Here's "Miss Peep". What a pretty birdie!! If you remember, she's the little presumptuous pullet who was standing on Connie's head in one of the previous postings.
Here are the first chicks hatched here at the ranch! You can see that two of them are related to Pedro. They are really pretty birds.
Here's "Duggin's Citrus Express" setting up for a private Thanksgiving gig. You can seem my vintage Fender "Precision" bass in the foreground. It was a nice time but the gals all thought it was a tad cool.
Ol' Singin' Ran at the private gig. I don't get a chance to wear a hat very often and this is the first time to wear my new black hat! Ain't she a beaut?!
Here's the band with leader, "Soozie Singer", belting out a tune. Talk about a "feed"!! They had grilled tri-tip steak and grilled chicken and all of the fixin's to boot!! By the time we kicked off the music, it was nap time!! We survived to play and sing another day. I've been singin' for my supper for a long long time. As long as they keep feedin' me, I'll keep pickin' and grinnin'.
Here's our pretty little burg in the fall time.
I grew up here and swam and fished a lot in the Tule River to the right of this picture and just down the hill a couple of blocks.
Great Caesar’s ghost! It’s
December! Boy! Doesn’t that just put snot in your pocket?! It seems like months
are arriving on a weekly basis. *SIGH*
Rancho report: can you
smell…BBQ (assuming that you can already spell it)? I finally broke down and
lit the fire under my grill. Though it was “Black Friday” (which of itself is a
grand reason to hook it up so you don’t get mistaken as one of the mindless
hordes mobbing the shopping centers), it was still used under duress. You
see, in California, if you don’t fire up your grill at least twice per year,
they throw you in jail for being stupid without a license (I’d rather go to
jail for aggravated moping than for that and I’m too cheap to pay the fee for
the license anyway).
As my ol’ grand pappy used to
say, “If you’re going to do something, do it up right”, so I did just that. I
broke out the bacon, the Ball Park franks, a chuck steak, hamburger patties,
and set of pork short ribs and torched off the grill. Then I lined the top
shelf of the rig with a row of spuds. Smoke was blowin’ in no time! The way I
figured it, no one would have to do much prep work for meals for a few days.
We’ll just be “heat n’ eat”.
You probably already know me
well enough to know that the bacon didn’t make it to the table. It never does.
You may just as well climb Mount Kilimanjaro as try to protect a pile of
grilled bacon from Ol’ Ran’s fangs. I think Connie stood waaaaay back when she
saw me breakin’ out the pork because I didn’t see her for a while. It probably wasn’t
safe what with the slingin’ of grill tools, gnashing of teeth, flingin’ elbows
and grease, and what all.
Few things can force a pallet
into ecstasy like grilled bacon. I’ve been doing that for years prior the
Internet making this discovery (you know, the old click bait title, “You will
never eat bacon the same way again after you tried this weird trick!”). The
first pound never made into the kitchen and the succeeding pounds haven't made it since. I suspect that I will
only behave myself if we have company.
If you ever want to treat
yourself or someone special to a marvelously delicious chunk of flavor, it’s
easy. Just grill up a pound of thick-sliced bacon (I recommend grilling two
pounds and you’ll know why after you do it….and you’ll be sorry if you don’t).
You’ll need to use one of those dollar store round or square/rectangular mesh
grilling trays, though. It beats fetching your slices back up from the bottom
(though it is worth the effort).
And, you’ll need to babysit
it as well since it cooks fairly quickly but it’s worth every second of the
wait. If you don’t, you risk turning a beautiful soul-pampering banquet into a
pile of greasy charcoal fit for the chickens (who will love you forever). Once
you’ve sampled this special treat, think it not strange that your tongue
will slap your face silly trying to get more!
Connie, ever the one for
moderation, sampled a taste and enjoyed it. I explained in great detail that,
if she wanted any more, she should weigh in now or there simply wouldn’t be
enough left to feed a starving bot fly. She snoozed and she loozed. I stuffed
myself with all of it and ended up with a wonderfully greasy smile on my mug.
Never a bacon monger, she stuck with the grilled hamburgers.
Wrestling the white elephant:
well….it wasn’t exactly an elephant. But, it was exactly white. To make a long
story longer: everyone knows about “Murphey’s Law”, right? But, not many folks
know about “Mrs. McGillicuddy's Law” that states: “When you are exhausted and
don’t have the strength to suck the guts out of a Fig Newton, something major
will happen that requires you to expend the strength of three wrestlers one of
which will be either Hulk Hogan, Sting, or Wahoo McDaniel”.
Just as the Ol’ Rancher was
settling in for the evening, Connie voiced a somewhat urgent
request over the walkie squawky radio. Her Maytag washer was coming on then
stopping. She would start it and it would run for a few seconds and then shut
down with a certain error message being presented. Great. It had been a long
day and there was no way that the “Computer Dude” was ready to doff his garb
and slip into a “Washer Repair Dude” costume and save
the day (I lost the cape anyway).
