Fiesta for one

I'm not sure why so many of our stories around here revolve around food, eating and mealtime, but that seems to be a rather prominent trend. Maybe it's because some days, mealtime is the only time we really see each other to engage in conversation.

Anyway, ...I'll start getting to the point.

If there's anything we try to manipulate in our schedules, we make a solid attempt at sharing supper together. At home. At the same time. Pretty close to every night.

But, supper time on the farm can be...unpredictable. At best.

So we both do little things to help this happen. I try to plan ahead as best I can so that even if I get summoned to my tractor driving post in the late afternoon, we have something semi-prepared, or at least have the meat thawed out, don't have to make a grocery run, that sort of thing.

We check in with each other mid-afternoon to get a game plan for the evening (who's finishing up which chores, etc.) and an estimated arrival time for Brandon. To at least give me something to shoot for as far as meal preparation. So we don't have to eat cold food or wait on something to finish cooking that causes us to be late for a water change. Most of the time, anyway.

Lastly, Brandon gives a "warning call" when he's feeding or heading this way. This is when I usually pop the bread in the toaster oven if it's part of our meal, start warming both our plates if the food happened to be ready early that day, or make any other sort of final touches.

But all this planning and preparation?

Went out the window earlier this week.

This is where I really get to the point.

Now, Brandon did call to check in a couple hours before he planned to arrive home. And told me he had just eaten "two monster burritos" at his parents' house that were "Like, so big I couldn't finish the second one."

So, you could say I got a warning. But the thing is? Some Most days, he's about as close as they come to a bottomless pit. So two burritos at 4 in the afternoon? Doesn't necessarily put a damper on his dinner consumption plans.

I continued making the Mexican Fiesta Pizza I had planned. Admittedly, not the tastiest thing we've ever had around here. But it was a Pampered Chef recipe (the kind that come with their cookware) and it would use up two things we had in the fridge that were on their last lag. It was one of those maintenance meals. Nothing to write home about.

Regardless, I made this Fiesta Pizza. For the two of us. And I waited for Brandon to arrive home.

He walks in the door, starts talking to me, stops at the kitchen counter, picks up a piece of Fiesta Pizza, and eats it. No big deal. I'm okay with appetizers before we sit down. I get a couple of plates out.

Only, he says, "Oh, no. I'm done. That's all I need. Monster burritos, remember?"

I cock my head a bit, drop my jaw, and send not-so-nice eyes his way.

"Uh, something wrong with that? I warned you I ate those burritos."

"No, it would be fine, but now I have to go sit at the table and eat the supper I made for us by myself, because you just ate yours standing up here."

"Oh, you were waiting for me?"

Like this was some sort of new idea! Something he didn't expect. Something we don't go to great lengths to plan. Something he doesn't nearly insist upon, even if it means we have to eat at 9pm occasionally.

He did sit at the table with me while I ate. But I'm not so sure that was really optional.

Don't even think about it

So a few days ago, Brandon was browsing the classifieds at CouesWhitetail.com and came across an ad for a female hound pup:

I know. Adorable, right?

Going through the classified ads there is like an evening ritual for Brandon, so I thought nothing of him lingering on this puppy ad for a minute or two.

Then, two nights later, he revisited that ad and saw it had been updated to "Sold". Later, he was browsing Craigslist and asked if they had pet ads.

"I don't think so. Why? What kind of pet would you be looking for?"

"Oh, just one for the farm."

"Like what? A chicken?"

"No...no...a farm [mutters inaudible word]."

"A what?"

"A farm... [practically under his breath] dog."

I just gave one of those wife looks. Which I'm quite good at by now. You know, the one that says, "You might as well start packing your bags now if this conversation goes any further."

He quickly said, "Oh, it wouldn't stay here, don't worry. I would keep it at my parents'. So it could hang around the shop and stuff."

"Yeah, because that worked out real well for the last one?" [That's how we lost Wilma, Wilbur's litter mate. By sending her to Brandon's parents' house, alongside a busy road.]

Not to mention the fact this might take some approval from his parents first. His parents who already have three dogs of their own.

Anyway, I basically let him know that in no way, shape or form would we be owning another dog anytime soon.

You see, Brandon doesn't listen to Wilbur howl all day long. He doesn't have to yell at Dixie all day for her jumping and yelping. He doesn't have them going crazy every morning, running in circles at his feet, when they get let out of the pen. He didn't have to chase them down from neighbor's yards before they semi-learned how to stay in ours. He rarely even feeds them. And he certainly isn't the one who hunts down Wilbur when he gets scared and runs away.

