The cookie monster

Monday afternoon, Brandon discovered one of my grocery purchases from the day before: Blue Bell Fudge Bars. We always have ice cream, but during the summer, he likes to have something cold, quick and portable to run in and grab. So I bought a box of 12 bars for the week, estimating they would get us to the weekend, even if we each ate two a day.

Let's just say my estimate was wrong. I realized that on Monday when Brandon had devoured four fudge bars before supper.

Sure enough, by Thursday, they were wiped out. I had two, y'all. Two. I averaged half a fudge bar each day.

Brandon's average? 2.5.

Then, he had a bad day yesterday. One of those don't-talk-to-me-about-my-problems bad days. [His reasons were totally justified. It was a big deal. And we do talk about things later, after the "mood" has worn off.]

So I got out the reserve break-and-break cookie dough from the freezer, hoping some Toll House chocolate chips would brighten his day a bit.

I don't know if he was trying to drown his sorrow in a plate of cookies, or if they really helped on some level, but he was serious about mowing through them.

I only made 12, thinking that would get us through a couple days, even taking into account Brandon's normal cookie consumption.

Not so much.

Before supper was ready (which went into the oven immediately following the cookies), he had eaten five. Sometime between supper and bedtime, consumed four more. And the midnight snack he grabbed for his 3am irrigation run? The remaining two cookies.

At least I ate one.

But really? Ten cookies in eight hours, half of which he was sleeping? Pretty sure I would have a belly ache.

Becoming a real farmer

So it rained last night.

In all the right ways, thank goodness. It hit the fields where it didn't matter, and pretty much missed the ones where we had hay down. But all that is beside the point.

The real point here is that now my husband thinks he's a bona fide meteorologist. That, or he just has a special connection with Mother Nature.

You see, we've been threatened with a late summer monsoon rain for going on two solid weeks now. Every afternoon, it would cloud up, we could see some rain in the distance, and occasionally catch a far-off lightning bolt, but it never would quite come to fruition in our part of the valley.

Yesterday morning, upon being outside for a mere two hours, Brandon said, "It's going to rain tonight. You watch. I haven't said that with confidence yet, but it will rain tonight."

So this morning, when we awoke to half an inch on one part of the farm, a little more than that on another, one-tenth at our house, and just a few sprinkles where the hay is, Brandon couldn't resist gloating a bit. (If you can imagine that, of course. I mean, let's look past the whole scorpion prediction incident.)

As we were sitting down for lunch, he really let loose with it: "I told you it was going to rain, didn't I? I haven't said that yet, even though it's clouded up almost every day. But I knew it was going to happen last night. I totally called it. Say it ain't so! I'm like the best weatherman ever or something."

"Or maybe you're just finally turning into a real farmer?" I offered.

He didn't appreciate that one very much. "I've been a real farmer."

But at least he was quiet about his rain prediction after that.

The makin' of climbin' trees

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to trimming the trees around our house, which at that point, were in dire need. I had intended to take care of it before Allison visited in early May, if that tells you anything.

Every other time I've been in charge of the tree trimming (Or every time the trees have been trimmed since I said, "I do." However you want to look at it.) I have received quite a bit of criticism, and Brandon has typically ended up whacking the tree to pieces afterward.

This time, I determined, I would get the job done. Even though I always felt like he left the trees a little too bare, I didn't want to catch any grief for "leaving the job half done," like that was what I intended to do or something.

So I worked on my first tree a bit, then had Brandon give me a few pointers on what additional trimming should be done.

These were his instructions:

"You see how I've left these trees a smooth trunk all the way up? That's what makes it a good climbing tree. You want to get any branches that are growing down, and all the little shoots and branches that get in the way of climbing. The main trunks and limbs should be smooth."

"For climbing?"

"Yeah. I've already started making these into really good climbing trees. We need to keep it up."

"Uh, Brandon, who is going to be climbing these trees? You planning on it?"

"Maybe..."

So if anyone is interested in joining Brandon, we have about seven "good climbin' trees" in the making over here.

Why I don't jump the ditches

My parents gave me lots of things: food, shelter, love, nurturing, encouragement, and on and on.

They did not, however, provide me with the DNA required for things like coordination.

Which is why Brandon had to be so careful with his purple big toe, and often calls me "Grace," followed by a "Yeah right..." under his breath.

Anyway, a point of contention in our marriage we often is meet is the fact that I don't (or won't, interpret it how you will) jump the irrigation ditches.

