Master Album No.2

I recently posted a Google Photo Album of pictures from Lavon's collection.  The photos are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/uB1pzrBMpgS97Mkb8

The inside cover reads:

J. Edward Johnson - Mamie Huish Johnson - Lavon Brockbank Johnson, their children and immediate kin. 900 Spruce St. Berkeley, California.
This Master Album No 2, being preceded by Master Album No.1.
No 2. Started Nov. 22,1936

I am struck by a few things:

1. Where is Master Album No.1?
2. LaVon was careful when creating this volume.  Each of the photos is labeled with a unique number, so each photo can be removed and replaced in the correct location later.  Those labels are useful for maintaining an archive.  Very forward thinking on her part.
3. Many of the pictures have additional writing on the back.  I haven't looked at all of them, just enough to know that there is a lot of information available.
4. There are duplicates of many of these pictures in another box that I've been going through.

It was exciting to find this album.  This is one of those treasures that you hope to find when going through old documents.  I plan to do a more careful job of scanning its contents in the future.  I'd like higher resolution images and I'd like to review the back of each photo for information.  

In the interest of time, I took photos with my camera rather than going to the trouble of scanning each photo individually.  My plan is to get stuff documented quickly and then go back later and do a much better job with a relatively small number of very interesting artifacts.  Master Album is at the top of that list.

Family History - Initial Post

I've made an executive decision to expand the topics covered by this blog.  The Ranch has always been a  gathering place for the Johnson family, but it isn't what truly connects us all.  The thing that really keeps us together is our genealogy and shared memories.

Julie and I inherited the boxes of Family History from Dick, who inherited much of it from LaVon. Since then I've felt a strong desire to make that history available to all family members.  This is your history at least as much as it is mine, and as time marches forward, we risk losing the most direct connection we have to the memories contained in our albums.

I have started digitizing the photos and slides that I have, and I will make them available through this blog, the J.Ed Johnson Family Google Group (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/jed-johnson-family), Google Photos, and Family Search (www.familysearch.org).  I may use other methods of sharing as I become aware of them, and I hope to add journal entries and other artifacts as I go through them.

I would like your help in a number of ways:

• Please enjoy the photos, and add any information you have about them.
• Please let me know if you see photos or artifacts that have special meaning to you.  
• I am happy to give away the original copies of these photos to family members who care.
• Please add to this project as you feel inspired to.  
• I would love to grant permissions to anybody to add blog posts or access photos.

I hope to do my part to honor our ancestors and pass along the memories and stories that makes the Johnson Family so special.

Annual Shareholder Meeting 2016

Wow! I'm so good at this blogging thing that I remembered to post in less than a year from the last p... oh wait. It's 2016. Well, anyway, I felt the need to get back on the blog because of our last Shareholder Meeting that took place at the ranch on Saturday, June 25 @ 10am (yes, I do realize this was a month ago). It was very informative.

Due to the busy lives we all have and the extensive amount of miles that blocks many from the journey, a portion of the Ranch's shareholders were unable to attend. However, we did appreciate the presence of Harry, Bob, Steve, Betsy, Erik Johnson, Matthew Poirier, Anne Johnson, Richard Reader (Anne's husband), Paris Fox, and Julie Ritzman (my mom). Matt Ritzman (my dad), Kallan Ritzman (me!), Karen Johnson Poirier, and Laura (Matthew Poirier’s wife) were also present for some of the latter part of the meeting.  Evan, Betsy’s husband, and Sonya, Steve’s wife, also joined us for the lunch afterwards (the food was delicious!).

During this meeting we reviewed the events and work of the past year:

• Fire control compliance
• Brush and poison oak eradication
• Removal and cutting up of fallen trees 
•  Harry and his buddies removed a huge tree at the top of the driveway
• Road repair and maintenance 
• Harry, Kaia, my Utah cousins, my dad, and I, dug burms on the upper field road which preserved it during the rainy season.
•  Also, PG&E caused damage to our upper field road, so Harry contacted them and got them to repair it. 
• Keeping the tractor operational 
• Mark Johnson had been very helpful in this pursuit.   
• Fence and gate repairs
• Plumbing and EBMUD line maintenance 
• Somebody checks the water meter everyday to make sure we don’t have any leaks.  We fixed a leak near the barn this year.
• Clearing culverts and creeks.  
• Replaced the back door to the ranch house – it was not closing correctly.
• Got a cat to help with the rodent population, it helped!  
• We installed a cat door to the house so that the cat has protection at night. A wiley raccoon figured out how to open our first raccoon proof door, but so far he has not broken into the new one.