Connie the Canner, who was
already wearing her “Washer Woman” outfit, urgently (and I think somewhat
balefully) said, “I can’t finish my laundry!”. Well….it was the maid’s day off
so we just couldn’t let that happen, now could we? To save time, I forewent the
save-the-day apparel and just dug into the job wearing my “work clothes” (you
know: the plaid Wal-Mart bed pants and a T-shirt).
You would think that disassembling
a Maytag washer would be a rather daunting task. However, Once you’ve pulled every….single….piece….of
hardware out of a Toshiba laptop and replaced every…single…one…of them, you’re ready
for brain surgery without fainting or Google’ing.
I pulled apart the control unit at the top and
checked all of the wiring and hosed the area with my trusty dust blaster can of
compressed air. After re-assembling it, I pulled the back panel off and poked
around in there. After that, the agitator was unbuttoned and hoisted off and, lo and behold! There sat
someone’s coin collection! Once those little pests were removed everything was
glued back together and the machine was back to nominal operation. Hopefully,
the Maytag repairman will be lonely for a long long time.
Chickenin’ Report: no mas
Pedro. One of the things Ol’ Rancho Ran has discovered about chickenin’ is that
you just can’t outwit a stupid chicken. I had high hopes for Pedro but he just
didn’t get the memo that it isn’t safe for a chicken to spend the night outside
of the coop unless they are sporting an AR-15 or a bodyguard. He had neither so
he ended up being forcefully invited to dinner.
One of the recent changes
made was to round up the stray chickens at night so Abbie could be let free to
run. I put the shock collar on her and set her free. The idea was that she
would be loosed from her cable so that she can bark at the moon and whatever
spooks she desired in the front or back yards.
Knowing that my dog is the consummate
huntin’ dawg, I policed the entire area around the periphery where she would be
guarding (at night) looking for a low-lying pile of feathers. None were found.
But, the next morning, our little hard-headed (read: stupid) Pedro was found.
Actually, I should say most
of his larger parts were located. Some were not. It is highly likely that
Pedro, not having graduated at the head of his class, sauntered into Abbie’s
beat while she lay in wait for him to get close enough for an ambush (I’ve seen
her do exactly that in the past). Then, POW! Instant chicken dinner! Pedro was
no more. Abbie was gnawing on most of him when I got there in the morning.
*SIGH*.
The good news is that there
are a couple of new chickens that look almost exactly like Pedro. So, one of
them will be named “Pedro Dos” and the other “Poncho” (or “Ponchita” if it
turns out that it’s a pullet).
When you hang around Rancho
Relaxo long enough, you learn that there is almost always some circus act
happening at any given time. That’s what happened recently when a small cricket
was rounded up and tossed into the tub with the seven small chicks. The cricket
hit the floor and the fertilizer hit the ventilator! You could instantly tell
that this was not going to go the full twelve rounds. One of the chicks
snatched that thing before he could get his bearings. The chick ran with his booty and, when he did, the other chicks
turned into line backers and the game was on. Wait until you see seven chicks
sprinting all over the place just like the Keystone Cops and ricocheting off
both ends of a plastic tub at mach one! It was hard to contain the laughter so
I didn’t. Chicks – 1; Cricket – 0.
The next day we had another circus
act similar to the first one. When it was time to empty the compost barrels
(next to the coop), I knew there would be all kinds of bugs hiding there. After
a few “Here, chick, chick, chick’s”, the first barrel was rolled back. You
should have seen the bugs scatter and the chickens go wild! They were scratching
and flinging dirt and gravel everywhere! The bugs didn’t stand a chance. For a
couple of minutes, it was almost a “hard hat and safety glasses” area. My girls
mercilessly and indiscriminately harvested the insects. There was no place to
hide since the chickens got their scratch on and ferreted all of them out. That
same thing happened with the next two barrels until the bug fest was over with
and our hens were satisfied happy hunters.
One and only one pullet was
released from the in-coop cage to see if they are ready for the real world. She
was accepted without much ado other than the usual “pecking order” being
continually being re-established. The little bird is pretty quick on its toes
and managed to stay out of major tiffs with the older biddies. Soon, she’ll be
close to the top of the game and ready to bully other birds. Unlike one of the
previous pullets, she came back in to the coop at dusk without issues.
Update:
since the little bird did fare well, two other little ones were let out to fend
for themselves. There are yet two slightly smaller all-white birds (though the
same age) that will be cut loose in a few days when the time is right. So far, so
good. Update: the other birds were set free and they are doing great and are
coming back into the coop at night and I don’t have to hunt them down! Am I
happy about that? Is the Cookie Monster fast friends with Famous Amos?!
The other older pullet still
tries to stay out of the coop at night. I just wait for darkness and then pluck
her from her roost next to the coop and plop her in with the others. She’s your
basic slow learner, I guess. Update: she just started going into the coop at
night. Update: she parked outside again tonight. This is the last night for
free ranging so she and the others won’t be let out much until warmer weather.
No more chicken hunting.
