RANCHO RAINO MAXIMO

 Click on the pictures to enlarge them. 

Some of you have yet to see the "Coop de Ville". It is actually a dump truck cleverly disguised as a Ford Freestar van. It has hauled just about everything imaginable from chickens to church supplies. It also hauls our two trailers, Dumbo and Wooley Pulley. This thing is handier than a Boy Scout at "Senior Citizen's Night" at a KOA. She's only sporting a little over 100,000 miles on the clock and has lots of life left in her. 

This is the "bare  bones" motherboard of the gaming computer the Computer Dude is building for his son, Jeff. The cooling fan and heat sink are mounted as is the RAM (all 32 Giggles of it). It'll soon be covered in wires and cables and will have a liquid cooling system mounted on the CPU. She'll be a sweet box, to be sure. 

This is Black Mountain which resides due east of Rancho Relaxo. This shot was taken in the morning and you can see that we got a dusting of snow during the night. We're at about 1,000 MSL so the snow level is probably at about 1,800 MSL or so. 

Our official sign for Springville declares that we are "above the fog". Yeah...well...we're not above some of the other clouds. This is a morning shot looking due east and taken from the parking lot of "Sequoia Dawn" apartments in beautiful downtown Springville, CA, US of A. This is proof that we have clouds that visit our town. 

This is a shot looking due east from the back patio of Rancho Relaxo. The sun is peaking through after a welcomed snow storm that hammered our mountains and turned them into beautiful objects of snow-covered adoration. You can see some of the snow on the hills directly over the yellow barn. 

This is the same shot with the storm in progress. 

Here are three of our dirty birdies who have conspired to disobey the command to "STAY OFF THE PATIO, YOU STUPID CHICKEN!!". It's not that we hate chickens; quite the contrary. It's just that chickens have a way of being very selfish and headstrong. They are also known for disrespecting the feelings and property of others by leaving "trail markers" behind them. 

It is far from unknown for them to dig out Connie the Planter's planter boxes and empty them of their contents. This isn't a good thing when Connie has spent a lot of time planting germaniums and such. If that wasn't enough, they sometimes use the boxes for a place to lay their eggs! This is  also not to excuse the fact that we've never met a chicken who is housebroke or even patio-broke. Nobody likes "chicken surprises" but certainly not Connie. 

This is the new pup on the block. I have to tell you that she's as sweet as a full stack of maple syrup-covered blueberry pancakes. She's also as frisky and feisty as a you could ever imagine. The good news is that she extremely intelligent and, so far, fairly easily trained. I'm no expert but I think I have her identified as a full-blood Husky. At first, I thought she was a mix. That was because I couldn't imagine someone just dumping their very expensive pup for someone else to deal with. Though she seems to be a bit "soft" in the face (compared to other Huskies), I still think she's a pure bred pooch. Let me know what you think; it won't hurt my feelings if she is a mix. 

Well!  “Happy New Year!” We here at the rancho wish you all a great, happy, and prosperous 2022! 

And, what can be said but, “Where the heck did 2020 go?!” (sic). Here we are donning a new year like the old one was defiled, worthless, and wasn’t clean and comfortable enough for us. Ok…reckon, it wasn’t such a fabulous year. But, it wasn’t one that should have been purposely chucked into the dumpster that homeless people live behind! Even an old woolen sweater with holes in the elbows and frayed cuffs has some life in it and can be used to keep the north winds at bay. And, it’s only 356 days before Christmas! It’ll be here in no time flat! Trust me!

Besides: there was a lot (quite a lot!) more that needed to be done here at the rancho in the previous year prior to the new one pouncing upon us! (Not sure why we need to keep the Langoliers busy). Reckon, we should move along before we experience a rant-induced depression.

I have it from a reliable source that you should never talk to snakes in your garden.

Health update for Rancho Ran and Connie the Canner:  Our health remains strong and Connie’s wrist is healing up nicely. Her range of motion is still limited but she’s working on that matter. She is still able to pull a full daily load of work as though she had not been injured. Amazing, I say! 

Though I can legally fly under the FAA’s “Basic Med” provision, I can still pass the standard Class 3 physical and retain my medical. Sure, there are a few age-related aches and pains but usually nothing that a couple of Ibuprophen can't help with. My BP is nominal and all other systems are "GO". I'm probably a few watts low on brain power but I can live with that. 

We certainly could use a couple of weeks off to get some rest, though. If that happens, then I’m 100% fully expecting to not get anything done at all. Rest is our friend and it helps in leading a healthy life (thank you, Ben Garwood, for the tip that I hope to fully implement). 

