This is Spats Domino, the rude rooster with a 'tude. The little bantam acts like he's nine times as tall as he is. I love his effrontery and grit. He won't back down from anybody and protects his little black hen with all fierceness. Isn't he a handsome little guy? That's probably why he crows a lot.
Oh, deer! This young buck sneaked into the back yard for reasons unknown to me. But, my guess is that my apple tree is missing a few apples. Abbie was going wild but was tethered so couldn't do the huntin' dawg part. I always check on her when I hear her all jacked up and this was what I found. It wasn't scared of Abbie at all. He left for awhile but came back, hung around for a bit, then trotted off to the neighbor's place to the east.
It’s
October! Doesn’t that just make your double bass reflex sub-woofer resonate? Only 83 days until Christmas! *SIGH*
Rancho Relaxo Report: we’re still flying low here at
the rancho: lots to do and we seem to always be short on time and shorthanded. Not
that I wish that I had an extra couple of appendages hanging about my aged
airframe. But, it would be nice if I had a some grand-kiddies on the property to
who some of the “mule work” could be delegated.
We do have, after all, about 15
able-bodied grand-youngin’s as I recall. My personal beasts of burden seem to be
getting smaller as I age. They’ve gone from an ox, to a mule, to the colt of a small ass (I'm hopin' he's one of the smart ones). Reckon
I’ll soon be down to a pack rat. Show me the kiddies!
Chickenin’ Report: our five birdy buddies are doing
well. We get just enough eggs to keep the ranch hands satisfied but that’s
about all. Connie stores the few extras in a process called “water glassing”
which uses quick lime and water in five gallon bucket. It stores the eggs for
up to a year (that’s no joke or boast). In any event, there are always enough
cackle fruit to have a really nice big breakfast now and again.
At dusk, three of the silly birds have picked up a
habit of parking on the portable chicken cage that’s being overhauled. It’s near
the coop and next to some bales of hay. That means that we-know-who has to go
collect them and put them in the coop when it’s dark.
It’s easy enough to cart them off but there is the
fact of having to take time to fool with them. Besides, I’m getting much better
at my “Chickenese” so I don’t scare them when I come for them (but, I’m sure
they can still detect an accent). They sit still and let me capture them
without a fuss. They must know that I’m the ruler of the roost.
Gimme some skin…..pig skin that is! If we’re going
to talk about eggs for breakfast, lets include some pork! Somewhat recently, the Ol’ Rancher stumbled into a recipe for “Buckboard Bacon” and had
to copy it down. How could you not be tempted by that!
The guy in the video started with a pork shoulder.
He cured it, smoked it, then sliced and cooked it. By the time I got to the end
of the recipe, I was on my way to the freezer to grab one of our pork shoulders!
First, you have to trim the fat off. This means that
you have this gorgeous large piece of fat that is just begging to be rendered
into “chicharrones” and cooking lard! These are nothing like the store-bought
snack. They are far superior and they’re fresh and hot! And, few things compare
to “taters” fried in homemade lard!
They render in only about three hours (in the oven) so
I was quite ready to enjoy those tasty, fresh, salted, chunks! Oh, man! Talk
about good stuff! I had to sneak into them mucho slowly since they are rather
calorie laden. I roughly calculated that there are 3,378.6758 calories per mouthful.
There are no plans to do this on a regular basis. But, boy, howdy! What a
delicious crunchy and melt-in-your-mouth treat to enjoy once in a while!
Side note: I used to could eat anything and
everything all day long (and did!) and could not gain weight. For a while,
there was a time I couldn’t wait to reach the wonderful goal of 185 pounds.
Given that I weighed in at 163 pounds for my physical at the military induction
center in Fresno (1Y – women and children first….actually, in case of a
national emergency only but I still felt rejected), I reckon I hoped to feel
like a real man when I hit that number.
Guess what? I still have that same goal! However,
things have changed and the goal is to get back down to that weight! It’s
getting much harder, though! My BMR and has swung another direction! It’s
almost like it isn’t working! We drove by a “Home Town Buffet” the other day
and my scales at home flinched! *SIGH*.
Moving along…..the next step is to de-bone the meat
then rub it down with a mixture of salt and “Prague Salt” (which is salt that contains 6.25% sodium nitrite which is
used in curing meats). Then, you shove it into a large zip-loc bag and toss it
into the fridge. Daily, for ten days, you take out the bag and massage the salt
into the pork (through the bag).
At the end of that
time, you fire up the smoker and configure it however you desire. I used
mesquite wood chips and mesquite charcoal and am glad I did but will experiment
next time. After smoking it for several hours, you can then store it or slice
and store it. I simply returned it to the fridge and waited until morning to
try more than a nibble.
The next day, it was
breakfast time (brunch, actually)! I hacked some off some thick slices and
cooked them in my new 10” heavy-bottom stainless steel professional sauté pan
(7 bucks at a yard sale! Zowie!). For the hash browns, the 12” “Wolfgang Puck” heavy-bottom
stainless steel fry pan was fired up (ten bucks at a yard sale! Ziggity!). For
eggs (lookin’ at’cha), a smaller 8” non-stick “Rachel Ray” fry pan is used (a birthday
gift for Connie via Amazon). Add toast and dig in!
It was love at first
bite! Unsurprisingly, the “bacon” had the taste and texture of wonderfully-smoked
ham and was just plain great! I’m now one of its biggest fans! Buckboard
bacon.....Smokin’!
