Roundup Ran and Canning Connie

 Heffalump, the big white covered trailer, is hiding in the back yard and not in the pole barn where it usually resides.

Above is the new "Springville Yacht"

          At right is the recently ovehauled
          small trailer. What a handy gadget to have
          around!

          Below is a shot of the well house,
          barn, above ground garden boxes,
          and part of the back yard. You can see
          Heffalump in the background at center left
          (looking southwest)

 

 

 

I am appalled at how fast the time is elapsing! We’re almost through another year and I’ve hardly gotten used to this one! Connie and I have gotten many things done that we had planned to do for the homestead but are far from finished. We were sure that we would be done by…October at the latest. It didn’t happen.

Some of the things we did accomplish was the finishing the barn project. It was to be a three month or so deal but ended up being a year and a half ordeal! Finally, though, we have all of the loose ended tidied up. That last bit of touch up paint and securing of some insulation upstairs was completed.

Connie has been getting the shop area straightened up and in order. I now know where most of my tools are and many of my big shop tools are in place. There is a nice industrial drill press, 10” Craftsman table saw, Craftsman band saw, and Craftsman radial saw on one wall. On the other is my 33 gal. Craftsman air compressor, sand/bead blaster, 3.5KW generator, 800W generator, two Craftsman tools chests, storage racks, and two storage cabinets. The smaller power tools are on the shelf under the two nice big 4’ x 8’ work tables that are stationed in the middle of the floor. There is much stuff yet to be brought in from outside where it had to be hauled so we could get organized. The rainy season is upon us so we’ll have to crack the whip to get it done. I’ll do the whip crackin’ and let someone else do the work, of course. I make a great supervisor.

Upstairs in the barn is where Connie has stored tons of stuff including the goodies for the huge yard sale being conducted on the third week of this month. This will be the third year where there have been several participants. Last year there were 16 venders with tents, awnings, and tables all over the place (Yes. We do have a huge front yard). We had a great time (tell that to our sore aching bodies and they’ll punch you out)! Guess who spent a hundred bucks shopping for all the goodies at the venders’ tables prior to the opening? Hey, I ain’t no fool. When you don’t have to go yard sale’ing and someone brings them to you, it’s time to shop!

We also have a bunch of kerosene lamps/lanterns, 50 or so fishing rods and reels, gobs of fishing tackle, clothes that don’t fit because they shrank, a kerosene heater for the barn, and just about everything else you can imagine stuffed into every nook and cranny. We had shelving built in between the trusses so we have lots of room…er…had lots of room. We need a bigger barn! ACK!  

At the south end of the upstairs is where my smallish 8’ x 10’ radio shack/com room and utility room is. I have yet to set up my ham radio station but am looking forward to getting back on the airwaves again. I don’t have a lot of ham gear but do have a lot of short wave, scanner, GMRS/FMRS, and CB stuff. So far, other than a few mobile CB antennas, I only have one nice soon-to-be-mounted roof-mounted “Disk Cone” scanner antenna. It can actually be used for 2 meter and 70 cm ham transceivers as well. The hope is to build a few wire ham antennas like I used to do. They work well, are easy to build, and they are cheap too! “El Cheapo”, they call me.

The garden was AWFUL this year. Despite our most earnest attention and our fervent TLI (tender loving irrigation), we only managed to coax a very few veggies from the garden. The only effort we didn't expend on trying to get these plants to produce was begging and pleading. Out of twelve tomato plants we will probably get 12 tomatoes. We figure that each tomato will have cost us no more than 12 dollars each.

The zucchinis were hardly better. From six plants we garnered 4 zukes. Okra? Well, just let me tell you that story, Mildred. Our Okra, which everyone knows will pretty much grown on concrete with or without attention, has been in the ground for 4 months. Wanna guess how tall the plants are? No? How about less than a foot tall! I kid thee negative! And, most of that has been in the previous 2 weeks after I angrily and aggressively tried to drown them to death in one day! "Vile plants that have mocked me daily....I will soak you 'til your roots rot". I guess that thought I meant business!

We recently planted a dozen new apple trees and about that many others like plum, pomegranate, apricot, peach, and nectarine. So far I’ve managed to only kill a few of them so we should have some fruit in a couple of years. Add to that, 15 new grapevines were planted and only three of those didn’t make it so far. Reckon I have the black thumb of doom.

This now brings me to another aspect of the ranch, weed killing. There are many ways with which do dispatch weeds. One method is to use a "Weed Eater" on them. Then, you can always use the old "Hula Hoe". Yet another way is to just pull them up by the roots with your hands. My favorite is to use “Roundup” weed getter. The weeds never knew what hit them! Besides, I get to be “Roundup Ran”. Kinda has a ring to it, don’tcha think?

These things take a lot of babysitting and work and all work and no play makes Rancho Ran a dull steak knife. It may not happen soon but I’d like to do a bit of R&R by going fishing in our new “Springville Yacht”. Well, it isn’t exactly a yacht but you know how easy it is to overly appraise something that's new to you. It’s more like “Rancho Rafto” with a Kitchen Aide mixer on the back for power. It’s hard to believe but it is painted exactly the same color and trim as our recently overhauled 4’ x 8’ open pull trailer! If I’m a lyin’, I’m a dyin’.…you cannot tell but what the same guy with the same paint brush painted the two items from the same bucket of paint! Wild!

Anyway, the little cutie is a 14’ aluminum fishing boat with a 6-7 hp Johnson outboard motor to push her down the creek. Ah, and on the pointy end is an almost new Minn Kota trolling motor wired to a big deep cycle battery. I think “Minn Kota” is an old Sioux word meaning something like, “Chief catch’um fish or squaw lose’um weight”.

