RANCHO FIXO

The feed line to the water heater had to come over the top instead of the wall like before.

Sooooo....that's what our kitchen sink looks like from behind!

 

 Above and to the right are the same picture of the exterior wall looking from the patio toward the kitchen. The garage is on the left.

Another shot from the patio.

This is one of the three solar powered attic fans that we had them install. If we had not installed them, the county (great oracles of wisdom and thievery) would have required us to install "eyebrow vents" with the new roof.

 The pair of vents. The windows on the left are where my office/sweat shop is.

The vent on the garage is a different brand and model. We weren't quite sure at the time if we were going to put a single vent on the house so we just ordered two. Later, our contractor advised that having two on the house would be a good way to go so we boogied over to "Lowe's" and picked this one up.

A close up of the garage vent.

All three vents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well….the fix is in. We’ve finally got the new roof stuck on and the plumbing leak has been arrested (and charged with a misdemeanor). We’re officially back to square one….which seems to be a lot further away from my pocket book than I remembered.

Did you know that roofers and plumbers don’t work for free ….or peanuts? I think I may have missed my calling. You know….”Roofin’ Ran” sort of has a ring to it, eh? Maybe folks would call me “Ol’ Rufe” for short. I’m not trolling for votes at this time so….don’t. Besides, I don’t need no stinking hanging chads.

 Anyway, it’s nice to not have a bog or swamp in my back yard. Had we waited much longer I’m confident that we would have been alligator ranchers. Now, alligators do make great shoes and such but they really are tough to keep if for no other reason that they eat a lot….and….rather indiscriminately. I’m sure that we could explain away a few missing dogs and cats from the neighborhood but, after awhile, folks would, no doubt, encourage us to raise hogs instead (probably at the point of a gun).

 Maybe we could have raised guppies or minnows for fishing. After all, Lake Success is a mere 6 miles from here. At 3 bucks per bucket of 25 or so, I could make a bit of extra gas money for my boat (that hasn’t been wet yet). That, on the other hand, would have necessitated moving Connie’s clothesline to some other location. I didn’t ask her opinion about relocating it given that I knew what the answer would be. I was prepared to offer great evidence of how advantageous it would be to have another income source. But, I wasn’t prepared to see the scowl and grimace on her face even after presenting such compelling evidence. So, there was no way that the “Minnick Minnow Marketing and Management" maneuver was going to fly. We just fixed the dang leak. Part of the good news is that the water pressure is back up in the shower. No more having to run around in the shower to get wet. I hate that.

 We still have to have the contractor glue our siding back on for us. The plumber did a great job of not destroying the wall and siding but he’s a plumber and not a builder. We decided that it would be best to call the guy (now a good friend) who finished our barn and patio. Nice guy and quite competent (unlike Klepto The Clown who built the barn in the first place. We’re still smarting from his complete lack of concern for us and our project).  Though our wall looks like it barely survived the bombing of Berlin, it will look just fine.

 And, we won’t have to concern ourselves with rain drops falling on our head for about thirty years (the warranty on the new roof). The tradesmen (only one spoke English that I could tell and that was the contractor) did a great job and tidied up after themselves. They installed our three solar-powered attic fans for us too. That should help with the utility bill by a few percentage points. We stuck two on the house and one on the garage.

 The big “Springville Apple Festival 2013” yard sale extravaganza is almost upon us. It’s slated for Oct. 18-20 and Connie has been hustling around like a duck in a dry pond getting stuff (ours and others’) ready for the big sale. We will have around 20 sellers this year and could even tally more in the next week or so. Last year saw 22 vendors (I run Vendors 7 on my computer, yah sure!). It’s a lot of work but it’s also a lot of fun. We usually whip up a batch of stew and baked goods for everyone and just have at it. Everyone dips into their ice chests and grabs their goodies and away we go.  It works out great for us because there is a lot of stuff that doesn’t sell on eBay that we can sell and recoup our investment. To make matters even better, we often find a “free box” at random yard sales that we haul off. We may profit only a few bucks from it but, it’s FREE MONEY and free money is our friend. Also, it’s not all that rare that someone will simply give us their yard sale tailings because they have neither the time nor inclination to deal with them. No problemo. We have a solution that we can all live with. That’s why we have a nice 4’ x 8’ stake side trailer and, if that isn’t large enough, a really nice  6’ x 12’ covered trailer (aka “Heffalump”) with which to haul our booty.

