Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

Margali

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So sorry you've had such a poor month. *hugs offered*

For the deck chair, a cargo strap with the toggle instead of ratchet would be good. I used 2 of them for securing Snip to cattle panel for trimming his hooves.
 

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SageHill

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So sorry you've had such a poor month. *hugs offered*

For the deck chair, a cargo strap with the toggle instead of ratchet would be good. I used 2 of them for securing Snip to cattle panel for trimming his hooves.
Love all the "tricks" ew all come up with. I've only got the ratchet tie downs, might have to get the other ones now. Though I'm wondering if the super wide velcro strips would work 🤔
 

Ridgetop

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Thanks for all suggestions and love. I will probably try them all.

The bad old year is out and the new good one in - or is it? New Year's Eve our family had a quiet settle down watching movies and resting after the Christmas capers. I was doing a puzzle, and coming down with a cold. DH had changed over to the televised New Year celebrations, and suggested I see if I had a bottle of bubbly in the fridge for the Big Ball Drop. Out to the laundry room where I discover the roof around the skylight is leaking big time. The paint in the ceiling has large water bubbles, and is leaking along the roof beam. Oy Vay!!!
:barnie While getting out old towels to mop up the water, I remember last September when DS1 came to Texas he told me that a large rainstorm had come through the previous week and the skylight had leaked badly. We need to get roofing tar to patch around the skylight when we returned. Naturally I made a note to repair it with Oh Henry tar when we returned BUT, as is the Ridgetop Way the broken truck and assorted emergencies intervened. Apparently, it only leaks with a very heavy storm so the light rains we had had in the past month did not show any leaks. The skylight is located above the refrigerator which also hides the water until it spills across a bean in the ceiling and drips down. Buckets were placed strategically, New Year's Day dawned relatively dry, and tragedy - in the form of our ceiling falling in - was averted. DS1 and DS2 went to Lowes where they found that Oh Henry is only available at Home Depot due to some contract agreement. However, Ridgetop men and women are not thwarted by such trivial brand name concerns. The rain held off long enough for DS1 to remove the puddle sitting behind the skylight, dry off the roof and apply the roofing repair tar. This brand being able to be applied to a wet roof as Oh Henry was not. :D =D

The New Year's Eve storm was really bad. Heavy rains and wind, and in fact some sort of New Year's Eve rave (?) party being held in Grant Park in Los Angeles was pretty much rained out. 40,000 revelers were expected and 1,400 showed up. The dance floor was flooded, the musicians rushed to cover the instruments, and food and beverage vendors were flooded out. The news showed the remaining partygoers dancing in the mud.

Yesterday DS3 and family drove down early for a family get together. A late Brunch was planned. DD1 cooked ham and egg scramble, and bacon. DS2 cooked sausage and a mountain of waffles with his new waffle makers (one is a double which makes 2 at a time, the other one does USA shaped waffles). There was fruit, whipped cream, and syrup, cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. DH picked up orange juice and I supplied champagne for Mimosas. We all had a great time. Talked to DS3 about Bib blue and he said he would give us his 5' brush hg since he has a new 6' deck one. He also agreed to give us the post hold digger although he said if the ground was very hard rocky soil it would only drill down about 3'. figured that would be enough. He also said that his neighbor has one of the pneumatic post drivers and it works like a charm. He also said he would come back and spend a week or so helping us set fence. :celebrate Told the grandkids to bring their fishing poles since they could hike over to the pond and fish and we would rent a boat (?) and they could go out on Fork Lake for the super size bass. Big smiles all around. We will have to see about stocking our little pond. LOL

Since the leak started before midnight, I have decided to allocate that leak to the old bad year. :D =D More rain is expected this entire week, and all across California so hopefully our 10-year drought has broken. Although DH says we need 3 years of heavy rain to officially be drought free. Lots of warnings and evacuations in burn areas but since we live on our ridgetop, no danger of that for us. (Except the leaky skylight of course!) :gig

The family also got on the website and chose wedding gifts together, and discussed one person making all the flight reservations into Dallas at once. They will all trave together on the same flight. Rememberng all the violence on the planes lately I told the men to sit on the outside seats to protect their women and children. The women stated that they were much more vicious than their men and would be better at defending the family. :lol: Then they will rent either 2 large cars or a van to transport all 10 at once. DH kept saying we would pick them up until I pointed out that 7 of them would have to crouch in the truck bed with their luggage since the truck can only hold 3 additional passengers. And with the cost of gas, I wasn't going to make the hour+ trip to Dallas airport from Yantis then to Athens 4 times. They agreed it would be better to rent cars. DS3 and family will drive down and spend the night at our house with DS2's family. He is looking into hiring someone to take them all to the airport at once. They are all staying an additional day so they can come back to Yantis to see the ranch. We will get blow up mattresses and can camp in the house.