Das boot also came with a really nice white trailer too (you don’t really think I was going to park it on top of the van, eh?). I was pleased to note that it also has new tires on it. For some reason there are no oars. Don’t know if they ended up in a different yard sale or what. That reminds me of the time I was in a small boat and lost an oar. I called out to a nearby boat to see if I could borrow one of his. Turns out the guy was Cockney. “These ain’t ‘ores, he yells back. This is me wife and me mother-in-law”. I try to always bring an extra now.

Connie has been canning away with her huge canning pressure cooker. I think she could can most of an elephant at one time in that thing. I try to say far from it because it's always angry and hissing at me. She has put up 85 lbs of spuds, 30 pints of corn, 4 pints of okra (someone gave that to us), 80 lbs of pears, and 10 quarts of zucchini (also a gift. It's a good thing we have fiendly neighbors with gardens that actually produce)! When the local apple crop ripens soon, she is going to buy most of it and can it. We have an apple press so she wants to squeeze some juice to go along with the canned apples and apple sauce. Excellent! The current experiment is the canning of ten pounds of chicken breasts. So far it looks and tastes great so we'll likely get some more before the sale ends. We're running out of room to park all of this good stuff but I think that's a really good "problem". Knowing her, she'll take stuff from the garage and put it upstairs in the barn so she can have her stored goods  near her kitchen. When I grow up I hope to be as sharp as she is.

In less than two weeks I’ll be journeying to Ghana West Africa for missionary work. I was invited to go several years ago but the timing wasn’t right. It is time now to go. The African pastor recently showed up on my Yahoo Messenger after not having been in contact with him after so long. One thing led to another and I now have my shots, passport, passage aboard a KLM 747, and am awaiting the visa approval. I think they still allow white folks to visit Africa.  

The total flight time is 16 hours. The first leg is 10 hours non-stop from LAX to Amsterdam. After a couple of hours lay-over, it is a 6 hour non-stop flight to Accra, Ghana. I should have plenty of time to read, eh? Anyone know how long it takes for a misshapen heiny to reform?



                                                                                    
 

The "Ranch Rino"

                          a 1952 Ford 8N with
                          a drag scraper on the back

 

That’s the latest from Ranch Relaxo. Stay tuned for more snooze worthy articles.

LET THERE BE TREES!

We’re doing well and moving along her at the ranch albeit with minor age-related glitches in the get-a-long.

One of those glitches is being overcome by the implementation of our newly discovered “green stuff”. I think Connie said it was “All Day Long Green”. It has so many ingredients in it that I’ve lost count. But, from what I can tell, it’s all good stuff. The parts and pieces range from wheat grass to what all. There is bee pollen, royal jelly, and the equivalent of a basketful of fruits and veggies.

 In any event, Connie and I can actually feel a difference (read: after trying a number of “We can make the old people feel better” products). There is more stamina during the day and we seem to sleep longer. And, I’m not as hungry as usual! I’ve stopped strip mining “Home Town Buffet” and other such places. We’ve only just started our “green regimen” but I’m still losing weight. I’m down to about 230 lbs. I need to get down to 195 or I’ll need to start flying twin engine airplanes from now on.

 You wouldn’t believe how busy we are! We have been “thinnin’ (as in, “I’ll do the thinnin’ around here, Baba!” – Quick Draw McGraw) on how to make the best use of our property. So, we decided to purchase a bunch of fruit trees and grapevine starts to add to our orange and tangerine trees. I think there are a couple of “quat” trees but I’m not sure which ones they are. They’re not loquat or kumquats so they must be sash-squats. Maybe not. Add that to our four 8’ x 8’ x 30” above ground garden boxes, and our honey bee revival program (I’ll explain), and you can understand how we can now call ourselves “ranchers”!

We now have orange, tangerine, plum, apricot, peach, apple and pomegranate trees. The apple trees are second in number to the oranges. There are about 22 orange trees and there are 9 apple trees (an arbitrary number since we can only stuff so many trees into so many holes around here). The others number 2 to 4 each.

 The grapes are planted on the west side of the lawn in front. They’ll make a nice fence (though we don’t really need a fence as such because we have good neighbors). Varieties are Black Manuko, Thompson, and a hybrid of some kind. The guy we purchased the starts from tinkers with them and comes up with his own home brewed varieties.

 The garden boxes are now productive. Until we got the water regimen dialed in, we were quite successful in the “Connie and Randy Tomato Plant Eradication Program”. We thought that we were over-watering. However, we misread the compost material and were actually under-watering. The damage was minimal losing three tomato, three or four squash, a watermelon, two okra, and cucumbers plants. The remainder of our well-babysat flora seems to be thriving.

 The tomatoes will be replanted as will the others. The best we can tell, we have the price of our tomatoes down to about 22 dollars each if the new plants produce 40 pounds of tomatoes each.

I found myself up at 5:15 AM the other day. After working until 11 AM as “Farmer Ran”, I was well toasted. After 5 hours of “dirt work”, there weren’t too many parts of my aching body that weren’t begging to be transferred to a less hostile place (like, maybe Afghanistan). It took three days to recover.

After we harvested a wonderful 30 lbs of honey, our bees packed up and left the ranch. They even took their honey! The best that we can tell, the rent was too high and we shouldn’t have tipped the bears where to get some free honey. Actually, we think that there was an insufficient supply of flowers on which they could dine. So, they headed for a more productive farm or ranch. I hope they packed a lunch ‘cause the only place that has flowers about now that I can tell is the flower beds around the Porterville Library, and Cayucos over at the coast.  Everything else is brown.

That also means that, one of our latest goals is to re-populate our bee hives then populate the area with perennial flowers so Rancho Relaxo will be more hospitable for the apian crowd. That way we can have an indefinite supply of honey. Honey is our friend.

