RANCHO VERDE DE MAYO Y COCINA DE POLLO

We (read: everyone but us) just celebrated the "Springville Rodeo". There just wasn't enough time to sit and watch people get hurled from angry bovine homo sapien haters. The "Jackass Mail Run" wasn't short of participants so we stayed home on that gig too. 

  

Boy! Am I pleased to report that the "Springville Inn" will be re-opening soon! Most likely, it will be the ONLY place between here and Visalia that serves a decent steak! No such mouth-watering meal any longer exits at my favorite steak place, "the Cellar". I won't ever go there again unless I want chicken fried steak or a half-chicken or perhaps a burger. Their steaks are inedible and are entirely different that the ones I loved for the previous 20 years. I was more than disappointed and will spare myself any further abuse. UGH. My previous trip to the "Oak Pit" will likely be the last one, too. I was grievously disappointed there, too. Not sure why P'ville can't cook a steak. 

 This is at the corner of Henderson and Prospect looking south east. It used to be "BJ's" (then "JJ's") mini-mart. Now, it's the "Mattress Firm" with "Starbucks" adjacent just to the east. Unlike the "Starbucks" across the street, this one has a drive-though window. 

Here's a couple of "Cal-Fire" choppers getting ready for the fire season. A few minutes after this shot was taken, a Grumman S2F Tracker (modified for fire fighting) departed. Right after that, a Vietnam War era North American OV-10 Bronco (twin-turbine engine spotter plane) departed. 

This is why we were at the flugplatz in the first place. We stopped by to help some friends load their 3/4 scale homebuilt Mustang. They've moved to Nevada and need to haul this beauty home with them. They sold their hangar (three hangars down in the background) a few years ago so we invited them to use ours (which wasn't being used at the time). Mike and Frankie Archer (pilots and aircraft owners) are great friends and we will sorely miss them!  

Here's our new box of peeps and chirps! They are adorable! It's little wonder that Connie and I are such "bird brains"! We love these little fluffy balls of stupid! Their bodies will grow but their brains are encased in Super Glue to insure that they are never used. 


Well, frack my shale! It’s MAY!! Can you wrap at least one brain cell around that fact (you are exempted from doing so if it’s your last cell)?! I’m sitting here mentally preparing for winter and it’s almost summer. *SIGH*.

Reckon I’ll just have to find a way to play “catch up” with all of the things that need to be done around here. Of course, it might expedite the matter if the old yard sale’ers would cease bringing home fantastic bargains that are flung at them wherever they go!

Rancho report: bargains galore! That seems to be the springtime theme for this place. It’s really not that we mind being so blessed; it’s just that you can only store so many treasures in any given size chest. Our treasures have been so firmly packed into the chest we are concerned for its structural integrity. If it were to give way, I can just see our goodies flying into the air for miles around and sprinkling the area with useful and wonderful free things!

During our latest foray (which consisted of a slow 3.5 mile drive to Springville), we stopped at a local yard sale (that really isn’t “news” to you regular followers of Rancho Relaxo) where we met a nice lady who, with her family, is moving to Seattle, WA. We had a great chat and shared that we had children up near there and that we liked it up yonder.

We then proceeded to clean up on the swell stuff she had exposed to sunlight. She wasn’t selling things as much as she was throwing it at us so she wouldn’t have to deal with it later. Like my granddaddy used to say: “Works for me!”. Fortunately, most all of it fit into the Toyota Camry. We did have to go get “Tojo” and haul some stuff in it, though (e.g. the almost new Weber BBQ grill for….ahem…5 dollars). That worked well since we knocked over another yard sale a bit further up the road and strip mined it too (there’s a reason we keep “Wooly Pully” hooked to the pick-me-up truck). The guy there just couldn’t help himself; he just had to bless us! So, we let him do just that and we loaded up! The old folks here at the rancho have a particular protocol for when all those nice folks toss yard sale stuff at us: “Don’t duck!”.

Anyway, back at the first yard sale: we couldn’t help notice that she had a couple of chickens and a beautiful newer well-built chicken coop beside the house. It didn’t take long to entertain the idea of asking about it as we had desired a separate “brooder coop” so we could raise our own chicks.

We had done a lot of homework prior to building our “real” coop. So, we knew that it was a quality find. That being said, we were willing to invest 150 bucks or so in the deal knowing that, at that paltry sum, it was a steal. All said and done, the lady said, “I’ll take (hold on to the OSHA certified railing, ya’ll)…40 dollars for it! Fair and balanced Connie, not wanting to take advantage of the dear lady, stammered, “No! Fifty dollars!” The lady would have none of it. So, 40 dollars it was (see above protocol).