Maggie the Wonder Dog will be in her element making sure that, after she sniffs and greets everyone, she'll be in their way. For reasons known only to her and God, she likes to flop down in the middle of the driveway where a hundred people are and insure that folks have to walk around her. *SIGH*.

 That’s what’s happening (for now) at “Camp Swampy”. Stay tuned for the further adventures of the Not-So-Dynamic Duo, Connie and Randy the Yard Sale Champions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RANCHO BLASTO!!

This is genuine "stuff" lying peacefully on the floor after being flung from its resting place on the counter. It was on fire so it didn't mind.

The black junk that you see in the pic to the right is from the batteries themselves. I really didn't want to see all of the insides of a LI-ion battery today.

This is what's left of the LI-ion batteries that partially reverted back to their molecular state. The little headlight you see is a powerful LED that thinks it belongs on a Harley. I actually think it would work! It was to be hooked to the battery that was recharging.

Here is the now-unplugged charging unit to which the battery was hooked. You can see a scorched area at the top right.

What a mess.

What's left of the "b o m b" battery.

Another messy shot.

The second battery. There were two batteries in the one pack that powered the LED headlight. I really loved this setup but will need to find another source for headlights. This was a real confidence buster.






Well…..there I was (.....again........being wherever it was that I hadn’t started from in the beginning but not where I was when I last said, “There I was….minding my own business....” in the last Rancho update)......minding my own business and taking a 10 minute rest break from doing as little as possible on a marvelously beautiful 75 degree day that screamed “DAY OFF!!”. The allure of even the thought of that was a bit difficult to comprehend but we did managed to skirt much of our non-planned day as we could….up to a point. The “point” was when I had just stretched out on the bed to relax and wonder what I wasn’t going to do next. There was a loud “POP!” kind of like the sound of 24 gallon bottle of Champagne being opened. It grabbed my attention like a starving gorilla grabs a chimps last banana.

Thinking that maybe Connie had lost her grip on something that weighed about 200 pounds and it smashed into the floor (which should have spoken a bit more loudly to my not-quite yet foggy brain), I slipped back into “un-lax” mode. That lasted for all of about 15 seconds or so when another loud “POP!” scorched the air. Knowing that I couldn’t possibly have two 24 gallon bottles of champagne in the house, there was cause for concern.

 In only a few seconds Connie’s voice made a potentially disconcerting affirmation: “Honey! There’s a fire in the kitchen!”. The last time I checked, fires in the kitchen were not our friends. Before you could say, “Randy, you need to go into the kitchen and check out the fire and maybe do something about it before it burns the house down”, I was in the kitchen checking out the fire before it could burn the house down.

 The fire was on the counter of what we deem the “sewing room” (adjacent to the kitchen) and near the rear door to the outside. Thankfully, it was localized to about a 24” square area but fires double in size every 60 seconds. That meant that Captain Molasses Brain would have to refrain from thinking and simply allow his experience and instincts to take control.

 Just as thankfully, that did happen. I simply slid the stuff off into the floor (I have considerable training in “stuff sliding”) while directing faithful Head Cook and Assistant Fire Chief, Connie, to grab the fire extinguisher from the garage (only a few feet from the kitchen….and…yes…there will be an extinguisher much closer to the rear from now on). She dutifully complied while I did the “Loo-zee-anna Fire Stomp” on the mess. It sort of came naturally so I didn't have to think and I didn’t even need lessons (you would have been proud!). Hey! It could even be the next dance rage!

The fire extinguisher wasn't used this time as the fire was out by the time Connie returned with it. But, I then called for a pan of water with which to quench the still smoldering mass of formerly good stuff. “No need to drown the place, Ran”, I cautioned myself and merely localized the dousing. Still, it would have been comforting to have a charged 1 ½” fire hose at hand just in case things got out of hand. 