Connie is trying out her huge 7 quart pressure canner. As of late, she has canned zucchini squash, green beans, and corn. She’s really getting the hang of this and is enjoying it immensely. When the garden starts producing she’ll put up some tomatoes, eggplant, more corn, and crook-neck squash. She also has a large canning pot for “hot bath canning” if she needs it.

If you are still not convinced that we are a real ranch, we are also now worm wranglers! Yep, pardner! We now have a herd of worms! We rustled up some “red wigglers”, made us up some compost bins, added some compost, shredded paper, blended food waste (veggies and such), and shoved a ton of worms in. They’ll digest that mess in a just a few days. After that, we’ll have a harvest of worm castings that make for a great fertilizer. When the worm population doubles in a couple of months, we’ll put some in the garden boxes.

The local jam session is about to start again. They suspended it for the month of July due to monetary concerns. Seems they wouldn’t make as much money if they let us play. It’s a lot of work but it’s also a lot of fun to jam with the local folks. It helps to keep the rust off the ol’ fingers, too. It’s a “BYO” affair and everyone does just that. Some bring a few brewskis while others bring wine. A few just bring a couple of ears. It’s not unusual for a family to bring their dinner and camp on a table and eat while listening to the music.

Recently, while on the way to a client’s house on Globe Road, we happened upon a small doe with twin fawns! They were contentedly dining in a large meadow and certainly unconcerned about the passing creatures in the Freestar van. Reckon they already knew that my freezer is full and I don’t need to refill it. From time to time we have seen a small herd of deer in these same parts. Globe Road is also a neat place to find several coveys of quail. They are quite thick in this area. A covey meanders across our back yard from time to time.

 A couple of years ago, Ol’ Dead Eye Ran bagged a quail with a .22 cal pump pellet rifle at a range of about 60’. It was a head shot, of all things! The instructions that came with him (you ain’t buyin’ that, right?) said to park him in the refrigerator for three days (undressed) then process him. I did that. However, I did forget to apprise Connie that there was “something” in her ice box. Accordingly, she waltzed into the kitchen, opened the fridge door and, when she saw two three-toed feet sticking up at her, she promptly experienced an episode of amazement. I had some ‘splainin’ to do.

Stay tuned for the continuing adventures of “Wranglin’ Ran” and his side cook, “Canning Connie”.

Home, Home, on the Rocks

Though tremendously busy (not a joke), we finally got to go flying last week. I hadn’t stretched a feather since Livermore! I almost forgot where the airport was located! HAR! The steed was the little 100hp low-wing Evektor Sportstar (like the one pictured) which is fine since I was only looking to fly low and slow anyway. She’s a delight to fly and hauls two folks in relative comfort. If I had waited any longer I would have been "ground sick" (sick of being on the ground). I'm a PILOT for crying out loud!

It was later in the afternoon when we lined up on runway 30 and it was a wonderfully warm and clear day. The air was calm and the conditions enjoyable in such a small airplane with a light wing loading. If there is any "chop" or turbulence when flying in an aircraft with a light wing loading, you can bounce your kidneys into your back pockets. You can believe that this airman prefers his kidneys and other body parts to remain where God glued them together.

After about an hour of treading the footless halls of summer sky and covering the land from Springville to Fountain Springs (roughly 30 miles or so one way), we headed back to the flugplatz (What?! You don't speak German?! Flugplatz=airport). The first landing was acceptable but really not up to my standards. It was more of an "arrival" than a landing. That means that I forgot how low the runway had been parked beneath the airplane when I took off. I flared a tad high and made a “beginner’s” landing. So, I just added come coal and went around the pea patch again. This time I found the runway and slipped the little bird back on the ground without rustling her feathers (or Connie's, tee hee).

“Rancho Relaxo” now has some new fruit trees….and some old worn out farmers. Oy vey! You’d think that I would get the hint that becoming a bee wrangler, building and maintaining garden boxes, cutting the grass, weedeating, and keeping my job as the chief mechanic and thunder bucket specialist around this place is enough hard work! Nope! I must be your basic slow learner. *SIGH* 

We had to hire a couple of young bucks to help us dig some holes, though. Ol’ Ran doesn’t do much shovel work. I can shovel a bit of BS with the boys now and again but that’s about all I can handle. These kids are good workers and appreciate the higher-than-minimum wage we pay. They are "Johnny on the spot" and usually are available which is great. Trying to accommodate our schedule is a challenge so we appreciate their help.

Six of the new apple trees now reside in a row along the west side of our driveway in a north and south alignment. Some of the new plum trees are out back just beyond the reserve 3,000 gal. water tank (required for fire suppression) and are aligned east to west. The apricot and pomegranate plants and the single fig tree have yet to be stuffed into the ground. Likewise, the 14 or so grape starts have yet to be dug in.

We’re still dealing with getting the stakes into the concrete that we call our front yard. They will be aligned north to south on the far west side of the front yard. Somewhere in the mix will be the new 6 new peach and plum trees we bought today. They were 75% off at Lowe's! What can you say when you are a "clearance sale" professional?! What was I supposed to do.....let some city boy get them?! Not today!

You can’t even imagine how hard the ground is here! Sprinkler spikes that hold a sprinkler in place won’t penetrate it. A pick ax won't work! We tried that! When the barn was built, the contractor had to bring in the big guns....a Ditch Witch trencher! Even then it almost wore out the poor trencher! Sprinklers with a base of some kind are all that can be used!

We have to irrigate for two days to be able to move any soil at all! Then, there are large rocks to contend with! That means that our grape stake holes may have to be reconfigured or larger holes dug to be able to remove the big rocks! More work! UGH. I would like to speak directly to the clown who backfilled the property with sand and rocks prior to the house being built! GRRRR!! Most likely, I would hurl vile epithets and large coconuts at him hoping that one or the other would hurt his body or his soul or maybe both. This farmer, though long suffering, has little patience with stupid and thoughtless people.  