If that isn’t enough to precipitate an attack of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia, we had also been looking for a pet carrier in which we could carry a few chickens at a time. Usually, we just haul our large cage but it isn’t always warranted and it always requires “WORK!” (Maynard G. Krebbs and I agree that “WORK!” isn’t our friend). Guess what the soon-to-be-ex-neighbor had parked in her yard? YUP! A beautiful perfect sized “Pet Taxi”!! Oh….she up and gave it to us! Zowie!

When we got home, we were almost stunned at the treasures we hauled in for a next to nothing investment! Other than almost dancing naked in the street and a bit of reveling and rejoicing, you could have heard a pin drop.

Princess Coon Dog Report: our hardly principled, precious, and precocious pooch laid into a big baying session the other night at about 9PM. Since the noise appeared to be coming from the chicken coop area, I was particularly obliged to pay attention to the matter. I grabbed my genuine 6.99 (plus .0825% tax) Chinese-made rechargeable LED flashlight and my .177 caliber pump pellet rifle (a man can’t take chances, eh?) and fearlessly headed into the fray. 

Well…it wasn’t really a fray yet. Abbie was ferociously surrounding a gray ball of fur that was huddled against the trunk of a conifer tree next to the coop. The limbs of the tree were impeding her progress but she was still trying to reach and rout the intruder.

At first, I thought it was a small bunny wabbit. But, when the ball of fur turned its head toward me, I instantly recognized the long nose and razor-sharp teeth that it flashed. Once again, Abbie had cornered a local opossum. My lightning-fast mind new that I wasn’t packing enough armament for this fracas. I started to saunter back to the house to get a “real” gun which would be my tack-driving Ruger Model 1022.

Just as I turned, I heard a raucous racket that told me that the game was afoot. In no time, Abbie flushed this rather dangerous critter into the open where she instantly had him in her metal mangling jaws. She proudly trotted off into the dark and another part of the yard not suffering me to assist in the matter or sharing her lifeless trophy at all. Abbie-1; opossum-0

Our love dog seems to be on a roll because, today, she kick-started another bought of baying. I heard her getting down on something but couldn’t quite identify where she was at. After a short time of tracking, I found her underneath a large pomegranate tree that resides alongside the neighbor’s concrete driveway (he lives up the hill behind us). Underneath the tree was an old mostly-mashed rusted out bucket of some kind and it had Abbie’s nose stuck in it and trying to make progress.

Not being afraid of most things smaller than me, I hoisted the bucket up and…sure enough! There was a “fuzzer” in there (a Rancho Relaxo colloquialism for “ground squirrel”). I couldn’t help but think, “This oughta be interesting!”

It took a few shakes, but the brown fuzzy critter came flailing out into the open. Quicker than you can sneeze through silk, Abbie had the brown bane in a crushing death lock.  Abbie-1; Fuzzer-0

It may be that she was just warming up to these feats of usefulness because, a week ago, she strutted by me in the back yard while flaunting a dead mouse in her mouth. Abbie-1; Mouse-0. My desire is that she continues earning her "Kibbles" by significantly reducing the rodent population.

Chickening Report: our girls are doing well and production is about up to par, all things tallied. I still need a day off so I can contact a nice chicken-loving lady who will care for the ones who have outgrown their usefulness. Some of them will still occasionally lay an egg but, at that rate, the eggs end up costing us about a buck each. Try to convince a real business man that that is a swell way to do things.

Also, there is something I hadn’t anticipated: some of the older birds are “crackers”. These goofy fowls will crack open a fresh egg and consume the contents then consume the shell. It’s not only the older biddies that do that but it appears to me that they are the main culprits (and I could easily be wrong so I’m still checking things out).

Ol’ Rancho Ran, the chicken doctor: I’m not a true scalpel slinger. I’m just not up to speed on doing surgery of any kind if it involves too much more than perhaps removing a deeply-embedded splinter (though I do recall relieving the pressure from a blood blister under my thumbnail by burning a hole in it with a red-hot paper clip….that was fun…uhuh). It’s not that I’m squeamish (having spent a goodly amount of time n the paramedical profession). It’s just that the qualification for carving on living things seems to be a bit above my pay grade.

Here's what that's all about: one of my layers has been growing a large bulge below one eye (which then soon forced it closed). It kept increasing in size over the period of a few weeks so a decision was made to remedy the matter. At first, it appeared to be an infection so a liberal application of “triple anti-biotic” salve was made a few times. That didn’t work so it only seemed reasonable to assume that it was time to lance the thing and relieve the pressure.

The cute little buff was hauled into the “operating room” (the kitchen where the lighting was sufficient for such difficult medical procedures) where my Exacto scalpel (hosed down with alcohol) was readied. A small incision was made in the bulge with hopes that all kinds of infected gunk would gush out but that didn’t happen. Instead, after a second small incision was made and only blood came out, it was determined that the bulge wasn’t an infection; it was a tumor. The bird’s incisions were daubed with antibiotic salve and the remainder of the surgery was canceled.

