Back home...

Well, we made it home from an almost two week long vacation and boy did we have a good time! I think we must have put close to 1,000 miles on my grandfather's car driving around upstate New York. But I had so much to show Colin, seeing that it was his first real time there.
We started our trip in Austin at the Song of Solomon's Conference, and that was amazing! We were both given many new tools to put under our belt. I got the DVD set of it and that comes with an audio CD, so if anyone wants a copy of the CD that just let Colin or I know. While in Austin we also got to see some good friends and got the grand tour of their new home! It was very exciting!!
From Austin we headed to North Carolina to see my Mom, Dad, sister Cassie and my nephew Josh. It was a great few days spent with them. Colin got to see the great city of Raleigh and some of the NC back county, only because I got lost going to see my dad and Cassie...We almost were in VA!!!
We got to New York just in time. The leaves were absolutely perfect. It was a little colder then we both thought, thus the reason for putting so many miles on the car. Neither one of us really wanted to get out and stroll around. We were never dressed for it!
We (Colin) did take lots of pictures, and because there are so many, I just thought a few of my favorites would do.

Colin and me at 13th Lake
Just some of the colors...I love how the leaves reflect off the water. Perfect!

Colin's first time ever picking apples!

He said they were the best tasting apples he had ever had, only because he had picked them.

Growing up, it was sort of a family thing to go over to VT and see the snow geese, then go apple picking, then go to the old fort ruins at Crown Point and have lunch. We did go and see the geese (although they were hard to see due to the corn that was still standing in the field) and we did drive by the old fort and we did go apple picking.

Macintosh apples...35+ pounds for only $21.00!!

A view of the Adirondack Mts. from the Vermont side. (Colin's first time in VT)

This is Brant Lake, and the Brant Lake Church. These buildings have been on many post cards when the leaves look like this. My grandma use to go to this church, as did my mom and as did my sister and I when we were little. My grandfather (Poppy) still goes every Sunday. Lots of great memories there.

We had a great time and I loved showing Colin all around where I grew up. He was able to meet the rest of my family and of course they all loved him! We have already been asked to come back up this winter so Colin can experience his first snowmobile ride...Maybe next time we go back to NY it will be in the winter but it might not be this year.

The anticipation is building!

Oh boy!!! I am so stinkin' excited I can hardly stand it!!...!!!...!!! Colin and I are getting ready to head to North Carolina and New York to see family. It has been two year since I have been home to the east coast. Colin has only been one other time and that was last year and it was only to New York City, and to me that does not count. So this year he is not only going to the Raleigh area of North Carolina, but he is also heading to the beautiful Adirondack mountains of New York! (During the fall too!) He doesn't even know what a treat he is in for.

Our first stop is NC and as I look back and think, the last time I saw my little nephew Josh, he was just turned a year old...now he is about to turn three! I am overcome with eagerness because I get to see and play with him.

(Me and Josh Christmas 2007)

Then the last time I saw my family (Dad, Mom and Cassie) was at our wedding. That will be almost ten months ago now. Man time has flown!

(Tony, Cassie, Ronnie and Kathy December 27, 2008)

I hope hope hope that we are able to catch the leaves in the Adirondacks when they look like these!! My friend told me just the other day that "fall in the Adirondacks is like a drug.". Well, Kiely, you are right! Poor Colin, he just has no concept of what "Fall in the ADK's" is all about. I hope that when we come home from our trip north he has a much better understanding of my love for that country during this time of the year.

(Some random back road in the ADK's, but look at the beautiful leaves!!!)

Near where I grew up was the northern part of the Hudson river. Yep, the same one that flows down to NYC. It runs right next to the town of North Creek and from there you can take a "historic" train ride down along the river.

We are flying out on Saturday and will be back on the 14th of October. I am going to overload my camera with tons of pictures and will have them posted when we get back. Did I mention I was super stoked about this trip???...

Best Pork Chops EVER!!!

Driving home yesterday I was already thinking about what I was going to cook for supper tonight. A light came one and this is what I did.


I had pulled out some boneless pork chops earlier this week and they were all thawed in the frig.
I also had some HEB jalapeno bacon, cut in half, that I needed to use.

So I marinaded the pork chops for a few hour with a little olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Dipped the bacon in some flour (which you can add some seasoning to...) and put them on a cookie sheet and place in the frig for an hour or so. After the pork chops had a chance to marinade I dipped them in flour as well. Then I pre heated the oven to about 350* and wrapped three or four slices around each pork chop and place in a glass pan with just a little bit of olive oil on the bottom. Then I cut the whole jalapenos in half and de-seeded them and place them on top. Cooked them for about an hour and a half.

It was delicious!!

Here are some before and after shots.

Before:

After: !!!!!!!

This whole meal was super easy! So easy, I even blogged about it!

