Rancho Sigue Mucho Trabajo Siempre

Heeeeeeeeere, chick, chick, chick! They DO come a'runnin' when the ol' chicken dude calls! Here's a few of the ladies and Roo gettin' down on their morning grits.

Here's a shot of the nearby Black Mountain. The next day the snow covered the mountain to the bottom (below).

This is a shot of "Country Friends" playing at the Elks Club in P'ville. This the next-to-the-last gig with them. Kirby couldn't make the gig so Randy Fowler (a great guitar player) is playing drums. I didn't know that about him but should have guessed! Porterville's got talent!

This is the last gig with them. Jim McCartney will be playing lead in my place. He's a an excellent picker so it should work out well.

Here's the cake that Dee and Chuck presented to yours truly at the last gig with them at Golden Hills.I love edible gifts, don't you?!

To the left is Caleb Melo, a fine young man and great
steel and lead guitar picker! He's....18 years old!
Have I mentioned that Porterville's got talent?! This is Friday, Dec. 6th at the Springville Inn and will be my last gig with "Duggins Citrus Express Band".

Caleb and his father, Paul Melo,  our drummer, have a few numbers that they play together. So, Ol' Ran was on the drums keeping time for them.

Here's the band for the night. Left to right: Jim Duggins (lead guitar), Paul Melo (drums), Susan (Sooz) Newsome (lead vocalist), Randy Minnick (bass and vocalist), Caleb Melo (steel guitar behind Sooz).

                                                     This is Chuck McGuire from the "Country

                                                      Friends" band sitting in with us. Ol' Ran is

                                                      playing rhythm on Paul's acoustic guitar. 

Ol' Ran the Bassman back at the helm of his late-70's Fender Precision bass. This has always been my "go to" bass. I love this big beauty! The only bass I love more is the fretless Precision bass. I've only seen and played one and it belonged to a friend of mine. It's still in his family as far as I know.

Most folks have run across a double-yolked egg but even Connie and I were amazed when she cut open a hard-boiled egg and found this!

This shows that it's not a "work day" for Princess Abby. It's her day off so she's showing us that warm sun and naps are her friends!

 

Here's the new drone pilot's certificate. I had no such plans to obtain one but certain events lead to getting it. It looks to be a profitable matter. Profit if my friend. Everyone now knows my middle name, too!








Well…..here we are again at the all-too-quickly-used-up end of a perfectly good year. Doesn’t that just sink your rubber duckie?  MAN! I’m not sure that it’s been even a year since I’ve seen a year go by this fast! 2019 whizzed on by quicker than you can dust your horse blanket! 

And, Christmas is just around the corner! Only 1,468,800 seconds until Christmas! Do you know where your Visa card is?!

Cleaning Up: let me tell you, neighbors; this time around, the cleanup for the annual yard sale was an entirely different armadillo. Usually, in about a week or so, we are all tidied up and ready to depart the ranch and head out for a grueling time of long distance travel. That didn’t happen this year. In fact, we weren't sure that we would even be finished cleaning up by the end of this year! Sheese!

It’s not that we are lazy or such (we don’t have time to do even that!). It’s just that, almost simultaneously, there were so many other priorities assailing us. That’s really not a complaint! I’m not sure if anyone can believe it but we were so busy being blessed that we didn’t have time to finish cleaning up!! I kid thee negative! Every time we turned around someone was giving us tons of stuff (we're still inventorying it!)!  

We hauled trailer load after trailer load of good stuff back to the ranch and did the best we could to find a place to store it. Most of it is at the hangar awaiting our attention while other goodies are local. Some will be cleaned and priced for next year’s yard sale while other things will be given away or sold. There are items that could end up on Craig’s List or eBay so we’ll be checking that out, too. 

However, after all this work, there’s still a chance we may not be as deeply involve in next year's yard sale. Perhaps we will just supervise and watch other sell their wares. It's a bit early to tell. 

Anyway, it took until the third week in November to finally get straightened up around here. Even then, we were solely motivated by the fact that we had rain coming in. There were only a couple of days to work with until things were going to get sloshed so we had to put a hustle in our bustle. Do you know just how much hustle two old people have on hand at any given time? We used up a year's supply of hustle in two days! I turn again to my pal,  Charlie Brown, for comment: AAAAAAARGH! 

In those two days, we racked, stacked, packed, and parked, covered, and tarped everything we could in every available place we could find. The Rancho Relaxo twins stuffed all of their blessings in two trailers, the pole barn, the back patio, the barn, the upstairs living room, and the hangar!

At the end of the second day, two really really exhausted old people tumbled into two craters in the bed. The next day, they could hardly even move. You would have thought that both of us were 90 years old or more. It took two weeks to reasonably recover from that track and field event and we’re still a bit goofy yet! Thankfully, “Uncle Bo” (Ibuprophen) was an ever present help in time of need….which was often (PRN).

Droning away: an interesting thing happened on the way to pick up a three trailer loads of free goodies. The guy who gave us what seemed like all of his worldly possessions (actually he only gave us the things that were over the weight limit stipulated by the moving company) is selling his home. A nice real estate agent just happened to be there during one of the trips. So, Ol Curious George asked her if her company used drones to take pictures with. She answered affirmatively but that they no longer had a drone pilot. Well, says the curious one, “I’m a licensed aircraft pilot with a good eye for photography. What do you think if I acquired my drone pilot’s certification?”. She basically stated that she would assure me all the work that she and 50 other agents could throw at me! Guess what? I wasn’t about to duck that proposition! 