DH is worried about us getting Twinkles back in time for the trip so we might be just bringing the stock trailer. That way we can bring back the ewe lambs for Baymule, the rabbit equipment, canning equipment, shelf units, and other small stuff for renos and painting. We can put up the heavy duty shelving units in the sheds to hold the stuff we are bringing back. We can still pick up hay in Arizona on the way back if the price is right. Not sure if we will come the southern route straight to Baymule to unload the lambs first - that would allow us to drop the trailer in Yantis without a lot of doubling back and forth.

And I got another gift from DS3. DS2 had given him the revolver we had retrieved from MJ's safe in Yelm. It had lain there for years and was almost rusted together. DS3 took it all apart and redid it so it works now. A sweet little S & W .32 revolver. The ammo is .32 longs and he said might be hard to find but it looks cute in my purse for Texas. :gigI wonder if DS3's skills are great enough to repair the old rusted revolver the boys found in the gully 20 years ago. The 3 boys decided that it had probably been used in a murder then tossed in the gully to dispose of it. OR it was lost during a gun battle in the hills between robbers and a posse. OR some poor cowboy fell from his horse during a roundup, was pinned under his dead horse and lost his gun while trying to shoot himself to avoid a long painful death. OR . . . . ??? Their theories were very entertaining. I hung the rusted gun on the wall along with some bridle bits, old tools, and other bits of Americana. ;)

Hope the New Year goes well for everyone.
 

Ridgetop

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The southern California drought is officially broken! This year anyway. :D =D We have had sporadic rain since September but not enough to really get excited about. Now we've had heavy rain around Christmas and it has not stopped raining for more than 8-12 hours since the big storm on New Year's Eve. It has mostly rained heavily every night, and today heavy rain all day and still raining. The tar repair on the skylight held up until today when the super heavy downpours were too much and it leaked again. Once it dries out we will repair again. The ceiling leak is mostly over the spare fridge so no damage. We might have to prime and aunt a couple spts on the celing but nothing major.

I do feel sorry for my poor sheep in the large pen. The rams have the old 18' diameter trampoline under which they shelter. The breeding pen has some heavy pepper tree cover and another 18' diameter trampoline - this one used by the grandkids. The barn has plenty of cover for the ewes and lambs. The large pen though only has a tiny teepee of roof panels. It is 4' wide by 8' long. Not enough room for all the sheep and they are all covered in mud. As soon as it gets drier I think I will pull over a stock panel and see if I can wedge one side against the teepee bottom and attach the other end to the corral panel. Then a heavy plastic tarp can be draped over the stock panel to give them some cover. Poor sheep.

The shop has said they have now received the engine for Twinkles. Hopefully it will be installed in time to take both trucks pulling 2 trailers back to Texas next month. I have been making a list of what will go back in each truck and trailer load. I will mark the boxes that are to go by putting blue painter's tape on them. That will make it easier to load the trucks and trailers without me standing over the men telling them what to take. :fl

Hopefully getting a couple truck and trailer loads back to the ranch will encourage us to keep working on moving. The next load will be the tractor Big Blue, the 5' deck brush hog, and drill. Then we can start putting in fence posts for the 5-6' fencing. DS3 said he can come back and help us too. I am hoping that seeing the ranch that the family will start thinking it would not be so bad to move to Texas.