The area on which the property sits was formerly an orange grove. There are still 25 or so orange and tangerine trees at the back of the acreage, in fact. One would naturally think that at least the rear parts of the property were tillable without dynamite. Not so. The other day, I had the two young aforementioned helpers arm themselves with a couple of shovels. They needed to move some dirt out of the way so we could assemble the last (4^th) of the above-ground garden boxes. They couldn’t do it! The ground was too hard! Get this…I hauled out a big electric jack hammer. It couldn’t handle the job in a timely manner! I had to soak the ground all night to get it to comply! Maybe we should change the name of this place to something like “Hard Pan Alley”, “Pumice Palace”, or such. 

You may want to stay tuned to see what happens when all of this fruit ripens in the future. I certainly can’t wait…..uh-huh. Connie is preparing her canning equipment for the big event. She has a huge pressure canning/cooking unit, a big stainless steel vacuum sealer, and 5 or so dehydrators! Come harvest time I’ll know exactly where she’ll be! She'll be up to ears in corn (heheh, the boy can't help it) and up to the top lace on her apron in okra, squash, zucchinni, tomatoes, and fruit galore! We can then smear some of the home-grown honey and real butter on some fresh hot bread or biscuits thereby securing our reputation as a real ranch. MMMMMMMMmmmmmm!

I’ve been breaking in the dehydrators by making beef jerky. Oh, man! Not only is it good stuff, it’s relatively inexpensive. I’ve slowed way down though because the price of lean beef has really gone up. Really lean beef is now selling for more than 4 dollars per pound. It’s still far less expensive than buying the store-bought stuff, of course. If Ol' Ran had any initiative, he would buy a 12-14 lb chunk of top surloin steak at "Smart and Final" for 3.69 per pound and rustle up a large batch of jerky. Maybe on my next day off, eh?

Hang around for the next hard-working but hopefully not so harrowing adventures of Rancho Ran and his faithful and sweet sidecook, Connie the Canner.

One a-Landing, Two a-Landing, Three a-Landing, Four!

Actually, the total count was more like 15 landings in all. It’s difficult to express just how jazzed I am ….and how exhausted I am. I just did more flying in the previous three days than the previous three months. Flying is fun but it can be a work out when you’ve not flow a particular aircraft before. But, let’s start at the beginning.

Ol’ Ran had been working at adding on to his private pilot’s certificate. The first attempt was the “Multi-Engine” rating. That’s about half accomplished as you recall and that story is in the February edition. I’m also studying for my “Instrument Rating” and can prove it by offering for exhibit the stack of study materials falling off of my bookshelf just above my computer. After that will be more brow bending and teeth gnashing for yet other ratings that will allow me to further my part in the field of general and commercial aviation.

OK…now it’s time for a confession. I love WACO biplanes. I helped rebuild a 1941 UPF-7 WACO when I was a teenager with the hopes of getting to fly it. That didn’t happen. I’ve been waiting for 47 years to fly a WACO. Enter “Attitude Aviation” located in Livermore, CA. Guess what the just happen to have in their hanger? YEP…a WACO biplane! It’s a gorgeous, and I mean GORGEOUS, 1991 YMF-5C that has a big 275 hp Jacobs R-755 radial engine glued to its nose. Though classic in design, she’s a modern version but from the original plans. The new company is located in Battlecreek, MI.

I scheduled to fly the WACO (originally the “Weaver Aircraft Company”) but had to postpone three times before the weather finally decided to break and allow me to forge ahead with my plans. Excitement was in the air…on the floor...in the garage….in the barn…on the walls…everywhere. It can’t be stated with all assurance but, when the weather did clear, there possibly, sort of, kind of, may have been a spontaneous flutter in my heart’s left ventricle. The voiding of my bowels in my freshly-washed blue jeans was much more conclusive.

We loaded “El Hoopie”, the Freestar van, and headed north to Livermore the day prior to “fun instruction” (ok…if you have to be precise, “flight instruction”). After unloading the van we settled in for the duration.

Our motel was a modest place (read “cheap”) with all the amenities of a moderately enlightened Amish farmer’s home. The cheap part was on purpose since money wasted on a motel room couldn’t be spent on buying flying time. Anyway, it sported a TV and a bed and a chair with a table holding up one wall. A dangling light lit the table at the far end of the room. The motel was located only about 3.5 miles from the airport so there wasn’t much to complain about. Besides, we didn’t need the room for much other than to keep the cool air and condensation off of us at night. That and a hot shower in the morning would do fine. We weren’t going to host a political fund raising bash for any particular brain dead, moronic, slime bag, snake of a lawyer who is hoping to lead us into the maw of desperation with his unflagging bravado and stupidity.

Anyhoo….”Captain Ran” woke early the next morning and tracked down some hot black eyelid-and-heart-lubricant that, thankfully, was located in the motel’s office. I’ll take strong hot black coffee to get my heart started over a precordial thump any day. After primping a bit so as not to scare my instructor, we headed to the Livermore airport.

My instructor was Rhett Boeger who, though one of California’s premier flight instructors, was terribly un-primped. I’m starting think that, though reared in California, I missed the part about being supremely casual when appearing in public. After all, folks used to dress up to attend the walk-in movie theatres when I was a boy! Nevertheless, what a delightful but heavy chap he was! I tip the scales at somewhere around 230 pounds (albeit, that’s without my primping outfit with change in pocket, three sets of keys, and a fat wallet onboard). Rhett is my size and a half bale of hay. After being introduced, I commented that, “Rhett, I’ve done some preliminary weight and balance calculations for the WACO. If the auxiliary tanks have any fuel in them at all, one of us will have to stay behind!”. I was pleased that he laughed and didn’t pull his UZI on me.