We’ll keep her under surveillance but, in time, the tumor may prove to be uncontrollable. In that case, I’ll make sure that she doesn’t suffer and that she comes to a tasty end. We hate it when reality strikes but we make the best of it and have decided that some of the girls, out of necessity, are becoming "future food".

Now, don’t let your “Huggies” slide because I’m not through with this narrative yet! Before I could get the “Rancho Relaxo Report” published, a friend from church called and had us come over (today) to pick up eleven 3-4 day old chicks! Can you handle that?! 

We stuffed them into the…new (FREE) “Pet Taxi”….and trucked the (FREE) chicks home (have I mentioned that FREE is our friend?)! Connie made sure that they’re well-fed and resting comfortably in the kitchen! Yep…that would be the same kitchen that Connie the Canner avowed would never see another tub of chicks again! Silly her.

Of course, her vow quickly melted when she realized how much she loved cute, tiny, fuzzy, little, two-legged, peeping, critters. She also knew that some of these little ex-huevos would be roosters and we need roosters, too!   

Rancho 'Puter Crasho: recently, Ol’ Ran dodged the proverbial bullet when his computer failed. My 2TB hard drive (running Windows 10) on my main computer crashed (no more "no name" hard drives for this tech!). I hadn’t conducted a serious backup in…well...too long. That isn’t a good thing when you have as much important and irreplaceable things on your hard drive as I do. "Ran The Computer Man" won't be winning this year's "Amazingly Bright LED" award. 

The hard drive failed to detect in its native environment (hint: this is not a good thing). So, the protocol is to dismount the thing and park it in a hard drive dock so that you can remotely access it. 

Except….it was detected but wouldn’t allow access to the files/data (hint number two: this isn’t a good thing either). It means that, most likely, the hard drive is physically compromised and you can bid it “Adieu!”...or "Adios"...or "Auf Wiedersehen"...or "Addio"..or "Tchau"....or "Прощай". Swell.

But, I’ve been lied to by computers many times so I wasn’t about to take this bad news lying down (after 60 years or so, I am still not sure that I know what that expression means unless it has something to do with getting up to fight again after having been knocked down during a boxing match…any suggestions/ideas?). I was going to take the bad news standing up (albeit with perhaps a bit of moisture in the corner of one eye and a slight trembling of the lower lip)!

The first thing was to perform a “check disk” which was successful. Again: my other partition (XP. I dual-boot with two hard drives: XP on one and Win 10 on the other) would detect the drive but would not allow me to access it. At this point, it was still a certifiable door stop (door stops are not my friends).

The next step was to conduct a “system file check” and that, too, was successful. That did the trick! I was allowed access to the drive so a full backup was made to one of my Toshiba 3TB external hard drives. Wheew! That was a close call!! You can call me, “Mr. Backup” from now on! I was so thrilled that I did the “Twist”, the “Mash Potatoes”, and walked like an Egyptian for 20 minutes!

Well….there you have it. That’s the latest from “Rancho Relaxo” where things can get…interesting.... and where…you just never know.

Rancho Bloomo

Here are a few shots of the ranch: 

 Here's the vines! I am amazed that they all started growing this spring! There was legitimate concern that some of them hadn't made it through the drought!

These are our germaniums that, despite neglect and drought, are still thriving! I hit them with a bit o' water from time to time along with a handful of 15-15-15 fertilizer. 

Looking back the other direction (north) 

The front of Rancho Relaxo. Next week, our groundsman will be whacking off the lower limbs of the trees so that we can see more of the place. 

Here's "Tojo" and "Wooly-Pulley" ready for duty. This morning was "dump run day" so we filled the trailer up to the gunwales, tarp'd it, then strapped it all down. I'll be tired for a couple of days. 

The largest of our apples trees that we planted four years ago. It produces little fruit and little growth. I think I'm going to invent a new species and call it an "apple-less bush". 

Another shot of the germaniums. I call them "cock-a-maim-iums" for some reason or another.

Connie's Pansies. They are thriving!  

Flowers are our friends!!

Pansies from the opposite direction

Tojo and Wooly Pulley

This is a 15 year old apple tree in the back yard. We do get apples by they are usually smallish and are not, by any means, in abundance.

This is looking north over in "Triple R" on "Mustang Drive". We're on our way home from a service call. 

Pleasant Oak Drive eastbound at Montgomery Ranch.

Pleasant Oak Drive still eastbound about 1/2 mile short of Lower Globe. Tom Maino's huge pond is on the immediate right. 

Lower Globe at Hwy 190 looking north. Notice anything unusual about these pics? Yep...they're all filled with GREEN!

 Clara Cluckenspiel. She's one of our larger Buff Orpingtons. Sorry for the lousy picture. I was testing a new camera (5 bucks at a yard sale!! Zowie!). It's a late model job but it has about the same performance as my Kodak CX-4300 from 2001. It's not bad in open sunlight and it makes for a great digital audio recorder!

