Wild turkey and moon pies

No, not that wild turkey. 

Wild turkey hunting. 

They are much more difficult to kill than one would think by watching all those gobbler-hunting movies. It looks like you sit for a few minutes, call the bird, bird walks seven feet in front of you, you shoot, then take pictures with said bird. 

Not the case on my hunt over the weekend. 

We didn't even see a turkey. 

We heard them. And saw plenty signs of their existence. Even had one ten yards away from us. But nothing to shoot. 

We hiked 2.5 miles in Friday and Saturday, in freezing early morning weather, all to come back empty handed at dark. 

Our wildlife sightings only included one rabbit we think we ran over, three elk (two cows, one with tiny nubs), a squirrel and three steers that ruined our water hole stalking hunt Saturday afternoon. 

But, we did have moon pies. Double decker, orange-flavored moon pies. 

Which I think just sound disgusting, much less the sight of them. 

Brandon, on the other hand, loved them. At one point, he held his double-decker organe moon pie in the air and said, "This takes a regular moon pie, and says, 'You suck.'" Seriously. He was that into the moon pies.   

He found them Friday night when we stopped at Bass Pro to pick up a new choke for my shotgun (To make me shoot in a "tighter pattern"? Makes sense when you're aiming for a turkey head), or self-defense weapon, as I like to call it. Conveniently, it doubles as a turkey hunting gun.

Brandon bought it for me shortly after we got married, because I am scared of the dark and hate being alone in our house at night. Which happens quite often when I don't tag along on the middle-of-the-night irrigating trips, "man weekends", and other things that take him away. 

So, he found a fairly-priced youth model, pump action 20-guage for me to keep by the bed. Yes, my youngest brother gives me a hard time for having such a "sissy" gun. But I sleep better at night.

Brandon said, "I am not getting you anything automatic. You'll probably shoot me. If you're fixing to shoot, I want to hear it."

I guess he thinks I might be a little trigger happy when I'm scared?

An empty glass

This has nothing to do with an old country song or a lack of optimism. It has everything to do with marriage. 

Sharing. You would think someone who grew up in a family of four kids would have a very good sense of this word. And I do. When it comes to sharing my room, my socks, the covers, books, etc. Not so much when it comes to food. 

But I don't think you really learn how to share food in a large family. Mealtime at our house always meant you better put everything you even think you might want on your plate the first time, because there might not be a second round. Dinner was all about survival of the fittest, and no one wanted to be last in line. 

Brandon is much better about sharing food. He also happens to be much better at sharing drinking glasses. In fact, he prefers to share beverages. 

Brandon's standard response when asked if he needs a drink to go with his meal? 

"No thanks, I'll just have some of yours."

Or, if we're at his parents: "No, I'll just drink out of Katie's."

And every time, I sigh, or make a face. Because I don't want to share. 

If he did the dishes, I might understand. But I don't mind washing an extra glass after each meal if it means I get to have my own. 

I also might not be so opposed to the idea of sharing my glass if we owned gallon-sized ones. That way, I might actually get some of my drink. Currently, I average one sip out of my glass at each meal before Brandon finishes it off in one big gulp. 

Last night, I had my plate and glass on the table. Brandon sat down with his food. No glass. 

Me [thinking I could give a subtle hint]: "You don't want to bring anything to drink?"

Brandon [looking at me strangely]: "You already have water here."

As if it would be absolutely absurd to have two glasses on the table! 

Not three minutes after we sat down for dinner, my water glass was already empty, and I hadn't even touched it. 

I'm thinking they should add this in the marriage vows. Something like, "...to love and to cherish, to share drinking glasses, as long as we both shall live." 

Setting a bad example for the boy scouts

I got to spend the weekend hanging out with this girl: 

And we had a great time. She helped me with a few little jobs on the farm, which I greatly appreciated, went hiking in the White Tank Mountains, enjoyed a good breakfast together every day, and got a little pool and sun action in the last few hours of her trip. 

The most interesting part of our mid-morning mini-hike turned out to be the fact we didn't carry our water bottles down the trail. There were quite a few hikers out, all loaded with three days worth of fluids, power bars, walking sticks, and probably their Swiss Army knives. We just sauntered along the trail, talking up a storm, empty-handed. 

The first group of ladies we passed asked, "Where's your water, girls?"

Another set of hikers inquired, "No water?"

At least two others offered us a drink from one of their five canteens. We were seriously on a five-hour mountain trail, but planned to only walk a short while, then turn around and head back. These people all looked like they would be climbing in the rocks for five days. 

We both considered carrying our small water bottles along with us, but opted not to, realizing we were young, in fairly good shape, would return soon, and had been on far more treacherous hikes loaded down with gear and a limited water supply. We survived then, in the true wilderness, so we were not concerned about this short walk in a national park. 