We also reviewed the Ranch's constant maintenance needs which mainly consist of:

• clearing brush and trees blocking paths, roads, or creeks
• repairing fences and gates
• preparing roads for the rainy season
• Doing Ranch projects that are centered around the needs above, but often change from year to year:
1. Repairing the spring (located on EBMUD property)
2. building a new barn
3. cleaning the ranch house
4. Clearing out out corral area of brush and weed
5. Planting Alfalfa
6. Installing access for the tractor to get into the corral
7. Re-roofing the cottage and creamery (building above the creek creek)

We often have work days to help with these needs and projects. It would be great to have a larger workforce, so I will try to announce the work parties more frequently. If you are interested in coming to the Ranch to work, please email Harry or my mom ( julieritzman@sbcglobal.net ). If you bring guests they must sign a waiver. Email Harry if you need one.
More details on the meeting (including a discussion about the future of the ranch) will come out shortly either through email or the blog.

A Tiny Slice of Heaven

Yesterday, my mom and I went to go feed the horses. When we put the hay out we thought it would be fun to go on just a little ride on the lower field. I was on Revler and my mom was on Chico. We only did a small ride, but it was like a tiny slice of heaven. The ranch is really beatiful right now. We went up to the tree dump which is like a huge compost pit for branches. My mom and I had so much fun. It was just a small little ride to start off the week.

These pictures are of me on Revler after our ride.

Kaia and I Rode Horses on an Adventure

Posted and Written by Kallan Ritzman

On Monday, June 24, 2013, I went riding with Kaia. We started out with me on Reveller and Kaia on Mousey. We went around the lower field for a bit, then Kaia decided to ride Lakota. We then went to the barn and switched Mouse for Lakota. Kaia was bareback on Lakota and I had a saddle. We then went to the top of the Lower Field. Kaia taught me to gate on Reveller by getting Reveller into it and showing me on Lakota. That meant she had to get off Lakota, so she had to get back on which was the hard part,  though she did it! Gating is really fun. To do it you have to dig your heels in to the horses sides, split-reign them, and kick them. A gate is a smooth walk that gated horse can to. Houdini, Reveller, Mousey, and Lakota are our gated horses at the ranch. That was the one day this week that I truly gated Reveller . It was incredibly fun. After a bit of gating, Kaia came up with an idea.

Ranch Week Summary

      One week in the summer 2013 we did ranch week. That basically meant that we would spend that time and sleep over at the Ranch. Kaia, my dad, and I were there every night. On Sunday we slept over. On Monday night Lena, Logan, and Griffin slept over with us. The next night Griffin and Logan were with us again. We had many adventures and did fun activities like riding horses, playing games, cooking, art, and more. It was really fun. My favorite part was riding. We did big ones. I loved it. I definitely need to do it again.

Fencing, Reunions and a Calendar

Wow! It's been a while since anything's been posted.  Stuff has been happening, just not making it to the blog.

A few things to summarize:
Harry and Dave are spearheading an effort to get horses into the upper field.  It is quite a project to get the fences up to snuff.  We're replacing some of the fencing that J. Edward might have done himself.  In one section, there are at least two sets of wire with varying degrees of corrosion, and the old railroad ties crumple under a little pressure.

We've got a reunion and shareholder meeting coming up on the 23rd of this month.  I'd love to see you there.

In order to keep up to date on events, I've created a calendar.  You can view with the link in the right hand panel.  If you use Google Calendars I can grant you access to edit and include this in your own calendars.

Not a typical day at the ranch

It often takes a predicament to provide the impetus to get a good ranch trip to happen.

Harry emailed Justin and I to request some help with a downed tree.  The three of us got to the ranch in the mid afternoon to cut the tree into manageable pieces.

While we worked, Julie took the kids to ride horses and play at the playground.

With lots of help from the kids, Julie got Josie on a horse for a 15 minute ride.  Most all the kids got a turn.  Logan was a bit disappointed, though, he didn't get enough horse time.  When asked what he did at the ranch, he said, "I wanted to ride a horse and then I didn't.  And then I wanted to ride the horse again and I didn't"

Griffin fared much better. "I had the best time I've had at the ranch since Abba passed away. I built a fire, rode a horse, and drove the truck.  Then we ate peaches, and that was it."  The fire was pretty impressive.  Even Logan enjoyed warming his hands by the fire.

