Rancho de Cerdos y Pollos

 

Welcome to the "Rancho Relaxo" blog for January. Well...this month's edition is on time. That's by and large because I got a head start on things. Amazing. That, and I decided to just rest on New Year's eve and then again on my birthday, January 1st. It felt good to take a....day off!!! 

Winter is here but it isn’t brutal like some folks have it. We’ve had a couple of colder days but nothing unusual. We did get some rain and it’s greatly appreciated. Most of the precipitation hit the mountains and that’s great! Can you spell “snow pack”?! That’ll help us this summer and help to keep the trout from drying out in the creeks and rivers, don’tcha know. Our rain is what I call “soaker rain” which doesn’t come down hard like the “frog strangler” storms that they get in Texas and Oklahoma. Those storms pack a wallop and can dump more rain in half a day than we get in an entire year!! We're forecast to get at least three more days of rain soon so that'll be a real blessing! 

There is an inconvenience (for Rancho Relaxo) to deal with, though: ever lasting mud. It takes a long while to dry things our around here. With our clay-based soil, we have to make sure that our boots are secured because they can get stuck in the mud and come off when you least expect it! That makes working in the Henhouse Hilton a real chore. In the winter, it take twice as long to tend the bird herd than in summer. 

Anyway, the Ol' Rooster and Ol' Hen just wanted to share what's happening here at our humble rancho (which doesn’t even come close to meeting modern industrial standards) nestled in the just-about-perfectly-green foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Thanks for stopping in at Dirty Bird Central, the chicken ranch being run by two old turkeys.

Click on pictures to enlarge. 

The bird herd was allowed to free range the other day (when lots of things happen around here). For being stupid chickens, they do know from whence their blessings (aka chicken chow) comes. Here are a couple of my pecking pals who flew upon my shoulder to wipe their feet on my overalls and to capture my attention so that the Ol' Rancher will hand feed them. They need to unlearn those tricks. 

This isn't a rare phenomenon but it doesn't happen every year. This happens when the the surface temperatures and ambient temps are at a certain point which basically traps the clouds at a position above the ground instead of on it. At that point, we would experience fog. This pictures is looking north from Circle R. The hill where the cloud is is directly behind our house. Our place is at the bottom and can't be seen because of the trees that are in the way. You can barely see Dr. Falopino's house which is directly behind ours and up higher on the hill and slightly above the tree line.  

Anytime we have  half-mile or so forward visibility, I refer to it as "high fog". 

This...this is "Tule Fog". It's when you are not just "socked in"; it's when the sock is slipped over your head.

This is what the locals wait for every year. We need the snow cap to keep things moving down in the valley. The more snow we get, the less water we have to pump from the ground. Just as a reference, they've sucked so much agua from the ground that the valley floor has dropped anywhere from 3 to 10 feet in places! This shot was take eastbound on Highway 190 coming down off the Main Street overpass. The intersection ahead in the picture is Plano Street. Things are nice and green. We were really really tired of the brown and the dust. Breathing clean air is a good thing. 

This scrumptious looking plate of deserts is what we call "puttin' on the Ritz". Talk about a fast and yet great desert! Connie the Cooker pulled out her cache of Ritz crackers, slapped some peanut butter on them, and dipped them in chocolate! I eat butter crackers and peanut butter all the time but have never had anything like these! May I suggest that you get your maid to whomp some of these babies up. You'll be glad you did!

Tip O’ the Day

You’ll never have bacon if you don’t feed the hogs (the Ol’ Rancher).

  And, now a word from our sponsor:

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Well, fry my biscuits and dip me in gravy! It’s January…again….so soon! Doesn’t that just put tears in your tacos? And, it’s only 357 days until Christmas! Where does the time go?! *SIGH*. Moving along……

Here, pig, pig, pig! Or The oinks are on us.

Not long ago, but longer than the other day (when lots of things happen around here), we got a really big surprise. We’ve been sharing our produce trimmings with a friend who raises pigs and chickens at his  ranch on Success Valley Drive (about five miles from us down by Success Lake). He asked us if we wanted a couple of three-month-old piglets! Now, just how can you refuse some ham on the hoof when it's free? He must have have known that free is my friend! 

We got them home and put them in the large cage that's inside the coop. That's the cage where we put the birds that out grew their hutch but are not quite big enough enough to release into the general population. When they're big enough to hold their own or at least out run the big biddies who rule the roost, we cut them loose to fend for themselves. It's now a pig sty but there's some explaining to do. 

Connie was quick to name one of them “Piglet” from “Winnie the Pooh”. Me? I ran across the name “Squealer” from a friend so, Squealer it is. We do need to be mindful how close we get to them, though, because our policy around here is that we don’t eat our friends.