Ronnie

Time for some R&R

Did we really even have a summer?? Last time I checked, summer was time for rest and relaxing...HA! Not so much this summer. Colin and I were so busy this summer that I barely had any time to respond to emails. (So if you emailed me and I have not sent one back, don't worry, you're not the only one.) So what kept us gone all the time, well, work! At the start of the year Colin and I set some goals for ourselves. One of the goals was to get out of debt. Well, so far we have paid off all of my stuff, one of Colin's personal loans and because God is so good, we are about to pay off his truck! Once that is done, we will only have his student loans left. But there is more...Colin had planned on the burn we finished in Brady to be the last one for the year. However, God had different plans for us. We finished the Brady burn and now we have at least three to four burns still to go! It is so cool for me to sit down and look at all the money that we have coming in, and then look at all the money that we have going out and still have money left over. That in itself is just a God thing. It is amazing that if you let Him, he will even work in your finances! I read somewhere in someone's blog that they got to a point where they stopped asking where did all our money go, and started telling there money where to go! I liked that. So now, we tell our money where it is going to go and it has made for a better relationship all around!
There are lots of things that the Lord is doing in our lives at the moment, and freeing up our finances is just one of many. Doors are being swung open while those little windows we were trying to climb through are getting shut. God has blessed us and because he is so great he keeps on giving!
I know how great it makes me feel to let people know what God has done in my life (and I give Him praise for all of it) and Colin and I would love to hear what he has done in yours! So please feel free to leave us with any thoughts or comments or questions!
"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

Sunday drive

Ronnie and I decided to take a Sunday drive to a place on the Devil's River and go swimming over the weekend. The weather on Sunday was kind of cloudy and rainy so we decided rather than to head back home we'd just keep going on down the road. This blog is about our drive and everything we saw. Ronnie has never been to or seen Mexico, so we went to see Mexico! At least what we could see from the Texas side of the Rio Grande. On our drive the first stop we made was at the Pecos River high bridge. The Pecos River high bridge is about 18 miles east of Langrty, TX. The bridge is about 300 feet above the river and spans about 1400 feet across.


After we ate lunch at the bridge we decided to go the 18 miles west to the town of Langtry where infamous characters like Judge Roy Bean used to live. We drove around the little town for awhile and then drove down to the river to the site of the famous Maher-Fitzsimmons prize fight in February 1896. The boxing match was staged by Judge Roy Bean in defiance of U.S., Mexico and Texas Ranger authority, and a law banning prize fighting in the U.S. Below are a fw pictures taken from the town of Langtry and the Rio Grande just south of town.



After leaving Langrty, we decided to follow the border down to Del Rio. We drove passed by Seminole Canyon and crossed over the bridge at Lake Amistad. Since this was Ronnie's first trip to a border town we drove around Del Rio for a little while and took in some of the culture. By take in some of the culture, I mean we drove around and talked about how different a place Del Rio is from what we are used to. The town is only an hour south of where we live and yet it feels like another country all together. Once we had had enough of Del Rio we headed north to the experiment station and home. We had a wonderful day even though we weren't able to spend the day swimming. The trip was fun and we got to spend time together and see a part of Texas we rarely see.

Back From Burning

We made it back from burning with all our hair, a few new tan lines and a couple of sunburned faces. The first three days of burning were pretty intense. It is so dry in Texas that just about everything goes up in flames. Three years of very little rain will do that. So putting in black lines was a SSSSLLLLOOOWWW process. Colin had thought that it would have been a two day burn. Two days came a went and we only had half of it finished! Thank goodness for a great crew! Our friend Ray came and helped out the first three days, along with a kid from Sonora who rode with us named Sterling. They were life savers! But not to cut anyone else that was there short, because many people stopped what they were doing for two days just to sit in the smoke. Many guys just ran an ATV up and down the road looking for spot fires. I think that is one of the most important jobs on a burn. Colin's friend Kyle showed up the second day and he sat in the back of our truck running the sprayer while braving the heat while I drove. And boy was it hot!! The first day there was record highs...105* F! There was a point during the burn that Ray took the temp while sitting in a little draw and it read 117*F!!!!!! No joke. I think at that point it is almost too hot to sweat!
I ran the drip torch for the first part of the first day, then rode in the back of a spray rig in the afternoon. Colin had the hardest job. Being the burn boss he has to make sure that everyone is where they need to be, or close to it, and try to keep the whole crew happy. That in itself is not an easy task. Working with volunteers is sometimes very stressful. But Colin does an amazing job. NEVER does he ever loose his cool. He might be throwing up on the inside, but he is all put together on the outside. For that reason the rest of the crew is able to stay calm and do what needs to be done. Many many many people that Colin has worked with before have commented to me on how he is able to just be so calm and never buckles. That is what makes him such a great burn boss. He just keeps his cool and stays relaxed the whole time, even when things get a little western.
So we only got the top half of the pasture burned. Close to 400 acres. So we had to go back and finish up the last 300 + acres this past week. Due to Colin's wonderful leadership, and the fact that he does all his homework when it comes to burning, everything went off with out a hitch. So we have finished burning for now. Our next burn is scheduled for the end of next month and that will be a BIG one...over 1600 acres. Anyone want to help?!?!