So another dog? No big deal for him.

I, on the other hand, have informed many of our friends that even if both our dogs died tomorrow, it might take years for me to get another one.

Even after rehashing all this, Brandon continued to look up hound puppy ads on Backpage, just Googling "hound dogs AZ", etc.

I finally told him, "Okay, you've got to get rid of all this. I'm a sucker for puppies. I don't want to see any of it. Do not make me think this might be okay."

But he said, "It's not just you. Everyone is."

"Including you? Really?"

"Yep..."

Who would have thought? Brandon, the animal slayer, a puppy sucker.

Wishing there were two of me

Monday was just one of those Mondays that makes people dread Mondays.

We don't worry about the whole Monday thing too much on the farm, since every day is basically the same. With the slight exception of trying to fit in some church time on Sundays. Between water changes, of course.

But this Monday, Mid-day, after I had:

• woken at 4:45am and sent Brandon out the door to man some water,
• spent two hours working on a writing project,
• made a water change and temporarily tended a blown out ditch (Brandon had to fix it later with the backhoe),
• purchased a money order at the bank to cover Brandon's traffic ticket and mailed it all off,
• driven 25 miles to the other farm to tend water there for two hours, including an overflowing ditch,
• picked up a prescription and a few staple grocery items (milk, jalapenos, Rotel),
• loaded hay for cows that still hadn't been fed at our house and picked up business mail that gets delivered to Brandon's parents' house,

Brandon sent a barrage of text messages concerning my remaining tasks of the day, including:

• completing and printing financial statements for our loan officer with the Farm Service Agency,
• gathering materials for our meeting with the accountant in the morning,
• finally feeding the cows that expected a 7:30am meal,
• taking a check to the fertilizer company to pay the balance on our monthly bill,
• making a couple more water changes, and walking the entire field to make sure everything was wet, in time for Brandon to order more water for remaining dry areas,
• returning to the field at dark to turn off fertilizer and set up the ditch for more water to arrive at 6:30am,
• come up with something for us to eat,
• and updating our cattle records with a breeding I observed the day before.

And during all this, I'm still thinking about the 16 unedited pages I left open on my computer screen that morning. Which are due to my client shortly. Like, as soon as I can get them done.

That's when I sent him a message that said, "I think this is just one of those days where I could use two of me."

And he agreed.

Because if my day was overwhelming, you don't even want to imagine his.

Aunts and uncles

Aunt Katie and Uncle Brandon, that is.

As Brandon put it, "There's going to be a baby around at Christmas! Like, this Christmas! That's going to be so weird."

My sister, Calli, called recently to tell us Baby Bitner is on his/her way. Apparently all I could say at the time was, "Wow...wow...wow." Because at some point in the conversation, she was all, "Katie, if you say 'wow' one more time, I'm hanging up."

So I quit saying wow.

Anyway, this whole situation has caused a couple of mildly humorous situations between Brandon and I.

To begin, the night my sister called, after we were in bed, Brandon asked, "You don't think this is going to start some sort of race to see who can pop out the most in the next five years, do you?"

I, very calmly, replied, "Well, Dear, if there's anyone who thinks that, I'm mailing in my white towel tomorrow." Because I'm not even remotely close to jumping on the baby bandwagon.

Then, every time we would talk to my parents, we'd say, "Hey, Grandma!" Or, "What's up, Gramps?" Or some other variation. And Brandon would ask my mom how Uncle Morgan and Uncle Mason were doing.

So a few days later, I asked him, "You know, you keep talking about Uncle Morgan and Mason, but you do realize you're Uncle Brandon too, right?"

"No, I'm not," he replied, "Not a real one anyway. I'm only part of all this by marriage. It doesn't count."

"So, your 'Aunt Ann' isn't your 'real' aunt? And my 'Uncle Dale' isn't my 'real' uncle?"

"No comment."

So I guess it's going to take a while for Brandon to adjust to this whole idea.

Apparently, Uncle Mason isn't so sure about his new role in the family either. From the story I heard, my parents and Mason were all in the car watching Morgan's baseball game when they received The Call.

From all accounts, the hangup was followed by a solid five minutes of silence while all three of them sat in shock.

The first words came from Mason: "Uncle. ...I'm going to be an uncle in the eighth grade."

My mom corrected him, saying he would be in high school before the baby arrived. Then they finished the baseball game in silence.

