Knots To Us!! Or, What to do When It’s Raining Tin and Two by Fours!!

There I was, minding my own business in front of my computer and  totally in command of my small world when, all of a sudden, I hear Connie’s strained voice making a declaration: “It looks like the wind is going to carry away the carport!”. “Well”, says I to myself. “That can’t be a good thing”.

I must admit that I didn’t even bother with the “wind alert” that she gave a little while earlier. The wind came up a bit and presented itself as nothing more than a front passing through. I peered out my window at the waving tree branches then quickly ignored it. I’ve been in Oklahoma where the wind gets serious and we aren’t in Oklahoma.

Then, no notice was taken as the winds began to whip up and become formidable. After all, this is “sunny California”. We don’t allow strong winds in our neck of this “Golden State”. Uh-huh.

The first sight of our carport listing like sinking aircraft carrier was enough to light a bit of a fire in my stride. Had the concrete footings been any lighter the neighbor would have had a new item on which to hang Christmas lights this December.

 We quickly moved the Camry so that the support poles wouldn’t modify the paintjob like they did the van some months ago. The second thing was to undo the beautiful tie-own job we had recently accomplished when we installed the new canopy. Before we finished the wind grew from about 30 knots to 45 kts and was gusting from there. It wasn’t a pretty sight! Stuff was being blown into the yard and all over the place. We actually had a difficult time standing against it.

Connie grabbed the canopy (or at least it looked like she grabbed it. It may have grabbed her) and both ended up on the front porch where they were somewhat protected. In just a short time, the porch would be a shambles, though.

Being rather unafraid of the wind, I ventured out back to take a couple of pictures of the mess. As I was gawking at the neighbor’s barn, half of its roof lifted up and came tumbling over! Then, a 2’ x 10’ section came flying (literally) at our place. I had to dive for the dirt to avoid an episode of sidewalk surgery by a tin scalpel. That was interesting. That was hardly enough to faze an old huntin’ dog like me but Connie persuaded me that the grandkids will need me later so I should at least make an effort to stay alive by returning to the shelter of the patio.

There are at least ten large pieces of tin from the barn that ended up here so far.  We need to count the two long two by four’s that ended up against the house, too. Most likely, I’ll stack stuff up and let the neighbor fetch his building material later.

The neighbor also lost half of one of his oak trees. It snapped in the middle and fell off. We lost a large section of one of our large shade trees and a lot of smaller limbs off the other shade trees on our west boundary. We called our hired hand and he’s ready to come up and help.

I must admit that I have never ever seen 60+ knot winds in this area. That’s bad enough but it appears that peak gusts are hitting around the 70+ knot region. That there is a mighty stiff blow! It’s still more than just blustery outside as I’m writing.

 Dear friends, Fred and Deanna Piazza (a couple of miles away) just advised that their power is out. They called and found out that the power company expected to have the power returned in a couple of hours. We actually knew that because our power went out not long after the blow started. It didn’t bother us because we have the residential generator that came on immediately and the UPS batteries were there for our computers (saving them from a hard shut down). However (isn’t there always a “however”?), the Internet Service Provider is without power so, Ol’ Ran can’t access the Net. So goes life. At least I can finish up some writing and such that needs to be done and a couple of other things that are waiting with bated breath for my attention.

The forecast for today was for a 20% chance of scattered thundershowers. It was really interesting because we didn’t get anything but a bit o’ spit for rain and no lightening or thunder. High winds were not in the offing. We’ve been lied to by the weatherman before so it’s no biggy.

Last night, on the other hand, we got rain and a thunderstorm (if ten minutes of gentle rain can be called a “storm”).  Connie and I sat on the front porch swing for at least an hour and watched the lightning march toward us then sort of slide to the east. It would have been nice to see some lightning bugs but we’re a bit out of their territory. We were quite certain that the lightning would come our way. In fact, it was within a few miles but then it simply skirted us. “Ground strike” lightning isn’t good for your health so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. It’s just that I love a good thunder-buster.

Maggie the Wonder Dog isn’t a weather hound at all. She ran around restlessly for awhile but, when the winds became boisterous, she hunkered down behind a chair on the patio and called it a day. You couldn’t have moved her with a D-9 Cat. We were sure she would want to avail herself of “Maggie’s Mansion” doggy house where little could possibly bother her. But, she avoided it for some reason and stayed in the open and behind a wooden chair (which protected her from nothing but Boeing 747’s the best that I can tell). I’m starting to think that the dog is a silly goose.

A check on the Net (after the power came up) for a news update showed that the entire south San Joaquin Valley got hammered with a thunderstorm today while we were enduring our mini-hurricane. There was a lightning-precipitated power outage that spanned 6 counties! They also suffered a deluge which caused many traffic issues.

The messy storm found its way to Kern Country where it washed out portions of Highway 178 in Kern Canyon. Fresno got more than its share of grief and one man was struck by lightning (and, thankfully, survived). Their power won’t be restored until well after midnight, according to PGE.

Get this….the temp was 109 degrees which broke a 122 year old record for August 19. This kind of weather is extremely rare for here. 

Well…anyway…...after a couple of hours of “adventure”, I just walked outside and was greeted with a warm gentle summer breeze and a full moon. The sky has hardly a cloud in it. Life is once again beautiful at Rancho Relaxo. At dawn we clean.


(No pictures yet. My cell phone is holding them hostage and I need to hack my way into it and recover them)

 

 

 

 

 

Update From the Ranch

The  tomatoes are taking over this box! We love it! In the box at the rear is more okra.

 

 
 




To the right is the recently replanted box. Connie pulled up the zukes and planted other stuff (peas and green beans)  next to the peppers (on the right/east side) and okra (a couple of plants at the rear).

 The Ranch Rocket. I just took my first excursion outside the sight of home. It's 2.6 mi. to the nearest gas station so that sounded like the best place to go. It took about 8 min. to get there so that's about 22 mph. 22 mph was hot stuff in 1905!

 

                                                                                   
Here's some newly planted peas and green beans
next to the flourishing strawberries (left).

 

All is well here at the ranch. We’re (still) staying busy to say the least. What with the ministry efforts, the computer biz, keeping up with blogs, and holding down the fort, there's not many mushrooms growing under foot.

 

Our garden boxes have finally paid off. The time of harvest is upon us and Connie is getting her canning goodies together. She has already started putting up zukes and other squash. But, the tomato harvest is going to pounce on us big time and soon at that. The okra is producing some really nice pods but Ol’ Ran has yet to whack it up and fry some of it. Connie may be able to can some for later use in a gumbo or such.

