THE RANCH

THE RANCH: I have not written about Grandma Lavann's ranch for quite a while. A couple years ago I decided that I wanted to get in contact with Dennis H. I wrote to Grandma LaVann's address. He called me and we had a nice chat about the ranch and what not. I had asked him if the three pound can of coffee filled with old keys was still in the barn. He said he had never seen that can. I wanted it to make a really cool wind chime. He said that roof blew off the barn and he had the structure torn down. Dang. I just loved that barn. I sent Dennis an email asking if the cute little circa 1945 tear drop camper had survived the collapse of the barn. One time at a large family gatherine at the ranch, Uncle Stan and Phyllis slept in it one night. Haven't heard back from him yet. A while back he posted a couple of pictures of a big brown bear in the orchard snacking on pears. Poor bear, pears don't get ripe until they get picked. Dennis cleaned up and pruned the old orchard in case of fire. It looks like a golf green. I gave Beth a basket of pears which she canned. Next time I visited she proudly showed me the canned pears. There were beautiful but she had not peeled them. I think that would make the canned pears a little bitter but they were beautiful. The apples were always wormy and required a lot of peeling. There was also a very old apple tree growing on one of the old Italian farms. It was called Cook's Seedling. It made the best applesauce, did not require a bit of sugar, it tasted wonderful. On the north end of the orchard was a large bush of large green looking fruit that were useful for pectin for canning. I cannot remember that name and I never used them. Dennis also posted a picture of the pond he dug a hundred feet or so below where the shaggy old trailer stood. He has stocked the pond with channel catfish. I love me a good fried catfish. Yummy!! While I was staying there with Grandma LaVann she contracted with someone to log of her land. She could log seven acres without having to file an environmental impact report. She was out there every day measuring the logs before they were hauled away. She also had a small caterpillar but she did not operate it but the men may have done so. She burned slash every day. I took pictures of Charlie. One time she decided she needed a spring in the pasture on the east side of the building. She hired a water witcher who came out and strode back with two metal wands and when they crossed he drilled for water. He found a spring. It was not a lot but enough to provide a trickle of water to the pasture. She also hired a crew of shear her sheep. The wool was stuffed into a 20 foot tall wool sack and we loaded the sack into the back of her old Jimmy and she drove it to Ukiah to the sale barn. Those are lovely memories.