RANCHO SPRINGY DINGY

                                                                                                                                                              

Here are the tomatoes all in a row. There are six Romas and a Beefsteak will likely be planted soon (because someone forgot to plant it when the Romas were planted). 

In the foreground is a tomatillo which will come in handy for salsa verde and such. 

To right is a thriving green bean plant. Little does it know that it's fate is sealed and it will spend its days in a canning jar awaiting a certain end in the digestive tract. 

"Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet....." (go, Trini Lopez - 1965!). This is our long-awaited lemon tree (seems the old ranchers kept forgetting to plant one....*SIGH*). We only need the one. We have a tangerine tree, too. Another need is a lime tree but the same ranchers who forgot to plant the lemon tree have, so far, forgotten to do that, too (*SIGH* number two).

Here's the milagro bean field (for all you John Nichols fans). It's a miracle because we planted almost the same number of green beans last season and barely got any harvest at all. This season is obviously going to be quite productive. 

Just thought a picture of the "castle" in Springville was in order. Someone managed to cut back all the foliage and you can now see what the entire building looks like. Nothing like being built like a rock!

Here's our magnificent guard pooch (well, at least she thinks she is). Not one Gypsy got past her that day. Our boxed aloe vera plant and residential generator (background) are safe again. 

This is a rather pastoral and bucolic shot of the pasture next door to us. Click on it to enlarge. It's just plain purdy!

We’ll I’ll be dipped in “Cheese Whiz”! It’s April already! Only 260 days, 19 hours, and 12 minutes to Christmas (https://days.to/until/christmas)! We need to pay attention and get our shopping done because those days will all be eaten up by the Lagoliers in no time!

Dust on the saddle (maybe Tex Ritter would be glad to sing this one, eh?): another month has managed to flash by and the non-flashing old folks are still in the saddle. You can say we’re still kickin’ but we’re just not makin’ a lot of dust.

In fact, dust is not our friend and Connie insists that there is so much of it in Springville that the Ol’ Rancher must not drag any more of it into her house (especially the chunky parts which are also in abundance). As far as Ol’ Ran is concerned, it’s just “Springville insulation” and nothing to be concerned about since you can always hose it off.

We actually have a half-dozen air purifiers in the house. Yet (and much to Connie the Cleaner’s chagrin) it’s so dusty here, it overwhelms the hard-working devices! This, of course, leaves her puzzled and agog at the menacing dynamic that overloads her already formidable work schedule. If there weren’t two purifiers in my shop, it would take more time to dust and clean than to work (and it’s still not a dust free zone)!

You don’t realize just how dusty it is in the SJV (San Joaquin Valley:  which is named after a Robin Hood style character of yore) until you are gone for a few years. I remember moving back from Longview, WA (in ’96) where they don’t recall what dust is because it rains so much there and the air is clean and pure all of the time (and no one ever blows their nose since there are no big dirt clod boogers to deal with like here in the SJV). After only about three days, my car had changed colors to a drab brown and it looked like most of the other cars in the area. So, a new “wash the car often” routine had to quickly be established and observed or else we couldn’t find our car in the parking lot at Wal-Mart.

Yes! We have lots of green beans! We have lots of green beans today!: it must be published the two old rancho residents absolutely love green beans! Those little green veggies are as versatile as they are tasty and they end up in many a casserole around here. The resident pressure cooker tender usually tosses in a few proprietary ingredients (like onions and such), cans them, then parks them until we are ready for our green bean feast.

This year’s crop will likely be three or even four times our previous ones because one entire 8’ x 8’ garden box was planted solely with beans. In late August, we’ll have a mess of them to contend with and there will be no end to the sound of a hissing pressure cooker.

Chicken anyone? Or Popeyes, here we come!:  y’all may recall comments (in the blog) that my hometown, Hooterville,  CA, is not yet a “real” town. Oh, there’s not all that much complaining. But, from time to time, there are reasons to bail out of Springville and Porterville and go to Visalia. This is to say that we get a minor kick out of getting to go 45 miles to a real town which, much like Fresno and Bakersfield (Bakersfield is 25 miles closer than Fresburg), is loaded with great places to eat. So, the old folks didn’t hesitate when the opportunity to go arose.

The plan was to go to the “Olive Garden” on south Mooney and knock over their soup and salad bar. We hadn’t been there in over a year so, with our tongues clambering and slavering for lunch, we pulled into the parking lot.

 Alas and alack (for all you Shakespeare fans out there), the waiting period required an insufferable 40-45 minutes. So, the old folks made an executive decision to go elsewhere. Second choice, “Sizzler”, was closed altogether so both “Plan A” and “Plan B” were out.