This drives Brandon absolutely up the wall. Because when it's time to work the only action words allowed are "Go!" and "Fast!" — definitely not "Take an extra 20 seconds to run to the closest bridge."

But I do it anyway. I'd like to think it's just to watch him roll his eyes, because that's awfully cute, you know, but it's not. It's because I know my ditch-jumping skills very well. They don't exist.

Anyway, Brandon doesn't exactly appreciate this, because it takes a little extra time (in the form of seconds, y'all). But I place my safety, well-being and dryness above his disdain.

And until Friday, I could say that in 2.5 years of irrigating, I had never really fallen into the ditch.

One time last summer, I had a leg get pulled in by a giant check that just had too much weight behind it (in the form of a wall of water) for me when I started yanking on it to get it out of the ditch.

But I had yet to slip and fall while lunging across the water. I took great pride in this.

I can't tell you how many times I've had someone ask me, upon watching Brandon jump a ditch, if we ever fall in. And my standard response? "Brandon does."

Because he does. All. The. Time.

Now, we do have a few smaller ditches I will attempt to jump if there's not a close bridge. But we have this one ditch, at the field we have cotton in right now, that is a monster. And I NEVER jump that sucker.

Wouldn't you know, that this field is primarily my responsibility, too (as Manager of Rocker 7 Farms West and all). And has big gaps between the bridges. Meaning, I sometimes have to walk down five borders or so before I can safely cross.

Most of the time, I'm okay with that. But some days, when it's 115 out, and there are bad spots on the ditch bank (where all the dirt has been washed away, leaving only the concrete edge of the ditch itself, testing my coordination skills to the max), I look at the other side longingly, wishing I could jump.

There was only one place down the entire ditch I ever attempted to jump. There, the concrete had cracked and shifted, creating a little ledge on one side, if you will. When the ditch was only half full of water there, I could land safely on that ledge without having to chance stretching all the way across the thing.

I had to work in this particular spot Friday afternoon. So I braved it and jumped across, safely making it to The Other Side to close the port hole. Coming back?

Not as graceful.

There was a lining of mud that had crept it's way up into my landing ledge. So, as I'm sure you can imagine, as soon as my foot hit it, I slipped. And crashed. Wiped out.

Did I mention this field is also right along a busy road? Routinely traveled by Brandon's friends and fellow farmers? Who drive by honking and waving all the time?

Yeah...

So before I could even fully take in the pain of my wipe out, I scrambled to my feet and ran to the truck, hoping I could make it out of there before anyone we knew saw me.

Once there, this is what I saw:

Ouch. Is all I have to say.

So I immediately called Brandon and told him to never give me a hard time about not jumping ditches again, because clearly, I'm not cut out for it.

I also asked to be placed on the injury list for weekend irrigating.

I'm limping down the ditch bank (and across the bridges) instead.

Other people say y'all. ...Right?

When Brandon and I began our trip to Colorado, he said, "You know, about every other person we'll see up there is from Texas."

"Vacationers or people who have relocated?" I inquired.

"Both."

Indeed, he was right. On a 30 yard stretch of sidewalk in town, there were two people wearing Texas shirts. We passed cars with TCU, A&M and t.u. decals. While eating supper, a couple walked in carrying a baby decked out in t-sip attire.

Seriously. Everywhere you looked, there were signs of Texas. Which didn't bother me at all, of course.

Anyway, the last night of vacation, we were coming down from the mountains and decided grabbing a good burger sounded good.

And it was.

As our waitress was making her final round at our table, she asked Brandon, "Are y'all ready for y'all's check?"

As soon as she left to retrieve it, Brandon told me, "Hundred bucks says she's from Texas."

"Why do you say that?"

"She said 'y'all'."

"Other people say y'all."

"Nooo, noo, no. Not like that. She said 'y'all' twice in one sentence. I'm telling you, she's from Texas."

"Brandon, other people say y'all. I've heard it."

So the waitress returns, check in hand.

Before she even reached our table, Brandon asked, "Are you from Texas?"

"Yeah...why?"

"The 'y'all's'," Brandon replied, "Because she [pointing to me] is too, and thinks other people say it too."

"Oh, yeah," she said with a red face. "Where are you from?"

"Close to Houston," I replied. Because being from Texas does not mean you automatically know where my town is.

"Me too," she said. So, of course, I inquired further.

Turns out, she grew up in Baytown, which is probably 23 miles from my parents' house.

She asked if I was going to Gatorfest this year. Apparently she's a fan.

But seriously, other people say y'all, right?

The perils of vacation

So, we're on vacation.