Here's the clucking crew doing obeisance to  the "Flock Master". Naw....they're just gettin' down on the collards. 

Holy moly, Ravioli! It’s April! And…guess what? I finally did it; I took a day off…so’s I could get some work done around this place! Things were just getting too far behind and something drastic had to be done! 

One of the things accomplished was the removal of the dreadful eyesore that used to be our carport. It was a real mess and someone (guess who?) needed to pull a “Johnny Five” on it (“Disassemble!”). After a couple of cups of soul-stiffing java, the entire cover and skirting was deftly removed (ain’t I just a real professional puller-offer?). That took enough time and energy to earn the ol’ puller a nice lunch provided by my faithful side-cook, Connie the Canner. Speaking of energy, I’m still trying to figure out when I stopped being a “mover and shaker” and became a “crawler and a trembler”.

Then, a couple of days later (hey…I don’t get in a hurry around here. My hurry’er is stuck in low gear), I grabbed my trusty Craftsman 12 volt power drill and a nut driver and pulled the frame tubing apart. Once disassembled, it got stacked alongside the driveway until another opportune time arises (another day off, no doubt) and it can be hauled to storage (probably the pole barn). It was break time anyway.

Its removal will aid greatly in the old folks’ renormalization of the front of their home (pictures…some day). Local folks will soon think that humans have returned to their neighborhood and all will be well. The nightly parade of neighbors with pitchforks and torches won’t be missed. Of course, we’ll miss the myriad cars coming in from all over California to take pictures of what they thought was the filming of the disaster flick, “It Fell From Outer Space!”. They all thought that it was a real “Twitter” scoop, no doubt.  

Of course, most of y’all don’t believe in “UFO’s” and space aliens. My response it is, “Oh, really!” (no relation to O'Reilly). If we just look around for a second, we find ourselves eyebrow deep in proof that brain sucking aliens have already been here and gone! They strip-mined the entire planet leaving us with more-ons to rule over us less-ons (thank you, Smothers Brothers!) !  Proof positive!!

Moving along…..Princess Abbie Report: thanks to our ever vigilant (well…mostly vigilant…well…usually vigilant….uh….sometimes vigilant) short haired coon hound, we are never quite sure what to expect when she erupts into a fit of baying. The other day she treed the pickup….again. “OK”, says I. “It’s another rat and she wants to snatch it like she did the other one last year”. Never wanting to deny a good coon dog an opportunity to catch “something” (given the paucity of coons lately), I popped open the hood to see if a rat would show its head. Can you imagine how surprised Ol’ Rancho Ran was when, right there at the back corner of the engine compartment sat a …..bunny wabbit!! 

Of course, bunny wabbits don’t usually hang around for a cup of tea and a bit of jawing. That thing blasted right out of the compartment and away he went! Apparently, it was Abbie’s day off because she watched it as it bounded for freedom and from her unyielding mandible. Part of the matter was that she still had on her electric collar. However (there are just too many of those around here) and for reasons we’re still trying to figure out, she had earlier been sauntering around the entire neighborhood totally oblivious to the shock collar! One minute the collar seemed to be in control and in another, she is in control wandering off and getting into mischief (despite a new battery and the collar testing OK and after tightening her collar).

Then, a couple of days later, it must have been her day on because we heard her baying like there’s no tomorrow. Only this time she treed the refrigerator. The good news is that I just knew there wasn’t a bear hiding behind it. That meant there was no need to fetch my blunderbuss for protection.

Abbie just wouldn’t give it up so I started “shaking” the fridge (don’t try this at home…it takes too long to clean up frozen stuff that gets flung from the freezer). Then, I rocked it back on its side (ditto… you slow learners paying attention?). When that happened, the barking stopped and there was a flash of black and white that tore past the rear of the ice box (you old people still call them that, eh?). In the blink of an eye, she had a mouthful of the too-slow rat (probably so full of my rice that it could hardly waddle)! She garnered my fullest praise but still wouldn’t let me take her prize until she was through making sure it wasn’t moving. Then, it was mine to haul off (‘cause Connie …doesn’t….do….rats…at all…nowhere…. no how… no way…no day). Abbie -1; Rat – 0.

Chickening Report: my gals are pretty close to being up to speed on their production. We’re stalled around the 3 dozen per day mark. The thinking is that I need to count beaks and see just how many cluckadillos are still in the game. Between theft, natural attrition, and predation (Gus…..you ain’t my friend no more!), we only have a partial eqq squad doing all the work.

The obvious solution is to just get more layers. Actually, there’s not much of choice. Hens only stay in max production for a couple of years then they slow down and then aren’t worth the upkeep. We’ve had most of our clucks for two years so it’s time to start making some decisions. “Craig’s List” will likely have a listing for “free chickens” before too long.