“Plan C” was to just drive around and find someplace to eat but that just didn’t fit either. That left the two old people hungrier and almost angry at the being denied access to lunch. They could, of course, just break down and eat off the same old “Taco Bell” or “Burger King” menu (which they didn’t because they were rather tired of it after a year of little else). What to do?

Out of the blue (and with a few clues from our growling guts), we remembered a “Popeye’s Chicken” store in Tulare! Now, that’s how to rescue the famishing! In only the time it took to think about their magnificent chicken sandwich, our mouths were watering and our stomachs were applauding to beat the band! Tulare is only ten miles due south of Visalia and directly on the way home so there was no hesitation; we headed south.

Feasting couldn’t have been simpler: two fried chicken sandwiches and a large order of fries: insert teeth.

Now, a huge order of fries is something that we only indulge in for certain occasions (and for obvious reasons) and this certainly was one of those occasions. We hadn’t been to Tulare or Visalia in quite awhile. Therefore, there was no guilt associated with this particular decision to get down on the greasy grub. Previously-purchased sodas (usually way cheaper that way) washed the feast of fowl and fries down and slaked our thirst. It was like being a teenager again! Boy: were we stuffticated (sic)! That was such a deal but we’ll be back to “Shredded Wheat’ and oatmeal for breakfast for quite a while.

Of course, a post prandial nap was in order but it would have to wait until we could get home. We made it home.

Strip joint: ..,.well….sorta. Six new power strips were added to the “strip club” we already have. We’re real “strippers” around here, don'tcha know! Power strips are our friends and are handy gadgets to have around (with the best of them being surge protectors, too). Reckon, we won’t run out of them for quite a while. They came from a huge estate sale and needed a home. At pennies on the dollar, it was just too difficult to leave them homeless and orphaned.  All six were only a buck (yes! 17 cents each!) and all had been used inside and all were in like-new condition. Such a deal!

Wired: solid copper wire is rather expensive nowadays (it never has been cheap) so when a roll of about 60’ or so feet of #12 ga solid wire was spotted at the estate sale (for a dollar!), it immediately found a new home.

Some amateur radio operators (like moi) would rather have a spool of copper wire rather than a new package of “BVD’s”! That’s because it’s the wire of choice for fashioning wire antennas and making antennas has always been part and parcel of this Ol’ Hamster’s ham experience. There’s just something about constructing your own 40 meter dipole (and tuning it to perfection with a 1:1 SWR) that is most satisfying.

Hamming it up: one of the next “wire projects” is a multiple-band “fan dipole”. It’s length will be about 250’ so there may be some splicing happening since Ol’ Ran, the hamster, doesn’t have a continuous length of copper wire that long. If a larger spool of wire shows up, it can be used for the 160 Meter dipole (the longest one) and then shorter wires can be used to fashion the higher frequency dipoles (e.g. 80-40-20-15 meter bands). A 10 Meter antenna will not have to be constructed because an 11 Meter CB antenna will be tuned with an antenna tuner and it’ll work just fine.

Side note: a test using the 5/8 wave vertical CB antenna shows that it will tune all the way down to 30 meters. It tunes great on 20m, 15m, and 10m (using the humble MFJ-949E tuner)! The only thing that remains to be discovered is whether the vertical or dipole antennas will be more effectual in my location because it’s surrounded on three sides by hills.

I get a charge out of it!: another goodie from the estate sale was a like-new AA, AAA, 9V battery charger. Where the old ham dude gets his charge is that it will only charge Ni-Cad batteries. That’s great because I have a couple of dozen NOS (new old stock) Ni-Cad batteries that have been floating around for years but there was no charger for them! Now the hamster ranch has more options for certain battery powered devices (including radios)! Zowie!

In the crosshairs or Scopin’ it out: another blessing from the estate sale was a nice rifle scope. They’re 30 bucks new at Wally World so it was necessary to scope in on this real deal for a dollar.

What’s amazing is that I have one exactly like it on the Ruger “Air Hawk” break-barrel pellet rifle! You may remember it as being the rifle that was used to take down a wabbit at 100 yards without even aiming at it (I just love a smart rifle, don’t you)?

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): home of a retarded duck and home of Connie the Canner (world's greatest side-kook): where the air smells like fresh compost: where alliteration reigns supreme; where things can get...interesting: where it’s all news to me: where we always get the deal of the day: where the rubber leaves the road, and, where...you just never know.