I really want to roll some okra in cornmeal and fry it in an old iron skillet (which we have on hand). It’s best when fried in bacon grease too (not on hand but doable). That’s the best as far as I’m concerned. Talk about yummy stuff! There just doesn’t seem to be enough time or the priority has yet to be confirmed, I suppose, for me to “get a man right on it”. Good stuff any way you want to slice it.

 “Home Town Buffet” usually serves breaded okra but….ugh….that stuff is little beyond chicken feed. No self-respecting CIO (California Improved Okie) would touch that inedible mess. For okra, go to "Golden Corral" but make sure you have a very very empty stomach to start with or you will risk "buffet bloat syndrome" from over eating (I over eat anyway). 

 

Speaking of "Golden Corral", we recently knocked over the one in Bakersfield on Ming Ave. Oh, my! GC has long been my favorite buffet. Nothing else even comes close to it.   

Anyway, Connie’s also doing some dehydrating. There’s her peach “leather” that has turned out really well. It’s easy to do. You just toss your fruit and a dab of lemon juice into the food processor and pour the puree onto a flat thing and dehydrate. She even gave a go at drying onions. The initial tally on the onions was about 30 pounds which rendered a few quarts of dried goods. The place smelled like a hamburger stand for a few days!

As she sliced away while sitting at the kitchen table, she used a small fan to blow the fumes away. However, she failed to notice that she was loading the kitchen with those same fumes! I walked in from upstairs and into the kitchen and…..Wheeew! My eyeballs lit on fire and died! A small price to pay for a large supply of dehydrated onions which you can toss into a soup.

We haven’t done jerky in awhile for whatever reason (though it probably starts off with “Randy is sooooo  lazy…..”). I just sent the last of my previous batch to Brother John Appiah in Ghana West Africa. He loved the stuff and couldn’t get enough when I shared some with him last year.

A this point, we have 7 dehydrators and are looking to pick up one of the larger semi-commercial square 7-10 tray units. They’re not all that spendy so two of them will easily take the place of the smaller round ones we have.

For the fall crop, she just planted some green beans and peas. There’s also winter squash in the offing. There may be some other veggies that are planned but I don’t recall what they are at the moment. I’m not sure when winter actually gets here. It doesn’t really get cold until about January 1^st or so (I think I wore my leather jacket three times last winter and only twice because it was actually cool enough to do so). Since our garden boxes have responded to our pleas for cooperation, we are going to put them to good use.

We are (obviously) heading in he direction of being self-sufficient here at the Ranch. I’m not necessarily thinking about subsistence farming but it won’t hurt to have a backup plan. Hopefully, we’ll even be off the grid too! That may be a couple of years off yet but we’ll see. We’ve been looking into the deal but haven’t been convinced to take the plunge. for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, we’re not sure of the installation and configuration of the solar panels. Nothing seems to fit around here. We have two acres but ….no room to put solar panels. There’s no room on the roof of the house or the barn either.  We do have the residential generator. That little baby is my friend. What a handy gadget!

According to no few experts, there is every reason to suspect that the economy may crash (my! Isn’t that comforting?). So we want to have at least a head start on the matter of survival and for protecting ourselves from those who think we ere crazy for doing so. When they get hungry, they will want to redistribute my groceries and just let us starve to death. They will have to get past an awful lot of lead and Maggie the Wonder Dog before that happens.

The trike is still in testing stage solely due to my foot dragging. A couple of days ago I gathered the courage to ride it about ¾ of mile down to a friend’s house. All went well. I’m still having an issue with the right rear fender staying aligned with the tire so that it doesn’t rub. Not sure what that’s all about. I straighten it and it twists back out. A small nylon tie may obviate the matter. Not sure yet. I’m getting used to the crowned roads and am becoming more used to the uncomfortable feeling of leaning with the trike instead of riding upright like on a bike. I may invent training wheels for it.

Since we just got our helmets, Connie says I can now head down the hill 2.6 miles to the “Eagle Feather” convenience mart/gas station/stop and rob. They sit up off the road (Highway 190) on a hillside and their driveway has about a 9% or greater grade. Though the little Schwinn hummer has a 1.5 hp motor, the gearing and clutch configuration may be such that it won’t haul my 220lb (dry) airframe up the hill. I may have to mount the other sprocket and lower the gearing somewhat. Or…how about a JATO bottle attached to the rear frame? No more worries about going uphill!! Zowie!

The only real complaint I have about the trike is the size of the gas tank. The dinky thing only holds about 16 oz of fuel (two cups!). Well….that’s great if you’re using a weed eater. Otherwise, I have to keep putting gas in the thing all of the time! I’ve refueled it twice since I built it and haven’t really gone anywhere! If I go anywhere beyond a couple of miles or so, I’ll need to bring along a small gas can (locked to the basket, of course. Wouldn’t want the Gypsies to steal it).

Our water situation isn’t critical yet but it doesn’t look good at all. The Tule River is still at a standstill. It’s just a bunch of puddles now. Ugly. They’re also dumping water from the lake to appease the irrigation demands from downstream. It almost looks strange to actually see water in the river below the dam. How weird.

There is still enough for us to be able to water the front yard. I did let it get good and brown first so that the neighbors and ditch tender would know that I’m doing my part to help preserve our “California gold”. So far, the drip irrigation dynamic has sufficed for the time being for our trees.

Our bees are still doing well. This time, we actually smoked the little critters prior to feeding them. They were all nice and calm after that and left us alone. You may recall that, the last time we tried to befriend our hives, they chased us out of their neighborhood. Dear friend, Jim McCrory, suggested that we make sure that our hives have not been commandeered by “killer bees”. We hadn’t thought of that! He suggested that we check with our mentor who then advised that we just misjudged the matter in that we caught them at “bed time” (which spooked them) and that we should have smoked them first. DUH. Live and learn. Next lesson, please.  

We then discovered that killer bees have migrated as far north as Kern County (the county immediately adjacent to  us on the south) and that was in 2007. So, it is a real possibility that such a hijacking of our hives could happen. Oh, well. Maybe we could just have a bumper sticker that reads, “Our killer bees can whip your spelling bees”.

Connie’s birthday is coming soon (too soon, according to her). I’m not sure that someone’s 65^th birthday is what’s called “coming of age” (tee hee) but she will be 25 years beyond the “Big Four-O” on the 28th of this month.

 

As part of our celebration efforts, we hope to make it to the quaint and historical little burg called “Julian” out in the high desert hills about an hour southeast of Oceanside (just a bit north of San Diego). Julian has all kinds of neat places to visit and to spend a bit of time lolling about. They have an old gold mine that you can tour and a special famous pie shop (did I mention that Connie loves pies?). The museum is one place we want to visit as is the old time photo place where we can get our picture taken in sepia tone. That way, we can prove that we're old!

