YOU MAY CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO ENLARGE THEM
To the right is a tray of fresh Mexican "bolillos" which are a simple but tasty bread roll. These things are great and they are cheap! At 3 for a buck, they are regulars at the rancho. Fresh bread is our friend!
To the right is an example of "mad rain". A couple of days ago and unexpectedly, a summer storm blew in and dropped 6" of rain. Well, not really. It's just that 6" was the measurement between drops (thank you, Michael D. for the way to accurately measure our rain!). It was just enough rain to make a mudhole of your car if it is sitting under a tree. The Coop de Ville was sitting under a tree and was turned into a muddy mess. It made me mad. Hence the term "mad rain".
This is a shot of the all-too-familiar sky when there are fires raging in the region. The smell of smoke permeates everything and gets old really quickly. Folks got tired of not seeing blue when they looked up during the day.
A couple of days ago, lightning started yet another fire "up the hill" from here and we can see the huge plume of smoke. So far it hasn't filled the sky with smoke at our place.
It’s that time again:
time for the Rancho Relaxo Report for September. Lots of things have
been happening around here. Some have been good while others have not been so
good. On the whole, we are still quite blessed in that we have need of nothing
and are over fed. Life’s good!
The wrist thing:
a couple of weeks ago, we went back to Fresno (a real city) to see the doctor
for a follow-up exam for Connie’s wrist. The surgeon advised that her wrist was
healed and that she should continue working on range of motion exercises and to
do as much with her hand as it could tolerate. That was great news so she’s now
without the wrist brace that she was bound to for these many days.
While in town, we drove around awhile so Ol’ Ran could
reconnoiter his old stomping grounds and see the changes. My! There were a ton
of changes! Large empty fields are now
populated with housing tracts and even large commercial buildings! Most of the
well-known (at the time I lived there) restaurants and businesses were long
gone. The buildings were now hosting new places to eat or had been repurposed
for another function. Even the places where I had worked were long gone.
We had skipped lunch in anticipation of finding a new and different eatery. In Fresno, you can throw a rock and hit a great place to eat (though you’ll probably have to purchase a new window before they allow you in if you do have an urge to practice your rock tossing).
We had no particular plan in mind but thought to just wander around until something popped up and tempted us. That's exactly what happened. Before long (which was great because we used up all the mileage from our scant breakfast), we happened upon a "Popeye's" restaurant. The next thing you know is we're chowing down on their magnificent chicken sandwich, some popcorn shrimp, and a bucket o' fries! What a feast!
The nearest "Popeye's" to us is in Tulare so we plan on going over there again whenever the next feast season rolls around.
Rancho Jardin Report or Squash me, please: One of our greatest gardening delights is to harvest our zucchinis. It’s super to have them freshly sautéed with onions, garlic, and whatever comes to mind at the time (love me some 'shrooms, too).
Likewise, they taste oh, so good in a chicken or vegetable soup accompanied by a large chunk of Connie the Baker’s fresh, hot, homebrewed, bread. My, but that’s good! Another plus is that Connie the Canner gets to can a bunch of these for the winter when hot soups and stews are really our dearest of friends. It’s something we look forward to each and every harvest time.
Alas, it was not to be this year. Of the six zucchini plants
that we started with, only one survived and even it was somehow compromise. To
tell the truth, it was really screwy.
Part of the issue was the bloody California Pocket Gophers
who are mighty sneaky and sly about robbing from old peoples’ gardens;
merciless critters they are! These
little subterranean buggers lurk underneath your crops like a German U-Boat waits
under the North Atlantic for an enemy merchant ship that’s bringing supplies to
a hungry England.
They then eat the roots off the respective plant and, the
next thing you know, the plant is dead despite ample water and no other obvious
signs of a threat. If that doesn’t just bang your banjo, they will just beaver
off the plant stem at ground level severing it’s life line to the life-giving
dirt. That’s what happened to our zukes and our eggplants.
One zuke did finally flourish. It was the largest and most beautiful zucchini plant that I have ever seen. Strangely, this happy healthy plant only produced four fruit. that's it; just two small and two large ones. Sheese. There was enough to grate then freeze some and the rest was sautéed. Weird.
Of the four original eggplants we started, only one survived
but has yet to produce fruit after six months. Weird x 2. So, four more were
planted and three of them are thriving. No idea what happened to the fourth
one. At least two of these plants have fruit hanging on them so far. It will
soon be a good day to make eggplant parmesan.