 While all of this was transpiring, I wondered what on earth would precipitate such a dynamic that would so rudely deprive me of my doping off time. Ah, then the 30 watt LED’s kicked in. Earlier, I had been mindlessly tinkering (tinkering is not working) with my motorized Schwinn Meridian trike and had pulled the compact battery pack from the headlight so as to recharge it. Some of you boys are already getting the picture on this. I had plugged in the Li-Ion battery to the charger which is located….near the back door on the counter in the sewing room. For whatever reason, the batteries malfunctioned and overheated which caused them to explode. Many thanks to Chinese battery manufacturer, Zing Pow Ding, for helping me lose my catnap and for the mess we had to clean up.

 There was sufficient energy release to actually penetrate the counter top in one small spot. The items that were ignited caused  major blistering as well. Most likely, the counter will need to be replaced. Black stuff and junk from the batteries was hurled across the isle and onto the opposite counter making for a bit of a mess. It could have been much worse, though, so we’re not complaining. Besides, I may not be able to retrieve my ten minute catnap but I can take two of them tomorrow, eh?

 A couple of days ago, right out of the blue (literally), we had a bunch of clouds cruise in from the east. Though there was no forecast for clouds or anything other than “sunny and clear”, the wind picked up to about 25 knots or so with gusting that gave every indication that we were in for a rehearsal of the previous (unannounced) blow. Great. Guess what it was time to do? Yep…we zipped out to the carport and took down the cover that we had just installed (with new rope) a few days ago. Want to know what the “bummer dude” catch was to this event? 30 minutes later the wind was calm. Can you spell, “GRRRRRRRRR”?

More “News to Make You Snooze”….we are suffering from a diagnosed “Slab Leak”. Nope….. that’s not when your ham shank is loosing its smoke flavoring all over the shelf in the fridge. It means that there is a water line leak under the concrete slab on which the house was built.

One option is to localize the event then start breaking concrete out, fix the leak, and cover with more concrete. The first impulse is to do that. However, because all of the pipes are copper and all of them have been sitting peacefully under the slab, any one of them may leak at any time. It may be a week, or a year, or a decade but there will be another leaky pipe.

 That possibility leads to another option which is to “plumb over”. That means the plumber will cut the existing water supply and re-pipe the place with the piping going over the and through the house. It’s twice as expensive as the other way but it all but eliminates above ground leak issues. We’re probably going to go that route and simply buy the peace of mind.

 The estimate is in for the roof damage too. The roofer from Bakersfield gave the insurance adjuster a quote of 2200 bucks and change. They, in turn, sent us a check for 700 dollars for the amount above the deductible. However, we had already advised the nice adjuster lady to contact us prior to having the insurance company pay us. If the amount was only a small amount over the deductible, we were simply going to just pay for the damages so we wouldn’t have a claim against the insurance policy which would make us subject to a rate increase. She didn’t do that. So, we contacted the claims agency and unwound the deal altogether.

As if that were not enough to feed your catfish, we had wanted to keep our business locally and got a couple of bids from our area. Come to find out, the local guys were half the price of the clown from Bakersfield! All things tallied, we’ll just pony up and get everything done ourselves.

Instead of repairing a 20 year roof, we’re going to replace it and have them install two nice solar powered attic vents while they’re at it. Those things are supposed to cut cooling costs by a few percentage points and I'm into the "saving" thing. We’ll still have to fix our fence and our well house gates and such but that’s no biggy.

That’s the story….going from blow to blast here at the Ranch and setting the stage for other overhauls. We'll end up with a completely new house if this keeps up! Stay tuned. The hits just keep coming.

 

HUH?!

. 

Limbs and such from our poplar trees on the west side of the house. We don't have room for a wood burning stove (bummer, dude) or we would cut and stack this stuff up for next winter.

 

 
 
 
 

Here we have a perfectly good lawn tractor being used as a door stop. The wind wrecked the hinges on the pump house and the door won't stay closed so we...exercised one of our options.