Rhett is a supremely excellent pilot and an even better instructor. I really appreciated that they assigned him as my instructor. The guy is cool as can be and has flown airplanes that I dearly love and some of which I have yet to fly. His faded denim jeans have more flying time than I do.

It didn’t take long to get out to the WACO. There she sat….more beautiful than the jaw dropping pictures of her. We did a long preflight and walk around with most of the time being used to wait for my Huggies to dry. Rhett advised that the usual procedure is to stick the dummy pilot (he didn’t and wouldn’t say that but I did) in the front cockpit for an orientation flight. I would find out rather quickly that “orientation” meant, “work your fanny off, granny”.

There really are not words when it comes to trying to describe what happens to the human psyche and anatomy when you start a big muscular radial engine that is mounted directly in front of him. I can tell you that the rumbling sound has hooked many a good man and made a “believer” out of him. I’ve been “Radial Ran” since I was a boy so you can bet that my heart was in sync with this big round maker of horsepower when the first cylinder fired.

It was hard to believe that I was actually going to have a WACO haul my pink fundament into the air in only a few minutes.

Stay tuned to further episodes of “Captain WACO” and his damp underpants.

Well……things have been ..uh...interesting here at the Ranch. We got back from Livermore where I had a grand time flying the gorgeous WACO and a pretty little Aeronca Citabria taildragger.

The plan was to fly twice per day but the wind intervened. They don’t fly the conventionally geared aircraft if the wind is above about ten or twelve knots (especially if a crosswind is involved). So, I got to fly three mornings in a row but the afternoon flights were cancelled.

Nevertheless, getting to fly the big WACO was high point in my logbook. She’s a real lady in the sky. However, she’s quite demanding when landing. You can’t be asleep at the wheel with this bird or you’ll be harvesting weeds with the prop in a heartbeat.

A day or so after we returned, my main 500GB hard drive crashed. I’m still not sure what caused it but it may have been a defective external hard drive that I was unplugging v (not knowing that it was defective). In any case it suffered a “logical crash” (as opposed to a catastrophic failure). I couldn’t access the drive either directly or by mounting it on an external hard drive dock.

Everything had been backed up on a 3TB external drive so there should have been no problems with the recovery. However, and this is where it gets interesting, the 3TB drive failed too! GREAT! Now, I have to send the drive out to “Drive Savers” for data recovery. What is one to do when he has ten years of writing, books, articles, blogs, teachings, treatises, personal notes, studies, dumptruck loads of reference materials, thousands of drivers, hundreds of applications, tens of thousands of songs, and about 75 thousand pictures? There are a lot of very important pics of my family that I’m not ready to part with.

“Drive Savers” services start at 700 clams and worst case scenario estimates go as high as 2,700! I think I’m in the wrong business! I can’t help but think of just how fortunate that I am in that I have more than one box of bullets that I can bite.

My newly edited books simply must be salvaged.  Connie and I were almost finished with the editing and our daughter-in-law is waiting for us to ship the manuscripts to her so she can get them to “Lightning Source” printing. The crash has also led to a delay in finishing up with the new publishing company so things are on hold for a bit. *SIGH* At least we have the bar codes and ISBN numbers for them.

Now for some good news; we recently went to Torrance to see the grandkiddies. It was birthday time, in fact. Seems that their parents are feeding them and they are getting older, don’tcha know. There was lots of ice cream and goodies, of course, and a fun time was enjoyed by all.

The next morning, Mother’s Day, found us waiting in line at “Polly’s Pies” where, after only a reasonable wait, we feasted on a wonderful and large breakfast. After hugs-all-around, we departed for home via a few yard sales.

Prior to our departure from home, dear musician friend, Jackson Wallen, in Cayucos sent me a Craig’s List listing for a 12 String Martin guitar in Santa Maria. The guitar was immaculate and I have wanted a 12 string for a long time anyway. So, we headed for Santa Maria. 

Now, you would think that Ol’ Ran, would have done at least some of the math on this trip. Naw. He didn’t do that. We drove to Santa Maria and found the guy with the g-tar. It was everything that he had advertised and everything that I wanted so I bought it! He even tossed in the Martin case with it! Such a deal! Then, we headed for Torrance.

Did you know that California is a large state? I must have forgotten that fact. It is right at 200 miles from Springville to Torrance. By driving to Santa Maria and then to Torrance, it’s almost 400 miles! MAYA CERTZ!  We were bushed when we got down there. It took a few days to recuperate after we got home, believe you me.

My replacement computer is in the process of being configured. It’s running Vista and you can be assured that it will be upgraded to Win7 shortly (GAWD! I HATE Vista!). In addition to the main 320GB hard drive, it’s now running two 500GB storage volumes for a resident total of 1.32TB of storage. Not bad for someone whose first computer was a 386SX with a 16mhz processor, 2MB of RAM,  and a 180 MB hard drive. I have another 3T external storage volume and a 2T coming in the mail. I think my 1TB external drive may be OK after all. I thought that it was a goner but it appears to be healthy so far. We’ll see.

Anyhoo….I’ll try to get back into the swing of things when I can. Stay tuned for the ever changing events at Rancho Relaxo where the gophers dig deep and coyotes play and sing.

Green, Green, It's Green They Say

I wish that everyone could have been here to enjoy our magnificent spring season. It was finally GREEN around here! Though somewhat late in getting here, it was nevertheless appreciated beyond measure. What a marvelous contrast between this verdant display and the burnt toast color that you well remember that assails our hills in summertime. I am speaking in past tense because the temperature just hit 93 degrees and the hills are already starting to wither.