Robert is staying at his Lola and Lolo's for a couple days to let his poor mama get some rest. He was running her ragged between Nick nursing and Robert being demanding. We tend to forget that at 20 month he is still quite a baby himself. He is spoiled, but hopefully the parents have learned their lesson and will do a few things differently with Nick. Like hopefully make him sleep in his crib instead of on the floor on a mattress with his mother! Being a second child Nick will probably be easier though. As the grandmother I can just go to my room and ignore the crying. :gig

The rain is supposed to keep up heavily until Sunday. Welcome El Nino!
 

farmerjan

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From what I am seeing and hearing, breaking the drought has gone to the other extreme with the flooding, mud slides, roads washed out, etc.... Why is it we seem to have to be feast or famine all the time????
I hope that you don't have too much damage, problems there... just wet and muddy....
 

Ridgetop

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Fire in the summer which burns off the foliage that holds the hillsides- mudslides in the winter if we have rain because all the foliage has burned off! Been that way for a thousand years. Back in the day the hills were covered with stilt houses. The houses were built on super high stilts jutting out over the canyons from cliff sides. Any flat land was used for parking and swimming pools. Terrific views but every year a house would slide into the canyon. If it didn't burn up in the fires. Did these people learn their lessons? NO, they rebuilt the exact same houses on stilts over and over again. Those stilt houses from the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's are no longer allowed to be built. Not sure if it is because of the mudslide danger or earthquake regs after the Northridge quake back in '93/'94. The storms are expected to continue for 2 more weeks through mid-January with some sort of "Bomb Cyclone" weather cycle. This might not be El Nino since the storms are coming from the north and meeting the storms coming from the south. Whatever it is the weather is nasty.

I need to get more cover over the main night pen. We have had really heavy rain almost non-stop since New Year's Eve. It rained all night and day since January 2. The sheep pens on the flat are flooded. DS1 has forbidden DH to feed in the mud since it is so slick out there. The rain stopped this afternoon, so I went down to the milk shed and marked all the boxes I plan to take to Texas next month with blue painter's tape. Figure that will be easier than standing over the fellows pointing at each box! Looks like I will be emptying 2 6' shelving racks and a 4' one. :D =D If the weather stays dry for a day or so I will bring up the stock panel I found at the back of the field and make one of those Quonset hut style shelters for the sheep with a tarp. The ground will still be muddy and wet, but at least they can get out of the heavy rain.

Got a call from the tenant saying they might not be out by the end of February. Not a problem for us as long as we can get in and measure the house, as well as unload our trailers and trucks into the sheds. We emptied those storage areas out last summer so they are ready for us to bring in shelving and unload. I really hope that we can get our truck back so we have 2 trucks and can take a load of fencing back on the flat bed. We need to bring Big Blue back on the next flatbed load so we can start on our fencing.

She said their new house is very small and asked if we would like the king size beds in the 2 bedrooms of our house. The mattresses are almost new and she offered to supply new sheets! I told her not to worry about the sheets since having the beds there would be great. She was very relieved that we wanted them since she said she and her husband were worried they couldn't get them out of the house! :gigDH plans to send her some flowers to thank her for not having to sleep on an inflatable mattress. Good for us and good for her. Beds are a pain to move and king-size ones are a king size pain. This will let us avoid moving our king size bed back to Texas. It is huge and heavy, mde out of 2' x 10" boards. It is custom built and we got it second hand. We put a new mattress on it and can leave it for DS2 and his wife. I will bring sheets, pillows, and blankets back in a plastic tub and they can be stored in the house in one of the bedrooms. Probably will bring another plastic tub back to leave some work clothes there as well. Bed problem solved though! If our family can sleep in the house after the March 3 wedding, we will only need to take back a couple of the inflatable mattresses we already have. No need to buy more. :D =D

