Our new hay field

I finally mowed the front yard a couple days before leaving for Texas (the second time). A baler would have been more appropriate.

It was already approaching the needing-to-be-mowed stage, then it got irrigated twice before Brandon and I left for the weekend. We already had some irrigation water scheduled, and the neighbor ended up with some extra water he let us have.

Then the yard was still too wet and muddy to mow before our Texas road trip. So we left it.

When we returned last Monday evening, both of us dropped our jaws at what we saw. And then we were so busy with farming duties I couldn't get to it for a couple days after that. I just about had to walk out of our house with my eyes closed.

When I finally did get to mowing, it took a full two hours. It usually only takes one. This was the difference:
I found out later the reason our yard got so tall so fast is because half of it is giant bermuda, rather than the common bermuda in most yards.

Brandon first planted the yard in the common bermuda, but he had giant bermuda growing behind the barn. When he irrigated after cutting the giant bermuda, a lot of the clippings traveled downstream. Therefore, we now have a bermuda mix in our yard.

We were pretty embarrassed about the whole situation. We take a lot of pride in how things look around the house, so we weren't happy we let our grass grow to eight inches. But I'm just thankful we have a green yard to mow again.

My first experience with the GPS

I started planting some Teff grass seed Wednesday and had to use the GPS system for accuracy. With all the swerves I made trying to find the "0" error before I turned it on at each pass, I'm not sure how much more accurate my planting will actually be.

It was rough getting started. Brandon drove the first couple of rounds to demonstrate, then left me out in the field to figure it out for myself.

Now, working the actual GPS system itself was not difficult. I have a decent handle on technology and figured out the mechanical aspects of using it just fine.

It was when I combined it with turning the tractor, matching it up to the line on the GPS, and lifting and lowering the planter all at the same time, that I had trouble.

I get rather frustrated when I can't complete a task close to perfect in a short while, so I was about at my wit's end with this thing by the time I reached the second border.

I sent Brandon text messages that read:

"I stink at this."

"I am not doing a good job."

"I do not like the gps."

"I want to turn this thing off."

After that little string, spread across a 15 minute span, Brandon returned to the field to try to help.

"Katie, this thing is supposed to make your life easier. You can read a magazine while you go up the field. I mean, obviously you're not having any trouble text messaging."

"Well yeah, but that's after I get to the middle of the field and get it on track, after there's a perfect zig-zag for the first 50 yards."

So he rode with me another couple rounds "to see what was going wrong," but pretty much took control, said "looks fine to me," and left.

So for the next two hours, I did the best I could, and sent Brandon another message that said, "I am quitting," at 7:30. And I did. I was out of seed anyway.

Luckily, yesterday's experience with the GPS was much better. I got in a groove with all the levers, got a better idea of where the track line would be before I even started turning, and was actually able to sit back, relax, listen to the radio, and send more text messages while the GPS steered me down the field.

So, we'll see how things look when the grass starts coming up.

A weekend in West Texas

In lieu of Father's Day, my birthday, and the last three-day break Brandon will have until January, we had the bright idea to drive to West Texas and meet my parents at their new deer lease over the weekend.

Something we will never do again. The driving part, anyway. It ended up being a 900 mile trip. One way.

They make modern conveniences like Google Maps, MapQuest, etc., for a reason. Brandon never checked it. I pulled up Google Maps once, but I only look at the travel time, not the miles. And never believe the travel time, by the way. He has decided he will take over the map duties from now on.

We had several conversations during the 15 hour plus drive about "whose idea this was anyway."

The barren expanse of West Texas almost did us in. Somewhere between El Paso and Fort Stockton while trying to find our location on the map, I said, "You never know where you are out here because there's really nowhere to be."

Brandon said, "Wow. That was a deep thought. I think we should get you out of the car."

In the last year or so, I've started having trouble with car sickness for the first time in my life. Several hours from our destination, Brandon asked, "Hey, how come you never got car sick today?"

I replied, "I don't know, maybe because we're in Texas."

Seemed logical to me.

As we approached Junction, Texas, the highway was wet and there dark clouds looming above us.

After a very long day, I was simply trying to make conversation (we had pretty well covered any important topics at this point), so I made an observation: "I think it rained here."

Brandon: "No, the street sweepers just came through and hosed it down for us."

Luckily for both our sanity, we were only an hour from the deer lease at that point.

We did have a great 30 hours with my family. Brandon worked with Mason on shooting his bow, and they went calling, where Mason thought a raccoon was going to eat him. We made a trip to the local swimming hole, and drove the perimeter of the new place to check things out.

We saw plenty of deer, including a couple exotics, so the 2009 hunting season looks good for the Boyer-Burk bunch.

