After the Storm...

Anticipation.

Thursday? Saturday?

You should always put the ladder up.

I actually bent the ladder up in the fall of 2004, but some things just can't be returned to as-good-as-new status.

De-tanking.

What is crazy is that we did this for a couple of years without the Ag-Krane. It apparently never occurred to us that perhaps back surgery would be more expensive than an Ag-Krane...

A Happy Father's Day

(Any day with Anna is a happy day.)

My never ending struggle...

"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all of the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field"

Mr. Samuel

On Friday we got to meet Mr. Samuel. He is a good looking kid. Those three boys are going to have too much fun growing up together, and that is a fact.

Because one can never have too many pictures of Anna or Lainey...

OklahomaOklahomaOklahomaOklahoma!

This week I took my semiannual trip to Nardin, after a particularly frustrating day trying to resuscitate my milo crop. Betsy and Anna both came along, so it has been extra fun. Joanna had to watch Rear Window for class, and three stores and two towns later we got it.Anna's highlight has been swimming with Lainey.
But everything is more fun with cousins.

Let it be known. I am the Reese Ropes champion. That's right. Heaviest person to make it to the top. BOO-YEAH.

You could eat off of that field.

This corn field is the poster-field for crop rotation, no-till, and Lumax herbicide. 5 years ago it was heavily infested with velvetleaf, pigweeds, and shattercane, which is not suprising given that parts of it had been in continuous corn for thirty years. Now there isn't a weed to be found more than twenty feet inside the perimeter.

Starting over.

This field was planted and sprayed two weeks ago, but crazy downpours hours after spraying don't lead to good weed control. The cheapest option is to spray everything with glyphosate and replant.

"Lazarus, come forth!"

How long have they been patiently waiting to hear those words? At least ten years, by my reckoning. linda jean tells their story much better than I. Maybe she would tell you, even if it isn't July. (She might even wave the standard fee of fifteen cents, a nail, and the shell of a great-great-great grandfather snail.) Visit her lerkim here.

Now, listen!


Their song is pretty enough even to make me forget my troubles:

Lake Ingleside

The "'mingos!" are really enjoying all the wet weather here at Ingleside, as is Anna. I'm not entirely sure why the water needed swept, but she's the boss.

Spices are fun!

One happy side effect of friends moving away is the half-full industrial-sized containers of spices they leave behind. Mmmmmm...cumin!