 

They have a couple of places there where you can rent a horse, too. However, the last time I rode a horse (1987 as I recall) my body threatened to auction me off to the lowest bidder if I ever did that again. And, that was almost. ..gulp...thirty years ago when my body didn’t need so much Super Glue to hold it together! It remains to be seen whether or not I have the guts or gumption to be a cowboy for a few minutes (or seconds, depending). I may just leave my Stetson and Tony Llama’s at home. Most likely, I’ll just mount the old Ford van and holler out the window, “Hi yo, Plutonium away!” (the Lone Ranger already has “Silver”, don’tcha know).

 Eldest son, Jeff and his wife, Sandra, are prospering as owners of “The Cattle Baron Cafe”. Just perusing their menu has me ready to pack up and move to Abilene! Those folks back there know how to eat! You can check them out here: http://www.cattlebaroncafe.com/. If you don’t have a fire in your tummy by the time you leave their site, your wood is wet.

Daughter, Trixie and her 5 young’ins will be stopping by for a two day visit next week. They are returning home from a trip to Washington to see siblings and their families up there. We hope to get the grandkids a bit more acquainted with Rancho Relaxo while they are here. They may like to ride on the old Ranch Rino tractor and such. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there’ll be a BBQ grill fired up during their stay. Her husband, Dan, couldn’t make it as planned but may be able to come up at a later date.

 

Stay tuned for more comic relief from Rancho Relaxo and the Yo-Yo Twins. We’re a million laughs and counting so far (I just need to figure if folks are laughing with us or at us. HAR!).

Rancho Seco (Dry Ranch)

 

It’s been a bummer of a dry summer at the ranch. “How dry has it been, Ran?”, you ask? Well, the Tule river is at “zero flow” (i.e. there is no movement of water which is something that hasn’t happened in my lifetime). That means that it is so dry that the trout are having to hitch-hike 5 miles to Success Lake to have room to swim. That’s dry!

Lawns in the area are more brown than green except where the homeowners have sufficient resources to pay exorbitantly for water or a private well. In one local neighborhood, their water bill is around 300 dollars per month and that’s before watering the lawn (with some reporting that the water isn’t fit to drink)!

That brownness includes Brother Ran’s lawn which is greenish but not the verdant lush lawn that it usually is. The “Pleasant Valley Ditch Company” has rationed our “ditch water” (whose tap is in the Tule River) with which we irrigate the place. We’ve been warned that it could cut back even more …..soon. So, we’re using the tried and true “drip irrigation” method for a lot of our watering so most of our fruit trees are only somewhat stressed.

That also means that our grapes are not exactly springing from the ground. Some of the problem may be the poor soil in which they are planted. I can get rocks and weeds to grow well there but not much else. Though planted at the same time, they are all different sizes ranging from “just recently planted” to “planted about 6 months ago”. They were planted more than a year ago. *SIGH*. It reminds me of an old bluegrass song, “”When My Brown Thumb Turns to Green Again”. Well, at least I have access to some “Miracle Grow” which, purportedly, can grow grass on a park bench. I need all the help I can get including a few days off to attend to our greenery around here.

Our “friends”, the pocket gophers, have taken down two of our young fruit trees (one apple and one peach). I’ve got some ideas, some hardware, some gas producing flares, and not enough time to deal with them. But, I hope to run the little furry buggers from their encampments soon. Every time I run them off, the neighbor’s gophers move in to take their place.

Thankfully, the weather has been somewhat milder than usual. 100 degree days are not uncommon but we’ve been spared the “scorchers” for the most part. The weatherman recently forecast temps of 105-106 degrees but those numbers failed to appear. It’s about the only time we’ve ever forgiven the forecaster for lying to us.

Our bees seem to be holding up under the heat. We checked them the other day and the colony is actually growing! Apparently, even our queen bee is blessed as she seems to have made sure that the work crew will be sufficient for the next bloom.

Since there is so little of anything blooming (bees can’t make a living from a few local Crape Myrtle trees, don’tcha know), we feed them a sugar syrup concoction with an additive that keeps the bees healthy (it’s called “Healthy Bee”, in fact). Our brother-in-Christ and professional beekeeper, Dave Kruze, has advised us to not take any honey until the spring bloom and to just let them settle in for now. We can do that.

I sure made the little buzzers madder than a hornet's nest the other day. Connie and I suited up in our space alien -looking bee outfits and went out to check on them and feed them. Now, you’d think that they would appreciate our love and concern. Hah! When I lifted the top lid off the top box, the hive came unglued all at one time! You'd have thought that we were trying to steal all the queen's larvae!

They were obviously improperly potty trained since hundreds and bunches of them and their buzzin' cousins from the adjacent hive assailed us with a vengeance! It was comforting to know that they couldn't get past our suits. As we finished feeding them (do you know how hard it is to feed a bee with an eyedropper?!), we headed back to the house and were still enveloped in a huge cloud of wings and stings. Usually, what few bees there were would stop following us within several yards. Not this time! They (all of them) pursued us to the front of the house before they finally left us alone (the hives are way out behind the pole barn). This was the first time we have faced the high dudgeon of the colony. We'll just smoke'em a bit next time and calm things down prior to tresspassing on their turf. Or, I could just start a hog farm. It would be less adventurous, I suppose.

The “Ranch Rocket” (the sublimely subsonic motorized Schwinn trike) is pretty much tested now. There is still a slow leak in the front tire even after a gallon of "Fix-a-Flat" and a new valve core. The problem will be obviated soon as we just got our new heavy duty tires and puncture proof tubes. I'm not  into fixin' flats around here. I’m not taking it to the “Famosa Drag Strip” for time trials any time soon either. Besides, if I ran the quarter mile, the timing clock would wear out before I finished and Christmas would be here. I dunno....maybe I could put a supercharger on it or such. How about maybe removing the basket and mounting a small block Chevy V-8 over the rear axel? Wouldn't that just smoke the tires?! Can't you just see Connie riding it now? "Go Granny! Go, Granny! Go Granny! Go!".

As soon as it’s convenient and the weather is nicer (I ain’t goin’ nowhere nohow at 5 AM just because it’s cooler then), I’ll pull the cord on the little Honda motor and head 2.6 miles down the hill to the “Eagle Feather” gas station/convenience mart. Yes, I’ll have my handy helmet and even handier cell phone with me in case I need Connie to rescue me. I figure it will only take about 15 minutes to get there.

