years ago, prior to the opening bell, we spent more than 100 bucks on some really nice goodies! My thought was that it couldn’t have happened to nicer folks. But, that’s just my opinion, eh?

Comida: we had food, too! On Friday, we had chicken salad sandwiches with sides of baked beans, potato salad, and chips, then cake and cookies as dessert. On Saturday, we had pulled pork sandwiches, grilled hot links and hot dog buns, chips, sides of potato salad and baked beans with cake and cookies as dessert. On Sunday, there was hot chicken and dumplings, all of the above as leftovers, and hardly anything left over! What little there was leftover, the nice folks left for us to finish! I reckon skinny people are not allowed to live at Rancho Relaxo. Pity.

It’ll take a while to recover but we’ll soon be making ready for next year’s event. This thing has taken on a life of its own and we may one day just be managers or coordinators. After that, we may ultimately be found as sightseers and shoppers. Who knows?

Cut it out, Ran: when, in the course of human events (like running a ranch), there comes a time when you have to entrust someone with a sharp object. Well, when you entrust certain people (like, say, Rancho Ran, who purposely doesn't chew gum if he's doing anything other than sitting down) with a new machete, you just never know what will happen. But, you can guess that it will be….interesting.

Certain things have to be done from time to time when you live on a ranch. One of those things is that you need to whack and cut things. About a week or so ago, along came this out-of-date papaya. To make all those wonderful black seeds more easily accessible for my Squawkin’ Squadron, it needed to be hacked in half. So…..Ol’ Ran just happened to have a brand spanking new $6.99 machete (a half-price closeout from “Tractor Supply”....closeouts are my friends) that needed a good breakin’ in.

What was amazing was that the dad-blamed thing was sharp (cheap machetes aren’t supposed to be sharp)! The papaya got whacked but so did my finger! Swell. Blood began to gush (I much prefer that my blood seep or trickle if there’s extra-venous flow at all). I don’t recall how many languages I employed to curse my stupidity but I have a strange feeling that it wasn’t a few.

Of course, it wasn’t my first time to see blood gushing from my body. Heck; I’m an expert by now (if you ask right polite, I’ll show you my batch of scars and stitches....sorry, I have no etchings or tattoos). I knew by the acute sting that it was a deep wound but I also knew that it was a clean incision. That meant that it wouldn’t take all that long to heal. Most likely, it'll probably take about as long as it would take to stop kicking myself for not paying attention. I'm going to try to miss the next shipment of stupid. 

It was a rather messy event, though. There was blood everywhere but on the saddle (all you Tex Ritter fans). I mean, there was blood on my hand, my arm, on my shirt, on the patio gate, all over the patio, the back security door, the back door, on the kitchen floor and then on and in the kitchen sink. By the time I got a compress on it, Connie thought that I had amputated my left leg. I told her, “Silly girl. If I had done that, I would have needed two compresses”.    

Being the farm gal that she is, rather than faint (guess she figured that, if I was making noise, I was probably OK), she helped me get things under control and made sure that there was an ample application of “Triple Antibiotic” (Wal-Mart, of course) to insure a sterile environment.

Despite things looking like a chainsaw massacre flick, the wound is healing well. It’s healing by secondary intent since I didn’t want to pay a couple of thousand dollars to rent a doctor for fifteen minutes, an ER for four hours or more, and to a own few stitches for a week. It will add a nice scar to my collection, though. Note to self: pay attention!

Princess Abbie Report: *SIGH*…on second thought….make that a pair of *SIGHS*. Just what do you do with a coon hound that wants to roust your chickens…..all…..day….long? You’d think that she’d be used to them invading her airspace and just make good friends of them. But, no; not my little doggie. She prefers perceiving the cluster of clucks as aliens from space or maybe opossums from the swamp. She stays jacked up all day long “protecting” her space with her hyper-coon-dogged-ness.

Granted, there’s not a lot for a chained up pooch to do all day. But, when I put her shock collar on and let her roam, she started corralling hens and making chewable Nerf balls out of them. That won’t work. I ended up with a crippled Rhode Island Red because of it so I’ll be looking for options on what to do about her freedom. 

The electric collar is set pretty tight but she can still go around front and closely by the sides of the house. I may just move her dog house out front and just let her bark and keep us up all night. I think I'll get Connie's vote, eh? Any bets on which way she'll vote? 

Of course, it’s only partly her fault. The stupid chickens get in her ranging area and she bounces them like a Jap Zero. I really don’t think she means to harm them. It’s just that they are just sooooooooo much fun to catch and play with.

You should have seen one hen who decided that she wasn’t going to be bullied! Abbie and the biddy were in a standoff with Abbie barking wildly at her. The hen actually did a banzai charge at Abbie which caught her off guard and she flinched backward. What a hoot! Abbie regained her regal composure and leaped back at the aggressor and the hen jumped out of the way only to re-attack and be repulsed again! After that attack, the hen beat a hasty retreat only to have Abbie grab a mouthful of her tail feathers. Not sure why, but the hen managed to slip out of the jaws that usually win tug of wars with Buicks and did so with all of her feathers intact. 

Varmint Report: we’re moving along in the rat suppression program. In fact, I just killed one tonight. I’m not a true hero, though. He was feeling mighty ill from eating some of the poison in the trap on the back porch. He was moving about one inch per hour when Connie found him and apprised me of his intrusion upon her domain. I grabbed the CO2 pistol and put him and Connie out of their respective misery. Connie the Canner doesn't do rats and believes that the only good rat is a dead rat; I obliged her post haste.

A couple of weeks ago, I covered the entire protected trash area with rat poison and it seems to be working. I’ve only seen a few rats in the coop since then but still pack my CO2 pistol just in case I need to expend 20 BB's and not hit anything. 

The next regimen will be flooding the fuzzer colonies with poison grain. If I have time, I may flood the holes with gasoline then stuff newspaper in the holes (probably a good idea to wear fire-retardant clothing to protect the retard who can't properly use a machete). 

I learned that trick from a retired commercial pilot who owned an orange orchard in Strathmore. I was his “go-fer” (you just know I had to do that) and helped him to employ his game plan (I don't recall anyone being blown up). I tried it in a hole next to the house and it seems to have worked. 

A plan that has been proven to work is parking all day in a hunting blind of some kind and bring a rifle of some sort to the game. One friend knocked off more than 30 fuzzers in one day using that method. Another friend advised that a friend of his whacked more than 20 with his pellet rifle as the squirrels sauntered within range. Sounds good to me! I just need.....a day off so I can get to whackin'! 

Chickenin' Report: Peep! Peep! Peep! Peep! Peep! That's how many new chicks we have! We had just parked our latest batch of rapidly growing chicks in the cage in the coop when friend and brother, Brian, called to advise that their neighbor caught more chicks. Of course, they're as cute as the previous bunch of fluff balls. 

Connie had remarked that she was glad that her dining room was chick free but now she's a "chicken granny" again. As usual, she just loves the little critters and can't wait to see what colors they will be when they fledge (other than the black ones). 

It won't be all that long and they'll be outside with the others and cranking out huevos like champions. Perhaps they'll teach the others since they aren't in production mode for now.  

There you have it: another episode of what’s happening at Rancho Relaxo, home of Rancho Ran, the world's foremost authority (the previous one died), Connie the Canner (world's greatest side-cook), where things can get…interesting, and where… you just never know.