DS2 is on track with the plane reservations, car rental, and hotel. The only problem is whether to get reservations for DS1 or will we have the truck back so he can drive one vehicle to Texas for us. :fl We are not staying at the Best Western for the 2 nights - the family wants to stay at Holiday inn because they have an indoor pool for the 3 children. The adults will use the hot tub. We also were deciding on wedding gifts during our post New Yer's brunch. 2 magnums of champagne making Mimosas and we were feeling very generous. Within a day or 2 we had returned to sanity and instead of buying $400 BBQs or $3500 rugs or $350 moonlight Hawaiian cruise dinners (yes those were some of the choices) for their cousin's daughter (who lives in an apartment) we were all choosing more sensible gifts for the young couple. Particular after they counted up how much they were spending for a 4-day trip to Texas for the wedding. :lol: have sent the gifts from us, DS1, and DD2 and her husband. DD2 has no money so I chose a $25 set of bamboo cutting boards from her. They will not be able to go to the wedding anyway - no money. DS1 gave her a set of sheets which I consider expensive at $69 - I buy my sheets at Ross for around $30, but since I had found the $129 coverlet set on their registry on sale at Walmart for $69, I was willing to slip in a bit for him. So our gifts are sorted, I will figure out what to wear. I have a lovely new pantsuit which is very flattering on me, but it is black and brown which I don't consider suitable colors for a wedding. I also have a formal navy pantsuit which would be better since the wedding is in March which is still winter. It is an afternoon wedding too. Plenty of time to choose something from my cruise wardrobe. ;) I was informed yesterday that they expect us to take their dressy clothes back with us for them and show up at the hotel on March 2 with them. Not a problem. There will be room in the truck.

I ordered my Premier sheep chair so we can do hooves. I also remembered to order more ear tags, including more scrapie tags. Premier offers additional name imprinting for free on the ear tags. This time I ordered all the flock tags with our flock name on them in addition to the numbers. I also ordered another 40 scrapie tags also with the flock information which is the assigned scrapie flock ID number. I really like these Premier tags. They are larger and easier to read than our old tags. I also ordered 20 tags in red for the new ram, Junior. I have retired the orange tags temporarily since I sold the Axtel ram. I still have orange tags left but am waiting to use them until later since we will probably assume any orange tag ewe is sired by Axtel instead of the new ram. I figure if we wait another year to use orange tags, either we will recognize the new orange tags or I will have a new ram :hide siring lambs to use them on. Oy Vay!

Dues time is here for the Anatolian Breeders' Society, and the Dorper Society. Got those checks written, 12 lamb registrations filled out and in the mail. I register all ewe lambs when I sort them at weaning. I also subscribed to Livestock Weekly for a year. They have good articles about what is happening with pasture, sales etc. They report the average prices on goats and sheep as well as cattle at the Texas auction yards. I have 3 large ram lambs needing to be castrated in the barn right now. I was going to take them to the auction but with the heavy rain, I don't want to go down there with the possibility of buyers staying home. Called the auction yard and she said the ram lambs went for about $50. :epHowever, she said they were tiny lambs and larger animals were goig for about $100 plus. She said if I waited a few weeks that the ethnic buyers would be buying for holidays so I will take both the large rams and the soon to be weaned ram lambs (and any other ewe lambs that don't look very good) in then hoping that prices will be closer to $200.

My DIL is now on this website hoping to learn about Boer goats. She says she wants to breed them for meat, but my son says they will probably become pets instead. LOL there is an active 4-H group up there and if she can breed them for the proper time she could sell market kids to the FFA and 4-Hers. Everybody please give her good info. She is in southern California (Nipomo) so no Barber Pole worms there, but she wants to talk about goats with other members. DS3 who could help her keeps telling her they are lots of work and trouble. :mad: DS3 is bing a pain in the neck.

I need to check my tale of Bubba and see how many episodes are left to publish. The adventures of our LGDs, starting with Rika, have been appearing in The Anatolian Times for the past couple years now. I have been wondering if I should put them in a posting devoted to them? I will write about Angel and her entry into our lives. Each puppy has its own personality and problems to work on. Bubba ate our lawn furniture and had trouble being calm with newborn lambs and their mamas. Our fault not his. Angel went through 2 puppy biting phases at different ages, one of which was quite nasty. Again, we learned how to deal with it and stopped her bad behavior. I like writing about their training, behavior, and our learning curve with each new Anatolian. Maybe I should do a posting about their behaviors, issues, personalities, and what we learned from them over the years. Maybe it would be helpful to others to see the behaviors LGDs can come up with - both good and bad. Angel is barking outside right now. It is her threatening a predator "I know you are there so don't think you can hide from me. Come in this yard and die" bark. She is having to work twice as hard without Bubba, and Rika is showing her age. :( I need to write the Angel saga and have it waiting to send in before the new Anatolian puppy comes home the first of March and I have to work on her story. We are picking her up from Erick after the wedding and then heading home. I have waited 5 years for this puppy from Erick.
:weee
 
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