A DAY ON THE RANCH

Our plan had been to spend two nights, along with Jan and Barry Kessler, on Jeanie and Ray's ranch. After our first night, we decided to add a day to our stay, and by happy hour today, we extended our stay until next Monday.

When we arrived yesterday, we noticed that gophers had been hard at work at the ranch, with dozens of dirt piles around the yard. Ray has attacked with water, flares and traps: Gophers 3, Ray 0.

Here is Ray's secret weapon: the ultra-vintage tractor. As Jeanie says, it hails from the days "When men were men, and women respected them." Yep, that's OLD!


Thirty minutes of tinkering, and Ray and Odel had the tractor prepared for battle, with a flexible metal hose attached to the exhaust pipe (you can see it sticking up near the right rear tire). Then Odel took a seat on the tractor and approached the first gopher field.

After finding a gopher hole under a pile of dirt, they inserted the pipe and started the engine. Throughout the afternoon, they moved the tractor from place to place, hoping to knock out the gophers. Time will tell!

Ranch life is really a different slice for us. After his hard day of work (besides gopher hunting, Ray and Odel climbed up on the roof to do some painting), Odel is now snoozing on our sofa... well, I guess that isn't TOO different than usual.