In fact, we just lost one of our pretty buffs. She was the usual buff color but also had a gorgeous creamy white trim. She hadn’t been feeling well for a few days and would sit away from the crowd and was all puffed up. At first there was a concern about her being “egg bound”. That’s not a good thing but she didn’t seem to me like she was presenting the usual indications for having that issue. Nevertheless, being the good Flock Master (or Flock Monster, depending upon who you ask, I suppose) that I am, I checked.

Now, dealing with an egg bound hen is probably not for the faint of heart….or the non-bird brain….or even those who have a brain (note to you comedians [and you know who you are]: this is not a straight line). If you have no detestable fortitude, this job is not for you. You’d do well to grab a nearby bullet (I recommend the .357 hollow point if you don’t have a minnie ball handy – technically a Minié Ball, for you purists and lead lovers) and clinch it between your teeth prior to proceeding. Then, you grab your lubricant (just about anything short of Penns 10W-30W will work) and….go to work unplugging your hen. Side note: it helps to have long fingers, too, in case any of you guitar pickers and piano players want to raise chickens.

Anyway, after making sure that the egg canal isn’t obstructed (or, if it is, it is properly lubed so as to facilitate the….flow of production), you may take a break and pat yourself on the back for not…uh…chickening out (Heheh! I crack myself up!)…and for not violating the closest couple of acres by containing your temptation to hurl you Hostess Ho-Ho’s into the next county.

Of course there are bragging rights, too. I mean, just how many people can say that had been that intimate with a chicken factory without having their medals awarded to them posthumously? You are among the sweet elite.

Rancho Relaxo Update: it’s been tough on the rat population around here. Between them parking their furry carcasses in our car, van, and pickup, they occupied our garage and barn. That there, as they say in English, is not allowed at our place. Rats are not our friends. We’ve implemented the “Rancho Relaxo Rat Reduction Regimen” using products available from “Lowe’s” and “Home Depot” and information from “YouTube”. We’re so desperate around here that, if Granny Clampett was still alive, we would have checked with her for advice on how to win the war (we were gonna tell her they were Yankee rats!).

When I say “desperate”, it’s not a joke: imagine the look on our faces when we discovered that a rat (all by his lonesome) had eaten through the bottom of our (plastic) 5 gallon can of “Mazola Corn Oil”. It leaked out all over the floor of the garage and into the front driveway (this is a great time to say, “SWELL!”). Since I have no plans to cook anything on my garage floor, this is not a good thing.

Or, imagine how face-contorting is to find that the same critter had eaten into several (plastic) containers and sampled the goodies therein! The little furry bugger even gnawed holes in four of our (plastic) 2L water storage bottles which irrigated our concrete floor and making a mess. He even got into our rice and flour stores (plastic containers, of course)! Grrrrrr.  Our new motto is, “No more plastic! Glass is our friend!”.

The good news is he met his demise at the hands of some strategically-placed rat killer bait (bwahahahahahahahahaha!). We gave him an indecent and ignominious non-burial the other day. He got himself tossed into a trash bin out in the back forty (minus 38) so that the other critters couldn’t get him. Rancher -1; Rat – 0.

The chicken run/coop has a couple of large traps, too. Our pest control guy was most helpful in helping us with this effort. He advised that we aren’t the only ones suffering this plague and that we just need to stay on the offensive. The Ol’ Rancher still needs to get his wire mesh in place to block the holes in the coop. He hopes to get to it….soon. *SIGH*.

At least there’s a new roll of chicken wire on hand. And, I found my electric staple gun and it’s ready to rock. It just needs a user that’s also ready to do the same. “Rockin’ Ran” sorta has a ring to it, I suppose. But, it looks like my rocker may be missing on a few cylinders; in fact, it may be missing altogether. Let’s hope that it just needs a good tuneup.

We’ve had a blessed spring with lots and lots of wonderful rain. That also means that we’re still not quite ready for the searing Valley heat (we never are). It arrives like a hurricane of heat and smacks us in the face like a sledge hammer. You stand there suffering a sunburned face and swampy armpits when, two days prior, you had on a sweater.

We have plenty of irrigation water with which to keep Rancho Relaxo greened up, though. The temps around here will not tarry in the temperate territory for much longer.  We’ll be firing up Ol’ Swampy” and the A/C units and bracing for the onslaught of summer.

 Ol’ Ran, the music man, will get the opportunity to keep his bass guitar in tune. We’ll be pickin’ at the pot luck at “Mission Bell” trailer home park on the 10^th. Then, there’s a gig at “Centennial Park” (across from City Hall) on the 14th. That’s a fun run. I’ll be playing with “Duggin’s Citrus Express” (as usual). They’ve had that spot at least once per year for a few years now. The lead singer, Sooz, may be out of town visiting relatives in Spain (Spain…is really out of town, eh?). That means that Ol’ Ran will need to be the front man and lead singer.