It still gets dark kind of early, especially in the shadow of the hills.  So we wrapped up. There was a little bit of clean up (including some clothes dye that was mishandled ... oops!).  Then we got in the cars and left, everybody hoping to return again soon.

Downed tree - work day tomorrow

We have a tree down in the first canyon of the upper field blocking access to the top of the ranch. I think we can take care of it in about an hour. Are either or both of you available tomorrow?

H

Back-of-napkin sketches for a new barn

Several trips were made to the neighboring barn.  It has given us Barn Envy.  Ken sketched a new barn design:

I elaborated on that sketch:

(I put this sketchup model on the interweb, here: https://sites.google.com/site/mattritzman/test/test2/Ranch_barn.skb?attredirects=0&d=1)

Perhaps the biggest problem with both of our sketches is that they completely disregard the site dimensions.  We need to collect measurements of the barn and its environs.  That will certainly be another blog post down the road.

The Johnson Barn is sagging in many places.

The story goes that Dick built the barn when he was 17.

It has done fairly well considering...

But it is time to start considering a replacement.

We'd love to keep it around to honor his memory, but we fear it may fall over so we're planning to do some extreme renovations.  If you have any ideas for a new barn design, let's collaborate!

The Other Old Barn: a follow up

Turns out the "Old Barn" is just a stone's throw away from our barn.  Who knew?

It is just 180 feet away

This barn is Huge compared to the one on Ranch property.  It obviously hasn't been used in years.  But the structure remains intact.

Does anybody know more of the history around this barn and the property it is on?  It is interesting to consider the stories that may lie behind the place...

Finally, we got to find the old barn!

By Kallan Ritzman
The KenJens were here, so finally Kaia, Rachel, and I got to go look for the barn. They were almost about to just walk into a property fence and not find the old barn. I remembered finding the start of a trail last time I looked. That time we couldn't get through the thorns and we had Josie. This time we became bush wackers and wacked thorns that were in the way with a stick and got through.

There was a fork in the road and at first we went the wrong way,the place  we went to had boxes for bees. Fortunatly no bee approached us. Then up a little hill was a gate to the road. After going there we realized that we should go back and choose another way because Abba did not lead us here. Along the other trail we found it.THE OLD BARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We came back to tell Andria, Lena and my dad what we found. They came after we cut a little bit of the thorns so that they could get through. We then proceeded to complete a legitimate trail in the midst of the thorns. Matt even got Josie through! Yay! Mission complete!

We learned how to drive the truck!

by Griffin Johnson
Today me and Kallan learned  how to drive. Julie showed us on the playground at the Ranch. Matt grilled the best mushrooms, apples, and red bell peppers! Me, Kaia, and Kallan went on a walk to the old barn, and counted rats nests.We started climbing trees and then Kaia said'Matt is going to get worried if we stay out hear any longer, so we headed back to the Ranch House.

In which I take excessive photos

All anybody really cares about are the photos.  So here are a few:

If that's not enough for you, here's the whole album (268 photos): https://picasaweb.google.com/mattritzman/RanchHouse?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIfH-tGRw-3Q1AE&feat=directlink

You may be wondering: Why so many pictures?

Well, first of all, I wanted some reference photos.  I don't get out to the ranch as much as I'd like (who does?), so sometimes the images are the next best thing.  They are a decent second option if I need a measurement I can usually estimate from what I see on screen.

Second, there's a really cool web app, photosynth, that takes pictures like these and orients them in space and relates the images to each other.

Here's the link to the synth of the main room:
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=04e15ae6-88bd-450b-a84b-129c9d8bfacf
Here's the kitchen:
http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=5ef44d22-291d-4b1c-afcb-c543646ae8a8

Third, if there are enough shared points in the photosynth images, you can take the points and turn them into 3D models.

AutoDesk's 123D Catch program does exactly that.

Pretty cool looking, but not much more than that.  The program picks seemingly random points to share across images.  The 3D model is almost useless for any future planning ideas.  If the Blob had a home, this would be it.  Sadness.