 

Let it rain! Let it rain! Let it rain! (and let it snow, too!):

Things are moving along here at the Rancho Relaxo global headquarters.  We’re kickin’ but we’re not makin’ a lot of dust. It’s not so much that we are physically disabled; rather, it’s mostly due to the fact that we finally got some much-needed rain. Wet weather has a tendency to calm down much of the dust, eh (Ginzu Boy at your serivce)?

Unless they used to live in southern California, folks who live in Washington and Oregon have a hard time understanding what we endure down here in the “dust bowl” (I think all my Okie relatives dragged the “bowl” to CA with them in ’39, bless their darlin’  hearts). The northern folks are always reveling in the “California mist” (rain that missed California and hit them). Up there is where everything is green and growing and it’s where the discouraging word, “brown”, is never heard. They have no idea what it’s like to sneeze dirt clods on a regular basis.

I recall sitting at my desk in 1994 and reading the local newspaper on one summer day in Longview, WA. The headlines of the local “TDN” (“The Daily News”) newspaper lamented that Cowlitz County had recently endured a “drought”. Having already lived there for a few years, I was unable to comprehend what they were even talking about. There was no sign of dust or brown; everything was as green as ever. There were no “watering days” mentioned much less being enforced and I don’t recall anyone even knowing how to spell “parched”.

What really threw me was that the drought (that was spoken of in almost disastrous terms) had lasted…gasp…21 days. 21 days?!! I almost laughed myself out of my chair and into a new “Huggie”. No precipitation for three weeks! The reporter for the paper made is sound like they were making ready to start shipping water in by truck

You can understand my amusement when you consider that the Cowlitz River actually runs through town and the Columbia River (you may have heard of that little ship-laden stream) runs alongside the town)! There are many times when floods are counted in multiples during the winter rainy season.

Being from California’s notoriously dry San Joaquin Valley, there were times when the temperature didn’t even get below 100 degrees for three weeks much less rain. The annual rainfall in the SJV is about 10” to 11” on average. Some years only see about 5”. That’s pretty dry!

From what I understand, California is still trying to buy water from WA and OR and build a canal and pipe system to bring it down here. The web-footed folks up there don’t cotton to the idea at all so, good luck with that. The last I recall it was all “LOLOLOLOLOL’s” from them. California asked if they could make a deal if they upped the ante. Washington just said, “Up yours”.

In any case, we have above normal rainfall for the season (large crowd of neighbors heard cheering in the background). Southeastern Central Valley California is not the Olympic Peninsula but we’ve gotten almost 5” of rain which is roughly 180% above normal! The folks in this area are almost ready to don their wetsuits!     

“Clean up on aisle 32!” or “We can sell the house now, Martha!”: Probably the biggest event to report for the new year is the fact that we finally cleaned up the October yard sale tailings! We failed to do the cleanup in record time. In fact, not only did we not clean it up in record time, we set a new record in getting it done at all. It took more than two month to deal with the mess. Usually, it’s completed in a week or so.

Last year took a bit longer than usual; but, this time was different in that we just couldn’t make it a priority. It was due to a combination of a lack of spizzerinctum, lack of time, and uncooperative weather. At least we can now take down the “Sanford and Son Salvage” sign. 

Yes; it is most likely that we will continue to host the huge annual yard sale. Despite the huge effort and lengthy recovery process, it is a lot of fun. And, we usually net a bit of gas money and a few cases of “Ben-Gay” in the process. However, it remains unclear as to how involved we will be other than hosting it next October.  Since we would miss the camaraderie, at the very least, we’ll fire up the crock pots and stock up on chips and donuts and monitor the activities. We’ll see.

Printing is a passion? It probably seems odd to most folks that anyone other than a large office would need multiple printers. There’s no argument from the ramrod at the rancho about the matter; it is odd. But, Ol’ Ramrod Ran is a bit tetched anyway. This is probably why he has six inkjet and one lasterjet printer in his office/shop.

They really do come in handy. You see, printers are cantankerous little buggers that can “jack up” at any given time (usually the wrong time) and bring you to fits. That was a lesson learned long ago when the office only had the one printer (back when the old ‘puter dude had more teeth and hair). Just when the printer was needed most, it would hunker down, glare at me, make guttural crunching sounds, and refuse to comply. It wouldn’t work even after fooling with it, replacing cartridges, cleaning it, checking for jams, threatening it, and even almost begging it.

Then, after adding another printer, there would be (too many) times where something would go wrong (at the wrong time) with both printers! When one just wouldn’t work, fine; just use the other printer, eh? Ah, but you just know that someone had forgotten to have back up replacement ink cartridges on hand, don’t you? After experiencing this phenomenon with adding yet another printer, there had to be a solution to the matter. There was a solution: add more printers to the collection.