OK. Pigs onboard and the chickens are doing fine. But, this is Rancho Relaxo where... you just never know. Things came unraveled fairly quickly after the first couple of days. It rained and the coop was flooded. It was already muddy because it hasn’t been warm enough for the coop to dry out. I could see that the coop was not going to be a happy place for pigs or peckers. 

For one thing, piglets need to be kept warm and that just wasn't going to happen. Though a small heater was placed at one end of the cage, the water was too deep and the piggies had no place to bunk at night that wasn't wet. And, the piggies rooted up the entire cage knocking the feeding box over and drowning everything in mud! UGH! This was fighting a war in which no one could not dictate the outcome. This made the Ol' Rancher far from being the proverbial happy camper. 

There were no options but one: take the piglets out of the cage and let them head to the back of the coop where it was a bit higher and dryer. Um....when was the last time you tried to catch a muddy slicker-than-snot piggy? Yeah...me neither. It took some really expert anticipation of where the lightning fast piggies were going to be in the next millisecond and some precise hand aiming involved but the little buggers were snatched out of the cage. The event was exhausting but at least it was a grand mess. Good thing we have hot running water for showers and a working washing machine. 

It didn't take long to make note that our newly-named pigs, Squealer and Piglet, are at least on the same level of being voracious eaters as chickens.

 Chickening Report

Speaking of voracious chickens, A half of a 50 lb bag of layer pellets was loaded into the chicken feeder that hangs from the ceiling of the coop. That’s not the usual practice but it was necessary because we ran short or “greens” for the birds: that and the floor of the coop was nothing but deep mud which would have wrecked the greens in only a few minutes. Our "Hoover birds" sucked up the bucket in only a day! Doing the math showed that, if they were fed a half a bag of pellets per day, it would cost us around 300 dollars per month to feed our feathery friends! It would be somewhat justifiable if we sold our farm-fresh eggs like we used to do (we used to sell as many as 5 dozen per day). If the layers were laying at all (and, for now, they're not) we would probably just break even on the deal.

But, that’s the rub. The chicken factory is on vacation. We haven’t had a single egg in at least…2 months! This has never happened to us before! I checked with dear friend and brother, Scott, who also has a bunch of layers, and he is experiencing the same things: no eggs for months. We've tried two separate brands of layer pellets but our birds also get plenty of layer pellets as a side dish. The hope is that they will pick up the pace before too awfully long. The eggs we have in storage will expire soon so a turnaround in this food chain scarcity is a must. (Update: we just got a dozen and a half today).

There is another concern. As chicken muster-master general, I’m concerned about having to clean the Henhouse Hilton because there’s likely going to be a biohazard fee when we leave for good (no plans so far but speculation is in the air). In a word, the place is a mess. It involves everything hazardous excepting ectoplasmic residue and nuclear waste. That's a plus. Actually, there may be a tad of overreacting but, for now, it seems like a huge concern. The opinion will likely ease up when the weather changes and the coop dries out. In any case, I don't want a herd of really, really, really dirty birdies on hand. 

This messy scenario isn't a new one but it is the most dangerous one. For one thing, the ol' rooster wrangler has to all but tippy toe through the coop (no tulips for now) because the mud is so deep. One misstep and there could be a medical emergency show up at no charge. Having already experienced such an event in 2014, there's no hurry to conjure up another one by trying my hand at mud surfing. 

So far, about the only thing I can do is set the piggies free inside the coop. We'll see. 

Connie the Canner Report 

A couple of weeks ago, Connie experienced a nasty forward fall. It was almost a face plant but, thankfully, her head and spine were not injured. What was injured was her back. The doctor has her on a muscle relaxer for now. We're going heavy on homeopathic remedies for now and it seems to be working. No analgesics except for Ibuprofen and sparingly at that. Her back has been slathered with Vicks and a special comfrey salve and even a splash of castor oil. She has been all but bedridden for the previous two weeks but, finally, was able to go to town today for a few hours. When she got home, she had to go straight to bed. She is getting better and everyone's prayers are greatly appreciated because they are working!  

As you can imagine, she is keen to get back in the saddle of her rancho and get back to freeze drying, dehydrating, baking, and doing all the regular chores that no one else around here can do. The Ol' Rancher can do the laundry and such so that helps. The big Maytag twins are operating nominally so that helps, too. 

So....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 Connie the Canner, the world's greatest side-kook and CEE (Chief of Everything Else); together we are the Yo-Yo  twins who are always having to return to the rancho for something: home to one duck that we try to keep in a row (which is difficult since he's retarded): where the air always smells and where alliteration reigns supreme: where being modern is optional and where there are no slaves to fashion: where the eggs are always fresh: where things