But actually getting here was about the farthest thing from vacation you can imagine.

Originally, we were supposed to leave pretty early on Saturday.

Well, Friday evening rolled around and there was no way we were getting off the farm Saturday. After we each had crossed about 1000 things off our respective to-do lists, we still had 500 more creep up during the day.

Then Sunday rolled around. We were only supposed to haul a few loads of hay, get our things packed and clean up the wreckage that was the inside of Brandon's truck.

But that, of course, ended up taking until nearly noon.

We finally hit the road sometime around 1pm to settle in for an 8 hour drive to Colorado.

And it actually ended up being a really nice drive. We weren't even antsy to get out until a hour or so from our destination.

We pulled into the town of Durango around 9pm, relieved to finally be on vacation.

Then the trouble began...

About halfway between town and Brandon's family's cabin, we came down a hill, rounded a corner, and saw the lights of a police car flash behind us.

Yep. That was a nice welcome to town.

Turns out the speed limit at the bottom of that hill is 25 mph. Although Brandon was completely convinced his speedomoter registered at 32 when we saw the lights, the lovely public servant insisted we were clocked at 40. And he had no sympathy for vacationers.

Luckily, La Plata County must have insanely inexpensive ciation fees, because we were informed we would only owe the court $75.

Anyway, we were soon back on the road, and both sighed with relief when we reached the door of the cabin. I began unloading the bags while Brandon unlocked the place. We had all of our things sitting on the front porch, but Brandon was still fumbling with the locks.

So I waited...and waited...

Eventually, he decides his key just isn't going to work. I thought he was joking. He was not.

After a quick phone call, we found there was a spare set of keys on the premises. Only the same key we were having trouble with didn't work on that set either.

After climbing onto the back porch that's ten feet in the air (with a boost provided by me) to check the back door, Brandon finally conceded.

So we headed into town to find a hotel room for the night, prepared to call a locksmith the next morning. Neither of which we were excited about.

close to 11pm, when we found it was going to be nearly impossible to find a room for less than $80, one of us (I won't tell you who - that would be gloating) had the bright idea to try to find a 24 hour locksmith. Even with an additional fee for a middle-of-the-night run, we figured by the time we paid for a room and still had to pay the regular fee the next day, we would end up being better off just getting in and being done with it.

So we find Bob the Locksmith in the yellow pages from a phone book dangling from a pay phone outside a Conoco station.

We met Bob back at the cabin around 11:45. we were prepared for a professional to have us inside, in bed, in five to ten minutes.

Turns out this lock was one of the most difficult Bob had ever experienced. Seriously. I was holding the screen door, Brandon had the flashlight, and Bob spent a good thirty minutes grunting and groaning at his work.

Finally, sometime after midnight, the door broke free. I'm pretty sure Bob was just as relieved as we were, maybe even a little more.

Dude worked for that Benjamin.

After profusely thanking Bob, sleeping in, recharging and determining the rest of our vacation will be filled with rest and relaxation, we're feeling good. And completely realize all the hard work leading up to our departure, and the subsequent travel worries were well worth it.

To quote Grandma Mary, "After all the hassle it takes to get up there, when you walk onto the back porch, it doesn't matter, because you're in heaven."

Indeed, Grandma Mary. Indeed.

Becoming my father

A long time ago, I brought up my Dad's idea of a vacation. And how it somewhat differed from the rest of the family's.

While my mom had the four of us kids playing on a beach, swimming in a lake, hiking an Arkansas trail, or otherwise actively engaged in our surroundings, my dad was rocking the camper with his thundering snores.

Seriously. It never mattered to him where we chose to vacation, because to him, it was just a place to nap.

Now, I really don't mean to be giving my dad a hard time. I love that man. And it's not like he wasn't "present" for family time or anything. He was very involved in our childhood.

But you can bet when the sun settled directly overhead and we finished our noon-time meal, there was only one thing left on his agenda.

And I have to admit, there was always something welcoming about returning to the camper in the evening, to the sound of his snores from a quarter-mile away.

As a kid, I never understood this. I mean, vacations are for exploring, checking out a new place, doing things you can't do every day, right?

But as an adult, who actually puts in hard working hours every day of the week, I think I may be changing my tune a bit.

For every bit of my memorable life, my dad has been a small business owner. Which means he never escapes work, and there is always plenty of it for him to do.

Now that Brandon and I are in that boat, his vacation philosophy is starting to make sense.

We're taking a couple days of vacation this week, as long as the farm can remain in operation without us, anyway. This vacation comes after two weeks straight of us both working more than 16 hours a day and sleeping four each night.