It may be peach picking time in Georgia but it's veggie canning time at the ranch. Connie has put up a lot of zucchini, crookneck squash, green beans, and tomatoes The full tomato harvest is about to hit and it will be “Katy bar the door” when it does. Our tomato plants have certainly prospered this year and we will have an abundant harvest. She also combined the zukes and crooknecks with some tomatoes to make “soup makin’s” and a spaghetti sauce base.

We’ve managed to pick up a ton of canning jars at yard sales and estate sales for pennies on the dollar. Soon, we’re ordering the special “Tattler” re-usable jar lids, too. That should round out her canning supplies for now. The huge "All American" 21 ½ qt canner is kept warm around here!

With that bit o' cannery, y’all stay tuned for more updates from the little ranch that could.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RANCH ROCKET!!

 The "Ranch Rocket" sitting there all pretty and glistening in the sunlight. What a beaut!

To the left is a picture of the Honda 4 stroke gas motor that makes trike riding easy for us old folks. It has enough pep to haul my heavy carcass around with a few things in the basket as well. We're only 3 miles from downtown Springville so this little ute will come in handy and save a ton of gas when we only have a few errands to attend to (like mailing an eBay item or such).

 

Connie is getting used to the new hauler. She likes it!

 

 

 

 

 

Ranch Relaxo is coming into the modern age with the addition of a handy energy saving, gas saving, and practical device. “What on earth is this man talking about”, you ask? Well, we have the “Rancho Rino”, which is our 1950 Ford 8N tractor, our “Rancho Rafto”, 14’ aluminum fishing boat, “Hephalump”, our 6’ x 12’ covered trailer, “Rancho Tote-O”, the 6’ x 8’ stake side trailer, and now the new “Rancho Rocket”.

Just let me tell you about the “Rancho Rocket”. She’s a beaut, for one thing! She’s a pretty white and blue cutie what sits as proud as a grandmother with a fresh-baked peach cobbler! What it is…. is a new Schwinn “Meridian” adult tricycle with 26” wheels. It’s going to be a utile and handy gadget to have around because of its nice deep basket riding between the two rear wheels and an old people-saving small motor hanging on the rear. The head and tail lights will be ordered shortly as will a couple of brain buckets to insure the integrity of the rider’s noggins should they attempt to check out the pavement at a worm’s eye level.

It only took Brother Ran about 6 weeks to finally get all the screws twisted down and such. But, with a bit o’ coaxing from a longsuffering wife who wanted her back patio put back in use, I managed to bring the project to the completed stage. That was probably the best 6 hours I’ve invested into an endeavor in awhile.  

Ah, but something new has been added: we glued a 1.5 hp Honda 4 stroke motor to it that takes the sweat out of hauling things around (have I mentioned that I’m convenience oriented?). It actually took awhile to dial in the motor mount. It was designed specifically for the trikes with 20” wheels and not the 26” model. So, I had to fit spacers and such then adjust everything into alignment. Well, that would be just too easy now wouldn’t it? Of course it would be! After taking great pains to align things, guess what? The motor was in the way of the basket. Well, ain’t that enough to make you stuff your overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder! I might add that most of the pain came from skint knuckles. Guitar pickers hate to have their knuckles busted!

 It took a bit of Yankee ingenuity to resolve the issue. I took four 2 ½” spacers that were cut from ½” pipe and simply lifted the basket up and out of the way of the engine case. I did have to drill out the metric sized threaded holes and use lag bolts but that was easy enough and only cost a few bucks for hardware. It leaves minimal room to adjust the seat but I’m the only one riding it so far so we’ll deal with that matter if it becomes an issue somewhere down the road.

After everything was tidied up, I put oil and gas in the engine. To expedite the matter, I squirted a shot of starting fluid into the carb. She started with the second pull and has been purring like a kitten since. The tires were aired up and Ol’ Rancho Ran climbed aboard his new hefty heiny hauler.

The neighbor has a nice ¼ mile long concrete driveway so that seemed to me to be the best place to execute a test run so I did just that. The contraption performed flawlessly with the minor exception of having to fine tune the rear fenders which appear to love annoying the tires by getting in their way and making harsh tire-abrading sounds. 

After zipping around for a bit, I put the trike to bed in the barn and was most pleased with it and myself. Imagine my surprise the next day when I went to the barn to conduct a post test ride evaluation run and found the front tire was flat! The best I can tell, there’s a patch of Oklahoma goat head stickers left over from my last eradication campaign and some of them punctured the tire. “Slime” time! I shoved some slime into the tube then ran it around awhile and came back to the barn to check it out. It was nearly flat. More slime! After that, it just wouldn’t hold air so we’re going into town tomorrow and have them install the indestructible tubes we bought (two years ago) in anticipation of precisely this event.

Stay tuned as Ol’ Rocket Ran will soon be assembling another Schwinn “Meridian” trike with work-saving Honda internal combustion engine attached to it for his side-cook, Connie.  What shall we call ourselves? How about the “Rancho Rocket Riders” (corny and goofy but, hey, that's us in a nutshell). Or, what about “The Schwinn Twins”? I know! Let’s do, “The Meridian Marauders” and that way we can get the jackets, helmets and tattoos to go with the name (I doubt if I can get that one past Connie)! We shall see what other trouble the pair of rancho ranch hands can get into next time.

 

 

 

 

Rancho Blessings

 This is a shot of the garden boxes looking northwest from the neighbors long driveway. Part of the barn is visible at the left. Behind the garden boxes is the well house. Directly behind the barn is the dog kennel but this pic is a day or so prior to it being erected.





A hog farm is moving into the neighborhood and directly ...across....the.....street from us. This ought to be...um... interesting.

 Ain't she a beaut?! One of the many yellow crooked neck squash wending its way into our world. It'll be canned or sautéd or perhaps even dehydrated for later use (we have a dozen dehydrators so there are options).




We are pleased with our new 10' x 10' dog kennel/trash protection system. No more trash strewn from here into the next county. I just don't have time to do the cleanup work. I posted "KEEP OUT" signs but someone forgot to teach the critters to read. *Sigh*

The "igloo". What a handy gadget. She's covered with "SnoCoat" sealer and stiffened up a bit too. The new door and new floor are solid as a rock! We will park our gas and kerosene cans, propane tanks, and yard tools in here. The near end has 24" shelves while the opposite end is open for the cans. There is an option to get a diamond plate ramp, too. I may just use a chunk of plywood. Who knows.


"You've got bees!". If we can keep the ants defeated and if we can keep the bees happy, there should be a lot of honey around here next springtime. So far, so good. Yes...we do have an "EpiPen".

"Hey! A wascally wabbit!". Yeah...we have our share of wabbits around here. I killed and cleaned one a couple of years ago. It didn't taste at all like the ones from Kansas. Toooooo gamey for this old not-so-great white hunter. Perhaps at another time when the dog develops a distaste for what's now on her menu. She seemed to like my lovingly prepared rabbit back then.