Now that the surprise has worn off, we're all gearing up for the fall arrival. Some of us more so than others (ahem, ...Grandma). I mean, the kid is probably the size of my big toe right now and already owns cowboy boots.

Congrats, Baby Sister. And welcome to the family, Baby Bitner.

Why you get an education

Not long Two days after I moved here, Brandon had me hard at work on the farm. Walking, sometimes running through fields with shovels and giant boards to help the water flow.

On about day three of my farm training, we were taking a mid-morning break on the side of the road, dumping muddy water out of our rubber boots and catching our breath. It was a Saturday, so there was quite a bit of family traffic on the road.

As we sat there, exhausted, covered head to toe in mud and water, I said, "You know, I bet every one of these parents driving by is turning around telling their kids in the back seat, 'You see? That's why you get an education.' Little do they know, there's nearly three Masters degrees between the two of us."

I've told that story many times, and some of my mom's teacher-friends have told me they've gotten some mileage out of it too, as far as giving those "follow your dreams" kind of speeches. But we all know it's probably true.

Brandon gets people asking what he's doing farming with his sort of academic achievements all the time. In fact, he's really been surprised by the number of people involved in agriculture themselves who have asked similar questions. But I really like the answer he often gives. It's not just your standard "because it's what I want to do," answer.

He usually says something like, "I got an education so I could have options and choose what I wanted to do for myself, not just so I could get a good job in town."

And that's why Rocker 7 Farms is around. Because we're educated.

Early morning adventures

Farming has a lot of them.

Just a couple nights ago, we had to take turns getting up three times during the night to change water on the alfalfa at our house, then both leave at 5:30am to start water on the wheat in another location.

As we were settling into bed, only to have the first alarm wake us in less than two hours, I told Brandon, "Right now is one of those times I don't like farming that much."

"Me either," he groaned.

Now, of course we both enjoy what we do. We'll get to that more next week. But I'm not about to suggest there aren't a few times here and there where it just seems a little overwhelming.

Anyway, fast forward to last night. Brandon had left a bunch of big pipes (the only ones I can't start) running on some wheat, and they had to be changed at 10:00, 2:00 and 6:00. This field is a good 20 minute drive from our house, which isn't exactly the safest thing to be doing in the middle of the night, half asleep. So I offered to go with him. And he actually took me up on it for the 2am shift.

So we bundled up, because the desert is still freezing at night, and backed the truck around to head out. But when Brandon backed the truck up, it put one of our little fruit trees in the headlights.

In my sleepy voice, I said, "Hey, look at our tree," because it was snapped over, nearly flat on the ground. "It wasn't like that this afternoon."

Brandon didn't recall it being like that when he left around 10pm either.

Then we both just sat there, looking at the tree in the headlights, like it would give us the answer.

Finally, Brandon said, "Cows!"

He whipped the truck around to catch what should have been a pen full of cows in the headlights. But it was just a pen. With a giant hole in the fence gaping open.

So we set off through the neighborhood looking for our cows. At 2am. When we got to the road at the back of our pasture, a quarter-mile from where they should have been, we found the bull and four cows or so hanging out, very near our gate.

Surprisingly enough, they didn't move a bit when Brandon slowly got out, walked over and opened the gate, and they all ran right into our pasture without any effort on our part to join what we thought was the rest of the cows. Which was nice, because on the other side of that road? Four giant hay fields stretching a half-mile to the next paved road. With no fences.

[Yeah, they're not big on fences out here, Texas. I mean, back home, we would have five of them stretched across land like that. Just because we could.]

Anyway, it couldn't have worked out better. We just had to go tie up a couple panels over the hole in the fence and get a couple of them out of our yard.

When we finished all that, I said, "Well, good thing we had to go irrigate at two in the morning. And good thing they broke my tree, I guess."

But then five minutes later, "My tree! It was doing so good."

And it was, y'all. You see, we just got irrigation for our yard last summer. Before that, we had to carry five-gallon buckets across the yard to water trees and plants. And after the wet winter we've had, our three remaining fruit trees (we had five when we got married) are looking the best I've ever seen them. And this one was full of tiny baby peaches.

Brandon took a final assessment before we finally headed out to irrigate. He returned to the truck to tell me, "If you want that tree to make it, you better start praying, because that's about the only thing that can save it now. ... Or you could try some duct tape tomorrow."

Prayer. Duct tape. You know, all the essentials of life.

