RANCHO SE VENDE! SE VENDE! SE VENDE!

 

Abbie had one job and that was to keep the chickens off the back porch. She's asleep at the wheel and totally oblivious to the feathery trespasser. 

Here's Abbie guarding one of our tables

during our big clean up project after the 

mega yard sale

To the right, we see Abbie guarding our stuff. Well....sort of. 

It looks like Abbie stayed in one place too long and almost got herself sold! 

Here's Abbie again but she's shifted her beat over to where the large clothes rack is. 

To the right, Abbie is guarding the rear porch while testing her newly commandeered couch pillow. I tossed her blanket over it to make it more comfortable. 

We've seen Abbie using her "ear to the ground" guarding method before. But, this time she pulled an old lounge chair pad over and is employing it to help her man her post for longer periods of time while on duty. What a good guard dog. 

Here's dear Abbie guarding our trailer while we load things into it so we can haul it back to the hangar. She's always on duty. 

Some of our stuff the prior to the grand opening on Friday morning. We had 20 or so boxes that we didn't even get to unbox and display. 

To the right is more stuff....we had lots ands lots of stuff. 

We had stuff stuffed everywhere. Some of it is still in the same place until we can get the spizz to haul it back to the hangar. 

Here's our Camry after the "happy rain". It's all nice and clean again. The little car has 216K miles on her  but she's as mechanically solid as can be. I would trust her to take us anywhere in the country at a moment's notice and wouldn't even blink even if I had accidently left our "AAA" card at home. 

To the right is what the front of the rancho is 

supposed to look like. The canopy that had been hiding the entire front has been hewn back by the ol' lumber-jerk himself. That whack job took about four days to recover from. 

Here's Missy, the new doggie on the block. I think she's part border collie and part huskie. I really don't know. I just know that she disassembled my bales of hay. When was the last time you saw a pup do that?!

To the right is a shot of the driveway as we were in the process of setting up our tables. 

More tables. We actually only had half as many tables as were needed. We needed 15 more. 

Everything is tidy and ready for the big job of setting up for the sale. 

Well….things are moving along here at “Brown Acres” (the place I love to be). The problem is that they’re moving far too quickly for my slow mind and personal liking. It’s November, for Pete’s sake (whoever Pete is)! It’s only 48 days until Christmas and we’re not even quite ready for autumn yet! HECK! We’re not even ready for last autumn! Anyway, the key’s in the mailbox; come on in.

Yard sale. Big sale, big ache:  It takes a week to set up for the big event. It’s a full week of hauling stuff from our hangar at the airport (16 miles from home) and then everything has to be sorted, priced, and tabled (some of it was already priced). If you have several boxes of stuff, it’s no biggy. But, when you have 15-20 tables of goodies (i.e. trailer loads) and a huge rack of clothing, setting up is pretty rough on the old folks (especially loading and unloading those heavy long tables).

The Wednesday and Thursday prior to the opening on Friday is particularly brutal because all the rest of the event has to be prepared for, too. The pulled-pork and side dishes need to be prepped and all of the fixin’s and such need to be set out (crock pots are our friends!). Whatever other food for lunches has to be prepared and staged, and stuff that hasn’t already been priced must be priced at the last minute. And, coordinating the placement of the other sellers and addressing their needs is always a pressing matter. In all of that, “stuff” happens that tries to distract us from the goal of not having a lousy sale.

When the big day kicks off at 8:00 AM, there are three brutal 16-18 hour days of selling and babysitting stuff while continuing to set more stuff out. It’s a constant hustle and bustle from 5:30-6:00 AM until midnight. At the end of the day (about 9PM), you then have to try to accomplish the normal day’s needs and deeds prior to hitting the hay (e.g. house cleaning [after many folks have been coming in and out all day], washing dishes, checking the mail, answering voice mail, keeping up with business, prepping for the next day) and then (finally) showering and retiring. We usually don’t even remember our heads hitting the pillow. However, it’s not hard to remember trying to extricate ourselves from the sack the next morning (or even later in the morning if you get to bed after midnight).

When Sunday evening rolls around, we’re almost unable to function. On Monday morning, we can’t function at all until noon and even then it’s only to take care of immediate needs. You can bet that those needs get taken care of really slowly (“I’ll flip you to see who gets to crawl over to answer the phone”…you laugh). It’s a good thing the house didn’t catch fire because it would have taken three hours just to prepare to leave.

Then, there’s a week of teardown which is racking, packing, stacking, and stowing stuff and hauling it back to the hangar or to the Salvation Army. It’s exhausting by any means but how much mores so for the old people who are already wrecked? UGH. At least we can now afford a year’s supply of “Icy Hot” and “Ben Gay”.