We have corn in the ear so it won't be all that long before we can chunk an ear or two into the pot. I usually smother my ears with butter, salt, and pepper. It usually takes awhile to clean up my diligently engineered mess (two days is too much, eh?) so we don't do corn on the cob all that often.







Once in awhile I just feel like sharing some of the blessings that are happening here at the ranch. That’s particularly true when I sometimes rant a bit about how tired we get from being as busy as we are (is that proper sentence structure?).

We are truly blessed here at “Rancho Relaxo”. For instance, our garden is taking over the neighborhood. For it to grow at all is a major blessing given that we couldn’t beg the thing to cough up much of anything last year. Connie just harvested a handful of zucchinis and yellow crook necked squash for the sauté pan. They were quite good! The strawberries (remembering that we didn’t get a single berry last season) have overcome their hurdles and have bloomed to bounty!

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye (which really isn’t all that high as I recall but it is growing rapidly). The squash is taking over the place and “Connie the Canner” will be slicing and dicing herself silly and shoving parts and pieces into canning jars soon.

The Okra Winfrey (groan) is growing by seems to be a bit lazy this season (as compared to last year when it had been replaced [by the Gypsies, no doubt] with plastic clones that didn’t do anything but take up space). Once it kicks itself into gear, we should have plenty to can, fry, and toss into a gumbo.

You may recall that the word, “gumbo” is the original African name for okra. Seems that white folks didn’t want to be associated with anything that black folks like. Still, they did like the rather tasty corn meal breaded and fried treat so they simply renamed it to "okra" (probably a shortened version of "Oklahoma fried! Rah! Rah! Rah!"). How convenient. Some folks say that they don’t like the slime but I would point out that, if they have slimy okra, they are boiling it by itself and not with other ingredients. Fried okras isn’t slimy at all and is one of the greatest of summer harvest delights.

The bell peppers are healthy so we can count on them for spicing up our soups and chili. We have reds, yellows, and greens which should give us some options. Options are our friends.

We have resumed out beekeeping efforts. Our dear friend and brother, Dave Kruze and his wife, Maryann, brought over a herd of them not long ago. After helping them nab another swarm, we now have 4 hives with 9 boxes. The bees appear to be prospering and have not registered a complaint by leaving their digs. This is particularly true after we fought off an attack of small ants. A few weeks ago, the ants plagued another new hive to the point that they up and moved to another neighborhood.

I donned my white space alien bee suit, gloves, and huge screened helmet, grabbed my smoker, and fed my charges some sugar water (with nutritive additives) to keep them going until they can store enough honey to hold them through the winter. It is post “bloom” season and they may not find sufficient flowering around here to warrant sticking around for the long haul.

Dave advised that we should leave the bees alone and not take their honey this year but rather to wait until next year. We can do that. It’ll be worth the wait because we will have a lot of orange honey (we have large orange groves nearby and have 20+ orange trees here at Rancho Relaxo). Good stuff!

Connie just overhauled our bathroom. She put in beautiful white wainscoting and painted the upper wall light blue. That will look great with the new 24” sink, counter top, and new fixtures that replaced the 19” one that was there prior. Also, she had a local contractor put in a nice set of white built-in floor-to-ceiling custom shelves that match everything. We had a tall-but-narrow stand alone shelf in there but it wasn’t big enough to suit us. There were some other tweaks that she had them do and it’s looking sweet.

The computer biz is moving along. I’m still the village blacksmith but it’s obvious that folks like me will not be needed in a few years. The technology is simply moving on without us. That’s not a bad thing. I can always focus more on ministry and such. I will always have a “dinosaur” running though. Fat on the “Cloud” and small screen toys! I need a full-sized e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Yes, I am an old Luddite, but I don’t care! I am comfortable with being an old fuddy duddy and I’m not apt to change any time soon (we fuddies don’t  cotton to change)!

Speaking of ministry and such, our church is doing great! We just had our monthly pot-faith (sounds better than pot luck, eh?) which reinforced the fact that there are some great cooks in our group! I dialed in on some homemade chili and couldn’t seem to keep my spoon dry. Good eatin’.

We also have the newly re-instituted “Soup Wednesday” which is on the second Wednesday of the month. Looks like we will have plenty of “daily bread” around there. I'm keepin' my trusty crockpot warm and at the ready!

The church is growing and we have much peace now that they have a leader who is a man of peace. There is still a lot of things that need to be attended to but we are moving along steadily.

 

Then, there's the "igloo". The "igloo" is actually an old fiberglass cargo container retired from "Flying Tiger Airlines" (bought out by FedEx) that flew countless miles in the belly of a Boeing 747. It's rather large and can hold all kinds of things. So, instead of building a small storage shed (we actually tried that once before and ended up with a barn!), we overhauled the igloo. Now that it has been fixed up, it's easily movable without having to use a D-6 Caterpillar. It didn't take all that long until it was patched, painted, and parked and sporting a new exhaust turbine and some shelves. The plan is to keep our tools and fuels in there. Our gasoline, kerosene (we have a lot of kerosene lamps), and our propane tanks have been in the open air in the pole barn as of late but that's going to change now that we have a lockable storage shed available.  

And, wait folks, there's more (your "Ginzu Knife" commercial for the day)! Sitting out by the pole barn, there's a recently assembled 10' x 10' dog kennel that makes for a perfect trash container enclosure. A tarp cover for the top is on order so we can keep our trash and rubbish tidy and dry. The local critters (of which there are no few) will have to learn to survive without our assistance (and someone needs to teach them to look both ways when crossing the highway too because some of them ain't paying attention).

Connie and I have been yard sale’ing a bit since the weather has warmed up. Talk about blessings! We stopped at an estate sale the other day and loaded up on some goodies that included some vintage books. We got a stack of 7 vintage hard bound books for about ten bucks. After getting them home, I started stuffing them onto eBay along with some books about Corvettes. Within three hours we had sold one book for 12 dollars and we had a starting bid on another for 19.95!  Connie loaded up three dozen canning jars for....$5.00! Zowie! She also found a country style bench flower stand too (which she took home and repainted it and made it look like new)! It fits the rancho perfectly!