Not having looked into the matter before, I was hoping that becoming a drone pilot had a learning curve at least slightly less than qualifying to fly an SR-71. I was right. The old wing nut looked up the qualifications on the FAA’s website and was almost stunned to see how easy this was going to be.

There are two parts to the the matter: training and exam. One is basic airman’s knowledge of weather and aerodynamics. The other was simply “Part 107 Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems” rules and regs. Well, hang on to your old grey bonnet, Lil Liza Jane! Because I already have a valid airman’s certificate (the technical term for “pilot’s license”), the FAA waived the first part altogether! Zowie! That left me with only about 30 minutes of studying the rules and regs. Then, after an open book 35 question test, I printed out the official drone pilot’s certification!  Now,  I are one! Whoooooooo, doggies!!

I looked around quite a bit to find what I thought would be the best dollar value in a drone. The one that should fit the bill is a “Holy Stone HS120D GPS Drone with Camera”. It came in the mail a week ago but (when you see a “but”….this is where things get.… interesting. "Buts" are not our friends)... I don’t have a “smart phone” (the dumb phone has served me quite well, thank you). To see where you are going while you are flying the drone, you need a smart phone.

The Smart Thing To Do: ooookay. I promptly ordered a refurbished iPhone from “Best Buy” for a “C-Note”. However, I am expecting a lot of media attention and huge prize for being the last person in California to own a smart phone. That should compensate for that expenditure. At least the kids and grandkids will no longer be ashamed of some of their old Luddite kinfolks and they’ll no longer drop hints about us living in the stone age (surely they knew that we were there when the “Flintstones” debuted on TV in 1960....BC).  

Once all of these things get glued together, there should be another income stream around the ranch (I’m hoping it will always be overflowing its banks!).

Dinner and a movie: we finally got a….day off! I could have sworn that I heard angels clapping and bells ringing! Well, just what do old people do for R&R? I reckon it’s what they did when they weren’t old. They go out for dinner and a movie, that’s what!

Rancho Ran and Connie the Canner have fairly simple tastes (read: we’re both cheap dates) so dinner was easy enough. We went to the “Olive Garden” in Visalia (the nearest real town) and knocked over their all you can eat soup and salad special. If you consider all things, it was actually less than taking a couple of grand-kids to McDonald's! 

Their spicy Italian sausage soup with hot bread is my favorite and I proved it to them. I think the poor waitress was worn out by the time we left. If she wasn’t worn out, her tennis shoes surely were. We left a decent tip so she wouldn’t think that we were there solely to brutalize the staff.

The movie was one of the few historical movies I thought would be worth watching: “Midway”. As someone who loves WW2 history, I couldn’t wait to see the CGI and also just how closely to history the script would follow.

As expected, the movie was actually pretty good. It did follow the historical timeline quite well. But, if you were not really well acquainted with the history of the “Battle of Midway”, you are sure to get lost on who was doing what to whom as well as when, where, and why.

Other than the CGI being a bit over the top (it was unrealistic, which I fully expected), the action was realistically dramatic. I really enjoyed the flick and only caught a minor flaw in their Japanese aircraft attack (i.e. they included a specific airplane for the attack on Pearl Harbor that wasn't actually used at that time). I did some research later and must commend the producers for having a top notch cast. The acting was superb because the casting was superb. Also appreciated was seeing some humanity added to the enemy combatants. This film was really well done.

Good gravy!: after all of the frolicking on our day off, Thanksgiving Day pounced upon us. That turned out to be….interesting…..too. We had invited two guests to join us and, after the ever-busy Connie made preparations for the large meal, neither guest was able to make it! So, being the two rather adaptable old people that we are, we just decided to relax, feast on our nice dinner, and have a quiet and peaceful time of it. 

To make a long story longer, Connie swamped the table with every imaginable edible including grannie’s good gravy. The T-bird ended up perfectly cooked so we went to town dismembering it. All that was left to do was to fill our plates. I always dig in good sized shovel but usually just scoop out Connie’s mashed potatoes with a backhoe. Being at the top of the food chain has its perks and mashed potatoes and gravy has got to be one of the best of them.

The philosophy for such a supremely nice day was simple enough: "gobble ‘till you wobble then take a nap". We did just that. It was also decided to retire early so there would be enough gas in our tanks to be able to face the morrow. 

Princess Abby Report: did you know that, if you replace one letter in “coon dog”, you have “corn dog”? Did you know that Abby doesn’t mind if I call her my “corn dog”? Now, that, folks, is loyalty, eh?

Abby, the “I leave my owner in constant wonder” dog, is doing great! She’s thriving and happy. When she’s not racing about the ranch, she’s rousting my birds. She receives a good scolding for that. She must think they are play toys from God, or something. At least she doesn’t bring one to me in her mouth expecting praise for her great hunting prowess (yes…that did happen a couple of years ago. Thankfully, the catatonic hen recovered).

I’m still not sure why she still gets treated like a princess, though. Despite “her naughtiness” moods, there’s a never ending supply of doggie treats, tug o’ wars, and petting and scratching. Guess it’s called puppy love or such.  

To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump: every now and again we have to load up Wooly Pulley and head to the local dump. It’s actually a “transfer station” since it has been decommissioned by the county. They park a couple of huge containers at the bottom of an embankment and you back up them. You then unload and go about your business.