 

 
 
 
 
 



This is looking east toward the mountains. The debris is actually from the east side of the roof of the barn. Connie and I watched in awe as the wind lifted it up and dumped it on the opposite side. Then , it hurled a bunch of it at us and whacking our car and fence. I had to dive for the dirt to keep from getting smacked with one of the 2' x 10' slices of metal roofing. I can only do that once but I did do it well this time.

More roofing material. This same neighbor replaced the entire roof on his home which sits back to the left of this picture.

"Hey! Anybody seen my shingles?" We got off light on the deal. There were some missing shingles and the flashing has to be hammered down but not much else.

We just replaced this fence a couple of years ago. A chunk of roofing from the neighbor's barn hit it. This is Connie's clothesline area.

The neighbor also lost half of his oak tree. Later, the fallen parts were cut up and stacked then hauled off.

 
 



This is the front carport without the canopy. We had to pull it off during the big blow so that it wouldn't sail off to the coast.

The "Minnick Computer Services" sign was propped up against the white wagon wheels and presented such a "barn door" when the wind blew that it shoved the wheels over. They are mounted in concrete too.

Because the wind was blowing from the east, the limbs and branches fell away from the house. That was nice.

 

That's the neighbor's house to our west and this is the west side of the house. The metal on the ground is from the barn to our east.

Anybody want to buy some good used shingles?

It was mighty nice of our neighbors to babysit our tree limbs until we could get them all cleaned up.

 

Another casualty of the big blow

The canopy for our carport ended up on the front porch when Connie drug it over there to keep the wind from stealing it.

 

I don’t know about everyone else, but Connie and I are standing around (running around, actually) shaking our heads and wondering where on earth the time has been going. It’s like being on a bullet train where you get on and, instead of taking hours to complete the trip, you’re there in no time plus a pit stop.  Perhaps Stephen King was correct and the Langoliers are chomping away at the minutes and hours. 

 The first of the month just got here and yet…..we’re in the middle of the month already. We greet the day only to find ourselves ready for bed in what seems like only a couple of hours. The year is ¾ used up and it’s as though we have accomplished so little. That probably wouldn’t be such a big concern except that there is still so much to accomplish.

 F’rinstance, though I did complete the trike project, Connie’s trike is patiently waiting to be assembled and the motor is certainly abiding in silence so that it can be allowed to express itself in noise and bluster.

 And….there are the longsuffering trees that could use a nice drink of water. They don’t complain though their portion is river water (and we know what fish do there). They’re a bit stressed but then, I would be too if I were starting to wilt around the edges.

 And....we now have to account for the repairs from our big blow. That was a mess. The neighbor is having his roof replaced on both his home and his old barn. The east side of the roof of his barn (400 free to the east) ended up in our yard. One chunk of corrugated roof hit our van and scuffed the paint on the back and top as it flew into and then over it. How nice that we had just had the rear re-painted and the previous damage fixed. Then a 10’ x 2” x 4” rafter flew over and landed on our (newer) back yard fence and smashed a section of that. It’s a smallish area for Connie’s clothesline with cute white fencing (until now).

 And….we have a few trees and a couple of vines that need to be replaced simply because they croaked on us. Try as I might, I’ve only been able to kill a very few plants while the rest of them mock me with their leaves and limbs and thrive anyway. For whatever reason we did lose a couple of apple trees (saplings), peach and plum trees, (ditto), and a couple of grape starts that failed to thrive. The rest of the 12 vines are struggling but I suppose that that isn’t any wonder given the fact that our front yard area is about as fertile as a Sears parking lot. I’ve had to maintain a pretty strict water regimen lest I end up with dried grape leaf table ornaments. Ah, but that’s some of the problem; I’m having difficulty with the “strict” part. I just don’t recall that term being used much in connection with my name. “Strict Ran”…naw…not much of a ring to it.

 And….the pump house lattice gate hinges were trashed when the wind wrenched them free and commenced to violate them by whipping them like a red headed step child. It may be best just to pull them off and replace them rather than try to fuss and fight with them to straighten them out again.  

