I’ve been a little lazy about keeping the Stout Ranch website updated with all the latest news, but with the outside temps soaring well above 100 degrees I am now inclined to sit in my air conditioned office and type a little update.
The biggest news occurred about 2 months ago. With a hot house market in Houston, Laurel and I decided to advance out planned move to the ranch (which was scheduled for 2023) and put the house on the market. The marketing video put together by the realtor seems to have worked well…
Within one week we had two competing offers. So on May 6, 2022 we turned over the keys and began a new chapter, full time at the ranch.
First thing we recognized was that our ranch roads were a little too ruff for Laurel’s MKZ so we had to upgrade her to a new SUV. Turns out that was quite a challenge in todays car market. Dealers have no inventory, and some were asking up to $10K above MSRP. After several frustrating dealer visits and online searches we finally managed to put a deposit down on a Lincoln Aviator which had all the bells and whistles we were looking for.
One of the first new best friends we made here at the ranch is named “Peanut”. She even brought over one of her girlfriends.
Starting in early June it quit raining and got hot. The weather seems to be running about 2 months ahead of schedule and now nearly every day had temps topping 100 degrees. About three weeks ago, the weather station on the guest cabin registered 111 degrees, the hottest I have ever seen in 72 years of living in Texas. This caused us to start looking into cattle troughs that we could fill with water and use to cool off. Fortunately we found a little nicer alternative and just a couple of days ago began enjoying afternoons in the hot tub.
Even the coons were spending a corresponding amount of time in their hot tub.
On July 4th I tried to cook a rack of ribs in the Masterbuilt smoker only to discover that it was DOA. That gave me an excuse to buy a new toy, so I purchased a Traeger pellet grill. Best way to describe it is a computer controlled charcoal grill/smoker. All you do is dial in the temp you want it to be and touch the screen to ignite the pellets. You can operate all the controls with your smart phone and it included wireless probes for monitoring the precise temperature of whatever you are cooking. Everything I have cooked so far was excellent, and it wont be long before I am up to doing real Texas briskets. A new Costco opens up on College Station on August 4, and I plan to make a few meat purchases shortly thereafter.
This coming week we are flying to Las Vegas for a night on the town before spending 8 days on a a rafting expedition down the Grand Canyon. Should be interesting with 100+ air temps and 50 degree water. I hope to have a few pictures to post when we return.
Hope you are managing to stay hydrated… I am a little worried about the tequila inventory levels at Specs. On the positive side, they are building a Total Wine in College Station.