Connie and I try to drive over the Yokhol Valley hump at least once per year (once in each direction if we can) and take the obligatory 6 thousand pictures of the magnificent array of wildflowers. If possible, the 30 mile trip is also used as an initiation of any friends who have yet to discover the glory of the wildflowers in that region. We haven’t been able to fulfill that duty so far but have at least discussed the matter. We say it like this:  “We’re moving towards moving towards doing it”. Perhaps if I recharge the batteries in the big Sony Mavica and reload the AA’s in the smaller digicams I will somehow derive the impetus to overcome my work schedule and tired airframe and just go shoot some pictures. We’ll see but, judging by our lagging energy level and lack of time (my responsibilities somehow keep getting in the way of my fun time) it won't happen any time soon. *SIGH*

Speaking of digicams, OL' Rancho Ran and his side-cook, Sweet Connie, aren't lacking cameras. Between yards sales and such, we have probably six or seven nice cameras. On one particular yard sale, we picked up a high performance camera that was, get this, just too complicated for the teenaged gal to mess with. So, she dumped it for a fin!  It was a 150 dollar camera! Another camera obtained at a yard sale (at Pismo Beach) was a beautiful 6 mega-pixel Panasonic model. It had been in storage for awhile and the batteries had leaked. I purchased it, took it home, cleaned it up and it works like a Swiss watch. Not bad for ten bucks, eh?

I was scheduled for flight instruction this week in Livermore but the weather changed on us…again. We postponed twice already but the weather changed again so we postponed again. I’ve yet to have confidence in the weatherman except in California and only in mid-summer when I have great trust. “Well, Gina, the forecast for tomorrow is ‘HOT and DRY’ just as I predicted. Don’t look for green grass on the hills any time soon”.

The new schedule is for the middle of the last week of this month going into the next. I did take the SportStar for a spin around the pea patch. It’s a fun ship to fly but it’s not a WACO.

It’s interesting to note that I wasn’t feeling all that well anyway. I told Connie that I was feeling “weird” but wasn’t aware of the cause. Can you imagine feeling seriously goofy and trying to fly an airplane? Me neither.

I had thought that hypertension was sneaking into the picture. In fact, it wasn’t unreasonable to suspect that given that I had recently availed myself of the blood pressure cuff at the local CVS Pharmacy (formerly Long’s on Henderson). Thankfully, the auto sphygmomanometer was brain dead and lied to me. I was shocked at the reading and was ready to head straight to the doctor’s office after such an insane reading.

This reading actually led me to ultimately make a doctor’s appointment albeit not without being prompted by Connie. DUH! I have a particular dislike for doctors. So, it isn’t often that I submit to their quackery and ham handed chicanery (statistically, doctors kill a thousand times more people each year than do people with guns).

Being a former paramedic, I knew that about the worst that could happen by going to the doctor would be an exam and some blood work. That is exactly what happened. He looked me over and ordered some blood work. That was done right after the visit to the doctor. My blood was draw by the cutest brown haired vampire I’ve seen so far. She had an ebullient personality and was quite friendly. I kept her away from my neck, though.

There was a bit of a surprise, though. I had a sinus infection! Say what?! I knew my head felt goofy but…..a sinus infection? There may have been a sinus infection in my quiver twenty years ago but only once! Who woulda thunk? A real poser is why the doctor said, “You have a sinus infection” but then made an appointment for the next week without addressing the matter. No antibiotics or such. Reckon I’m chopped liver or something. Maybe he was going to let the bugs grow into a real mess so that he would have more to do. He would make more money by having to take a jackhammer and a couple of cherry bombs to my sinus cavity so he could FIX things, don'tcha know.

The good news was that my blood pressure was “only” 137/ 90. Not quite “normal” but a far cry from the potentially eardrum-breaking reading at CVS. 

The lab report showed that my blood was fine so there was no cause for concern there. So, the doctor tossed some low-tech bug killers at me to overpower the invading and offending infection.  Yo soy mucho mas major ahora.

The training in Livermore is in a late model WACO YMF5C. She’s a biplane beauty to fawn over, to be sure. She’s sporting a big Jacobs R-755 radial engine that easily pumps out 275 horse power. Radial engines are my friends. You can take a gander at her here: http://www.attitudeaviation.com/waco.html

We still haven’t been able to get our above ground garden built. A friend of ours advised that the compost supply (from near Exeter) is now somewhat spotty. Not sure what that’s all about but another friend has some extra compost available for the taking. The lumber is parked out back and the chicken wire is near the lumber. Chicken wire will be used as a flooring and is used to keep out the (many) California pocket gophers. The little interlopers feel that they are entitled to our veggies and that they have mineral and mining rights to the property. They’re probably illegal Mexican gophers.

The Ranch Rino tractor is fixed. Friend and fellow Spring-villain, Rudy Paine, a top-notch mechanic, straightened it out for us. I had previously ran over a smallish pile of brush while rounding up tree trimmings and such into a large burn pile and had managed (without any assistance) to break the exhaust pipe at the manifold. No telling what a professional would have charged me to make a break like that. It’s back to being quiet again and I’m back in the good graces of my neighbors.

Not much farm work being done but at least I cut the grass. But, I have yet to take the weedeater for a long walk and do the clean up required after mowing. The big lawn tractor is doing its part but the grass has been wet a lot so I can’t use the grass catcher. In fact, it started raining within 15 minutes after mowing two weeks ago. Not only could I not use the weedeater I couldn’t use the Roundup on the weeds that are trying to hijack my driveway. Oh, well. I was tired anyway and probably wouldn’t have done it. At least I had a great excuse.

The computer biz is steady. Steady is good. I don’t want to expand and don’t want to hire someone to help. The way things are, I can pretty much work my own schedule and still have a two to three day turn around. Down in P’ville, the turn around time can be up to two weeks. Once in awhile it takes as long as a week to fix a box. That usually means I have to order a part or such. Most of that dynamic concerns a laptop because I don’t stock parts for them. There are just too many makes and models and I don’t have the room.