Now, I’m not a “round mound of sound” like Kenny Price (Hee Haw Gospel Quartet and “I’ll Be Walkin’ On New Grass”) but I get by. The good news is that my vocal cords are (mostly) in tune and I’ll have my trusty song book with me. That’s so I don’t have to rely upon my memory for the words. There’s no way I’m going to depend upon such an unreliable body part. If we just mosey along and not get in hurry, we won’t reach the end of my song book prior to the end of the gig.

In my fervid search for something to do around here, there is a hope to grapple the revitalization and remodeling of the radio, rod, and reel revetment (commonly alluded to as my “radio shack”) located upstairs in the barn. Radio Ran really does adhere to the philosophy of “efficiency”. However, I’m pondering the matter at this point. There are too many things in my small shack!

Efficiency would seem to preclude gobs of radio gear and fishing gear gracing the place at the same time. It’s a tad irritating to have to move three tackle boxes and a store of bobbers and line to get to my soldering box or my stash of RF connectors/adapters or my electronics toolbox. A few months ago, I even had a difficult time trying test a couple of CB radios for a friend. There was too much fishing gear on my work table. Ugh! There was hardly room to breathe! Sheeese! It’s a good thing the little refrigerator was moved out!

The fishing rigs that I’ve already overhauled are sorted and are neatly placed in the rafters (I just love the word “neat”, don’t you?). But, there was only room for about a hundred of them so there’s no room left. There are probably 40 or more that need to be cleaned and serviced and several more yet that need to be rebuilt/repaired (and I just hauled two more home from a yard sale today). There are fifteen tackle boxes that need to be unloaded, cleaned and then refilled and a couple of large cardboard boxes of tackle that need to be divided up between surf, trout, and bass fishing too. What’s an aspiring fisherman dude to do?

Our bees are thriving (the one remaining box, that is). The “bloom” is happening so the little honey makers are rejoicing and being as busy as a bee can be (how much wood….). This may well be the first season that we can harvest any honey after  four years of little or no bloom. We let the bees survive on their efforts and tried to help them with some sugar water. 

There you have it, friends, family, folks, kith, kin, cool cats, and neighbors; that’s the latest from Rancho Relaxo where things can get…interesting and where…you just never know.

Rancho Marzo Bloomo

Getting ready for the Valentine's gig at Mission Bell in Porterville. 

Here's the "Bass Station". It's where Ol' Bro. Ran thumps his vintage Fender Precision bass guitar. The high-back stool is a real blessing since it means that the bass thumper doesn't have to stand up all the time. That's why my nickname is "Chief Sitting Bum".

My turn at the mic. I used to play for my supper all the time. Nowadays, I sometimes get to play for donuts and coffee and an occasional pot-luck. I love it, though, because of all the fellowship and good food! Food is my friend! It helps in keeping in practice, too. 

Here's the partial band. The drummer, Hank, and the steel guitar player, Jack, are taking a break. So, Randy, Sooz, and Jim are doing a three piece for a bit. 

You can tell it's been a long long day for Ol' Rancho Ran. When we kicked off, I was already at the end of a really hard and tiresome day. Thankfully, the gig was only a couple of hours long or they would have had to grab the Stokes. 

Here's the rest of the group except for the steel player , Jack Guthrie, who is off to the right side of the picture. 

Well! Would you look at the date! It’s March! MARCH! Doesn’t that just crack your dilithium crystals, Scotty?!! I suppose that I should caution y’all to “beware the Ides”. But, hey; Que sera sera (1956, for all you Doris Day fans…who doesn’t love Doris Day?!). It’s amazing how the unseen propulsion unit of time is so intricately woven into the Persian rug of life so that it hurls it forward at almost transonic speed. *SIGH*.

It’s that time again; time for the “Rancho Relaxo” update (or, as my dear friend and brother, Don Knight, says so succinctly, “Rancho Costa Mucho”). There’s always something going on around here. I want to say that there’s rarely a dull moment around this place. When the dull moments happen, they are greatly welcomed. We call those moments “days off” though they usually don’t last much longer than a good nap (naps are our friends). That’s not really a complaint. The complaint is that there isn’t enough time to get everything done in a timely manner (including naps). 

And, sometimes the elements are non-compliant in our attempts for peace.  It is the storm season, eh?

For instance, a fierce wind recently decided to add our carport to NASA’s High Altitude Research Program. We heard the wind howling that night and knew that things were going to change. We just didn’t know how large a change that would be. Given that this is “Rancho Relaxo”, we did know that things would be….interesting.

The next morning, we discovered that our carport had been lifted up (concrete anchors [8 x 30 lbs], 40 lbs of tubing, 40 lbs of covering, and all), flung against the basketball backboard (12’ high in case you want to know), and broke the backboard in half. Swell. Then, having soared over the top of the stuff that was parked under it, it was piled into a twisted heap onto the driveway. The previous October, we had just rebuilt the thing and put a new covering over it. Methinks that we’re going to just build one instead of trying to keep a flimsy one (read: “kite”) in place.