And on this vacation? All I'm really looking forward to is getting decent sleep at night.

I understand now, Dad.

What do you think?

Let me just say we've been a tad busy around here. At this point in the craziness, I can't quite remember the last time either of us got a decent nights' sleep.

It has all just been a blur of pipes, ports, shovels, dirt, cement, hay, Round-Up, water and the occasional glorious shower.

Oh, and the mighty fine irrigation boot tan line I am currently sporting.

And really, I'm not complaining. Promise. Just setting the scene so you'll fully know where I'm coming from here.

That said, every day has been filled sleepy eyes and sore muscles.

Tuesday morning, I spent the first full three hours of my day in irrigation boots with a shovel in hand, fighting gopher holes leaking out of our cotton.

They totally won. That's about all that needs to be said.

After three hours of me wading through the mud wielding my shovel, Brandon showed up to move the thirty-some-odd pipes to the next border.

My only request before he arrived was that he came bearing water. And he did. But after helping me for ten minutes, he drank half the water he brought. So there I am, boots full of water and practically parched.

Of course, as soon as we moved the water, we found ten more gopher holes. Since I was clad in the irrigation boots, I was still the wader, stomper and shoveler. Only this time, with him providing instruction.

Finally, after I had one plugged, and was leaning on my shovel huffing through every breath, I told him, "Well, you've been saying I should work out my legs more.* I think this morning qualifies."

"So are your legs tired? You really think you gave them a good work out?"

This, as I was standing in a foot-and-a-half of mud, water currently pouring into my boot.

He received a cold stare in return.

And a solid two minutes later, "What do you think?"

*These remarks were solely related to hunting. With the amount of hiking we do, it is imperative to have legs in decent condition. I've been attending an exercise class, but we focus a lot more on abs, arms and cardio than legs. So he's been complaining that my class is not helping out in the hunting/hiking department at all.

It's official.

Scorpion breeding ground now open.

We welcome them all. Large and small, yellow and brown, ceiling hangers and floor dwellers; our doors are open.

We might as well post a sign with these words. That way, at least we would have a disclaimer when a friend unsuspectingly met one of our new house guests.

I know, I know. It was pretty obvious last week that we needed to spray this place down. It just didn't get done. But, Brandon has gone on a killing rampage since then.

Which has only provided more evidence in defense of bug killer.

Saturday, he looked up from the sandwich he was enjoying at lunch to find a big one hanging right over his head.

That night, upon returning from a 12:30am irrigation, he killed three more outside, and labeled one as an "escapee."

Sunday night, another dead one.

There were a couple more in there somewhere. We've been trying to keep a tally on the white board in the kitchen, but we can't keep up.

Visitors beware...

Another example of underestimation

I may or may not have already made fun of told a story about Brandon and his knack for underestimating home improvement projects. Or, anything we do for that matter.

Last weekend, he and a buddy, who told us he in no way wanted to be part of this "blog thing," (we still love you, Travis — oops!) worked on replacing the wood floor area in the entryway of our house.

No big deal for a pair of strapping young men, right?

Of course.

Now, Brandon did tell me before they began that he suspected it would take them a lot of time, probably an entire day, to remove the old floor and grind/sand/scrape/clean all the glue off the concrete underneath. (Yes, the dude who built our house glued down wood flooring. In case you're wondering, you cannot find a square corner or level wall in this place. But we love it anyway.)

But, beyond that, he said, "Once we finally start laying down the new stuff, I bet we'll have it finished in no time. Two to three hours, I bet."

Now, not to discourage my husband who was, after all, taking on the role of handyman, I kept my eye rolling and laughter at his unrealistic optimism internal.

So they began.

And it did take an entire day for the floor removal and subsequent cleanup. So he was right on target there.

But it also took an entire day to start laying down the new flooring.

To give Brandon credit, if you fast forward two days, to Day Four of the Flooring Project, it did take two to three hours.

To lay down the very last row of planks.

It's okay, I'd take this handyman any day. As long as I don't have to start paying by the hour.

Bow owner rule number one

I got a bow for my 25th birthday.

(I wanted it, ladies, don't be alarmed. I have lime green and hot pink zebra-striped wraps and fletching on my arrows, if that makes it better.)

I've been pretty good about shooting it as often as possible. For the first week-and-a-half, I shot it every evening, and this week I've probably averaged every other day.

So, at this point, you could very well say I've shot this thing quite a bit.