Speaking of food….can you spell, “Kimchee”? When
you have as much time on your hands like I do, you just have to reach out and put
some of it to good use once in a while. One particular Monday, we found
ourselves awash in veggies so Ol’ Ran decided to do just that and made them meal worthy.
Since there was a ton of (free) Napa cabbage on hand
along with a huge (free) daikon radish and bunches of (free) carrots available,
he couldn’t think of a good reason not to brew up some (free) kimchee in his
newly acquired earthen ware crock (another yard sale treasure at three bucks!).
It didn’t take long at all: just a few chops of the cabbage and carrots with
the like-new Ginsu Gourmet Chikara Series whacker knife (one dollar at a….yard
sale and 16.99 on Amazon) and a bit of shredding the radish with a ceramic peeler
(a gift from a friend who thought it was super and it is) and, bingo! We have fresh kimchee makings. I don't mean to sound like a heap o' cheap but "free" is my friend!
Any good Korean will then fill up the crock with a
saline solution, ginger, and lots of red pepper flakes. I must be a bad Korean
since I didn’t use pepper flakes this time but will add them as I go (Connie
isn’t into heat: says she has a “pansy mouth”).
Ten days later, we had our version of kimchee. It’s
not bad for free stuff! There’s another recipe that will be implemented next
time around. It has other ingredients in it I like (e.g. fish sauce, scallions,
and oyster sauce). I’ll probably heat this one up.
Fuzzer
Report: the other day, later in the afternoon and prior to
dusk, as I was on the patio readying some stuff for the yard sale, the
temperature started to cool down somewhat. That probably triggered some sort of
instinct with our local fuzzer population because they were on the move.
That said, a very brave ground squirrel was noticed
as he mindlessly wended his way alongside the barn (not the first fuzzer to suffer the consequence for this exact mindless maneuver). Ol’ Dull Eye Ran slipped in
the back door and grabbed the patiently waiting .22 caliber “fuzzer buster” and got down to
business.
Using the patio railing as a rest, Ol’ DE sighted in
the varmint and squeezed off a 5 cent hollow point warrior. After a satisfying
“CRACK” from my lead slinging contraption, the fuzzy plunderer lay still.
Thinking that there may be other potential hole
diggers and garden thieves scampering about, I slowly headed out toward the
pole barn. Yep….another fuzzer was spotted as he slinked around the back of the
barn. That left me with a shoulder shot but I missed even though he was close
enough to kill with a rock.
Not to be dissuaded by my perceived lack of
proficiency, the original stalking strategy was renewed. Approaching the rear
of the pole barn, and as I stood with amazement, there was the escaped varmint
sneaking around the backside! This time I had the rail of the pole barn on
which to lean and take aim at a target that was only 40 feet away! One quick
“BAM!” and it was “game over”.
Much to my surprise, yet another squirrel rounded
the compost pile about 30 yards beyond the pole barn. Still leaning on the
rail, a second rifle report insured a third squirrel funeral.
It must have been just the right temperature for the
entire crew of foragers to come out. As soon as I got back to the patio, a
casual glance toward the pole barn revealed yet another brown rodent parked at
the rear! Since he was stupid enough to sit still while I took careful aim, I
reckoned that I was obligated to take him out. A fourth transonic Pb projectile
found its mark (note: supersonic begins beyond 1.2 Mach. A .22 LR projectile
travels at roughly 1.12 Mach).
Immediately, I remembered that I had sighted in my
rifle at about 100 yards which was right at where the last varmint was scored.
That explained why, though the second squirrel was sighted “dead center” and close enough to examine his earwax with the scope, I shot
low and missed the bugger. Silly me. It’s been awhile
but I recall shooting “one shot, one kill” (more than once) at 150 yards (which
is at the back of the orange trees at the north edge of the rancho).
So, that made four dead fuzzers and that was a
record for one day’s hunting. We invited the local carrion eaters over for a
buffet. They didn’t hesitate.
We’ve been preparing for the huge yard sale during
the “Springville Apple Festival”, Oct. 19th – 21st . That calls for
an almost incomprehensible amount of work to be completed in less than three
weeks. There is just so much stuff that has to be cleaned, sorted, priced, and
stored that it is even funny. It’s almost overwhelming and that doesn’t even
include the yard work to prepare for the hordes. Some of the goodies are
already prepped and stored at our hangar and some are stored in the barn and
inside “Heffalump”, the big trailer.
You should have seen the Ol’ Rancher the other day. There
was all kinds of stuff being hauled out of the barn, placed on a large table,
cleaned, and priced. After a few hours of sorting and pricing and hosing stuff
down with water and/or gasoline in the heat, Rancho Ran was a sweaty tired mess;
time to call it a day.
My alter ego was uncomfortable with having so many dirty
sweaty clothes on and was getting fussy. Captain Underpants is like that some days
but mostly during the hot weather when it feels like his garments have been
applied with a hot glue gun. The selfie Murphy just won’t work for him.
After suffering much of his whining, I felt compelled to give in and
let him get comfortable. He has always been a very persuasive fellow so I don’t
win many arguments. After a nice long shower, it was time to work on computer
stuff and such upstairs in the salt mine…and in much comfort (is not having a
style a style?).
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) and Connie the Canner (world's greatest side-cook):
where the air smells like a giant hot bowl of soup: where things can
get...interesting and where...you just never know.