Well, that’s easy enough to say, eh? Ah, yes; but this is Rancho Relaxo and not everything is as easy as it sounds. For instance, it really is a chore when the trash man is already plumb tuckered out and three naps behind. But, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do and this man’s gotta go to the dump.

Some of the chore is prepping the trailer. In this case, it had to be unloaded so that we could re-load it (not unlike a Chinese fire drill). Then you deal with hooking up the trailer. Usually, the trailers are chocked with jack stands so they won’t sneak off without permission. All of the chocks have to be removed along with the jack stands. Once hooked up (which requires more lifting and tugging), then you back up the trailer to the trash cage and begin loading (which is just all kinds of fun when you're already wrecked). After the trailer is loaded, you must cover/tarp the thing or the dump manager will charge you an extra ten bucks for being stupid enough to scatter your garbage all over Tulare county.

When you get to the dump, things are fairly easy. You just back up to the embankment, shove and toss stuff into the large containers, sweep up after yourself, toss the brooms and cans back into the trailer, then go home and park and chock the trailer and unhook it. There was no nap after this go around. Not enough time. UGH.

Gallus Gallus Domesticus Report: the ol' rooster wrangler is proud of himself. He's getting pretty good at the basics of herding chickens again without killing some of them. But, you just never know what’s going to happen when you’re dealing with dumb clucks.

The other day (when lots of things happen around here), the ol’ chicken dude decided to pull the large cage out of the coop. Since we no longer have younger birds, it was decided that it should be out of the coop. The cage, you may recall, is the confine in which we keep the younger birds while they mature enough to be introduced into the general population. It’s also where all 15 birds have elected roost for the night.

So, imagine what happened when the cage was no longer available? Do you think that my dirty birds had the brains to consider walking only a little further back into the coop where three really nice roosting racks were parked? Nope? Then, it should come as no shock that, when the ol’ bird herder went out to shut the door on the coop, there were only two birds in the coop! That there was a real “ding-a-dang” moment!

What before my two old eyes should appear but 13 birds roosting here and there. Some were on the ground and some on the bales. Some were on the barrels but most were on the….CAGE….which was next to the dog house! Charlie Brown had it right when he hollered, “RATS!”. My lightning fast mind dryly advised, “That was brilliant, Ran”.

It was time to start wrangling the feather brained beasts so they wouldn’t drown in the rain that was coming that night. The good news is that they were in their evening “chicken torpor” so were easy to catch and replant.

What you do is pleasantly engage them by speaking chickenese so they know you’re a “friendly”. Then you slowly and gently but firmly grip them and began to speak good things to them about their mother (we all know that mother hens are held in high regard). A few more clucks and a few strokes of their feathers and they settle down for the trip to the new perch. I had to do that 13 times. *SIGH*.

Of course, that meant that the cage had to be moved further away and laid down so that the my gooney bird collection wouldn’t try to mount it again. That worked for exactly…one day.

The next night, they weren’t to be found on the cage. Instead, they were scattered all over the place again! That meant another round of rounding up chickens in the dark. Out-thunk by the chickens again. Swell!

Well, Ol’ Captain Jean-Luc Retard had an answer to this pluck-a-cluck mess. The birds were all safely locked up for the night. Instead of being released in the mornings, they are being kept there for a few days until their “clock” is reset and they understand that they are to go inside the coop instead of parking out in the rain (reckon their mother hen forgot to train them to do that).

There you have it: another short episode of the long happenings at Rancho Relaxo, home of Rancho Ran, the world's foremost authority (the previous one died) and Connie the Canner, the world's greatest side-cook (a Freudian slip as she stumbled trying to say "side-kick"): where the air smells like sweat and elbow grease: where things can get...interesting and where...you just never know. Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. 

Rancho Sell-o Mucho

Here's a shot of a really handy gadget. This is Quatro, our 250cc Honda quad-ATV and latest addition to the rancho tool collection. One of our clients passed away and his widow gave it to us. She's about a puller, let me tell you! She's hooked to Woolly Pully which has a load of goods for the yard sale.

This is early Thursday evening prior to the Friday 8AM kick off. Everyone is tidied up and ready to go! There was a slight chance of rain which is why the canopies were hunkered down.

Here's Abby, the official yard sale greeter. She did just exactly that and had a great time! She's just doing a little bit of eyeball patrolling from a position of rest at this time. A good coon dog has to conserve energy, don'tcha know.









Below and to the right are a few shots of the stuff we are setting up. We had 25 tables out this year!

All of this is our stuff and there's more that you can't see!! 

To the right is Leanne's goods. She owns all four
canopies in the picture. We even have a saddle maker from Montana down at the end of the row near the road!









                                                                                                                                                          Looking north from the middle of the driveway and toward the house. In the background is some of our goodies. We sold a lot of stuff! But, we also bought a few things! Things are our friends!

This is the "Duggins Citrus Express" band playing a gig at Fountain Springs. They recently remodeled the place and we were part of the kick off celebration. It used to be "El Tapatio" (same El Tap chain as in P'ville). The place really looks great now! Ol' Bass Man Ran is on the end. I play lead guitar for another band a couple of times per month at "Golden Hills" in P'ville. It helps to keep the rust off the old fingers.