This year has been quite different in that it’s been three weeks since the sale and we’re not even half way cleaned up. Between the rain, normal business and ministry, and being physically depleted, we just can’t get to it. What we’ll do is work at it a little at a time until it’s finished. It isn’t going anywhere and we aren’t either.

 “Oh, no! Don’t let the rain come down!” or “Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain”: It’s not that my roof has a hole in it and I might drown. In fact, thanks to a tornado that almost touched down next door to us (yes, we have tornadoes in CA), we had a new roof put on a few years ago and haven’t even had a leak. In fact number two, the entire region has been praying for rain during for our drought-plagued land. So, what’s all the hubbub, bub?

The big deal is that there are hundreds of unprotected items that will be destroyed if it rains. That means that we had to have large tarps at the ready or risk having a really lousy and mushy sales event. The good news was that there was no rain in the forecast. And, we all know that we can trust Leonard the Weather Dude, right? Not exactly. After a hard day of setting up and checking the weather report (with no chance of rain), and while getting ready to escape from our “work clothes” and get into our “comfies”, we got a text at 9:30 PM that would change everything to “Emergency Plan B”.

The text was from a neighbor advising that it was going to rain at about midnight. It was almost unbelievable! You can imagine the incredulous look we gave one another upon digesting that bit of news!

The two exhausted old sale’ers had to shift into higher gears (you could hear them grinding, believe you me) and hastened to grab the tarps and bungee cords. In hardly any time, we got with the program of tying everything down. Thankfully, due to the fact that Connie the Sale’r had plastic covers and tarps at the ready, it didn’t take but about 40 minutes to batten down the hatches. You probably don’t need much convincing to believe me when I tell you that we were moving slower than a three-legged turtle on a freshly waxed floor when the clock struck 12AM.

The next morning found everything wet but with most things protected. We didn’t lose anything important. About 6 or 7 years ago, we had a big wind blow through and take out two of our big pop-up canopies. This time wasn’t nearly as costly. C’est la vie.

The good news is that it was a “happy rain”. Usually, we get a “mad rain” which is just enough rain to make your car a rolling mud hole. This time, there was enough rain to actually wash the dirt off the van and make it look clean again. Happy rain!

There’s a mouse in the house! Or I scream for ice cream!: Fortunately, our mouse is Mickey Mouse (I learned to spell “M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e” from watching the “Mickey Mouse Club” in 1958) which means that there’s no real vermin issue (other than outside where the fuzzers and gophers seem to rule).

We had recently picked up several Micky Mouse cookies and cream ice cream sandwiches from “Grocery Outlet”. They were three for a dollar and we got’em all! Lots of mice is nice! They’re the big ol’ fat ones, too! Since they are made by “Nestle’”, you just know that they’re scrump-dilly-umptious!

Since I own this joint, and since I’m the Grand Exhausted Poobah (and my momma ain’t lookin’), I took it upon myself as a very experienced ice cream eater to take one of these big babies for a test drive.  I started with the ears, of course, and worked my way down. My, but they were good!

 Speaking of eating:

The dog ate my homework…and my Crocs…and my hose nozzle…and my plastic garbage can…and…my patio blinds… and… my hay bales… and… the doggie pad in the doghouse and….she’s a “digger”…and…she seems to think that this is normal. Grrrrrrrr.

“Misty” is a beautiful name for a sweet-natured, pretty and intelligent, part Husky and part Border Collie pooch (at least that’s my opinion so far. I’m far from sure what she is). However, whereas, “Conan the Barbarian” and “Lara Croft Tomb Raider” have a nice ring to them, “Misty the Destroyer” …does not. It just has the wrong ring.  

To be able to cope with this lively, playful, cute, planet destroyer (I think she used to belong to Darth Vader), I have to rely on a couple of things (remembering that this is costly matter that needs to be resolved soon). One is that she’s a pup. Pups have a lot of spunk wandering around inside them and it’s always trying to find a way out. That she’s as boisterous as a small buoy during a big ocean squall is irrelevant; that’s understandable. A peppy puppy dog is a high-spirited dog that needs to do something….anything…to entertain itself or to campaign for attention. Abbie was much the same way until she grew out of it (or maybe it was at the threat of being swapped for a good sharp hunting knife: not sure).

