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.