Well...it's November 2019! Doesn't that make you want to hock your Barbie Doll Collection?! And, it's only a few weeks until Christmas and the Ol' Rancher is still working on getting ready for last spring! That just burns my cheesy grits. Moving along.....

Hello, Sell-o!: we just finished the big yard sale. Man!! Talk about being BEAT! We can hardly move! By the time we got to bed on Sunday night, we didn't have the strength to fluff our pillows. We just fell down on the bed, made two craters, and slept in them until sometime the next morning.

More than two weeks after ending, we are still not finished packing up stuff and moving it out of the way! That has never happened before! Usually, we're cleaned up and gone in less than two weeks and down the road for a vacation. Here we are three weeks later and still have a lot of cleanup to do! We're mighty close to going full Hawaiian and changing the name of the place to "Rancho Gonna-Take-A-Nappa". Hand me a flowery print shirt and pass the pineapples, please!

We did well again this year so I suspect that the extra income will provide a reasonable salve to our joints, muscles, teeth, eyeballs, brains, backs, and depleted souls. Let us hope so; the tanks are empty.

There's a reasonable expectation that we may be able to take some time off this spring (if the old people aren't busy cleaning). However, we may yet defer from that if we aren't fully recovered and don't feel like we can handle the task. This is also to say that, because of the extreme taxation of the old folks, we decided not to go on vacation this year at all. There simply wasn't enough spizzerinctum left to even mop our sweaty brows. But, we do miss the kids and grand-cuties and all. So, we'll see. 

This actually may be the last year that we do anything but supervise. As much fun as it is, it's still a tremendous work load for three or even four weeks in a row; that takes a lot of helium out of your blimp, let me tell you! I think that next year we will probably provide the pulled pork and coffee, haul out the lounge chairs, and just take pictures of the event. 

Rancho Buy-O: this gigantic sale is also a great place for the sellers to pick up a few super deals. This year, I picked up a like-new $300+ pallet jack for 150 dollars. That'll come in handy for moving the big dog house and the big chicken coop that have sat in one place for far too long. And, I just picked up a dozen FREE pallets so I can now shuffle pallets around during my free time, eh? I've been needing a pallet jack for a long time and now there's one on hand! 

Then, I got more than 500 dollars worth of camping equipment including a NIB (new in the box) dual burner Coleman stove and another NIB single burner stove along with a number of fuel bottles that go with them. There were two more used (but in good shape) dual-burner stoves and two more used smaller single-burner stoves with propane bottles. Add to that a new small propane lantern, a large bundle of new tent stakes, a fold-able camping saber saw, two new small flashlights, a new small battery powered lantern ,and a Shakespeare open face ultra-light spin cast rig. One cool item was a new portable camping shower. That could come in handy but I still prefer a dip in the creek. The entire tab was...hang on to your new Easter bonnet, Aunt Bea.....30 dollars!  I was so excited I was fumbling my fricatives! I need a day off so I can go camping!

The next day was also a great day for fabulous deals. I picked up a NIB $250.00 39cc motor and hardware kit to convert a bicycle to a moped. Price? 50 dollars! Love it! I'll use it on my standard size red and white Schwinn (NEW for 60.00 at a yard sale). I have two 50cc motors and conversion kits for a bikes but I need the bigger cruiser beach bikes since these are too much power for a standard bike.The new moped will make a great mate for the blue and white Schwinn Meridian Honda powered "Ranch Rocket" we have.

Other goodies from the sale include more than $200 worth of fishing lures and tackle for..... $20.00. There was a ton of expensive flies included and a great deal of the other tackle and lures was still in the original blister packs. That'll work (but, I still need a day off so I can go fishing)! 

Rancho Rafto Report: well...we're moving along with getting the Rancho Rafto in the water (we figured that, if we waited any longer, we'd have a museum piece). The registration is updated and the stickers are glued on so that's out of the way. Also, now on hand are all of the grease, a grease gun, and gear oil required to do the maintenance on the boat. It even got a nice bath with the "Troy Bilt" pressure washer so it no longer looks like it once belonged to Huck Finn. It was running fine when I bought it so it's unlikely that there will be any difficulties. But, if there are, I'll just apply my most experienced screwdriver and deal with it. Now all I need is a ....day off....so I can go float the thing while the lake still has a few gallons of water left in it (it's almost "Stuck Duck Pond" again).

Princess Abby Report:  now that there's a pallet jack on hand, the Ol' Dude was able to move Abby's palatial pooch hooch away from the back patio. It was in the way so it was moved out toward the chicken coop. The bloody thing weighs about 400 lbs and it isn't going anywhere without lots of leverage and no small amount of muscle on hand. Since the Ol' Rancher is not the brawny young fella that he used to be, the muscle was provided by the ATV (ATV's are our friends!). Since the house sits on a pallet, it was simple enough to use the pallet jack and tug it into place with the ATV. Abby hasn't protested yet so I guess she's OK with deal. I can usually get her to agree on just about anything with a doggie treat of some kind. 

Zorba’s: the other day (when lots of things happen around here), we had to go to Shafter (about an hour from us) to see the FAA ME (medical examiner). It's one of the last steps (if not the last step) in getting my flight medical restored. Since Bakersfield is not all that far from Shafter, we decided to head down there and knock over one our favorite burger joints, Zorba's. Zorba is probably a Greek word that is transliterated as "The food tastes better than the place looks". In any case, it's our "go to" burger and fries shop.