The other thing is that this pooch is one sharp cookie. Though high-spirited like Abbie, this doggie doesn’t have the rebellious ‘tude that Abbie does. So, it appears that, if one is patient, she’ll be easy to train. She seems to be more than willing to take commands and that’s a good thing (or I will end up with a good sharp hunting knife).

Of course, it truly helps that she is soooo sweeeeet and just loves to soak up lovin’ of any kind and at any time. It’s unlikely that this lil’ doggy could get any sweeter even if you soaked her in a dump truck load of “C&H” pure cane sugar from Hawaii. She’s well worth the effort to patiently train her. I’m sure the rewards will be great.

Are we green yet, Abbie?: What with a new “baby” in the house, you always have to wonder just how the first child will react. Well, guess no more. Abbie is handling things fairly well but her jealousy isn’t hidden at all. On the one hand, she is very protective of me and heads Missy off at the pass if she tries to get too close to me. She is firm but not aggressive or hostile and ends up using whatever physical effort needed to direct Missy away from me. And, if I do start showing Missy attention, Abbie either barks and barks or sits and stares until she can’t stand it and pulls Missy away (which actually could be a presentation of jealousy, come to think about it).

Not to be outsmarted by a dog (I usually leave that to the chickens), I just lock Abbie on the back porch for a while and give Missy the attention she needs. She’s been in trouble no few times and has received the back porch confinement before. Though not happy, she just patiently settles in for the duration and waits it out.

Ally Cat? or We don’t need  no stinking big cat and we ain’t lion!: We don’t have an ally behind us be we do have lots of space for critters to wander through. That means that you just never know what’s gonna traipse through the back 40 until it gets your attention.

We’ve had coons, ‘possums, deer, coyotes, ground squirrels (aka fuzzers), gophers, stray cats, stray dogs, snakes, toads, and what all trespass on our property. But, sometimes some very interesting animals make their way here.

Some time ago (but longer than a blue moon), we had a bear meander into the next door neighbor’s yard. The next door neighbor to the west of them had a mountain lion snatch one of their goats. Well, a few nights ago, the cry of a mountain lion was heard out back. That truly got our attention. It’s one thing to hear the coyotes yip but to hear a big cat cry out is another.

For a couple of nights, until we were fairly sure that the big cat was gone, we made sure that our doggies were hooked up close to the house and that the chickens were all safely in the coop. After that, we turned them loose again to roam about as they pleased. But, you can bet that the trusty 5 shot 20GA Mossburg pump shotgun is handy (no real need for the artillery for now).   

 

Fixing a leak so you can take one or When it leaks, it pours:  

Drama never sleeps for long at the rancho. Thankfully, we’re not talkin’ about a body count but things do get…interesting around this place. 

The other day (when lots of things happen around here), there up and sprung a leak in the upstairs loo. Great. We’re still aching and haven’t even finished cleaning up after the yard sale and a major plumbing issue bulldozes its way into our otherwise only crazy busy work day. 

So, when any toilet has an issue around the ranch, there’s only one man to call: “Thunder Bucket Specialist First Class, Randy L. Minnick”. He’s up to the task seeing that he’s gone through this drill whole bunches of no few times. “Randy! Randy! He’s our man! If he can’t fix it, no one can!” Yeah.

After checking with Capt. Backup (my pal who has lots of parts and pieces for lots of things around here), all of the parts (lots of them) for a complete T-bucket rebuild were corralled and installed. Clink, clink, clack, clack, bend, bow, groan, twist, tighten, and flush. Check for leaks and we’re good to go. Thunder bucket Specialist: 1 - Thunder bucket: 0;

Ah, but you just know there’s more to this story. This is “Rancho Relax” where the curve balls just keep on comin’. The leak was larger and lasted longer than we had first thought. As you can imagine, it was very much a sucker punch when the ceiling of the first floor restroom started to sag over the top of the shower! Connie the Mopper was rather amazed (and not amused at all) when she watched the big bulge burst open and water gushed down.

Thankfully, all of the water was confined to the shower stall. However, the sheetrock on the ceiling and on one wall was a mess. Great. That part probably won’t be too big of a deal. The Ol’ Rancher has spent no little time in construction so, after grabbing a slice of sheetrock, some mud, and some tape, paint, and spray can texture, the place will look like new again.

The upstairs bathroom is a different gig because the vinyl flooring will need to come up, the floor will need to be thoroughly dried, and new flooring lain. There’s nothing complicated about the matter at all because all of it has been practiced prior to this small adventure.

However, the main man in charge of this project has made the decision that his days working so close to the ground or floor on his knees are pretty much over with. New tile panels will be purchased and an expert will be hired to finish up the project. Life goes on.

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.