Connie and I got to spend the night in Fresno a week ago. We were going to attend a friend’s birthday part. However, we did so because we wanted to get an early start on the yard sales. Fresno has always had great yard sales. I can’t even begin to recount the many treasures I’ve run across when I lived there. Not much you can find if you just look. The weather was perfect for yard sale’ing so we had a grand time. I may be tempted to take “Heffalump”, the big white covered trailer next time. We’ll see.

You can bet we will take the trailer when we head to Pismo Beach this summer, though! The yard sales at the coast are unreal! We loaded the trailer last year! Good stuff!

Stay tuned to the adventures of “Captain Cornball” and his sweet side-cook, Connie

Son of a Beach - Long Beach

Piper PA-44 Seminole

Man! Talk about things happening at the Ol’ Ranch! Connie and I departed Springville on Sunday March 4^th for Torrance (who stuck March into this picture so soon, anyway?!). I had signed up with a flight school called “ATP” for multi-engine flight training. They are a big outfit based at the Long Beach Airport and other large airports around the country.

Connie has a dear friend who lives a mere ten miles from the airport and who was most gracious enough to allow us to stay with her until I was finished. How neat is that? I had actually tried to sign on with “Mazzei’s Flight School” in Fresno but they were booked! So, Long Beach was the next choice.

I arrived early as is my usual protocol and got acquainted with my instructor, Zach Bell. Zach, I was to find, was a consummate professional and a great instructor! We had some “getting onboard” formalities to attend to (like, paying to play and signing all of the papers) so that was taken care of. Soon, we were in pre-flight mode and then we boarded the aircraft. Ziggity!

The plane is the twin-engine Piper PA-44 Seminole. She’s basically the backbone of the multi-engine training fleet in this country. Strapped to her “Hershey bar” (big rectangular) wings are two normally aspirated Lycoming 0-360 engines pumping out about 180 hp per side. You won’t see her entered into any races but you will see her at just about every airport that offers multi-engine training.

The Seminole is basically the Piper PA-28R Arrow but with two engines. The Arrow is basically the Piper PA-28-181 Archer but with retractable landing gear and a “T-tail”. I’ve flown the Archer (and all other Cherokees save for the Cherokee Six) but have yet to fly the single engine Arrow. Reckon I just side-stepped that one to fly the Seminole. “Mazzei’s” actually has the Arrow and I hope to fly it while picking up my instrument rating if they can spare an instructor. They just hired three new instructors but still don’t have time for small town pilots like me. Heck…I told them that my money was good and that the ink should be dry by the time I get up there. HEHEH.

So, it appeared that I would actually be flying an old friend that had an extra engine. That pretty much was the case. Ah…but it sounds soooo simple. However, as you well know, when you have an airplane with one engine, taking care of the particulars is a handful. When you have two engines, the particulars are three handfuls. This is also to say that, actually flying the airplane is somewhat easy but handling the checklist, knowing the emergency engine-out procedures, and riding herd on the instruments is a much greater workload.

After the preflight and finding that all pieces were in close proximity to each other and that we had gas enough to fly without stopping at the local Shell station, we boarded the bus. Ol’ Captain Sweetie (thanks for the telling appellation, Connie) strapped himself in and settled in for the duration.

“ATP” had sent me a 50 page study guide. I was just so thankful that they only wanted me to memorize 40 pages of it. It concerned what they expected me to do prior to taking a check ride and also how the Seminole performed in flight and on the ground. After a week of memorizing everything but the names of the individual 6,000 rivets on the aircraft, I felt somewhat secure in steering this modest twin into the placid ether above Long Beach Harbor’s “Angel’s Gate” and all points west to Catalina Island and back. Ah, but there was more.

No self-respecting airplane would be caught dead without its checklist and the Seminole was no exception. I am used to using a checklist on all of the airplanes I fly with the exception of the Aeronca Champion. But…holy guacamole! I wasn’t expecting a thick bible! Each step of every part of the operation of the aircraft, from pre-flight to post-flight when the props stop spinning and the chocks are in place, is prescribed in the checklist. What to do if an engine stops, what to do during pre-take off, post-take off, climb, cruise, descent, while on approach, and while in the pattern, and what to do after landing is all detailed in the checklist.

Contrast this with the checklist of the 1946 Aeronca 7DC Champion that I’ve recently been flying. The list is basically: GO CART – Gas, Oil, Controls, Altimeter, Run-up, and Time. In other words, kick the tires and light the fires. It translates as, “Checklist? Checklist? We don’t need no stinking checklist!”. Of course, one of the other airplanes that I fly, a Cessna 172 with a 180 hp engine conversion, constant speed prop, and STOL kit, does have a real checklist but it’s nothing compared to the Seminole.

A strange thing happened while I was perusing the checklist. There are a couple of really interesting psychological phenomena known as “perceptual blocking” and “perceptual filtering”. It means that you can’t see what’s actually in front of your face. Now, you would think that a fully-growed (sic) fella like myself would be able to  see what was on his check list. HA! Silly you! I managed to look directly at the check list and erase much of it in a single bound! How on earth could a reasonably intelligent guy with at least one good eye do this?! Well, it’s easy….at least the best that I can tell. What wasn’t supposed to be there, according to my previous 30 years of single engine flight training, just wasn’t there. It didn’t exist in my world so it didn’t exist in this new world’s checklist. Oh, by the way, that’s not a good thing when transitioning to a twin-engine airplane where check lists are paramount.

I’ve been flying small planes since 1963. Not only that, I’ve been flying small planes at a small airport since 1963. The check lists are short and you don’t have to report to “Clearance” for permission to contact “Ground Control”, then report to “Ground Control”, and then call the “Control Tower”. So, I was looking at the twin engine checklist at the second busiest general aviation airport in the country and seeing “SINGLE ENGINE AIRCRAFT OPERTATION AT A SMALL AIRPORT”.  In other words, I was trying to fly a multi-engine aircraft like a single engine plane and missing crucial checklist items though they were right in front of my face. It was embarrassing and exasperating. If I were a Mexican I would be tempted to cry out, "Santa Maria y Teresa!".