Zorba's was already one of the favorite burger places of Don and Shirley Gerber who are the band leaders for the "Cedar Grove Bluegrass Band" (now based in Apple Valley). They introduced yours truly to the place back in '98 as we traveled up and down the state pickin' and grinnin'. I've been a fan since then and go as often as I can (which is not often enough!).

We got there in time for a burger combo for Connie the Canner and a pastrami combo for the hungry rancher. Boy, howdy! Good stuff! My only complaint is that pastrami makes me fill good air with bad noises. C'est la vie, eh?

If you are ever in the Oildale area and have a hankerin' for some really good vittles, stop by at their North Chester location (just north of Norris Road) and dig in! You won't be sorry (and, you don't have to speak Greek)!

Chickenin' Report: our girls are big and beautiful now and are doing great!! Once again, we have a constant supply of fresh, organic, free range eggs and are back in the swing of being spoiled at breakfast times! Few things are as rich and delicious as our eggs (pardon my crowing)!

Since we spent time with them as chicks, they are much tamer than the others. We spoil them a bit from time to time by hand feeding them stale bread and such. They get lots and lots of left overs, too. Their day starts with a round of chicken scratch when they are turned loose in the morning. If their scratch isn't ready, they come looking of me!

Ol' Roo is still cock o' the walk and takin' care of business around the barnyard. He's definitely the barnyard boss. I love this big guy to pieces! You couldn't ask for a better rooster if you had ordered one from a Sears catalog. He's protective of his feathery female followers and keeps them in line at all times.

There you have it: another short episode of the long happenings at Rancho Relaxo, home of Rancho Ran, the world's foremost authority (the previous one died) and Connie the Canner, the world's greatest side-cook (a Freudian slip as she stumbled trying to say "side-kick"): where the air smells like fried free-range eggs, bacon, toast, and 40:1 mix blue gas: where things can get...interesting and where...you just never know.

 

Rancho Mucho Stuffo

Hey, all you villains (Porter-villains, that is), this is the newly overhauled Douglass A-4 Skyhawk that sits at the entrance of the Porterville Municipal Airport. She surely looks great after they spiffed her up!

Stuff is starting to pile up little by little. This is just the beginning but we can expect a flood of things and soon at that. This is looking north from the driveway. Springville is directly on the other side of the hill in the background. It's a 3.5 mile drive to get there.

This nice grassy area will be covered with people in only a few days! You can see the vines to the left in the picture. We got a lot of really tasty grapes this year! Grapes are our friends!

This is the front of the rancho. It, too, will soon be a beehive of activity. Love our shade trees! We'll prune them back in a couple of days to folks don't whack their noggins on the limbs.

This is the Coop de Ville and Wooly Pully bringing in the last load from the hangar. We've had the hangar stuffed with yard sale goods for almost a year. Next year's yard sale will start the day after this year's yard sale ends, don'tcha know.

This is a couple of days after the pics above. We now have a real pile of stuff. That's not all there is! More is on the way!

Now, just where do we stuff this stuff? The tables are not set up yet in the pic but they are now here and most are set up and ready to go.

One of our regular vendors, Leanne Chapman, has already started unloading things and getting ready. Her goodies will take up most of the entire "island" you see there and almost to the road. She's good at it!

Well, it’s October…2019. Doesn’t that just make you wanna hock your genuine “Wham-O” Hula Hoop?!  Sure, it’s a beloved keepsake from 1958. But, who needs a trip to the ER, eh? Oh, and that comes from …1958.  *SIGH*.

Just when you get comfortable with one month, another one comes along and takes its place. It’s like we’re ripping through time with the same irresistible force as a mile-long brake-less Union Pacific locomotive hurtling down “Cajon Pass” into San Bernardino. Moving along.....

Lots and lots of great stuff is happening at the ol’ rancho. We’ve had folks loading us up with blessing after blessing after blessing! Add to that the many great deals we’ve run into at yard sales and we just have to stand back and marvel! Here's the news on some of the latest happenings. 

Rancho Blesso: not long ago (when lots of things happen around here), two of our clients passed away. Their widows called and asked if we would come over a pick up some stuff that had belonged to their late husband. That amounted to at least four trailer loads of goods with the back of the van loaded too.

Then, recently, a neighbor over on Lower Globe Drive advised that he is moving to Sacramento. He knew about us through another acquaintance and asked if we would come pick up some of his stuff that he wasn’t going to be able to take with him.

Well, as per our usual modus operandi, when folks throw blessings at us, we don’t duck! So, we headed over to his house and loaded up the trailer and the van with all kinds of goodies! Then, he called us a couple of days later and said there was more! More is our friend! We headed back over and picked up another trailer and van load which included a nice saddle, three horse blankets (I didn’t know that they made designer horse blankets, did you?!), a 4-saddle saddle tree, misc bric-a-brac, and a gorgeous like-new “Mr. Coffee” programmable  thermal coffee maker. That’ll come in handy, no doubt.

Well, a few days later and after he and his wife discussed the matter, it was decided that he needed to get rid of yet more goods! He called and we went back over and loaded up again!

Then, a lady we don’t really know but who knew about us, dropped off a large box of like-knew set of “Taste of Home Annual Recipes” and some other really nice stuff! Stuff is our friend!