There was help with the matter. On more than one occasion, a client called to have their new printer set up. They would then ask me to haul off the old one (the old one usually having much life left in it but it “just wouldn’t work” any longer).  Many times, the old one is tossed. But, on more than one occasion, the printer merely needed to be electrically reset (an easy process) or a jam resolved.

In another case, the client thought the ink was too expensive and that the machine was too complicated to deal with (it hadn’t been set up properly). So, the client simple gave it to us. Cool! Free is out friend!

Those several printers really eased the work load around here when it came time to do the bulletins for church, don’tcha know. It no longer took 90 minutes to do a 15 minute print job. That meant that Printin’ Ran could go to bed on time on Saturday nights and not struggle with recalcitrant printers all evening and even into the late morning hours.

But, all printers are made by man and they all go “tick and whir”. That means that they will all wear out. Such is the case with the two hefty HP 6978’s that carried the main print load around here for a couple of years. They started acting up and the usual maintenance recourse was ineffectual. Not being in the mood for any more hair pulling and teeth gnashing, something had to be done. So, guess what’s sitting on the shelf now? Yep: two new HP 8022’s. Grief gone and no teeth were harmed.

The first one came in and was set up. It did such a great job (and the other old one did such a lousy job) that the second one was immediately purchased! They are factory refurbs with a 4 year extended warranty and we got each of them for less than half the retail price of a new one! TWO’FER’s are our friends!

So, now we're back to smooth sailing and grief free printing. Life's good! 

The Magic Dog Trick or How’d That Happen…again?!  OK…I’m a pretty clever toilet lever when it comes to figuring out some of life’s mysteries. But, I have to confess that it ain’t happenin’ this time.

The other day (when lots of things happen around here), the two old people walked out from the back patio and were headed to the barn to grab some boxes of Christmas trimmings and ornaments. When, what before our not-at-all-bloodshot eyes should appear but Missy! Yes, Missy, the sweet pooch doggie dog, and she was at least 10 feet beyond the length of her ¼” steel cable!  What happened?! Hooy, boy!

That isn’t a good thing: she’s a four-legged tornado that eats, mauls, completely disassembles (or disembowels), or levels anything in her path. If she were a toy, she’d be a “Hasbor”  “Destructo Doggie” gift: “Destruction in a complete kit! Get one for your offensive, undisciplined, hooligan child, today! Never worry about your house being in one piece again!”.

Anyway….the mechanics were simple; the pin had come out of the clevis link. Ah, but that’s not the mystery. The mystery is that the properly installed and secured cotter pin was missing so that the clevis pin could come out. A search was made for the pin and cotter pin but to no avail. Did Missy eat the dang thing?! Who knows!

So, a couple of quick links were appropriated and installed (using a pair of pliers) to secure a short length of chain (to which her cable was secured) on our wayward pup so that it couldn’t jiggle loose (it had actually jiggled loose one other time because the quick link was only finger tightened).

The next day, and to our great surprise, a neighbor came to us to advise that Missy was, of all places, in our 10’ x 10’ refuse enclosure behind the barn (you know: the one with the 6’ fencing and a shut front gate)! My lightning-fast mind thought, “You can’t be serious!”.

When we got behind the barn, there she was with her severed steel cable trailing behind her. The previous repair of the chain was fine but the cable was now severed! She had hopped up on a barrel and simply leaped between the canvas top and the chain link fencing. What the heck was she looking for in there? You’ll have to ask her because I don’t have a clue: one more mystery.

After dragging her out of the bin through the front door, she was re-secured to her doggie house (the former “Maggie’s  Mansion”) with a 15’ 5/8” nylon rope. If she keeps this up, I’m going to book a spot on Penn & Teller’s “Fool Us”!

Since then, a long section of double-link chain was purchased and, on my next day off, she’ll be wearing her new harness which will be secured to her new chain.

The next thing she did to express her intelligence and challenge my patience was when I was loading my trailer in the back yard. To get to my side, she jumped over the tongue of the trailer. In an attempt to teach her to go to the other side, she refused to go over the tongue but then, as fast as lightning, ducked under the tongue! Great! Now she has looped the rope around the tongue. OK….as she’s tugging, resisting, and otherwise, being overly energetic, she had to be forcefully pushed under the tongue then back over the tongue so she could be freed up. Simple, eh? Not at Rancho Relaxo.

Missy, in full rebellion mode, simply repeated the entire dynamic of getting the rope tangled in the trailer tongue. She just doesn’t get what the word “NO!” means. How do you unwind a doggie who wants to keep winding?! It took a couple more minutes to finally get her straightened out but I think  I just created a new-but-unwanted doggie trick! Great. The loading job was finished and the trailer was moved out of the way.

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 the eggs are always  mostly fresh, where things can get...interesting, where it’s all news to me, and where...you just never know.