When we came upon a group of five adults, the woman in the lead asked us, "Do you need some water, girls?"

We politely thanked her, declined, and explained we were just on a short walk, had properly hydrated ourselves before beginning, and had water waiting for us in the car. 

Apparently, the man in the rear of their group missed this explanation. When we passed him, I heard him whisper to the woman in front of him, "Those girls don't have any water." 

The last group we passed was a pack of 10 to 12-year-old little boys, whom we presumed to be a group of Boy Scouts, and their two leaders. We assumed they had camped overnight (or we're hoping so, unless firetruck pajama pants are the cool thing to wear on a hike these days), as they were loaded down with gear. 

After we passed them, I said, "Those boys are all getting told, 'that is a perfect example of what not to do while hiking in the mountains in Arizona.'"

Amanda replied, "Probably so. But we should tell them there are so many good Samaritans on this trail you don't need to pack your own water."

She had a good point. 

This is not the Cleaver household

Apparently, some clarifications need to be made about our lifestyle. There have been mentions in several different posts about me cleaning, making dinner, baking cupcakes, etc. 

It has been mentioned to me that some are getting the impression we have reverted back to the 50s, and these things are expected in our home. Au contraire.  

In all fairness, I offered to make the cupcakes, I just didn't think he would take me up on it. So I took ten minutes to get them ready, stuck them in the oven, went back to work for half an hour, then repeated that process. Very minimal effort that hardly interrupted my day. 

Baking is a new thing for me (and mostly still from a box), but something I have taken up because it makes Brandon happy, not because it is in any way expected of me. If it were "expected", I guarantee you I would not do it. That's how I operate. Brandon will be the first person to verify that statement. 

I am also not expected to take up the brunt of the housework. But, when you're building a business (which we both own), there are some things that have to be delegated. And when one person occupies the location where those things are done all day long, it's pretty easy for us to determine who they fall upon. Therefore, I do clean, but I also take care of the other things that take place in my work space, like paying the bills and keeping the books in order, feeding the cows we have here, and irrigating the field in front of our house (now that we have ports there). 

Unless I wanted to eat at 10pm every night, dinner duty falls on me as well - by default. I'm already here. When we lived in Texas and Brandon was just a school boy, not a farmer, we shared this chore quite equally, and often prepared it together. Dishwashing worked the same way - I washed, he rinsed - every evening. And he does not demand dinner, with the exception of specific "bad day" cases, which is what most of us feel like when we've had a crummy day.

Most of the time we only really make dinner once or twice a week anyway, then eat leftovers for the remainder. There's only so much food two people can consume in one evening, and since we're definitely not picky, it works for us. And saves electricity.

Likewise, Brandon usually takes care of the household duties that are done at his location. He fills our water bottles and dumps our trash at his parents', because he's there nearly every morning to pick up equipment, and every evening to feed cows. 

Brandon says all the time how he has been "pleasantly surprised" and is "very appreciative" and certainly "does not expect" the things I do in our home. For us, it just makes sense. 

Since I work from home and get started early in the mornings, I have plenty of time to do things around the house during the day as well. 

So I'm not June Cleaver. I'm just pulling my weight. 

Signs of adulthood: Married, filing jointly

Taxes. 

The time of year when we're all most proud to be American, right?

Luckily, Brandon did most of the data entry into our makeshift spreadsheets, since we never got our Peachtree accounting software set up in 2008. (Or so far in 2009, for that matter.) I was just stuck with the filing and sorting from his half of the year (pre-marriage). Everything from my half of the year (post-marriage) was in place. 

One source of frustration for us in all of this has been our different record keeping methods. Brandon is a paper nut. If you buy a pack of gum, it needs a fully annotated receipt that is kept in a pile on top of a desk. I prefer to go the more modern route, and keep electronic copies of these things, and back them up with online storage. 

But he's holding solid on his paper stance. I don't stand a chance. So I'm dealing with the hundreds of file folders, pieces of paper floating around, and numerous ink cartridges run dry from all that printing - and hoping we never have a fire.

Brandon, the King of Clutter, tried to explain the way he handles receipts, invoices and the like: "I use the 'pile method.' You let everything pile up for six months, and then when it's about to fall over, you sort through things and file them."

Me: "That's not a method. And it makes me crazy."

Brandon: "Yeah, I know. That's why we're going to use your method. ...As soon as I finish going through this pile."

And now, our things have been fully sorted and properly filed away in their respective folders according to my method. We have met with the accountant (for two solid hours). We have created, filed, corrected and refiled W-2s for two of our four companies, corrected all of our employer tax returns, and filled out the necessary paperwork for interest payments we made. 

But today, we will still not be sending in our tax returns. We will be filing an extension. I think we overwhlemed our accountant with the stacks of ledgers and forms we dropped off. We like to make things complicated, especially if it saves us a buck in the long run.