At one place, just about everything we bought was for 2 dollars or less in spite of the fact that some of the items were quite expensive (i.e. there was a 105.00 pair of women's high heels from Nordstrom's that straightaway went on eBay)! They guy even sold me a 300 dollar color video camera for an RV (so you can see while backing up and such) for ….get this…40 bucks. It wasn’t junk either! He didn't want to sell it at all but he was being forced to move because they had lost their home (there’s a lot of that going on around here) and were up against the clock and literally couldn’t wait for better prices. They had to be out in two days and were basically throwing stuff at us and we had sense enough to catch it. If that doesn’t make your yeast rise, the same man called us back the next day and asked us if we wanted the entire tailings of the yard sale! We assured him that we did because (most of) it wasn’t junk! Ol’ Ran hooked up the trailer and we hauled it off for him!

Some of the "wasn't junk" stuff, was in a "junk box" that he was planning to take to the e-waste depot in Porterville. I advised him that I had an e-waste pile that a local man hauls off when we call and that I would be glad to take it for him. He was thrilled. I was thrilled too when I dug thought it and found a like-new cassette player. I guess his son was not all that excited about the old technology that has served so well for 40 years but I was! It can be used to record teachings at church until I can get a digital recording studio set up. A Compaq laptop was also in the mix. It was DOA but the power cord will sell on eBay for 10 bucks or so. The screen will sell for 25 dollars or more. There were other items of great interest in there that I didn't overlook.
 

At another yard sale, I picked up a box of “junk” electronics for 10 dollars that had four wireless LAN adapters in the bottom of it (each worth 30 clams)! There we also wireless access points, a wireless router, and all kinds of other goodies for a wire head like me. Then, there was yet another box of similar stuff that no one wanted so I bought that one for 15 dollars. I then tallied the two boxes and I quit counting when I got to about 250 dollars worth of stuff! Not too bad of a day for an ol’ computer dude, I’d say!

Last week a friend and client of ours got a new computer and called us to set it up for her at her place of business in Delano (about an hour southwest from here). After doing all of that, she gave us her old computer which actually had nothing wrong with it (her granddaughter hopes to inherit the new one and didn't want the old one. No problem). So, we now have a nice (though older) computer, flat screen monitor, mouse, and keyboard! Such a deal! We usually give stuff like this away to folks in the church after I tune it up and maybe even upgrade the operating system to Vista (seed to sow, don’tcha know).

Newly hatched grandbaby, Moire Annaliese Howden, is fat, happy, and sweet as a bucket of cupcakes. She is about 10 weeks old and couldn’t be doing better. Her parents are quite proud of this fifth edition to their clan. We went down to see the dedication at their church not long ago on the evening before Mother’s Day. The rest of the grandkiddies are doing great too!

Anyway, that’s the news from “Rancho Relaxo”. Stay tuned to see what is happening around here. I know that I can’t wait to find out just what new blessings will arrive and how the soon-to-arrive hog farm will work out without anyone getting killed. I wanted to do what the sign said and give them a shout “for more info” and ask, “Reckon how long will it take you to move back out?”.

Likewise,  the Schwinn Meridian (adult) tricycle is almost assembled. Can’t wait to take her for a stroll. Most likely, I’ll let the 1.25 hp Honda motor do most of the work, though. As you may have already noted, I am convenience oriented.

Don't touch that dial.

 

 

Whale of a Deal!

We’ll….it was about time Ol’ Ran and Miss Connie got out of Dodge for a few days for some R&R (or, more accurately this time, S&E, sleeping and eating). It had been quite awhile since we had flown the coop (and were still associating with a few turkeys) so I decided to just ditch the rancho and go to the coast. Farm livin’; that’s the life for me, to be sure. But, I knew that the air is nice and clean at Morro Bay. Besides, we really did need a break from the Valley and our work load. We had so much on our plate that we were getting gravy on the floor.

Not only that, besides having dirty air to breathe, a rancho (at least this one) just doesn’t have any whales to watch! Guess what? Morro Bay just happens to have whale watching tours this time of year! Zowie!

It has been about 25 years or so since I’ve been on a boat and out in the Pacific Ocean to watch gray whales migrate along the coast. Connie had yet to have the experience so I wanted her to have the chance to do so. I was about to call it a “pleasure” but “experience” is a bit closer to reality this time around. We ran into some real life hindrances almost from the git go.

Our usual protocol is to have everything ready the night before. Then, in the morning, after milking the cows, feeding the chickens, and bucking the hay (you ain’t buyin’ into this part are you?), we load the hoopie and head out for whatever part of a map is still stuck in the 1982 "Rand McNalley Road Atlas".  

Actually, we know the way to Morro Bay. It isn’t all that far at about 188 miles. That’s “just around the corner” in California terms. Anyway, we loaded up the dump-van (slight smaller than a dump truck but used for much the same purposes) and forged ahead.

The problem is that we started out entirely too tired and taxed to attempt this gig. Despite our high hopes, we started with a “low battery” which simply drained more from there.

After almost four hours of abusing our sweet cheeks, we arrived in Morro Bay. It was Thursday about 6PM  which means that it was later than planned due to unforeseen obstacles. There was jsut no way to break away any earlier. So, we cashed in our reservation at the “Travelodge” motel (so we could wake up and smell the curry) and took up camp. In almost no time, I was “un-laxed” and in bed catching up on a bit of the “History Channel” (we only watch TV when traveling or when at someone else’s house). At about 8PM, our tummies began to let us know that the last of our “Taco Bell” lunch was gone and that we had forgotten to eat din din.

“Oh, man! Back to street clothes again?”, I asked Connie. “Can I just go in my jammies?”, I asked with my lip hanging down so low that I could suck a marble out of a gopher hole. “Not today!”, she declared tersely. “We don’t need the pastor of our church getting bailed out of jail for being goofy and stupid”.

“Well, I guess you’re right but I don’t get arrested for being goofy and stupid when I have my street clothes on so what’s the diff? Besides, every other person I see in Wal-Mart has their jammies on”, I argued as plaintively as I could.

She looked at me right straight into my pretty brown eyes and, with all wifely authority (which is usually employed to keep husbands from making fools of themselves), “You’re not in Wal-Mart and you are not a Wal-Martian so get dressed”. I did get dressed but it didn’t make my dinner taste any better.

Near the motel is a super nice restaurant called, “Dutchman’s” (a different sign outside says, "Flying Dutchman"). Though only six blocks away, we drove there. Talk about “tired”. Sheese.

They had cioppino (Italian seafood stew in a tomato soup base) on the menu so, since I hadn’t had a cioppino since 1985, I opted for that. Connie dug into their primo fish and chips. My opinion is that their fish and chips excels all others in Morro Bay and Pismo (25 miles farther south). The only place that I can think of that was as good was in Pismo and its no longer in business. I found out later from a friend that we could have gone to "Jocko's" in Nipomo but it was a bit late for that.

Having taken care of alimentary enhancement, we promptly retired for the night. We hadn’t done anything but drive and eat and were bushed. Lights were out at about 10 PM.