If that doesn’t make you want to wash your didy in the new low-suds “Tide”, on my first attempt at getting the twin engined box of rocks back to the ground, I was trying to land it like a Cessna! Actually, in all fairness to yours truly, my instructor advised that all Cessna drivers do this but that they learn to overcome their previous training. I did overcome that part and drove the twin onto the runway at 70 knots as directed by the instructor and the checklist. It was a non-event. I just had to remember to land the aircraft without much flare at all and with enough airspeed to make a go-around if necessary (and, when they pull the mixture handle taking away a perfectly good engine, they make sure that it is necessary!).

Well, that’s called, “flying the plane”. I can do that part. However, the aircraft is equipped with two beautiful Garmin GNS 430 GPS/Nav/Radio units that have the HSI and VOR’s slaved to them. Unfortunately, someone forgot to train me in the use of these new fangled boxes of semiconductors. Oh, yes. Someone also forgot to apprise me of the fact that Long Beach Airport is the second busiest General Aviation airport in the nation (only Van Nuys, not far away to the north, is busier). This translates to a “work load” on a pilot from a small uncontrolled airport in the southern San Joaquin Valley.

Frankly, I loved the plane and its instrumentation. I’ve read about the GNS 430 and have even used it twice but am still learning how to use it correctly. It’s great! The handling qualities of the plane were quite familiar and were without intimidation. It flew like most other Piper’s with which I am acquainted. But, unlike its single engine siblings, it has the glide ratio of a bag of Oreos. Anyway, when thrust into such a busy environment without having sufficient training with the excellent instrumentation, and while flying in airspace that is completely foreign to me, the result was predictable; it was overwhelming.

Imagine having to have sudden and immediate recall of several unfamiliar frequencies (even though I did write them down and had them on my kneeboard), airspace parameters, altitude restrictions, and being required to have complete environmental awareness (i.e. being aware of the many aircraft that are in the practice area between Catalina Island and Long Beach and the nearby restricted airspaces) on the first flight! Now, try to balance that with actually flying the airplane through a number of flight maneuvers without “impressing” the instructor. *Sigh*. This is pretty tough stuff for a pilot who hasn’t flown into controlled airspace in almost ten years. I hadn’t fully realized that fact until I was looking down from 4,500 feet MSL and beholding the absolutely stunning beauty of Long Beach Harbor from Catalina Island. This is also to say that Ol’ Ran simply wasn’t proficient with flying at a “real” airport. All of this means that I wasn’t able to fully fly the plane as effectually as was necessary to complete the accelerated training program. It became clear that I was a candidate for the “un-accelerated” program. “Ol’ Slow Ran”, they call me.

Because of the above (overwhelming) dynamics, and after more than 6 hours of dual instruction, I decided to voluntarily withdraw from the program prior to the check ride and resume at a time when I wasn’t so dusty and rusty and in airspace (e.g. Fresno) with which I was familiar.

My instructor was a prince. He understood and called me a good pilot. That may have been because I brought him and the plane back in one piece and without him needing a new Huggie. He was right thankful for that, I should suppose. It was also in light of the fact that I always hung the airplane on the assigned altitude and was more prepared procedurally (i.e. I did my homework) than anyone else that he could recall. Because of that, he commented that I would make a great “IFR” pilot. I was most humbled. The instrument rating is, in fact, the next goal.

It made sense to me because, had I not withdrawn, I was looking at being rather unprepared for the check ride. There was no way I was going to add a busted check ride to my shopping cart so it was time to “Take Me Back to Tulsa”, boys. “ATP” issued an immediate pro-rated refund.

I’ll be contacting “Mazzei’s” in Fresno again and see if they can sequence me into their program up there. Their program is six weeks long and I think to say that their longer (decelerated) agenda is right up my alley. Most likely, the training received in Long Beach can easily shorten their syllabus and I can take the check ride sooner. Anyway, I’ll keep everyone apprised as I can.

The next step is probably to head to Livermore and check out in their “Waco Classic” YPF5C and their Great Lakes 2T. This WACO is an all new model built in Battle Creek, MI. She’s a cutie that looks exactly like the antiques! She's equipped with the 275 hp Jake on her nose which I think is wonderful! The Continental powered WACO’s climb like homesick angels anyway so this one must be a hoot! I called “Attitude Aviation” and found that I merely need to schedule the program. It should only take about a week to nail down both planes.

They also have a Marchetti SF-260 hot rod with the big 260hp Lycoming on it. I understand them to be ex-Italian AF trainers and they currently use them for mock combat flights. Sounds like fun to me! Their Pitts S-2C is also available but I’m not really all that ready to tackle aerobatics. Plus, I think the Pitts is a bit more responsive and sensitive on the controls for a ham hand like me. I may reconsider after building some time in other ships.

We’ll be putting in an above ground garden if we can. It’s already pretty late to do so but it may yet work. The 2’ x 12” x 10’s are stacked but need to be painted and we need to get some compost. I figure we should be ready by Christmas or New Years at the latest. We have a ton seeds which should last for many more years.

The exhaust manifold on the Ranch Rhino (tractor) is being fixed and it should be back to work soon. It doesn't eat much but its wrangler is the laziest varmint I've seen in awhile. On one of the next “burn days” I hope to turn the huge pile of tree and grass trimmings and such that I’ve been collecting for the previous three years into smoke, heat, and gas.

More later as we can. Stay tuned for the adventures of Ol’ Sky Jack Ran (I was buckin’ for “Sky King” but it’s already taken) and his side-cook, Sweetie Pie Connie.