Somehow, I only ended up with one picture for the entire weekend:

While we were driving around, a whole mess of barb wire got tangled around the axle. It took all the men under the truck to get us going again.

Just another Boyer vacation: hurry to get there, hurry to leave, at least one inconvenience while you're there.

And a lesson for Brandon and Katie: fly to Texas.

Happy birthday, Steely Burk!

And the baby of the Burk family turns 15 today...

Don't let the sweet little girl look fool you. She grew up with three older brothers. Let's just say she can hold her own.

Happy birthday, Steely girl!

Crazy daisies

Brandon brought home this bunch of "crazy daisies" Sunday night when we were celebrating our first full year of marriage.

A couple nights later as we were eating dinner, Brandon made a remark about this flower:

"Man, that one can't decide what color it wants to be. That's kinda cool."

"Brandon, that's because it's dyed."

To which he was quite taken aback. "No! Really? What?!"

"Um, yeah, you didn't know that? Look at the water they're sitting in. Did you think the flowers magically made it turn pink? And the stems and leaves are purple and blue on half of them."

Brandon, apparently noticing these things for the first time, "Oh. I guess so, huh? So you mean they're fake?"

"No, not fake. They're still real flowers, just dyed to make the super bright 'crazy daisy' colors. And the tie-dyed petals."

"So the color is fake?"

"Well, not on the yellow ones with normal green stems and leaves."

I want to take them back. I feel cheated."

The toothpaste wars have ended

Earlier this year, I talked about how Brandon and I were having to share a tube of toothpaste. And how it wasn't working out that well.

Luckily for our marriage, Brandon's tube of peppermint-oil infused Crest (yes, it belonged to Brandon) finally had it's last squeeze. Right before that happened, I found a good deal on a twin pack of my kind of toothpaste - Colgate Total.

I decided it was time we gave up on sharing toothpaste in attempt to reduce the number of items floating around our bathroom. So just this past week, I opened my very own tube of toothpaste.

No more peppermint oil.

No more digging in Brandon's drawer to find it.

No more squeezing from the middle.

Now this will be a long, happy marriage.

Happy birthday, Stetson Burk!

Wow, 16 years old...

Talk about a kid who can light up your day. Amazingly enough,

he's the only person I know who has never called me by my

sister's name.

And that bouttonniere he's wearing? He skipped out on his own

8th grade graduation party to help my mom order them. In fact,

if it weren't for him, no one in the wedding would have worn

them that day. The girls and I left them in the fridge 20 miles

from the church. When I realized this, I said Oh well, looks like

the boys won't be wearing them.

But then we decided we had to get them for Stetson - he'd been

waiting two months to wear his tux and his flower, so we

certainly didn't want to disappoint him.

Happy, happy birthday, Stetson. And thanks for all the smiles,

Buddy.

Alaska, in pictures

Enjoy the show, or view pictures here.

I told you so

Right before our Alaska vacation, we flood irrigated our yard for the first time since last fall. The whole day while Brandon was watching the water, he kept saying, "We'll have to watch for scorpions tonight. They're going to be out looking for dry places after we wash them out of the yard today."

And, "Be sure you watch for scorpions. I'm telling you, we're going to find some tonight."

And, "We really need to go scorpion hunting the next few days. We'll kill 'em. They're goint to be out after this."

After four hours of repeating statements like this, I clearly understood he knew we would be finding scorpions that night. 

Sure enough, we went out with our blacklight that night and killed three of them around the house. 

So for the rest of the night? 

"I told you. I knew we would find them tonight."

"What did I tell you? I knew there would be scorpions out tonight."

"Oh, I told you there would be scorpions. I just knew we would find them. Remember? Remember me telling you?" 

After a couple hours of this, combined with the constant predictions all day long, I was becoming mildly annoyed. 

I finally replied, "Brandon, really. I get it. We found scorpions and you knew they were coming. You told me all day long they were coming. What do I need to do? Tell you you're the Master Scorpion Hunter who knows their every move?"

He said, "I couldn't have said it better myself."

Human garbage disposal

Last night, there was just a tiny bit of the spilled milk left in a pitcher in the fridge, and I had bought a fresh jug, so I threw in a little chocolate milk mix (the milk by itself was a little exposed to other fridge odors and didn't taste so great anymore) and planned to finish it. 

After I drank half the glass, I got busy cutting up some elk meat into fajita strips for the dinner we're serving to friends tonight. 

When Brandon came by to help (after his evening roam through Craigslist), he asked what was in the glass. 

I said, "Chocolate milk. Finish it off."

He asked if it were warm. 

"Warm? No, I wouldn't say warm..." (with my fingers crossed) "Just not out-of-the-fridge cold anymore."

So he downed the glass.

As he set it in the sink, he said "I'm just your human garbage disposal."

Well, if the shoe fits...