The next morning saw me heading across the parking lot for the coffee pot in the motel office (seems I overlooked the one they provided in the room in the dressing alcove. Swell). Lo and behold, the office was not open for their continental breakfast though half the day was gone. Actually, it was 6:30 AM but the day was well started and most motel's offices are open at 6 AM or so. A peek at the fine print on the office door advised that they would open up at about 7:30 AM. Great. That must save them a lot of money on breakfasts since most people are usually gone by 7 AM.

With eyes only partially pried open I trudged across the street to “Carla’s Country Kitchen” where it only took five minutes to be waited on though the place was far from busy. It looked like it could be a long day in Morro Bay. I didn’t know how right I was. Anyway, the service was lousy but at least the coffee was nasty. The stuff was akin to tractor crankcase oil. John Deere would be proud.  

You would think that I would learn from such experiences. Nope. After Connie rounded up her ducks and, after loading up the van, we drove the few feet across the street to “Carla’s” (I am not lazy. But, I am convenience oriented).

You know, doesn’t it make sense to think that, in a tourist town, a café or restaurant needs to be something special and that it should stand out from the average greasy spoon that can be found in every modest sized city in America? I’ve been to “Carla’s” twice now and this will be my last time. The chow was middling but I didn’t come almost 200 miles for merely OK food.

This brings us to a “Randy Rant”: for one thing, biscuits are to be baking powder biscuits and not yeast biscuits. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, call yourself a “country kitchen” when you serve city biscuits. I would give the place a pass if they had called themselves “Carla’s City Kitchen”.

And, for another, gravy is supposed to have a taste. I maintain that, even if it tastes like it was made in the bottom of one of my grandfather's waders, it should have a taste. Paste has no taste. The only place I've found whose gravy was worse was a small diner across from Lake Cocolalla, ID (between Couer D' Alene and Sandpoint). Theirs tasted like wallpaper glue.

It is also my perception that food (especially hash brown potatoes) should be served at least warm enough to make one think that they were cooked the same day. I was disappointed enough to just leave the stuff on the plate but I was also Scotch enough to finish my plate and not waste the food. Sorry, Carla. You won’t be seeing Ol’ Ran again. Because the service was (barely) reasonable and the food arrived in a timely manner (unlike the previous time), I give them "2 Stars".

Our tour boat, christened “Dos Osos” (Spanish for “two bears”…huh?), was provided by “Sub Sea Tours” of Morro Bay. I couldn't help but giggle to myself about the name of the place. I guess I was envisioning watching whales from under the ocean. The departure was scheduled at around 9 AM. We thought to arrive early lest there be any surprises (old people hate surprises).

The day was bright and sunny with a light offshore breeze. It was a bit of shock that we didn’t have the marine cloud layer that is so typical of the coast. We later learned that whale watching had been cancelled for the previous week or so due to high winds.

The craft, powered by a pair of 25 hp Honda engines, was a nice 33’ barge of sorts that was capable of seating about 22 people. Given that dynamic, I was pretty certain that we weren’t going very far and weren’t going to get there very fast. You just can’t beat the laws of physics when there’s that much parasitic drag at your disposal.

Though a sunny day, and though the seas presented only minor chop, it was rather cool, to say the least. We had dressed appropriately in anticipation of the cold but we should have been more prepared. Connie wasn’t able to enjoy the event due to focusing most of her energy on maintaining enough body heat to stay alive. This will likely be her first and last time to brave the ocean blue on an open barge. 

After heading north up the coast from Morro Bay for about an hour, we spotted a whale! “Thar she blows! Eleven o'clock!”, bellowed the captain  as he pointed off the port bow at the spout of a gray whale. I think he derives great joy in yelling that knowing that his passengers will be giving great reports of their exciting whaling adventure with Captain Ahab. I quickly glanced about for a flensing knife but didn't see one.  

The captain wasn’t at all a crusty old sea salt as one might imagine. Rather, he was an affable and quite humorous middle-aged fellow with a quick wit (sharpened no doubt by years of practice before a captive audience). It was difficult to hear him due to the ambient wind and motor noises but he did try to clue us rubberneckers in on whale migration and such. He was quick to point out that floatation devices were available and that, should trouble arise, he and the first mate would quickly don them and swim to shore to get help for us. What a hoot!

After bobbing around about 1.5 miles directly offshore from Cayucos (home of dear friend and professional musician, Alen “Jackson” Wallen), we fell into the “deal of the day” when a juvenile gray whale began breaching not far from us. After the rash of picture taking,  the first mate/deck hand/tour guide advised that it was probably the first trip north for this whale and that he was breaching to get his bearings. For whatever reason the whale was doing his thing, it was quite spectacular and worth the hardship to see this marvelous creature cavorting in the ocean.

The timing was rather perfect as it was soon time to head back to the harbor. The captain pointed our little wave masher south while we all gabbed about how fortunate we were to have seen the whales. All-in-all, I really can’t complain as we did get what we paid for and a bag of cold wind. We did a lot in only 3.5 hours and it only cost us about what most couples would spend for two trips to a theater to watch a movie and buy a bag of popcorn (we have been to one move in two years and experienced “sicker shock” even at the matinee price).

 

Speaking of popcorn, as an aside: a large bag of popcorn is now $8.50! You can get a "deal" by purchasing a large popcorn and soda for a mere.....$13.50! None for me, thanks.

Now, get this; we debarked and strolled the one block to the parking lot. We got in to the van, looked at each other, and said, “Is it nap time yet?”, and promptly took a nap for an hour. There wasn’t enough energy between us to even get out of the parking lot.

Our hope was to head north to Cayucos and see “Jackson” and his wife. It has been a couple of years since we had the opportunity to hug their necks. Also, when at the coast, we usually track down a yard sale or two and then knock over a couple of thrift stores while we’re at it. That didn’t happen. With only a quick stop to refill my Diet Pepsi jug, we headed straight home without even stopping for lunch.

When we arrived back at the ranch, we had hoped to just settle in and recover from the trip. That didn’t happen either. Business and what all kept us hopping (I hate to hop) until 11 PM at which time we simply collapsed into the rack. It took a week to recover.

My guess is that there may be no elective long distance trips for awhile. We did have to go to Harbor City/Torrance for grandson, Kuyper’s, birthday party the next day (Saturday) but we just took it easy.  Two long trips in just a few days is too much fun for the non-dynamic non-daring duo from Springville.

Stay tuned for the next event(s) coming from “Rancho Relaxo”. It could be …..interesting what with the garden blooming wildly and all.

April Showers Bring May Flowers to Rancho Relaxo….NOT TODAY!