Rancho Quatro: not long after our client gave us a ton of stuff, she also gave yours truly a 250cc Honda Quad ATV! It starts at the first touch of the starter button and doesn’t miss a beat! It may not seem like a big deal but it has enabled me to get quite a bit more work done and in less time! It has a hitch on the back that can support either a 1 7/8” or a 2” ball so I can haul both of my trailers as I please! Zowie! Its new rancho name is “Quatro”…of course.

Sale on!: we're getting ready for the BIG yard sale during the Apple Festival. It's one big cloud of dust with a pile of two old people at the end of the day! You can believe me when I say that, before, during, and after the sale, Ol’ Rancho Ran and Connie the Canner are a couple of too-pooped-to-pop old folks!

There is stuff stored  in the hangar at the airport, stuff stored in the pole barn, stuff stored in the barn, and stuff stored on the back porch. Most of it is ready but there's a lot more that has to be cleaned and priced and ready for the big event. 

We had about 20 tables last year and I thought it looked like we’ll have 20 this year! If that doesn’t that just sift your “White Lily” self-rising flour, Connie just advised that we will probably need a few more tables than that!

Wooly Pully is our main hauler for now. We’ve been loading and unloading the trailer for days. It gets tugged around by Quatro (which arrived at just the right time to be a huge blessing!) and then gets hauled back and forth from the hangar by the Coop de Ville. The trailer, the Honda, and the Coop are handy gadgets to have around!

Then, some stuff has to be pressure washed while others can be hosed down. Connie cleans then prices stuff then boxes it or stacks it somewhere (and there’s no room to stack anything by now…ugh).

We’ll set up on the Wednesday prior Friday, the “kick day”. That’ll take all day to move stuff into place and coordinate with the (expected) 20 or so vendors so they can get set up.

Boxes, tables, and stuff are starting to accumulate all over and all along the driveway. It’s going to be a big deal again this year! That means that we will have the resources to head out for Texas. But,  we won’t being going on our annual vacation in November this year. The funds will be available next spring when we do go. We decided that we’re just too tired to enjoy the time off. Our new practice now is to never start a vacation when you are exhausted (or you’ll return wrecked and in need of a vacation).

Lay one on me: we have an “eggs-citing” news report! We just harvested our first dozen eggs and are now getting a regular supply of farm fresh, organic, free range, eggs! Our girls are now pros! Sure; they were a bit small on size but they were huge on flavor! I guess we can call them “practice eggs”. Nevertheless, they were delicious especially since we added bacon, steak bits, and crispy hash brown potatoes! Not only will we not have an egg shortage, the eggs will always be the best you can get anywhere! Whoooo,doggies!

Connie the Washer Woman was outside hanging clothes and heard one of the girls loudly proclaiming the “I just laid an egg” cackle. From experience, we know that she was saying that she was really proud and was letting everyone know just how great she was at it!” After dealing with chickens for a while, you get to understand what the clucks are clucking about. I call it “understanding Chickenese” but who knows. Just as long as no one refers to me as the “Chicken Mumbler” my feathers won’t be ruffled.

There you have it: another short episode of the long happenings 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 dirty work jeans, hot coffee latte’, and freshly washed sheets: where things can get...interesting, and where...you just never know.

Rancho Sin Trabajo...In Your Dreams

Just peachy!! Here are a couple of our absolutely gorgeous and wonderfully delicious nectarines (not related to the Nazarenes that I can tell). Not to brag but, these were the best peaches we have ever had. Connie the Canner couldn't get enough of them. Unfortunately, the single tree (the other one died) only produced enough for a couple of old folks and not enough to share (a real pity, eh?).

A couple of times per month, the Ol' Rancher gets to pick something other than peaches. Here he is as the Ol' G-Tar Picker at "Golden Hills" in Porterville. It's a lot of fun and there's always a pot-luck so life is good. Left to right: Chuck McGuire on bass/vocals, Kirby Shropshire on drums, Ol' Ran on lead guitar/vocals, and Jack Guthrie on the steel guitar. All of the band members are long-time local players. Kirby and I both live in Springville, Chuck lives in P'ville, and Jack lives in Exeter. Guest singers and musicians pop in from time to
time. Lots of fun, food, and dancing.

Here's the star of the chicken show, Strutarooski, the big, bad, beautiful, proud, arrogant, feisty, Rhode Island Red rooster. I love this bird! The feathery females seem to like him, too.

This is Rancho Rafto, our little 14' fishing boat that has yet to get wet. It's tagged and ready, though. It'll need a quick maintenance walk-though to make sure the motor is ready to go and such. It also needs a tad of cleaning since it has been sitting idle as a rat hatchery for way too long. The tires are good to go and the trailer is fairly new so it shouldn't be long until it's lake ready.

Here are the old folks from Rancho Relaxo enjoying themselves at the church luau. Connie the Planner planned a luau for the church and it was a blast, to be sure! We played "Hawaiian Bingo" using "Goldfish" as card covers. How innovative! Everyone played Bingo and ate "Goldfish"! There was also a bowling game that used coconuts as bowling balls and Connie constructed pineapple pins. It was a great! She then led everyone in a hula lesson using "Pearly Shells" as the theme song (of course). Talk about a hoot! There was a brief movement to include the picture of the Ol' Preacher in his hula skirt but his protesting brought it to a quick demise. Trust me; it was not a pretty sight.       




