Burn Pile

It's been raining here. And although we have had flooding in our house (which is oh so very annoying) the good news is the ground is very wet - and this is the perfect condition for attacking one of our many burn piles.


See it? It's the brown pile of brush behind the tree in the foreground....about 25 feet wide, 6 ft high.

So we prepared the area, got out water buckets and shovels, prayed before we lit the match, and burned this bad boy. Fire in the hole.

It was a little exciting, and alot scary. Whatahusband was cool as a cucumber. But me - I had an internal panic attack when one of the very dry cedar trees with dead leaves all over it burst into a fire ball and shot flames 20 feet into the air. 

We sat in our lawn chairs and watched it burn. It was really quite amazing how much heat it produced, and how the pile went from something to nothing.

We briefly thought about getting some really long sticks and trying to roast weenies...but then we wanted to keep our eyebrows so we decided not to.

It burned and burned all day long. In the evening, after the flames had long since gone out, we raked the embers and found the ground was still very hot. We pulled out the stumps that were left and took them up to our firepit near the house and burned them until they were ash. And now we are experienced burn pile people! And we only caught a teensie weenise part of our field on fire. All in a days work, eh?

Thirty Thirty One Ya'll

Getting older is not so bad really. Especially when you have the weekend I did!  My wonderful hubby welded me an awesome birthday present (I call it the fire chalise, I LOVE sitting out by the fire) and my sister and bro-in-law came to visit.  We had so much fun! There were go kart rides. There was "fishing" at the pond. (throwing the pole in the water repeatedly with left-over fajita meat without a single bite doesn't really count as fishing, but we were drinking cocktails, so I'm going to count it.)  There was s'mores. And Grammy's Strawberry cake.  There was laughing and talking, and lots of relaxing. We even planted wild flower seeds in my front flower beds!

31 is so much fun. :)

A rare Texas May cold front blew in just for me (thank you God!) which made sitting out at the fire even more enjoyable.

My little helper, helping us plant.

Speaking of Norman - he has only grown more joyful as the days pass. We were out walking the fields enjoying the warm weather, and I turned around to this little man sitting under a tree, smiling away.

This is not happiness - it's bliss. :)

Time lately

We have   s l o w l y   been getting ourselves back into our normal routine...with a few adjustments. Since we can't hook up the TV in the living room just yet - it only make sense to go ahead and put it in the only other room that has the TV connection...our room.  I must say - I am not a big fan of TV's in bedrooms. I just don't like it. But I have to admit, it's VERY relaxing to watch Law & Order and sip a Shiner Ruby Redbird* laying in your own bed.  :)

*hey texans, this beer is fantastic. how have you not tried it? It's seasonal, and only here for a limited time. So if you like grapefruit, you HAVE to try this beer!

After what seemed like an eternity of doing dishes outside, camp-style, we got the plumbing finished in the kitchen so we can wash dishes at the sink. Who know this would be such a luxury?!?!

And finally, the norms.  For those of you who don't know, he was chasing 3 large deer and ran into a barbed wire fence the first day we moved out here. HUGE gashes in his fur. 2 of them were  super-glued back together. (In case you think this sounds cruel, I superglue whatahusband back together all the time!) 1 of them...the gash near his tail...split open every time he moved or wagged his tail. So, this dog, who has more room to run around than he ever had before...had to spend the entire first week inside on his bed. All day every day. Poor guy! He would look outside and sigh, or go stand next to the door just begging to be let out. He was hating his life. Especially when I started putting large band-aids on his butt.

Thankfully, he is all healed up! The gash finally closed up (thank you Lord, I was getting worried!), and we haven't seen him on his bed since.  Just a curly brown tail bobbing in and out of the hay field...just where a country dog should be.