It was very nice to select the "Married, filing jointly," option for the first time, especially after I took a good look at those tax brackets. There is a definite advantage to that status, so I was glad .

I am most happy we survived this first year of working together on taxes, despite me using the phrase, "I despise working with you on this," numerous times. And Brandon responding with, "Oh, yes, and it's just looove-ly working with you." At least we're honest and open with our feelings, right? 

But now that we have the record keeping preferences battled out, and we no longer have a "pile method" (which I still say is not a method), I think 2009's taxes will run much smoother.

Especially once we get around to getting our software set up...

It's a good thing Brandon is the farmer

Just a couple weeks ago, Rayanne gave me some tomato and squash plants she had leftover from planting her garden to try for myself at our house. 

I haven't experimented with much, but I've never had the best luck growing things. I did manage to keep a tiny house plant alive for four years, but I think I tossed it out when I left College Station. 

My other experiences growing things are as follows: 

1. When I was nine, I planted some watermelon seeds by our back door, and diligently kept the plant watered. When I told my parents I was growing a water melon vine in our backyard, they told me I had been watering a weed. So I stopped. About the time it was dying, my mom really looked at it one day, and decided it was indeed a watermelon vine. Too late.
   
2. At one of my college residences, I decided to grow some jalapeno and habanero peppers. Right about the time they were sprouting tiny peppers, the lawn boy mowed them down. 
   
3. I bought a pot of assorted cactus' my last year at A&M. I killed one. How does anyone kill a cactus? When you water them in a climate where it rains every other day. Apparently not good for a cactus. I left the cactus pot in Texas, where my mom has kept them all alive, and one has grown a solid foot. 
   

Needless to say, I don't really have a "green thumb" background. Which doesn't make much sense to me, because it's definitely in my genetics. My MeMe always had flowers galore in her front yard, and my grandma had a huge vegetable garden for years.

But, apparently those talents, along with all of their creativity and craftiness, did not reach my share of the DNA.

This was my mini-garden the day after planting: 

This was my mini-garden on Good Friday:

Now, the state of my garden is not completely my fault. I had only killed two plants before our lovely hound dog took over. At first, he just dug up the dead plants. No big deal, right? Then, on Good Friday, we were outside and Brandon yelled, "Hey, the dogs got in your garden, huh?"

Me: "Yeah, but just the dead plants."

Brandon: "Uh, you already killed all those? Wow."

So I go over to take a look. No, I had not killed that many plants. But that's not to say I wouldn't have. 

My mini-garden is now in the same state as the rest of our yard. You would think it was once a battle field. There are giant land mine-looking holes everywhere. 

Wilbur starts them by smelling a gopher underground, then Dixie takes lead and dirt flies four feet behind her with Wilbur howling at the hole all the while. The neighbors thoroughly enjoy it. About as much as they enjoy waking up to Wilbur at 3am (which is why we now sleep with the shock collar remote by the bed).

Man jobs and woman jobs

I have a whole list of things around the house that I have labeled as "man jobs" and reserve for Brandon to do:

• Spraying the weeds. Hey, I mow. He can handle the chemicals.
  
• Spraying pesticide. He's already used to dealing with the chemicals.
  
• Killing scorpions, spiders, and any other things we don't invite into our home. Aren't men supposed to love killing things anyway?
  
• Anything that involves climbing on the roof. We all know how clumsy I am.
  
• Grilling. You probably know why that's a good idea.
  
• Making sure the yard gets irrigated. He wanted me to live in the desert. The only thing I asked for was a green yard.
  
• Changing the air filter. This I am perfectly capable of. Frankly, I just don't want to do it. Our filter is in the ceiling, so when you change it, all the dust falls down on top of you and gets you all dirty.
  
• Changing light bulbs. For similar reasons. And he's taller. 
  
• You get the idea...
  

And Brandon has a similar list for me, which includes things like mowing, feeding the dogs and goat, and scrubbing the toilet.

A couple Sundays ago, we had a little man job versus woman job battle. 

He was sitting on our bed, talking on the phone, waiting for me to be ready for church. I looked on the wall, directly above my side of the bed, and saw a cricket. 

Since he was on the phone, I just made the various gestures and eye movements to point out the cricket. Ten minutes later, I'm ready for church, he's off the phone, and the cricket is still on the wall. 

Brandon: "Are you kidding me? It's still there? You just left it?"

Me: "Yes, I did. Killing things is a man job. Now can you kill it so we can go?"

So he grabs a shoe, kills the cricket, it falls and bounces on my side of the bed, then lands on the floor near the bed post. A dead cricket. And he leaves it there.

Me: "Seriously? You're going to leave it there? You can't pick it up?"

Brandon: "You said killing it was the man job. I say cleaning it up is the woman job."

So I scoop it up, dispose of it, and we go to church. Smiling and holding hands...for God.