Well, it’s September…already. Doesn’t that just make you want to dial BR-549? Man….this month snuck up on us like a barefoot Shoulin priest! Time not only flies, it flies supersonically. *SIGH*.

Things are moving along pretty well here at the ranch and the old folks are prospering and are in health even as their soul is prospering. However, to keep up with things, we have to rise fairly early and stay up somewhat late. That’s not too much of a complaint because we just need to get stuff done. It’s a lot of hard work but at least the pay is lousy. We’ve been officially “semi-retired” for quite a while but, what that really means is that, we’re waiting to be hit by “semi” so we’ll be able to retire. Not holding our breath.

Hardly working: while we’re working hard, some of our equipment isn’t trying quite as energetically to comply with our desires. For instance, Tojo, the pickup is taking a lot of time off due to a ruptured fuel line. Our mechanic friend and brother, Rudy, is dealing with some health issues and time constraints so Tojo will be out of service for a while.

Now, if someone hands the Ol’ Rancher a couple of wrenches, he may be able to get to it. And, if he can get to it, you just know that he loooooves to lie down on his back and work under a car….in the summer heat. So, we’ll see if he can git’r done (or at least use the weed-eater to keep the grass away so someone else can). The old dude has the tools; he just need a….day off… and some cooler weather so he can work on it. Shouldn’t take but a couple of hours (uh-huh). I guess the good news is that I don’t work very fast but, then, I don’t pay myself much either.

Not only is Tojo not cooperating, the big lawn tractor’s battery decided to up and croak. Oh, and it croaked right when the grass was higher than it had ever been here except during the Jurassic period. The grass was so out of hand that Abbie was having a difficult time making it from the front yard to the back yard. That’s not good.

Even after taking the big (and greatly-appreciated) “Echo” weedeater (a highly recommended addition to any farm, ranch, home, hut, hovel, or hideout) for a long stroll, the grass was still ready for reaping and bailing (and, that doesn’t even address the high grass out in the oranges).

Well, that was good for a nice suntan for the Ol’ Rancher (though he had deliberately stopped tanning his body a few decades ago). Thankfully,  the recovery from that sunny excursion only required a few Ibuprophen and a short nap to quell the aching muscles’ protest…loud protest...very loud protest.  

Fortunately, a new battery was appropriated within a few days, was installed, and the 26 hp rig is ready for “somebody” (who has a day off) to fire it up and get to mowing. It needs to happen soon and before someone hangs the title of “Shaggy Meadows” or “Lost Cause Acres” on our beloved ranch.

The heat is on: oh, but wait, folks; there’s more. The Coop deVille’s cooling system is rebelling and is introducing intermittent labor strikes to insure that we give it more attention (I just hate attention seeking cars, don’t you?). Though the temp gauge is showing “normal” and the needle is exactly where it’s supposed to be, it is experiencing “after boil”. That means that it sneakily shoves out small amounts of coolant which later creates an issue of sudden overheating because the coolant is gone (and that’s about as welcomed as a dust storm at an outdoor wedding).

Quite unexpectedly, the temp gauge will slide to the far right red zone (red zones are not our friends). That forces the old people to have to pull over and wait awhile (in the HEAT…heat is not our friend, either) until the motor cools down and a jug of coolant can be tossed in. That’s no big deal unless it happens on Interstate 5 going over the “Grapevine” ….in the middle of summer… or you really need to be somewhere and don’t need to be late getting there.

There’s a new thermostat ready to install which should cure the matter. It just needs somebody to install it. Maybe it won’t get lonely because of having to wait too long for a good mechanic to come along. Maybe a lousy mechanic can do the job. We’ll see.

Thankfully, the weather has changed somewhat and cooler temps are expected. Soon, we won’t be hearing conditioners wheezing against the heat and seeing folks buying new pump and blower motors for their swamp coolers.

Not cool: since we’re talking about “temperatures”, things got…interesting….around here the other day (of course) when one of our two year old “Kenmore” freezers decided to un-freeze without giving us any prior warning. When your trusted freezer starts leaking water and refuses to comply with your desires to keep your goods rock solid, you just know that you’re going to have to re-write your day’s agenda. All plans were scrapped and a new frantic ad-hoc program was implemented.

Without much energy on tap to engage such an exigent operation, the rescue crew of two donned their best attitudes, aprons, summoned their small (as in, very small) energy reserves, and commenced to salvage what they could of the rapidly deteriorating scenario.

Side note: not to complain, but this was the second of the two new “Kenmore” freezers to up and thaw out (due to a faulty thermostat controller). Both times threw the nice couple at the old folks home into an un-welcomed tizzy trying to get a handle on the melting matter. Both the Ol’ Rancher and the Ol’ Rancherette have been life-long fans and purchasers of “Kenmore” products but their freezer line has been eliminated from our shopping list. Continuing……..

Since this was our fourth freezer to “code” on us (two in the barn also thawed a couple of years ago when the circuit breaker opened and no one noticed for …a week...that truly was an ugly mess), it wasn’t our first “dog and pony show”. Stuff had to be dragged out and cooked, stored, or re-stored so we wouldn’t have to discard all of it. The game was afoot.

The first thing that we did was to just start hauling things out and sorting into piles of useable, likely useable, maybe useable, and “ain’t no way it’s useable”.  Some things were still tightly sealed so they were not a problem. We just stuck them in another fridge until we decided what to do with them.