The bow shop set it at 37 pounds the day we bought it. You have to be shooting at 40 pounds to hunt with it in Arizona. Which means I have to get three pounds stronger before I can even think about killing anything.

Last night, we were both out shooting after supper, and Brandon mentioned something about us getting archery deer tags in August if we don't draw a tag for the fall.

I asked, "August? Like, this August?"

"Well, yeah."

"Do you really think I'll be ready by then? And I have to get to 40 pounds first."

So he asked for my bow to bump it up three pounds. I mean, let's not worry about moving gradually or anything.

As I was walking over, I looked down at my string, and noticed a few places were starting to look a little gray and frayed-like.

"Hey, why is my string turning gray here?" I asked my hunting mentor.

"What? Let me see...Oh, I never told you to wax your string, did I?"

"No, you didn't. If you had, I would have done it. Is that what's wrong?"

"Yep. You're supposed to wax your string."

"How often? I've shot it a bunch."

"Oh, pretty often."

"Brandon! That's probably Bow Owner Rule Number One, and I didn't even know it!"

"Yeah, you're probably right..."

So now I'm in the market for a new hunting mentor. If he steered me wrong on rule number one, how can I be sure about all the rest of them?

They have returned...

By the end of last summer, we had found a ridiculous amount of scorpions in and around our house. And by ridiculous, I think we were on about number 67.

It's amazing we only ended up with one sting. (Brandon would probably disagree on how amazing that was.)

We started finding them during spring break last year, while my parents were visiting, of course. In fact, my mom, of all people, was the person who spotted that first scorpion. Luckily, we got her out of here before the invasion began.

So this year, as soon as it warmed up, we were prepared to once again become a breeding ground for those suckers.

Brandon started hunting them with our blacklight flashlight and whatever screwdriver, wrench or pocket knife happened to be handy.

But, much to our surprise, he wasn't finding anything. In the past four months, I would venture to say we hadn't killed five of them.

We found out this weekend they must have just been waiting on it to hit 117 degrees.

Because last Friday? We found two inside our house during the day.

Brandon, being the Master Scorpion Hunter he is, knew these two sightings were not random. So, after a 2am irrigation run, he went on a little hunt.

And sure enough, he ended up finding four right around the outside of our house, two at the shack, and one more in a pile of steel by our barn.

I woke up the next morning to a pink Post-It on the fridge tallying up his kills, totaled at "9 DEAD Scorpions."

Brandon says it's time to spray now. I agree.

What does cooling down mean to you?

To me, "cooling down" means some sort of cool front is going to move through.

To Brandon, apparently it just means below 110.

All my praise for the wonderfully long, cool spring we had in Arizona didn't get me anywhere with Mother Nature. She brought summer back with a vengeance. We've been battling temperatures ranging from 112 to 117 all week. No lie.

When you go to Weather.com, after you get past the heat alert warnings, there's a box that provides the "Comfort Index." Ours has a red box with the word "Uncomfortable" next to it. Understatement, I believe.

We were discussing the heat last night, since we've both been out and about in it all week, and Brandon said, "I heard it's supposed to cool down this weekend though."

Me, getting excited, "Really!? How much?"

"I think it's only going to be 108, maybe even 105."

"Seriously? That's 'cooling down' to you?" I was not impressed.

"Well, at least it's not humid."

And he is right about that. We may have high temperatures, but you can get comfortable in the shade. This time of year back in Texas? Pretty much unbearable.

A couple days ago, I was listening to the news on the radio while heading out to irrigate at 4:30am, and the weatherman said, "It's going to be a hot and humid one today."

And I laughed. Out loud. Because these people have no clue.

One day last week, there was only three percent humidity here. I didn't know humidity could even go that low. Back where I'm from, it was probably 93%. Those are the kind of numbers I'm used to.

But, as Brandon always tells me, "You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

I'm telling you...

I can't recall a time in my life where I wasn't familiar with this phrase.

Examples of conversations you might hear in Texas:

"Man, it's a hot one today"

"I'm telling you."

"That was one good steak right there."

"I'm telling you."

"Whew! That was a long sermon today."

"I'm telling you."

"Those boys played a good game of football last night."

"I'm telling you."

You get the idea...

Apparently this little phrase was never popular in the West.

It kills Brandon.

Every time I say this, he's all, "No, actually, I was telling you."

And then a few seconds later..."I just don't get it. It doesn't even make sense. I was the one talking. How were you telling me anything?"

It wouldn't really be a big deal, but this particular Texas root is so ingrained in me that it seems we have this conversation every. single. day.

And probably always will...