Not having a “tent”, of course, meant that the hammering rains had full access to the goods in storage. Two “swells” (with the second “swell” being larger than the first). Not much you can do with “dry things” that have been as well watered as a garden in Oregon. Time to clean up on aisle 4.

It took several days to be able to start heaving stuff into Wooly Pulley. That’s because it was already full of broken down cardboard boxes and ready for the dump run. So, after loading up more boxes to insure a full load, off to the dump we go. That took some real heaving as well. The good news is that cardboard is a “freebie” at the transfer station; otherwise it’s 20 bucks (freebies are our friends).

Now, I’m really not into heaving things even if it’s only light stuff (like, your beets). I prefer to leave them to professional heavers or young heavers who need a few bucks to be able to afford a new PS4 game station. Ah, but there weren’t any such creatures available…again (why do young people always disappear when someone mentions “work”?!) That left Ol’ Rancho Ran with yet another chore to do (I’m about ready to change the name of this place to “Rancho Sweato”…sheese).

To those of you who live in a real town, you may not know that our community dump (“transfer station”, actually), is only open on Fridays and Saturdays. Another “swell!”, anyone? That means that the mess couldn’t be hauled off for a few more days.

We got started loading but the haul had to be postponed prior to filling the trailer. Cousin Monty called from “Kaweah Delta Hospital” and needed us to come over. Given his near death experience, our priority was immediately shifted to “now!” and the half-filled trailer was moved to “later”. He’ll be fine for now but the ugly pile of soaked junk out front is very much an eyesore for another week (I’m running out of “swells”). If this mess doesn’t get cleaned up soon, the neighbors will think I’ve been lying about where I came from and ship me off on a pre-paid one-way trip to the Appalachian Mountains.

The trees are all in bloom now. My vines are not dressed (hope the neighbors are not prudes) and the trees are not pruned. Guess we’ll let nature take its course until next season. Not sure what we’re going to plant this season. Other than perhaps squash, it’s unlikely that it will be goodies that we have grown before. There should be ample sufficiency of tomatoes for now but a couple of plants may be warranted. Okra is my friend but we seem to have run out of the need to fry stuff around here. And, no one recalls the last time we made a soup or stew. Is there a synonym for “sigh”?

Princess Abby report: our slauffenhund is doing well after being “fixed” the other day. It was only ten bucks and a trip to town. Uh…but the appointment was at 6:45 AM, that is. 6:45 AM is fine in my tome except when you have to be someplace at that time. That means that, when you live in Springville (a small town that’s 15 miles from a not-quite real town which is 35 miles from the nearest real town), you have to greet the day at a double yawn-evoking 5 AM. 5 AM does not have a ring to it. 5 AM is not my friend.

Anyway…we packed the dog carrier into the back of the Coop deVille then packed Abby into the carrier. She hadn’t been off the property since we fetched her from Visalia (a real town) 2 years ago. I must say that I was a bit surprised that our little headstrong hund took to the trip as well as she did. I truly expected her to be a handful and thought she’d make it a grand event of barking practice and trying to jerk my arm off or the leash out of my hand. That was not the case. She was quite the lady that day….you just know I’m not telling the rest of the story yet, don’t you? You know that she is a little furry princess snot that changes the rules everywhere she goes; right?

Well….all was well when we first got there. Despite the line of pooches with their parents, Abby did little outside of putting her huntin’ instincts to work and sniffing the place out. She didn’t bark at all. That was a good thing. Good things are our friends but Princess Abby seemed to not remember that.

OK…first a bit of background info: the doggie patients all have to fast the previous 12 hours or so prior to the operation. We did that. Repeating….we did that. We made sure that our little love dog was in full compliance with the requirements of NPO. This is so there will be no messes of any kind after the surgery.

Moving along…..we hadn’t been in line more than a few minutes until I noticed a huge…huge…pile of steaming pooch pucky almost under my feet. That meant that the nearest dog was the culprit and we just know who that was, now, don’t we? I hadn’t seen a molten pile that big since she unloaded one on the stairs when she first got to Rancho Relaxo (this is a great place to park a “sigh” but I think I’m out of them). 

By the way, that was what led to her being an “outside” dog and not an “inside” dog. She refused to be tidy so we had options. I was hoping that the line would move along so that someone else’s doggie could take the blame. Dear Abby….we really need to talk.

We left our little coon-treeing pathway-defiling canine in the capable hands of the vet and his nice assistants (all “animal people”, of course) and headed for the nearest cup of coffee. After that, we had some shopping and chores to attend to for couple of hours while waiting for a call from the vet. They called us later and we were happy to return for her.

