RANCHO BAKEO BLASTO

 

Greetings and welcome to the "Rancho Relaxo" blog for July. This month's issue is a wee less late this time. Things are still rather hectic around here, though. We're busier than an armadillo knee-deep in termites. Anyway, the Ol' Rooster and Ol' Hen just wanted to share what's happening here at our humble rancho nestled in the furnace-blasted foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We're steel-braced now in the middle of what we call  "real heat" which just pounced on us today (113 degrees is real heat!).  Thanks for dropping in at the Rancho Relaxo smoldering global headquarters.

Nice cones. These caution cones come from all over the place. We stumble into them at yard and estate sales and they do come in handy. Here, they are being used to protect the 1" irrigation riser so that it doesn't get run over....again. They keep to themselves and don't eat much so we got our money's worth. 

Here's the cutie chicks from last month. They're only a few days old here and below. As it turned out, we sold them to a guy up the hill from us. He took all ten for 10 bucks. That'll work. 

You can see below that we extracted them from their mother hen and put them in a separate enclosure. She took great exception to the robbery and resisted. I should recover before too long. 

More of our "Bundling Biddy Buddies" program. The girls seem to get along well so I just let them snuggle in the box. I wish that I had known more about how chickens think when I built the Henhouse Hilton. There would have been maybe ten or so laying boxes instead of 36. It wouldn't matter if I had a hundred chickens, they would still only use a dozen boxes. We did, in fact, have almost a hundred layers at one time a few years ago is how we know.

We recently had another fire in this nearby location about a mile from our place. They Forestry Service boys were on this thing like a duck on a June bug. It was extinguished in just a few hours (with an ensuing mop up). Here is one of the "Huey" helicopters "spot dropping" his load of water. Success Lake is only 3 miles to the west of the fire (the picture is taken looking almost due south) so they can haul as much water as they need to. 

Below is a four-engine BAE-146 water bomber on his way back to base (KPTV) after a drop. A few minutes prior, he flew directly over our house at about 300'. I've flown on two them so far. One was a PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines - now defunct) flight from Fresno to Spokane and the other was from Accra, Ghana to Kumasi, Ghana (West Africa). It's my all-time favorite four-engine passenger jet. 

This happens a lot around these parts of the foothills. This dear little deer is trying to remain cool by hiding under this large solar panel installation. He appears to be more concerned with not cooking in the heat than being spotted by humans. Good call. 

Making a mess...again. My...my...my. I'm a sucker for a big mess of collard greens. The previous mess was whomped up not long ago (but longer than the other day). It was prepared with bacon which was certainly sufficient for the day. However, this is the way to do it up right so there had to be some re-whomping done. There's just nothing that can beat a smoked ham hock when cooking collards. You can get by using something else but you can't top the hock. After simmering for three hours, it was dinner time. 

It's summer time so it was haircut time for Fuzzy the fuzzball labra-doodle. He was a mess! His fur is so dense and matted that our doggie clippers wouldn't even touch it. That means you know who had to manually administer the clip job. I just keep clipping and pruning until Fuzzy sort of disappeared. This may be all that there is left of him!  Naw....this is just the aftermath of a really lousy haircut. Since he still looks like he was clipped by a bunch of fourth graders with dull shears, his needs will need to be readdressed soon. Until then, he has enough fur to just soak him down real good with a hose so that he's carrying his own swamp cooler with him.  So, Fuzzy Wuzzy isn't fuzzy, is he? 

Proof that the Ol' Rancher speaks the truth and  isn't exaggerating when he quoted the temperature. We had to go out in it for a while. We survived but relished getting back to our cool-as-a-cucumber homestead. We don't believe in elder abuse here at the rancho. 

 Tip of the Day:

 "Always drink upstream from the buffalo herd" - Heap Big Chief Take-a-Leak-in-a-Creek of the Heck-Ah-Wee tribe.

 

 And now a word from our sponsor:

 This issue of Rancho Relaxo is brought to you by “Zelda Zonda’s Zingy Zangy Zongers”. Now, these are the best Zingy Zangy Zongers that money can buy! You cannot...I say...you cannot get better “Zingy Zangy Zongers anywheres! And, folks, they're made right here in the good ol’ US of A. You can get your bountiful supply of “Zelda Zonda’s Zingy Zangy Zongers” at the Wal-Mart, KMART, Speedy Mart, Save Mart, Quick Mart, Rapid Mart, and all those marts where those guys have them towels wrapped around their heads. Tell'em the Ol' Rancher sent you. You'll be glad you did!

Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle!! It's JULY and it's HOT! Half of this year is history!! What happened?! OK.....It's probably best to just skip this part. There would have been a lot of Rancho Ranting happening, otherwise. Moving along.....

I must admit that we were spoiled having such a mild winter and beautiful wet spring. But now, getting smacked in the mug by a blow torch when you step outside is about as welcomed as a cactus at a nudist colony. C'est la vie. Life goes on. It's not like this is my first summer to dwell in an coke kiln.  

Chickening report: You would think that there's not much else you can add to a story about chickens and eggs. Ah, but that isn't so. Something new (ahem) hatches in front of my face almost every time the coop door opens. Take for instance: the other day (when lots of things happen around here), when the weather was completely dry and there were no floods in our immediate area, Ol' Ran was greeted with a brand new deep flood! Ain't it great?! The good news is that it didn't take Sherlock Holmes or Albert Einstein to get to the bottom of things. "Someone" forgot that, when you water the oranges and other trees in the "back forty" (1.5 acres or so), most of the run off heads directly into the chicken coop! It's crazy because it's almost like someone (i.e. a different someone) dug a canal that leads directly to cackle central. Another chore and another long wait for the coop to dry out. *SIGH*. The irrigation was shut down so the flooding stopped. Perhaps we know who will be a bit more observant in the future. 

Thankfully, there was a small dry section at the rear where the dirty birdies' chicken chow could be doled out. Other than having to march around with muddy feet, they didn't seem to mind at all. What is important is that they get their grits on time or they're prone to use....fowl language (of course you wouldn't notice unless you're fluent in chickense, eh?). 

And, they are doing egg-sactly what they are supposed to do. They are laying really well now. For awhile, we thought that, either someone was snatching our eggs, or that they were unionizing. What's amazing is that we're having to deal with the abundance of huevos because "Big Bertha", the freeze dryer, has decided to abdicate her responsibility by committing suicide. Great. Just what we need. Usually, Connie the Freeze Dryer just blends them up really well and tosses them into the freeze dryer. The result is easy-to-store powdered eggs. We'll be selling some and giving some away for awhile. 

We used to have a string of clients from all over the place. Our layers provides us with at least four dozen eggs a day. We sold them at $3.00 per dozen so that provided some "pin money" for the Ol' Hen here at the house (netting more than $200.00 per month. Not too bad). 

Diggity Dog Report: No Rancho Relaxo Report would be complete without an update on our doggies. Abbie, the princess of and ruler of all things around here is doing great. I'm pleased to report that because, as you recall, she had a really rough winter. She chose off a local bobcat (she's never been fond of intruders and bobcats are at the top of that list, don'tcha know) who promptly used his razor-sharp claws to excise her hide in a number of places. She was placed inside for a few days until she felt like going out for a constitutional and some fresh air. Reckon she missed her classes on congeniality because she chose off the neighbor's bulldog who added a couple of seriously deep and long cuts in her hide. That took her out of action for another couple of weeks. Anyway, Abbie is just being Abbie for now while keeping an eye on Fuzzy as he romps around trying to disassemble anything that looks like it needs to be destroyed. 

Actually, he is doing better. I've only had to rewire "Wooly Pulley" three times in the previous year so he's doing better. He is in dire need of a "real" trim but, since he's not a show dog (he's a "show up" dog), he doesn't need a professional groomer. The aim is to just take a little time and hand trim him. We'll see. In any event, he's happy and healthy and that's the important thing. 

He was actually brought on board as a friend for Abbie. She's experiencing her ninth year on the planet so we thought that having a boisterous pup around would give her some exercise as well as a playmate. It's working out that way. 

Well....there you have it: another short episode of the long happenings at Rancho Relaxo (aka “Dos Acres”): home of Rancho Ran, the world's least-most greatest authority: home of the Yo-Yo  twins and  three ducks that we try to keep in a row (one of which is retarded): 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.