The green bean crop this year’s was also a bust. We planted twice
as many as last year and only got four quarts for canning. Contrast that to the fact that we got at least ten
quarts with half as many plants last season. That was another strange thing
because all of the plants were flourishing and had flowered. What’s
incomprehensible is that we have our own large hive of bees out in the back 40
and other pollinators abound. Weird x 3.
The strangeness doesn’t stop there, however. There was no
need to plant more than a couple of the zapolla squash this year because their
fruit weighs as much or more than a pumpkin. And, being squash, they are
naturally hearty and robust. Not this time. It took a couple of attempts to
finally get a solitary plant to grow. But, even though it has been growing,
flowering prolifically, and has been healthy, it has, after five months, only
produced one medium sized fruit…and it died on the vine! Large yellow flowers
abound as do the pollinators yet no other fruit is in evidence. “Brown thumbs
of America unite!”.
There is a bit of brighter news about this matter, though.
The zapolla puts down runners that take root every few feet. Since there has
been sufficient blooming, there should be at least a few 40 pounders arriving
by Christmas....of 2025. *SIGH*.
There’s a tad more of squashy news. Though the winter
squash didn’t arrive like “Gangbusters” (a radio drama circa 1940-41), we did
get a few acorn squash and several spaghetti squash. That was enough for Connie
the Canner to actually can some of it and to brew up a big pot of spaghetti
squash soup! We grabbed a few fresh Mexican bolillo rolls and some fresh butter
and went to town!
Our okra was also a huge disappointment on at least the same
scale. We planted twelve okra plants seven of which survived. That many plants
should have produced enough okra to share with the entire neighborhood and then
some. However, we filled four sandwich bags full and that was the end of that.
Okra plants are usually nice and tall but none of these ever got higher than
about 2.5 feet! That’s strange x 4.
Our bell pepper plants were the tallest we’ve ever seen but
they only produced a few smallish fruit. The two tomatillos bloomed with many
blossoms but produced no fruit. One is just now starting to produce small fruit
so we shall see.
The tomato plants were mixed, this time around (about half
beefsteak and half Romas). We only ended up with two solid Roma plants and they
did produce well. The “Beefsteak” tomatoes were another story. The gophers took
out all six of those and we didn’t see a single tomato.
Next year, we are going to plant everything in new garden boxes and in wire baskets which should end the garden grief forever. This compost/soil has been used for the previous five or six years and has some sort of fungus in it that killed off some of the squash and tomatoes (and probably some other plants, as well). It’ll be a big project because all of the soil will need to be removed, new boxes constructed, then fresh dirt/soil/compost replaced. A nice winter project for the Ol’ Rancher, eh?
Rancho Hondo or The
Little ATV That Couldn’t: Our little Honda FourTrax has been a real blessing
around the ranch since it was given to us by one of our clients. It allows the
ol’ rancher dude to do a lot more work in a lot less time than usual. It even
has a small trailer that hauls all kinds of things from trash barrels to tree trimmings.
It has given us no real grief and starts on the first crank.
But, not long ago (but longer than the other day when lots of things happen
around here), she just wouldn’t fire up. Gas was checked, the correct gas valve
position was assured, the battery was charged, but she just wouldn’t start. That
meant that a lot of work just wasn’t going to get done and things would get
further behind than they already are. Bummer.
A mechanic friend looked at it and he had no success,
either. It looked like a lost cause for at least a month. There was no way that
the little four-wheel mule was going to be hauled to Visalia to be worked on. The
last contact I had with them convinced me that it would cost a fortune for them
to do very little work. The fuel petcock was faulty so the little quad wouldn’t
start. They advised that it would cost about two hundred dollars for them to
replace it. That would be after it was hauled over there. It’s not a big hit
but it’s still a ten dollar turnaround and the time to deal with it is even
more costly.
After researching the matter, a fuel petcock was ordered for
less than twenty dollars (including shipping). It only required a couple of metric
wrenches and 20 minutes and the thing was installed. So, there was no way that
the Honda shop was going to be involved with this matter.
After all of the attempts by a couple of others, the issue
was finally resolved; it was the spark plug. That’s all it was! After buying
another one for less than four dollars, the little machine kicked over on the
first crank and was back in service. Reckon I should have found a real mechanic
in the first place.