 And….we’re dealing with a roofer who will be replacing the shingles that were hustled into the next county. While we’re at it, we have determined to install a couple of solar powered attic vents to help assuage the cooling costs during the summer time. We estimate a utility savings of about 3-5% or so. One of the vents will go on the garage so that our stored goods will remain usable for a longer time. The barn sports two nice ones and we like them and the idea of their being self sufficient. The ones we’re eyeballing have a life-time warranty (I keep wondering whose life).

 And…wait folks….there’s more (your Ginzu Knife commercial for the day)! We are getting ready for the big “Apple Festival” yard sale that we host each year. Most likely, there won’t be quite as large a turn out as last year but this will still be a major event. There could be 15 or more venders this year as compared to 22 last time. Some folks have little to sell and others have little time to spare. Connie (“Yard Sale’er in Chief”) has been prepping for this thing since the last one ended and is getting her boxes in a row. It’s a tough job but…I support her all that I can …when I have time…and if my pom-poms are working. A big hug usually works now and again.

 It’s a hoot because we go dumpster diving for boxes when we go to town. We’re getting good at it! I could change my name to “Delbert” so they can call me “Delbert the Dumpster Diver”. Has kind of a ring to it, eh? On one occasion, we ran across a dumpster in the ally (downtown) that had a ton of personal items in it. I appeared that it could have been the tailings of a broken relationship where the gal pal tossed her bad boyfriend’s goodies into the trash. There was some really nice “stuff” including clothes for our yard sale and even a couple of things for eBay. You just never know what you’ll find. In any case, it evolved into some free money….free money is my friend.

 Speaking of water…there is no (N O) water flowing in the Tule River below Springville. It’s almost eerie to go to the Lower Globe Road bridge (.6 miles down the road from us) and see puddles of water instead of a stream. There is a small flow into Springville but the ditch company siphons off what little water there is for its clients (among whom are the Minnicks). This is the driest season in recent history (at least since the 1930’s when they began keeping records). We received less than 6” of rainfall this season (about 11” is the norm). A couple of T-storms in the high country helped a tiny bit but it still only manifested as a trickle by the time it got to us. The trout are seen hitch-hiking to the lake.

 Contrast that with places like Oklahoma where they have seen a few times when the rain was falling at the rate of one inch per hour. In other words, they get is much rain in one day as we get in one year! In the rain forest area of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, they get around 200 inches per year! Talk about “green”!

 Not long ago, Longview, WA was undergoing a “drought” and folks were complaining. I was unable to wrap a brain cell around their “problem” because they only got about 30” of rain for the year and had the confluence of the Columbia and Cowlitz Rivers at hand. And, unlike California, there was not so much as a smudge of brown to be seen. Hmmmmmm. Wonder what those folks are thinking?

 In any event, things are mighty brown around town (his says with a frown as he wears his britches upside down). I’ve started trying to do the “drip irrigation” gig and will probably stay with that. It would be nice to just use the “soaker hoses” too but the ditch/irrigation water has a lot of particulate matter so it clogs all the filters/screens and small holes in the hoses in short order. It works great for about 5 minutes. There is a screen at the weir but, for some reason, it still isn’t 100% effective in junk removal. That is actually an issue even when using the impulse/impact sprinklers. I’m always having to carry a crescent wrench around so I can pop off the sprinkler and clean it out or replace it. It’s a full-time job (which fits right in with my other two full-time jobs).

 But, that’s part of the point; I don’t have time to keep up with all of this stuff the way that it needs to be done. Some of our orange trees are getting stressed and I don’t like that. Our oranges are usually as sweet as candy but not this time.

 Also, we have four loquat trees that have yet to have anyone (wonder who) harvest them. They produce a marvelously sweet fruit and are so bountiful that some of the limbs break down. They would be excellent for canning but I simply can’t get to it and they go to waste. I hate that. Now that we have our canning and dehydrating supplies and equipment pretty much ready we can (hopefully) prevent this lamentable loss next season.