Another fairly easy part was figuring out what was already freezer burned. Though way too much of our meat was freezer burned (i.e. the silly old folks didn’t prepare them for long-term freezing in the first place), it was decide to salvage all of it for dog food. That meant that Ol’ Chef Ran had to fire up the BBQ grill and get to cookin’!

That endeavor made for a grueling ten hour day and left the head BBQ’er a tired, body-dragging, mess by day’s end. The good news is that everyone in the neighborhood thought that we had an all-day cookout of some kind because we turned the place into a wonderfully-smoky salivating and slobber zone.

Ah, but you have to store the 50 pounds of cooked meat and there was simply no place to store all of it. Oh, that part. We decided to call a couple of friends who have multiple dogs (and who have working freezers) and they were delighted to take what seemed like a ton of cooked meat (pork, chicken, beef, and whatever mystery meat hot dogs are made out of).

That was that but we still had a lot of BBQ’d pork ribs, pork belly, pork chops, ham, beef steaks, and chicken that had been cooked and that was meant for humans. Since both of the old people at the ranch qualify as humans, we’ll be taking up the task and getting a fork right on it (being a carbon based life form does have its perks, you know).

Somehow, Connie the Cooker, slinging and cleaning stuff the entire day, managed to find a place to store the food until the hungry old people need it. We did lose quite a bit of stuff but it was beyond salvaging. It was dragged out to the trash cage for later disposal (when some old dude has a day off and can haul it to the dump).  

There’s still a couple of packages of sirloin steaks that need to be grilled and a few large trout that someone needs to toss into a pan with some butter before they turn green. Besides, Connie just advised that she's tired of them looking at her and wants them gonzo. Other than that, we’re now waiting for the parts that were ordered by and are to be installed by “L&S Appliance’ (who fixed the other freezer when it went down for the same reason).

We lost almost two work days dealing with issue and that left us way behind on all other matters like computers, church stuff, and yard and garden work. That’s not usually too bad except that, not attending a garden (in this region) for a couple of days can mean the loss of the entire remainder of the growing season. The computer clients are (thankfully) very understanding and patient so all is well. The same goes for the church family who are very understanding and patient about such things (e.g. it has taken two months to finally fix the church cooler). 

So, after taking a half day to tend another exigency (which was getting the final wiring issue on the church’s cooler motor fixed), we’re even further behind. Things sure can get…interesting…around here.

At least we’ll be well-fed. Actually, we started overly well-fed so I reckon that we’ll be mega-overly well-fed which means that our diet has been postponed…again.

Mad rain: most followers of “RR” know that “mad rain” is when you get just enough of a sprinkle of rain to mix with the dust on your car to make it muddy. There’s not enough rain to even rinse it off and it leaves your vehicle in a mess and it makes you mad. Well, that kind of rain is about as useful as having a twin-engine fly swatter. 

Well, it “mad rained” the other day (when lots of things happen around here). There had been absolutely no clue that rain, regardless of how much, would show up that day (at least not on our Doppler radar. We don’t watch TV but do check NOAA weather online). Maybe the pro weather people weren’t caught flat footed with mouths agape but we were.

So, the old folks were a bit surprised when Connie the Washer Woman stepped outside to hang up some wash (yep! We have a clothesline at the ranch! We love sun –dried towels and sheets!) and the air smelled like rain. She then listened and it sounded like rain. That made sense to her since, earlier that morning, while in the “twilight zone” and just prior to deciding to arise for the day, she heard what she thought was thunder (I think I just blew my English teacher’s fuses with the way I punctuated that mess).

So, having another “mad rain” meant that the Rancho Ran had to hunt down one of his TEN DOLLAR-per-wash “Rain Drops Ultra-Car Wash” tickets and get the van de-mudded and spiffed up again. Doesn’t that just shave your Shih Tzu? *SIGH*.

We found out the next day that, further up the mountain, it actually rained quite a bit more. Those folks at least got their cars rinsed off without it costing them a part of their life savings.

Chickening report: our ladies are big girls now and are our new “Biddy Brigade”. So, now that we have a big, bad, beautiful, roost -ruling rooster to protect them, we started letting them out to free range.

In only another month or so, our biddy buddies will be producing fresh free range eggs. It is difficult to explain how spoiled the old folks are after having farm fresh eggs for a few years. We can hardly wait until our breakfast plates are covered with them again!

Connie the Canner is already making provision to store some of them again. She’ll use the “water glassing” method which keeps eggs fresh for at least nine months. Thanks to water glassing, even after our previous birds were gone, we had their eggs for another few months.

Speaking of our new rooster, we love this big guy! You couldn’t ask for a better rooster to rule over your bird herd! If that doesn’t dust your rug, he’s tame! He makes sure that his ladies get first dibs on whatever food is available then he will step in afterwards and peck out what he wants. It’s great!

After watching this gorgeous huge Rhode Island Red rooster strut his stuff and crow a lot, it was decided to name him, “Strutarooski” (no relation to Ignacy Jan Paderewski , the great piano player). It is highly suspected that he will be called, “Strut” or “Rooski” most of the time.

He’ll be a big part of our plans to allow a couple of our gals to be brooders and raise some chicks for us. There’s always a bird or two that just can’t wait to sit on a batch of eggs for a month. It’s happened here before so it’ll happen again.

There you have it: another short episode of the long happenings 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 big BBQ feast: where things can get...interesting, and where...you just never know.