What supper rates around here

Brandon and I started this little game a few months back. Every night at supper, he "rates" his meal, on a one to ten scale.

Now, in order to keep our marriage in tact, he does not rate it based on how it compares to the meal we ate out two weeks ago, or his mother's cooking last Thursday, or anything like that.

It's a rating system based solely on my cooking. This way, even when something gets a depressing score, like a four, it just means it couldn't hold a candle to the fried elk steaks and gravy I make which consistently receive a ten.

I feel like it's a good system. And very helpful, so I can get an idea of what his favorite meals are, things I should only make if I really like them, or things that are just somewhere in between.

During one of our rating sessions this week, whatever I made scored a solid seven, which is a rather popular rating.

I remembered a recent meal scoring a ten, but couldn't recall what it was.

"What's the point of me rating our food if you don't remember?" Brandon asked.

"I usually do. I just can't remember this one. And I want to write them down, really keep track. You know, I should totally make a spreadsheet for this."

And so I did.

Just last night, I sent Brandon a GoogleDoc where I had listed every food item we commonly make around here, with a place for him to fill in its rating.

Only, he requested I "restructure the x-axis so that it is graphable."

We're not weird, I promise.

Wherein Brandon finds respect for Wilbur

Disclaimer: This is another one of those not-so-happy-ending-for-an-animal stories.

I was minding my own business, cleaning our porch Saturday afternoon and went to retrieve the outdoor broom from the screened-in room.

But I ended up letting out a little scream and running away instead. When I sent Brandon a message asking him to dispose of what I found in there, he said, "Haha. I got it on video. Wilbur was protecting our property."

Let's just say Wilbur got himself in a little cat fight over the weekend. And he won. With the exception of his scratched-up nose.

When Brandon started up our little irrigator truck, a cat jumped out from under it. Wilbur let out a howl and the chase was on.

He quickly treed the cat. Which, as you'll notice, made Brandon rather proud. In fact, Brandon's commentary is the best part of the story.

Brandon may or may not have assisted the cat in getting out of the tree.

And I found the aftermath.

We haven't seen any "LOST" ads yet.

Pouring grease, Part Two

Since Brandon read through my recollection on learning where to pour grease, we've had a discussion on the topic nearly every day.

Because yes, when it's raining on the farm, we seriously have nothing better to talk about.

In fact, I spent half of yesterday moping around like a little kid saying, "I'm bored. I am soooo bored." So much so, that when Brandon said, "What do you want to do? Go shovel in the rain?" I jumped at the idea with an enthusiastic, "Sure! Sounds great!"

But I digress...

Anyway, he has has since informed me of the following:

1. My solution sending it straight to the dog buckets was perfectly acceptable. But I already knew this. And, as I mentioned, it doesn't work for the whole ground meat issue.
2. My red plastic "throw-away" cup will indeed melt. It's just a matter of time.
3. It would be okay to use the hard plastic cup, as long as we designated one of them as a grease cup, where it only had one purpose and could never mistakenly be used as a drinking cup again.
4. What's so wrong about keeping an aluminum can on the counter? I let him know this was wrong in soooo many ways. Chiefly, I'm not a leave-things-on-the-counter kind of girl, despite what our current lack of kitchen space might suggest.

So yeah, this is what happens when you get an inch of rain on the farm.

You wouldn't even know

For supper Tuesday, we planned to have some teriyaki-pineapple porkchops we'd had marinating in the fridge a few days.

Now, since we were going to grill the porkchops, Brandon was in charge of cooking them. Grill equals man territory at the Leister residence. We have our reasons.

So when he got home, I had everything out and ready — he just needed to fire up the grill and lay those bad boys down.

Only he had other plans. You see, CouesWhitetail.com was particularly entertaining that night. Even more so than usual. After much pleading, begging and nagging polite requesting on my part, he finally got our porkchops going.

In fact, he might have been a little overzealous with our supper.

After checking them the first time, he returned to announce they were "burnt to a crisp on the outside, not done on the inside".

Just what a hungry girl wants to hear about her supper.

I kept telling him it couldn't possibly be that bad, keeping high hopes about my meal.

Only, it was that bad.

After he laid the chops down on our plates, I proceeded to give him a hard time about the over-grilling. Like any good wife, right?

He retaliated with, "If I hadn't told you it was burnt, you wouldn't even have noticed."

Y'all, this is the porkchop:

Helen Keller would have noticed.

I said, "Really? You don't think I would have caught on?"

