Welcome to the "Rancho Relaxo" blog for July. We trust that all y'all had a great and peaceful Fourth of July! We stayed home and rested (well, actually, we stayed home and finished some of our 'home work").
This month's issue is much closer to being on time but things are still rather hectic around here and the dust usually never settles. We’re still busier than Abbie trying to get to a lizard hiding behind a fridge on the patio.
The Ol' Rooster and Ol' Hen just wanted to share what's happening here at our humble rancho nestled in the toasty brown foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We're somewhat tempted to be envious of those folks who think they are suffering drought conditions after 22 days without precipitation. This actually happened to me when I was living in Longview, WA. We experienced a three week period without rain. The local newspaper was in fear that their beloved green region would be converted into a desert within mere days. I think they were toying with the idea of buying water from Canada!
Anyway, our lake, Success Lake, is full to the brim and our local folks have pulled their boats and barges out and waxed them up and are ready for the summer days ahead. We have plenty of "ditch water" for irrigation around here, too. My trees need a big drink of water prior to the scorching heat that's sure to hit soon.
Thanks for dropping in at Rancho Relaxo, the chicken ranch that is being run by two old turkeys.
Click on pictures to enlarge them.
We do chickens here! We're getting plenty of eggs as of late so there's no shortage. That means there's no need to increase the size of our flock at this time. However, there was a brief thought as to whether or not we would allow two or three of our girls to go "full chicken" on us. It would be only too easy to end up with 20+ new chicks in about a month. And, we have four cockerels who are quite the happy lot to be tasked with preserving the flock. But, for now, we're just too busy to chicken sit that many chicks because they need to be in the house until they get big enough to be transferred to the small hutch within the coop. After four or five weeks, they would be introduced in the general population. Maybe later when it cools off.
This is one of our feathery pretty boys and it's his turn to be the cock o' the walk and ruler of the roost. I really don't think he'll get as large as Ol' Henry the Henbanger II but he is the real deal rooster and he rules with confidence. The other cockerels bow their beaks when he's around.
This shot doesn't do the scenery justice. This pic was taken on Ave 138 less than a half mile from Reservation Road. It's looking north toward Success Lake. When you enlarge the picture (click on it to enlarge), you can see the top of Shafer dam just above the top of the trees in the foreground. You can see the spillway gate control structure at the left on top of the dam.
Ave 138 is the road that goes by "Golden Hills" trailer home park and then over the hump and on to Reservation Road.
Tip O’ the Day: “Always remember; it’s the pilot that
arrives at the scene of the crash first” (anonymous but probably not Church
Yeager)
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Holy frijoles, Batman!! It’s July already! Half the years is over with! If that doesn't just beat the band, it’s only 173 days until Christmas! No wonder I'm seeing more gray in my beautiful thinning brown hair! On with the show.....
Chickening Report:
Egg production was down for a while and for whatever reason other than starvation. We pamper our birdies no matter what meaning that they are quite well fed. So, when we only get a few eggs, we can’t help but wonder why. There was never a satisfactory reason so we just told them that, if egg production didn’t start ramping up, I would see to it that they all fit nicely into a hoagie roll. It must have worked because they straightened up and started flying right. Our production skyrocketed. That was mighty pleasing, to say the least. The weather may have had a part in the matter but probably not since our spring has been exceptionally and wonderfully temperate.
Feeding time is always the same. They start with a large scoop of chicken scratch and/or layer pellets which have a bit higher protein content. After that, they get large boxes of produce trimmings from a local supermarket. Talk about a balanced diet! They get fruits and veggies galore. There are also the leftovers from our dinner table, too (the doggies get the stale meats and a bit of fat once in awhile).
To get to the back of the coop where the layer boxes are, I need to very carefully wade through the bird herd. They think that the live in "Starvation Heights" so they crowd around me looking for even more chow than what has been brought out. I've had to learn to do the Hen House Hop and the Chicken Schmidt Walz to keep from mashing one of them. Even as it is, it isn't uncommon to hear a screech from one of them when they get a foot hung under a big rubber boot. No chickens have been harmed so far.
Not cold; not cool or Reefer Madness
Not long ago, but longer than the other day, one of our refrigerators started getting warm. The ice box part on top was fine. "No worries", says I. That presentation has been seen before at the ol' rancho. The protocol is to first haul everything out of the top box and into awaiting ice chests. After that, you use a blow dryer (a heat gun does a better job in less time) to melt the accreted ice which builds up in the channel(s) between the upper and lower boxes.
After that, you just restack everything and all is well: except when it isn't well. In this case, the bottom box refused to get cold. That didn't make me wave flags and dance for joy at all. The next step is to take everything back out (that's fun) and pull the (inside) back part of the freezer compartment off. Then, you defrost the condenser coils and whatever has ice on it: screw the valance back on and your good to go.
This time, rather than restack everything back in the freezer, the fridge was left alone to see if it would function nominally (a thermometer was parked inside). It didn't function nominally. Great. A couple of other fridges were cleaned out and stuff was tossed that had been stored too long ("Here, chick, chick, chick!"). That way we could fill the space with the goods from the ice chests. All of this scrambling around was just so much fun.
But, wait, folks; there's more. The next morning, one of the fridges into which we tossed a bunch of stuff wasn't getting cold enough in it's fridge part but the freezer was fine (the same presentation as the other fridge)! We unplugged it after removing its innards and putting them wherever we could. The next day, we plugged it in and waited for it to cool down. But, it just didn't convince us that it was going to spare us all kinds of time and money to deal with the matter. By this time, you can guess which two residents of the old folk's home were fed up with dealing with refrigerators.
We looked a "Lowe's" online and found a nice 21 cu ft GE fridge that we liked and headed down the hill to take a look. Long story longer, we found a deal on a 15 cu. ft Whirlpool (Hobart) upright freezer and bought it too. This one will replace the freezer in our garage that conked out after only 3 years (Kenmore which is Hobart and which is no longer made by Whirlpool). As it turned out, they could deliver it the next day!! Is that (ahem) cool or what?!
The next day found us setting up the new boxes and shuffling stuff from fridges and ice chests (after the new boxes had cooled down). The only downer was that we had to wrestle the old boxes out of the way. I didn't take "appliance wrestling" in school on purpose but it had to be done.
Finally, we had a new fridge and freezer. No more reefer madness and grief and headaches at the ranch. Now, that's cool.