To create a useful 3D model I'm going to turn to SketchUp and a future post.  Stay tuned.

In which I measure the ranch house

To do any real planning we've got to have some plans to work from.  So I'm measuring the ranch house.  Here  are my measurements.

I will, of course, collect more measurements as I consider the electrical and plumbing, but this is where it stands right now.

Meriwether Lewis on a Mountain Bike

Mapping the ranch with three kids is very inefficient.  Efficiency may not be particularly important in this case.  The ranch has been in the family for around 70 years without a map.  What's the rush?

For my own mental health I thought it would be better to take a shot at mapping sans children.  So I went out on a mountain bike and my GPS.  What a beautiful ride!

Here's an image of the raw data:

I started and ended at the Ranch House.  This is just the lower field, east of El Toyonal.

Here are some pictures that I took as I rode:

Mt. Diablo from the edge of the property

There's the turkey coop

Looking North West, toward the Eucalyptus grove

Rusting farm equipment at the Playground

This is how I found the skull.  Anybody able to identify it?

Next time around, I'm going to do the upper field.  We'll see how that goes.

I've placed a copy of the mapping project KML file on my personal site, here: https://sites.google.com/site/mattritzman/test/test2/11_1113_Ranch.kml?attredirects=0&d=1

All in a day's work

Sunday evening we sat around the dinner table and each recounted what we did at the ranch the previous day.

Julie, Kaia and Kallan saddled horses and rode around the playground.

Griffin and Lena also got on horses.

Josie and I took a stroll up the hill from the Playground.  We didn't bring keys so we ended up waiting at the gate for Julie.

Colson rode up Mt. Diablo, and Logan caused a ruckus.  It was a great day.

Found: Duffle

I found a duffle bag full of clothes at the ranch.  They are not "ranch" clothes.  It looks more like somebody was taking a trip and left them here.

I'm going to leave the duffle at the ranch for now, but eventually, I'm going take them home.  Don't worry, they aren't my size.  I'll just hold on to them till I find that somebody's been looking for them.

Let me know if they are yours.

Nov. 5th 4AM: Goals for the ranch house

I’m at the Ranch with Kallan and Griffin.  We spent the night here.  I'm awake.  Thinking about things to improve the Ranch House to make it more inviting is keeping me awake.  Often the best way for me to stop these ideas from bothering me is to write them down.

Here are some of my thoughts and goals for the Ranch House.  Take these with a grain of salt.  I'd be interested to hear what other people envision for the place.

Ranch House Vision:

The ranch house should be a comfortable place for a family and a couple of friends to stay.  It is a remarkably small space, an endearing quality, but also a real design challenge.  There are several potential activities indoors, but it encourages the use of the outdoors.   Enhancements to the ranch house shouldn’t come at the expense of getting people (kids, mostly) outside to enjoy the beautiful surroundings.  I also think safety and accessibility should also be on our list.

Regarding safety, the ranch, in general, is a place where things can be a bit dangerous.  But the ranch house should be a place of respite.  If there is an accident of any sort the ranch house should be the place you come to fix your boo boo’s, not worry about getting them.

I have a strong bias towards accessible areas, but a lot of us are getting older and our mobility is always becoming less and less.  I’d really like to look into making it easier to get to the house and then move around unencumbered when you’ve made it here.

You may have noticed that I haven’t discussed style.  I’m a bit hesitant to do so.  The ranch aesthetic is an ad hoc, bubble gum, duct tape and baling wire, do whatever meets the most immediate need kind of style.  The problem is that if everybody goes in an makes changes as they see fit, we can easily step on each other’s toes.  It is something to discuss in for the future.

I plan to post my ideas here before executing them, at least the major ones.  As always, please let me know what your opinions are.  The comments section is a great place for that.

I think the first thing to do is take stock of what’s here.  From there we can decide what stays, what goes, and what can be improved.  Look for that in future posts.

Final Resting Place

Last Saturday afternoon we scattered some of Uncle Dick's ashes on the Ranch.

We gathered at the Eagle's nest, just off of El Toyonal, sang a rousing chorus of "When the Saints Come Marching In," as Colson accompanied us on the trombone, and had a prayer.  Then everybody was given a small cup of ashes to spread upon the earth that Dick loved so dearly.

It was a touching and remembrance.  I felt that Dick would have appreciated that we took time to visit the ranch and think of the impact he had on all of us.