We have been experiencing a moderate draught here in the Ozarks this fall and winter, so yesterdays rain was greatly welcomed. We probably received about an inch of rain (I’m not sure – I accidentally left our rain gauges out in sub-freezing weather with water in them, and they froze and cracked). What I would like to see are a couple of gully-washers, in order to flush out our creeks and top off our ponds. After the rains, George and I had to sit a spell and admire a pretty rainbow.
Since registering for a domain name and signing up for a web host (Dreamhost), I have found my self in front of the computer for days on end. Learning about setting up services on the server, FTP programs, HTML code, blogging software, photo gallery software, etc. has been very time consuming.  Switching over from ISDN to satellite broadband, and my continued attempts at networking my computers has also taken it’s share of time. Then, reviewing and uploading photos to the gallery, and writing posts to the blog are time eaters also. All this has come at the expense of ranch projects, so I’m back off to work now!
Yesterday was unseasonably warm here in the Ozarks, so I took the opportunity to drain, clean, and refill the hot tub. Today, I worked on a winter-long project of “parkizing” (def: taking an area of land, and making it look like a park) a stretch of creek that runs for about a mile through our property. This has been a very physical project, involving lots of chain saw and tractor work, but mostly a lot of heavy lifting and hauling.
Retta pointed out a low and dangerous limb from a locust tree that was intruding into one of her riding trails, and ask me to remove it. The thorns of these trees are wicked – I can’t count the number of flat tires I have fixed on my tractor as a result of these trees. The only redeeming feature to them is that deer love to eat the seedpods from honey locusts.
Even though the deer like them, there are several located around the horse paddock that I will have to remove. I will probably just cut them up and burn them where they now stand, as handling them is difficult and dangerous.
    We have an extra saddle that is not being used, so we thought we would sell it on Ebay. It haven’t sold on Ebay for some time, so signing up as a seller, getting a PayPal account, and figuring out how to create a decent listing has taken a little bit of time, but I finally got it going.  For anyone interested, it can be found on Ebay here.
Wild tom turkey strutting and posing for a hen
    It’s time for me to change the batteries in the feeders again. Even though the manufacturers of the feeders claim that a 6v alkaline battery should last about 6 months, I have found that I have to change them about every 2 months in the winter, and every 3 months in the warmer times of year.
   I started out by using rechargeable 6v batteries, which saved money (6v alkaline = $7-$9 each), but I found that they needed recharging every few weeks. That got to be old real quick.
   So then I tried adding a solar charging panel to the system. That didn’t work, because the squirrels would gnaw through the wiring, no matter what I did to protect it.
    So then I replaced the feeder with a new one that contained an integral solar panel built into the housing. That solved the squirrel problem. The only problem? The integral solar charger wasn’t able to keep the internal battery charged.
    So then I replaced the new feeder with a newer one! An OnTime Fatboy Feeder (pictured above) that used TWO 6v alkaline batteries. The manufacturer claimed they would last about 1 year. I don’t know, because the circuit boards in them would fry in about 2-3 weeks!
    So then I replaced the newer feeder (which replaced the new feeder) with the NEWEST of feeders. Got that? Back to one 6v alkaline battery, no solar charging, and they seem to be working fine – as long as I change the batteries every 2-3 months and keep them full of corn.   Â
Welcome to Ranch Ramblings, my first attempt at blogging! Please feel free to add comments to any of the posts. Hopefully this might develop into an interesting read. My postings will probably be sporadic at first, as I try to get up to speed on this Wordpress blogging software. So for now, it’s off to the docs!