“That’s that”, as they say. We won’t be waking up to a preggie pooch again. Puppies (“poopies”, to be more accurate) are cute and cuddly but having them around all the time isn’t my cup of lapsang souchong.  Our princess was restricted to her cable for a week and we kept an eye on her for any post-surgery problems that could have arisen. But, no worries; she came through with flying colors. We no longer dread her blind dates. To quote my old friend, Tigger, “Fantastical!”.

Connie the Canner Report: what can you say when you have a wife that knows how to can and has made the transition to “farm wife” with aplomb (and with a plum)? She’s so good at it now that I bet she can can a ’57 Chevy. 

No; we don’t have garden stuff to can at the moment. But, she’s “oven canning” some things like flour, corn meal, oats, rice, pinto/navy beans et. al., and other such dry products like powdered milk. We hadn’t heard of this practice before but it’s turning out to be a really good thing and Connie is already a pro at it.

We had run into the issue of dry products like flour and powdered milk spoiling after only a year or so. After a year or so of storage, even pinto beans get dark and hard to the degree that they can’t be softened in a pressure cooker! So, after you lose large sacks of stuff, you start pondering ways to avoid such spoilage. Dry canning is one way to accomplish that.

We’re planning on obtaining a freeze drying unit when the money tree we planted bears much fruit. Those bloody things are expensive but they are incomparable for food preservation.

Chickening Report: great news! Our girls are ramping up production. They’re not quite up to prior standards but are working on it. They are faring well and get lots of greens, lots of scratch, and lots of lay pellets/crumble. They have been encouraged to enhance their production these past couple of months (I lied to them and told them that I was holding negotiations with the “Campbell Soup Company”).  The idea is to carefully balance the difficult task of being the Flock Master verses being the Flock Monster. So, far it seems to be working.

We lost another older hen that we’d had for a couple of years. She was already “elderly” when we got her. Not sure why we didn’t just plop her in a pot back then. Reckon it’s because it’s too much of a chore to deal with when you can buy an entire cleaned chicken for about four bucks.

It’s not the chore itself that’s an issue. It’s the time element. There’s simply not enough time to deal with readying a single chicken for dinner. One of these days I hope to have the time to do such things (meaning I need a flaming day off - I’d even settle for a non-flaming day off).

One reason I don’t mind cleaning a bird is that chicken guts make for great catfish bait. You simply park them in a jar and let them “season” for a week or so. You don’t want to let them rot; you merely want them to “ripen”. My….hold your nose, though! Wheeeeew! Channel cats and flathead cats think it’s Christmas when you toss a wad of ripe chicken guts their way! But, use with caution as you may have fewer neighbors as friends if you’re not mindful of how to handle such powerful bait.

And, that necessitates setting time aside to go fishing, eh? Think that’s going to happen any time soon? Me either. Then, we must consider that the cost of a pair of fishing licenses is approaching the hundred dollar mark ($94.02 – I remember when they were 7 dollars each!). So, I’m rather dissuaded from spending that much and only going fishing once or twice per year. That’s also probably why my boat has yet to see water. To quote my old friend Heap Big Chief Puking Buffalo, “UGH” (I think this was the other younger brother of Indian brave, “Soaring Eagle”, and older sister squaw, “Running Deer”, eh, Bill W. ?).

Spring time means “spring cleaning” for the coops (and that’s about as exciting as a strolling nude through a cactus patch). They’re in the process of being cleaned anyway due to the flood and such. But, a “deep cleaning” has become imperative and unavoidable. The cluck muck has to be hauled off and new deep litter has to be spread. The “Cluck Muck Squad” (of one….moi) will be busy for awhile.

 What is one to do when he has a henhouse full of chicken droppings? Well, my lightning-fast mind thought that we could just come up with a way to weaponize this stuff and sell it to the military. I’d be rich! I mean, what enemy wouldn’t run for the hills if a fleet of Lockheed C-130’s started unloading hundreds of tons of chicken squat on them?

It didn’t take long to realize that that thought had been carved from a large chuck of stupid. The logistics are bit formidable and I have such a small herd of hens that I doubt if I could fill just the front six feet of a Herky Bird. And, it would probably cost less to just shoot a cruise missile instead. So, out to the compost pile it goes where it will soon become a functioning component of the garden growth cycle.  

Being a chicken wrangler also means you’re a highly efficient adsorbent (a material that attracts things and collects them on its surface) to anything and everything ….everything….in a hen house. Rare is the day that, after chickening, I don’t look I’ve been hauled through a marsh bog. Connie can’t quite figure out just how a guy can get so dirty in such a short time! I suggested that she check with our lead layer, Clara Cluckenspiel, who would explain the matter at length (I also suggested that, if she’d quit laughing so loudly, she could hear my explanation a lot better).  I get my clothes washed a lot.

There you have it; the latest from one of the most interesting places within a few acres of normal. If you don’t touch that doohickey thingy that changes channels, you’ll be sure to get the next episode of “Rancho Relaxo”, the place where….you just never know.