"Well, maybe if I would have turned it over and covered it with the pineapple..."

Even so, there's only so much you can do with appearances.

I have to admit, he gave me the "less done" one, and after I shaved off some of the, let's call it... "crust", it really wasn't bad. Quite good, in fact.

But still noticeably burnt.

Learning where to pour the grease

This is one of those household issues we began discussing while we were dating...and continue to do so today.

So, one evening in College Station I was making supper. (Yes, Arizona folks, supper. That's what we call the evening meal in Texas. "Dinner" is the noon meal, especially on Sundays.)

Anyway, Brandon walks into the kitchen just in time to catch me pouring the grease from the ground meat into the drain.

"What are you do-ing?!" he shout/asks.

"Pouring out the grease. Duh. Don't tell me you don't do that."

"Of course I do. I just don't pour it down the drain."

I inquire why he doesn't do that, I mean, it's just so logical.

"Katie, let's think about this. What happens to the grease when you just let it sit in the pan?"

"It turns white and solid," I respond, still not seeing why this was such a big deal.

"So what do you think happens to it in the drain?"

"Ooohhhh."

"But, I guess this is just a rental..."*

So, I guess there are some things an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M just doesn't teach you. You have to learn them in graduate school. From your boyfriend.

I don't really remember what we did about this while I was still in school, but since then, I've worked through several different ideas.

First, I tried grabbing a glass bowl and pouring it in that. But know what happens when you pour something super hot into a relatively cool glass object? Of course you do. I, on the other hand, did not. Apparently, it cracks, and leaks said grease all over the counter.

(Now, you would think I would have learned this when I put a glass casserole dish directly into the oven from the fridge and had it shatter on me...not so much.)

My third memorable solution for dumping grease was the yard. I figured the dogs would lick most of it up, and the rest would settle into the ground. Perfect, right?

Brandon didn't think so.

This time, it was bacon grease from breakfast. I dumped it right off the porch, pretty much on the dirt berm around the yard so the dogs could get to it. When Brandon came home that evening, his first words were, "Tell me whatever you dumped right in front of our porch was not the bacon grease from this morning."

"Well, I could tell you that...but I don't think I'm supposed to lie to you."

And then I got the very familiar head shake, with the "Kaaa-tieee..." under his breath. One of those "what in the world am I going to do with this woman" kind of thoughts.

Anyway, I found out the yard was also unacceptable to Brandon. He says it leaves a stain that takes "forever" (his word) to go away, and looks just plain awful.

At this point, I ask him how he expects me to dispose of grease. He suggests a plastic cup. And I swear this is what he said at the time.

Some time after the yard incident, I again have grease in the skillet I need to get rid of before I can finish food preparations. I remember Brandon's plastic cup suggestion. So I grab one of the 25 plastic cups we use daily.

Brandon comes home.

And complains about the grease he sees sitting in the plastic cup. He says we'll never be able to get rid of the stench the plastic is soaking up from the grease, and that any future beverages from that cup will taste like beef fat.

For the record, he's had about a hundred drinks from that cup since. And I don't recall any of them tasting like beef.

This time, he explains that what he meant by "plastic cup" was something disposable. Again, I swear these are the words he used. And I really need you to be on my side here.

The next time Brandon comes home to find grease in a container, it's in one of those throw-away (that's the Texas word for "disposable") red plastic cups.

He throws a fit, saying how lucky I am the cup didn't melt right there, send grease all over the counter, and be stuck there forever. Mr. Dramatic, let me tell you.

Needless to say, he once again didn't like my solution.

Now, he explains that what he meant by "disposable" was an aluminum can. I ask what I'm supposed to do if I'm not cooking anything that comes in an aluminum can, just keep one handy all the time? Now, I was being sarcastic here when I asked if I should keep an old can sitting on my counter.

Brandon? Thinks it's the best idea ever: "Exactly!"

I am so not sold on that idea.

In the meantime, until our grease saga finds a real solution, I have settled with pouring it straight from the skillet into the dog feed buckets (yeah, Wilbur has a bucket, not a dish).

But, this only works for things like bacon or sausage, where you remove the meat from the grease.

Not so well for things like ground meat, where you are typically trying to remove the grease before you add another substance to the meat, like enchilada or spaghetti sauce.

Don't tell Brandon, but I'm still using the red plastic cup for ground meat. Hey, it hasn't melted. Yet.

*Aunt Michele: This was before I lived in the house you owned, promise.