VACATION FROM MY PROBLEMS!

And so we awoke on the first day of August in sunny/beautiful Cheyenne, Wyoming.  We apparently missed out on Frontier days by one day, which was bad 'cause I guess there is stuff to do and stuff, but which was good 'cause we were able to find beds to sleep in.  Besides, our real goal for the day was to make it to Uncle Bill's Cabin which is pert near Westcliffe, CO.

We went ahead and saw a couple of sights though, including the capital building...

Novelty Boots...

And this bran-new statue of a votin' pioneer woman.

And then we drove and drove and drove.

Until we got to where we needed to be.
And this is why everyone should have a doctor in the family. And if you don't have one, well go out and find a girl who has one and marry her, just like I did.

Ahhhh.  No drought, no collapsing world markets, no seed to clean, no motors to fix, no post-operative back pain, no triple digit temperatures, no television, no internet, no telephones (mostly), no weeds to spray, no oil to change, no dust storms... Just ahhhh.

Although it was a little disturbing to see the Sangre de Cristo range without a speck of snow.

There WAS some punitive butt-kicking.

And before you could say "Sell the farm and send me the check I am never coming back hahahahahaha!!" there I was, headed back, all by my lonesome.

All the way home.

When I got there that (Thursday) afternoon, I was pleased to find the last of seed getting cleaned, and even a little rain in the rain gauge.

And some more the next morning! Which basically meant that as soon as I got Spencer paid and on his way to college I had some serious work to do.

And no time to lose either.  One thing about no-till, is that timing is everything.  It has never been more true than this summer.  Herbicides work by being metabolized into the plant and interrupting key functions, such as photosynthesis. This works if and only if the plant is actively growing. In a severe drought like we had this summer, there were very few times that any plants not being regularly irrigated were actively growing.  The weeds needed sprayed and they needed sprayed NOW. Luckily the wind was cooperating.

So I picked the worst couple fields and got some spraying done in the morning before it got too hot...

And went back out as things cooled back down.

And kept right on going as the sun went down.

Another fun filled Friday night.

Vacation over.