"Chinese, please!" or "Yes, I want noodles with that!": We finally got another of our Chinese
restaurants open. It’s the “New China” buffet and it is the preferred buffet
for our group of noodle eaters. So, it was incumbent upon us to give our
support so they can remain in business and we can remain in noodles The other Chinese buffet, “L&D
Chinese Buffet” is open but "New China" is the preferred place.
Of course, we had to include our 93 year old momma bear in
the group lest she die of the dreaded “Chinese food depravation syndrome” (something
which is not allowed in our family). She and we were delighted to see that they
had all of the same goodies as they had in the pre-panic days. Particularly
satisfying was the deep-fried battered shrimp (much to my chagrin, they were
out of the deep-fried breaded butterflied shrimp). The three of us could hardly
walk when we left but it was a most pleasant dining experience.
The only disappointment was that the price had gone up two bucks since our last trip there pre-clamp down. The price of rice, beans, and gas has all gone up, too. Such is life in the big city, I suppose.
Cleanup on Aisle 2 or
Bug-fest at Rancho Relaxo: Once in a
while, the Ol’ Rancher will shuffle the garbage barrels around and allow the
ravenous raptors a chance to display their rapid-fire pecking skills. So, the
other day (when lots of things happen around here) was “barrel day”. One by one
the barrels were snatched up and away which allowed the bugs to scatter. They didn’t
have a chance. The gals gathered on them and it was “game over”! What a hoot to see them charge after the light-panicked
bugs while not caring at all that they are slamming full speed into one
another. Barrel after barrel was lifted out the way to the delight of the
ever-hungry egg factories whom are ever so efficient into turning the extra
protein into delicious eggs. No mas cucarachas.
The New Hatchling:
Our brooding hen, Wynona Wyandotte, faithfully sat on a dozen eggs for the requisite
21 days and finally did get results. There were high hopes around that ranch
that we would be able to replace the birds that were lost to the coyotes. In
reality, she just got a single result because only one egg hatched. Dang.
As an aside, it appears to me that Roo, the big beautiful
classic “red rooster”, just isn’t doing his job correctly. Now, tell me; just exactly
how do you screw that up, anyway? His legs are not short and he doesn’t seem to
wobble. His “hen grip” with his beak is superb and the gals are not running
away when he’s on the job. “Hey, Roo! What’s up with that?”.
Granted, he isn’t quite as frisky as our other rooster, Harvey
Henbanger, who was a sight to behold. Every day he was like a kid on his first
trip to Disneyland and covered as much ground as did the grass.
Anyway, the baby chick couldn’t be cuter. It’s so funny to
watch the little critter trying to keep up with its momma. He speeds along at
what looks like a hundred miles per hour but is so little that it seems
impossible for him to go that fast! He
is so tiny, in fact, that we just call him, “Speck” until we can determine
which gender he is. But, it won’t be teeny much longer because he’s growing
like a weed.
Up a tree or Hand Me Down
the Pruners: After waiting several months for a winning lottery ticket, it
dawned on the Ol’ Pruner that he was going to have to trim and prune the trees
himself (instead of hiring someone). After that revelation, he said to his self,
“Self, next time try buying a ticket”.
A day was chosen at random on which to execute the plan to
whack the trees into submission so that our humble home no longer looked like
the Adam’s family estate (we’re not always tidy but at least we’re lazy).
To aid in the project, there was a new long-handled pruning
saw and a new long handle pruner/lopper on hand. That helps in keeping the tree
canopy up so that we can park the van under it without wrecking the top or
pulling the ham antenna off. And, it helps to keep leaves out of people’s eyes
and limbs high enough so that the tall among us don’t smack into them (which
was one of the reasons the decision was made to whack them in the first place.
Wanna see the bump on my noggin?).
As mentioned earlier, another helpful tool is “Hondo” the
Honda ATV that has a small trailer hooked up so that it can haul trimmings to
the brush pile in the back 40. It makes big jobs look easy. Just load the
trailer and away we go.
Well....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 the Yo-Yo Twins, home of a retarded duck, home
of Connie the Canner (world's greatest side-kook): where the air smells, where
alliteration reigns supreme, where being modern is optional, where there are no
slaves to fashion, where things can get...interesting, where it’s all news to
me, and where...you just never know.
