The Stout Ranch

Spent 5 days working at the ranch last week. It rained on two of those days, dropping another 2 1/4″ of rain, just as the ground was starting to dry out. Plus it is getting hot… like mid 90’s. The first afternoon, I took the tractor and started spreading roadbase to fix some of the ruts in the main road. After loading up the bucket, I made a hard right turn and had the right front tire pop free of the rim. Apparantly, it was low on air, and turning sharply, with a heavy front load, and the axle in 4WD was all it took to pop it off.

We tried using the air compressor and portable generator to refill the tire with enough air to pop it back on the rim, but couldn’t get enough pressure. So the next morning I had to resort to calling a tire company to make a site visit and fix it for me.

However, the most interesting few seconds of the trip was Sunday morning when I opened up the garage door on the guest cabin. As the door raised up, I caught sight of something out of place, just inches from the right side of my face.

Turns out, a 3′ rat snake had craweled inside the garage, got caught in a mousetrap, and tangled up in the pull rope for the garage door. When the door went up, so did the snake. For a spit second I was close enough to kiss that snake, but chose not to. We managed to free it from the rope and the mousetrap.

That was not our only snake encounter inside a building. The afternoon before I drove up to the ranch house and spotted a 5′ black racer enjoying itself in the middle of the garage floor. It took a while, but I managed to talk him into relaxing underneath some nearby trees.

Hopefully when we get back up, the snakes won’t try to be quite so intrigued with the garage floors.

We just returned from spending 6 days at the ranch. As always happens this time of year, the mama coons have started bringing their new babies to the porch and teaching them that Meow Mix is really good stuff.

We made progress on getting a high speed internet connection by erecting a windmill style tower on top of the hill behind the ranch house. I will have to install solar panels and batteries next trip.

The piggie count increased by three more this trip, so I am now at 29 for the year. Another small gator was spotted cruising the shoreline of the lake.

7″ of rain in the last few days… County Road 190 has been under water for the last 10 days. Things are getting a little too squishy at the ranch.

This little mama coon seemed to be playing peek-a-boo with us. She must have popped her head up half a dozen times to check us out.

Another mama coon seemed to be a little wore out from tending to her little ones and spent most of the day relaxing on the front porch. She also showed us that coons take baths.

Despite the rain, we managed to up the piggie count by three more, bringing the yearly total to 26. Unfortunately, the rain also encouraged a 5′ gator to take up residence in the lake.

We just spent 6 days of nice weather working at the ranch. 3″ of rain had fallen since we were last here and the grass growing in the pasture is now about waist high. We were disappointed to see that very few dewberries are on the vines, despite being covered with blooms about a month ago. It appears that the light freeze we had in early April may have hurt. I experienced my first scorpion sting when grabbing a sheet of plywood resting against the wall of the barn. But the most memorable “bad experience” of the trip was getting the tractor stuck in a muddy sinkhole in the middle of the pasture with the 15′ mower attached. It took half a day just to get the mower disconnected and dragged out of the way so I could winch the tractor. Powerwashing off the mud took another couple of hours. On the bright side, added four more piggies to my count for the year, bringing the year to date total to 23. Lightning bugs were flashing all over the pastures when I was stalking the pigs in the dark. Gibbons Creek was flooded, floating my bridge, and covering CR 190 for a short while.

Getting this new website up and running. The piggie count for 2019 increased by one this week, with a 150lb boar. Lake is still trickling over the spillway.