I guess I should say, “NOT QUITE YET AND I AIN'T HOLDIN' MY BREATH!”. You see, this is central California. We don’t do rain here. In fact, I think I heard that it was against the law to rain here!

 

You need to understand that, when it does rain, it doesn't make things grow; it just makes a mess of things. That's why we lament a “40% chance of rain” forecast. Let’s put it this way: a 40% chance of rain here means that there is a 100% chance that there will be just enough rain trickling from the clouds to make a mud hole of your car. That’s right! It doesn’t rain enough to even wash the car of your Mulberry tree’s droppings (or the bird droppings for that matter)! UGH! You come out to your car and cast an eyeball on it only to find that you only see brown. You don’t actually see the color of the paint.

Head for the car wash? Hah! You can’t because there is a 30% chance of rain that night. In reality that means that there is a 110% chance of your car becoming a mud pie again.

 

It has rained so little that we don't have enough flowers around here to even feed the bees. Connie finally did purchase some really pretty Pansys, though. Other than that, the wildflowers are gone and the weeds are on patrol to see that nothing else pretty blooms.

All seriousness aside, we do need what little rain we get around here. Our annual rainfall is about the equivalent of a week’s worth of rain in Tulsa so things stay sort of dry. Did I say, “sort of dry”? I meant to say, sort of toasted. We go from what little green we get in the winter to “California gold” in just a couple of weeks when April hits.

I think tomorrow's rain (or, dribble), was late for the train because it usually stops raining in March and we don’t see wetness until we go swimming in the lake or until October gets here.

If that isn’t enough to lift your elevator to the top floor, just when we run out of cloud-supplied water, our irrigation ditch water is shut off for 6 weeks for its annual maintenance overhaul (a state wide practice). I haven’t looked into the matter very deeply but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is vacation time for the ditch tenders and the supervisors. After all, just tell me what can go wrong with a ditch whose only moving part is the water? It is never flooded so there are no breaches in it and it’s only 2 feet deep. Hrumph.

I mean…just how are we supposed to water our lawn and garden without utilizing our pump? We pay good money (well…it’s fake money so I guess it’s lousy money but at least the ink is dry) for our ditch water. They should at least let us use it once in awhile.

When they do turn the water back on, I’ll need to have all of my irrigation system overhauled and ready. My impulse sprinklers and hoses are a mess from last year so I need to get the bowling balls out of my pockets and pick up a bit of steam around here.

That’s hard to do (picking up steam). My steam generator isn’t really putting our much pressure lately. Seems about a bucket of steam is all I can come up with. Just thinking about it makes me want to relax and go let off what little steam I have somewhere near a trout laden river. *SIGH*. What is an over-weight middle-aged white guy supposed to do?

Connie’s has commenced planting the “Rancho Garden” (or the "Stay Alive Garden" if the US economy turns to dust before our eyes). We have our four above ground 8’ x 8’ boxes filled with compost. So far, most of the plants have survived the first few days of life. You laugh…but…..we have a perfectly good blueberry bush that was planted in this same compost last year and it has not grown so much as one inch! In fact, it has lost weight!

Not only that, all the corn harvested from our seven corn plants last year didn’t produce enough corn to keep a baby duck alive for two days. We did manage to get some over-the-winter lettuce. I thought that was cool. Now the stuff has gone to seed. Did you know that lettuce will grow to a height of about three feet?! I had no idea.

Anyway, the tractor can’t trac since I haven’t bothered to put the new battery in it. It’s a perfectly good tractor too. She’s a dandy, that “Ranch Rino”.  The trailer can’t trail because it’s full of stuff from last year. That means that the garbage cans are overflowing with …stuff. You know what I mean; that would be the stuff that the local dogs and wild animals have sifted through looking for lunch. It shouldn’t take long to clean up the mess.

The pickup can’t pick since the driver’s side rear tire is flat. That means that I hope that the big air compressor can do its job and press a bit. The little trailer needs to have its fender straightened. Seem someone wasn’t paying attention and pulled it into one of the poles in the pole barn and whacked it (if you were to spit and I didn’t duck, you’d hit the guy that did it). Thankfully, the guy that overhauled the trailer last year said he could fix it and it’d be like new. I guess I’d better bless his heart too.

The good news is that theToyota Camry is still Cam’ing and the Ford Freestar van is still van’ing so all is not lost. They are two really reliable vehicles and we appreciate both of them a lot. The van is actually a dump truck in disguise. We haul just about everything known to man in it and what we aren’t hauling with it we are storing in it. It’s loaded up most of the time.

Imagine the fun we have when we actually have to haul folks to church in it! Can you spell “Chinese fire drill”? Connie and I look like an acre of male monkeys fighting for one female monkey holding a banana when we’re hustling about trying to get stuff stowed so we’ll have room for passengers.

Just exactly what do you mean by asking, “What’s with the front lawn looking like it was only mowed once and that was last year”? You have not been paying attention. I mowed my lawn once this year too! I do need to attend to it, I suppose, now that people are coming to the door asking for permission to hunt game out there. Reckon I could rent them my machete? It’s not that the garden tractor doesn’t work. It’s just that the tractor driver doesn’t.

We did hire a young man to take the weedeater for a walk. He knocked down the really high stuff and I’m about to teach him how to drive a lawn tractor. After that, we should have the Ranch looking like a million….uh….like a….uh….couple of bucks.    

Things are really moving along at church. We finished the membership classes and are going to issue the certificates of completion this week. After that, we can vote everyone in and give them the right hand of fellowship according to the “Treatise” and by-laws and such.

Someone left an abandoned septic tank in the church parking lot for us to deal with 42 years later. Cousin Rod Sanders pulled his big Ford Excursion into place only to see the right front tire sag a bit. When he checked it out, he found an 18” hole in the ground. The ground is stone hard there so that’s what kept it from becoming a real show stopper of an event. We tossed a ¾” chunk of plywood over it. Today, we had the tank evacuated. If you can believe it, there was more than 1,000 gallons of residual water and material still in it! Can you imagine that?! After we get a permit from the city to dig a hole and to put dirt back into the hole we’ll dig the tank out and haul it off.

They are requiring a permit because they “want to see that you do it correctly”! Say what?! They want to see if we dig a hole and put dirt back in …correctly? If that isn’t insanity gone to seed I don’t know what is! It’s actually theft from the public under the guise of utilizing the “tracking a septic tank that is no longer there” ordinance. Some day I hope to have enough money to fight City Hall.

Stay tuned for more of the wonderfully un-exciting missed-adventures of the two head honchos of Rancho Relaxo, Connie and Randy. Adios, muchachos y hermanos y hermanas, y companeros, y compadres, y mas y mas.