 Our tangerine tree is a mess, too. The fruit is almost dehydrated on the tree. Eating one is like eating a shoe box dipped in Kool-Aid that has not sugar added. I was able to put some water on it for a few days and let it get a good soaking. We won’t lose the tree but I think it’s still mad at me.

 Maggie the Wonder Dog (“Maggasaurus” for short) is still happy and healthy and still as sweet as a box of Ju-Jubes. She’s still goofy too but at least she’s worthless. She loves us and we love her so all is well in the pet department. And, apparently, so is her crop of fleas. The poor dog has been treated (twice) with that expensive goop that you apply along the spine area and she is still suffering. There is a new collar that is suppose to work miracles at killing fleas so I’ll try to get one. I think it has an army of nano-bots parked inside that flood out and track down the fleas and whack them with tiny laser weapons. The dog will turn me in to the ASPCA or PETA if I’m not more mindful.

 I have a new espresso maker! She’s a beaut! It’s a “Melita”/”Salton” brand. Talk about a “deal-and-a-half”! We were in the thrift store the other day and Connie saw this white espresso maker sort of hiding behind some other appliances (all of her kitchen stuff is white including my small old espresso maker). When we looked at it, it was new! Well, it was the white version of the black model that we recently acquired as a backup unit! That meant that I could ditch the small one for this one that has more control over the steam for frothing! This particular model retails for 119.95 (on sale for probably 89-99 bucks, no doubt)! We purchased it for….6 bucks! Of course, I had it on the counter in no time and making great espresso coffee with which to please my discriminating palate (uh-huh). It brews in less than half the time of the other one, too! Zowie! It makes enough foam to cover the entire kitchen counter, too….but I only did that once. I know how to use it properly now.

Most of the time the coffee used around here is a blend of “whatever dude” that I have around the place (many pounds of many roasts, grinds, and brands). For instance, lately I’ve been using a 50/50 blend of med-dark roast Folgers “Columbian” coffee mixed with a 50/50 blend (pre-blended) of generic S&F “French Roast” de-caff and regular “Espresso” dark roast. It’s produced a truly excellent coffee latte’. Another experiment was using Folgers “French Roast” with a generic “French Roast” de-caff. Interestingly, the Folgers “French Roast” is a bit lighter than the usual FR. To me, it’s more of an “Espresso” roast because it doesn’t have the deep black oily presentation. In any case, it was a fair cup of java but I’ll likely just use it (Folgers) in the regular coffee maker (my little white four cupper) for now.

“S&W” brand used to have a “French Roast Columbian” roast that was the bee’s knees but they stopped marketing it for some reason. I loved that stuff! When still playing music with the “Cedar Grove Bluegrass Band” with Don and Shirley Gerber, Shirley would brew us up a jug of that stuff and …my oh, my! …what a treat! After they discontinued it, we were all bummed out.  However, I did notice that “Town and Country Market” has recently started carrying “S&W” “Dark Roast Columbian”. My guess is that, if it’s not the same exact coffee that I miss so much, it’s close enough to be used in an espresso maker for making latte’s. We shall soon see since our church is right around the corner (literally) from there!

The “borate bombers” are flying over again. We have a fire up on the “Western Divide” not far out of the “Peppermint Creek” area. Thankfully, it’s not a large one like the latest “Rim Fire” at Yosemite. It’ll be the largest California fire in our history when they finally stomp that one out. It’s amazing to me…the forests have been around for….how long?....and we come along and try to “save” them by “managing” them. So, what happened when we started tree hugging? We are losing millions of acres of forest and kill who knows how many animals. Brilliant, eh?

 Earlier this summer, there was a fire only a few miles from here on one of the hillsides near the lake. The bombers swooped in and brought that one under control in no time. It was just the brown grass and a few trees and not a forested area. My guess is that the fire only scorched about 150 acres or so. It was uncomfortably close to the “Montgomery Ranch” estates, though, and the good folks there were probably sweating bullets and changing “Huggies” for awhile. This entire area is a tender box so everyone is in “high alert” for fire hazards.

Stay tuned for more of who knows what. It could be interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!).