RANCHO RAINO GREENO

 Greetings and welcome to the "Rancho Relaxo" blog for March. The Ol' Rooster and Ol' Hen just wanted to share what's happening here at our humble rancho nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Thanks for dropping in! 

We're still doing our chicken and doggie thing along with the computer biz and church functions and such. What with the nice rains (we're at almost twice the seasonal amount!), we are enjoying an overwhelming and wonderful time of GREEN! The wild flowers will be exploding soon (some already are) so we'll be taking the short 40 mile round trip over the Yokhol Valley Road to see the vast array of almost unimaginable beauty. Stick around. Things could get...interesting. 

NOTE: YOU MAY CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO ENLARGE THEM

Here's Fuzzy Dog who, since the rains began, has been masquerading as a four legged mud hole. Compare this pic to the "normal" one below. He's no stranger to the rain at all and even seems to thrive in it though he is soaked through and through.

Fuzzy the dry dog 

Speaking of rain, our coop was sorely flooded. What a muddy mess. The good news is that the far back of the coop is just high enough to avoid most of the flood so the dirty birdies had some dry ground to work with. Most of the time, though, they just parked on top of the cage and hutch (partially visible in the upper right). 

We can't let them free range because it's the coyote mating season and we have already lost a number of chickens to predators as it is. And, we have a couple of girly birds that seem to want to park in the trees at night instead of the coop. That adds to the work load because we have to herd them back right at evening time when it's time to roost. I have better things to do that to babysit yard birds. 

Speaking of rain again, our "California Gold" has been 

converted to a lush green. Here's Success Lake

(aka Stuck Duck Pond during the dry spells)

The San Joaquin Valley produces most of the country's almonds. Here are some local trees that are in bloom and enjoying having enough water. 

The snow has been right down to our level. None of it has stuck, though. That's not a bad thing that I can tell. 

This Black Mountain about 3.5 miles from the Rancho. The shot was taken while on Hwy 190 looking east and about 1.25 miles from our place. That's Frazier Valley Road to the left. 

Here's a snowline shot taken from the view point at Success Lake.

Above is what it looked like on the rainy night of Dec. 1st, 2022 when the Ol' Rancher and Connie the Canner pulled up into this uphill and quite dark drive way. It leads into the "Eagle Feather Trading Post" 2.6 miles from our rancho. You can't see the red concrete-filled steel posts that guard the RV dump (pictured at the right) to the far left in the upper picture. They were invisible and had no direct lighting. They blended in with the environment and sat lurking for an innocent driver to snag. 

When making a nice slow U-Turn, the van suddenly stopped in its tracks with a loud "BANG!". I had no idea what I hit and even asked Connie, "What was that? What did I hit?". It was quite a jolt!

Below, you can see that the damage appears to be rather minimal. However, despite the fact that the car was drivable and that the damage appeared to be easily fixable, the insurance company "totaled" the van. There are some mounting brackets for the radiator and such that were wrecked under the hood which pushed the cost of repair over the limit. 

Here's the good news. They gave us a thousand dollars more than we paid for the Freestar Limited van (it pays to take care of your equipment, eh?)! That allowed us to get another low-mileage Freestar (SEL),  put new Michelin tires on it, and have a super tune-up, fix the brake pressure switch (which is the cruise control cut-out switch), and fix the sticky driver's electric window. Such a deal!! 

And now, a word from our sponsor. This issue of Rancho Relaxo is brought to you by Lucky Linda’s Laddy Loody Lobbers.  Now, these are the best  Laddy Loody Lobbers that money can buy! They're made right here in the US of A. You cannot...I say...you can't get a better Laddy Loody Lobber anywhere! You can get your bountiful supply of Lucky Linda’s Laddy Loody Lobbers at the Wal-Mart, KMART, Speedy Mart, Rapid Mart, Quick Mart, and all those stop-and-rob marts where them guys have those towels wrapped around their heads. Tell'em the Ol' Rancher sent you. You'll be glad you did! 

Well, it's March...again. Only 294 days until Christmas. Moving along....

Things are whizzing on by now that it's crowding springtime. There's seems to be no stopping the clock so we're not trying to do that. We are trying to cram as much into the speeding train as we can, though. Lots' to do. 

The chickens are doing great. The cold weather has convinced them that they don't have to produce as many eggs in during the winter. But, we still have plenty stored eggs (water glassing) and have no lack. They'll start laying regularly when the weather breaks into its usual warmness around here. Until then, Captain Cluck will keep feeding and watering them. 

Speaking of the weather, it has actually been winter around here! Usually, we have a nice gentle autumn then a few cold days, a couple of days of rain, a few days of fog, then it's springtime in at about the first of March. This time we've had temps in the mid-30's and have had rain and snow! So far, we've had almost twice the amount of our seasonal rain and there ain't nobody complaining!! Everything is so wonderfully green! 

Sure, we have to deal with some mud and a few folks have had to deal with flooding. That's never a good thing but we're all so thankful to see this stinking six year drought drown and die! Our snow pack is the greatest it has been in years and we even have some areas in the mountains that have gotten more snow than anywhere in the country!! It'll all end soon enough but, until then, we are some mighty happen folks for now. 

Fuzzy the Chew Dog: I hated to see this but Fuzzy is a chewer and shredder. *SIGH*. He's such a big love dog and so good natured that it's difficult to see him have such a huge flaw. He'll grow out of it, I'm sure. But, it's a bit difficult to keep having to repair and replace stuff around here on a regular basis. 

For instance, he chewed the power cord to one of our small heaters that we were using to heat the dog house with. He also shredded the nice big foam sponge sofa pillow that Connie the Sewer made for him. That is to say he pulled the foam apart chew by chew and strewed all over the yard (and you just know who got to rake and pick that mess up). What took the cake, though, was when he chewed the hook up wiring on Wooley Pully, the stake-side trailer. That's not a big deal because I have a back up wiring kit. However, it put me a week behind in hauling the trash off. I now get to deal with a dozen overflowing trash cans for another week. 

He then sneaked under the big our tarp along side the house and started tearing into the boxes stored under there (we were waiting for the rains to stop so we could haul them off). He destroyed a bunch of stuff including a really nice Sharp video camera (he chewed the battery case off!). He then pulled other stuff out and scattered around the yard. Having Fuzzy around is like having a blender with no lid on it (thanks, Latisa!). We may have to change his name from Fuzzy to Chewy. 

We sure love our new Freestar van!! We got a really good deal on it and had enough insurance money left over to invest it in this new van. The first thing we got was a new set of Michelins. After that, we had it tuned up but also had them install a new electronic ignition power pack which are notoriously faulty on Ford Freestars with the 4.2L engine. We picked the van specifically because it had the 4.2L engine which is the same engine used in the Ford F-150 pickup. We need the extra horse pressure to be able to haul our trailers, Wooley Pulley and Dumbo. 

The next item to be replaced was the brake pressure switch which is also the cruise control cut-out switch. That is another notoriously faulty item on Freestars. All three of our Freestars had fault switches and two had faulty power packs. Anyway, the big beauty is running as smooth as buttermilk on a cool day and rides like a Cadillac and we're lovin' it! 

We've now owned threer Freestars. The first was an SE, the second, a Limited, and the third is an SEL. So, we've had all three models. So far, I think we like the SEL the best. 

Well....there you have it: another short episode of the long happenings at Rancho Relaxo: home of Rancho Ran, the world's least-most greatest authority: home of the Yo-Yo  twins and home of a retarded duck: home of Connie the Canner, the world's greatest side-kook and CEE (Chief of Everything Else): where the air smells and where alliteration reigns supreme: where being modern is optional and 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.