There are two other smaller white
birds that need to obey the rules and come home at night. When the coop dries
out in a few days (another story for another time...*SIGH*), my big beautiful biddies
that are all fattened up for the winter, will be locked in and no longer
allowed to free range. Then, I can trap the little guys and put them in with
the other birds. Next spring (or at least in a few weeks), they will be allowed
to free range again and we’ll see if they will return to their coop at night. I’ll need to snatch one of them from its perch
in the tree out back. The other one is probably nearby but she’s playing
hide-and-seek for now.
Update: With all of the
clucking but no laying happening, there was a temptation to think that we now
had a magpie farm. What we did was to do a test run by keeping them in the coop
for a couple of days to see if it would make a difference. In only a couple of
days, a few of our girls started working again and we had a half a dozen eggs each
of the two days. There is much hope that that number will increase to four
dozen or more per day. I had to let them back out, though, due to another flood
in the coop. Like I said, that tale will be preserved for a later date.
Connie’s kitchen smells like
a chicken coop so, the other day, the little chicks got their first day in the
sunlight. That’s one of the reasons we have the orange coop; it’s so we would
have options (options are our friends). They loved it and we loved it that they
loved it. It’s all about love around here so that works for us.
Today they even got to sample
chicken scratch in addition to their normal chick starter crumble feed. Since
they can get to some grit, they can digest the scratch. Yes, perhaps we can
re-start the dormant fermented scratch regimen again for the little ones. How
soon? Probably as soon as we can get a …..day off to deal with it, I suppose.
If you are solely relying on regular TV for entertainment, I truly feel sorry for you! You simply must
switch to “Chicken TV”! There’s nothing like watching chicks to brighten your
day. For instance, toss some slices of unused toast or bread out in the middle
of some chickens. You are about to experience a hoot and holler! It’s particularly peaceful in the late
afternoon prior to them getting ready to retire. Not sure why but it seems to
work that way.
Turkey Day at the Ranch: boy!
Did we do a whole lot of nothing on Thanksgiving day! We had already had turkey
at the church potluck so were content with not having any more that day. So, we
just lolled around and rested a bit. We still had the usual chores but we went
absolutely nowhere! You’d have thought that someone had padlocked the doors! We
loved it!
Not stuffing yourself also
means that there’s no post prandial fatigue with which to deal. We didn’t end
up with a stuffed turkey (hmmmmm…wonder just how should we interpret that?).
This is good, at least for me, since a turkey feast usually acts just like
Kryptonite does for Superman when I’m full.
Rat and Other Varmint Patrol
Report: well…something must be working. The rat population has dwindled down to
a very wonderfully few of the buggers. I think it was the poison bait that did
the trick. In any case, they are not swarming the coop as they once did. I’ll
be elated when the last of them has left the property.
The pocket gophers have not
taken over yet but they a starting to feel so comfortable here that their
putting up “room for rent” signs around their holes. We’re hoping the neighbor’s
gophers don’t notice.
When I was a teenager (boy! Has
that been awhile!), I worked in an orange
grove in Strathmore for the airport manager, Vernon Baird (I was practicing to
be an ol’ rancher some day and didn’t know it). He poured gasoline into the
gopher holes then stuffed newspaper in the hole. It seemed to work but I hadn’t
remembered it until now. Since gas has been right cheap lately (note: CA just
added a dollar per gallon tax!!) and
since the Ol’ Rancher is rather concerned about the matter, that tactic was
implemented. So far, it seems to be effective. If it does work, I’ll re-fuel
and start in on the front yard.
However, I’ve had about as
much luck diminishing the fuzzer population as a one-eyed one-armed Eskimo
hunting for seals. One hope is try the gas attack used on the gophers. However,
their holes are usually too large to stuff with anything smaller than a twin bed
mattress. Well, OK….maybe not quite that large. But, they are fairly big and Ol’
Ran will be looking for options (have I mentioned that options are my
friends?).
I can boast of taking one brown
pelt the other day. On a whim, I grabbed the ol’ “Critter Gitter” Ruger 10/22
and eased out the back door onto the patio. To my great delight, I spotted a
mangy varmint primping in the shade of my pole barn. The top rail of our patio
enclosure is where Connie the Canner mounts her flower boxes and guess what?
They make for a great gun rest! How convenient, eh? Slowly I turned, step by
step, and eased the Ruger onto one of the boxes and took careful aim (my un-careful
aiming has not done well for me so far).
When I eased into the 2.5 pound trigger pull (yep. It has the kit) the .22 caliber 38gr copper-plated
bullet was launched out of the end of the barrel at a satisfying 1260 fpm. In
only 0.15 seconds, the fat, dumb, and happy preening rodent was lying flat on
the ground. Ah, but I saw him moving. So, to end the threat of being faked out
(oh yes! They do that!) and me being made a mockery of (again), I launched two
more rounds his way and he stopped his moving. But, I thought I saw him
twitching. So, I launched a couple of more hollow points at him. Then, I was pretty
sure he made a quivering motion and that meant two more slugs were tossed his
way. Reckon he was dead.
The way I figure (Jethro
Bodine taught me how to figure and do a bit of ciphering), it was well worth the
40 cents worth of ammo to rid Rancho Relaxo of at least one brown bane and purchase
a small slice of victory (I’d have spent a lot more to save face, don’tcha
know).
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.