Colin and Sterling (who is 16 and is a great kiddo!) lighting around the hunters camp on the second day.

The smoke from the head fire...this is what we all look forward too.
All of this pear is dead. Dead dead dead. Colin said that headfires have the ability to get over 1200*F and I don't doubt it! But that is what Bob, the owner, wanted to see. Now the pear will die off and make way for more grass for his cattle. Colin burned a pasture for him last year and he has been able to increase his livestock carrying capacity by 50% since the burn due to the increased amount of grass on that pasture than before it had been burned. I guess the proof is in the numbers.

*****Again, a very special thanks to all that helped us on this burn. Without you, we couldn't have gotten this done. Also, thanks be to God. He protected us and kept us safe when we needed it the most! It is awesome to be the daughter of the Most High!!

Rx Fire

Ronnie and I are headed to a ranch near London, TX this Wednesday. We are going to spend a couple of days burning a pasture for one of our clients. This will be our first prescribed burn of the summer, and it should be a hot one! The weather forecast is calling for temperatures in the 100’s. That in itself isn’t too bad, but once you start lighting everything around you on fire it can get a little warm. I am hopeful that his burn will be the first of many for us this summer and fall. We had a very busy winter this year, but things have been pretty slow the last few months. Things tend to be slow during the rainy spring months. Typically, we do the majority of our prescribed burning in the summer months. In this part of Texas, most ranchers have a serious problem with brush. Most of the ranches in West and Central Texas are over-grown with juniper, mesquite, and prickly pear. Therefore, to manage these noxious brush species, we burn them. Moreover, we burn them in the hottest, driest part of the year to inflict the most damage to the plants. We call these reclamation burns, and it allows a rancher to get back on top of his brush problem and make the forage much more productive for livestock or wildlife. About 4 years ago, I moved out to Sonora, TX from College Station, TX to conduct research for my master’s degree in Rangeland Ecology & Management. During my undergraduate time, I developed an interest in brush management – more specifically in the use of fire to manage brush. It just so happens that an opportunity came my way to spend some time in Sonora conducting research on fire, and of course I took it. Over the course of the next year, I participated on several prescribed burns and this helped to solidify my desire to do this full-time. There was a lengthy certification process that I had to go through to become a certified prescribed burn manager, but once that process was complete, I was able to burn commercially for ranchers and landowners around the state without the restrictions of county burn bans. About a year ago, I started a company called Dryhalla Rangeland Services LLC. The function of this business is ranch/ rangeland consulting and to conduct prescribed burns for landowners and ranchers across the state. I believe God intended us to be stewards of the land he entrusted to us. If you know much about what the landscape looked like a couple hundred years ago, you would know we have done a pretty poor job of it. So we’re trying to do something to reverse the damage done, and what better way than with the use of fire – a natural brush control method. And really what better job is there than setting thousands of acres on fire legally . . ?

Ronnie, being from the Northeast, had no concept of prescribed burning until she met me. However, she desired to learn all she could (in a very short period of time) about this area of my life. She attended a burn school and participated on quite a few burns this past winter, and it didn’t take long before she bacame very knowledgeable about fire behavior, fuels, vegetation types, fire weather, fire suppression equipment, etc. In the 6 months we have been married, we have been on numerous burns. Some of the burns went exactly as planned - the weather cooperated, the crew was adequate to great, the goals and objectives of the landowner were met, etc., etc. On the other hand, a couple of those burns were complete nightmares. Not nightmares because the fire got out of hand or the fire escaped and burned an area it should not have, but because the forecasted weather was completely wrong and/or the personnel assisted on the burn were half-wits! I am not being unkind when I call these dudes half-wits. They deserve much, much worse! I have at least given them credit for half of a wit, when I am almost certain they are completely witless. So in a short period of time, Ronnie has been on some thrilling if not scary burns.
All that to say that the 6 months in which Ronnie has been my partner in Dryhalla Rangeland Service LLC has been exciting. We have seen a dramatic increase in business. We are learning to be better business owners. We have been able to spend everyday together working side-by-side during some very stressful moments and many sleepless nights (A feat many married couples might not want to try or be able to pull off). For us the opportunity to get to spend every moment with each other, regardless of the hectic nature of our business, has been a blessing. Many times the opportunity was there for one or both of us to lose our temper or get fed-up, but every stressful moment has only managed to bring us closer together. As we become better at the business side of this business, we are also becoming more confident and much more knowledgeable about running and operating a business. We have learned from our mistakes and are now able to visit with a landowner and then help him or her make some decisions regarding their ranch that will ultimately make both of our jobs easier. What I mean by that is, when we first started burning as a business, we took every job that came our way and we didn’t make too many requests of the landowner for fear that we might lose their business. Now we are much more selective about what jobs we take and can confidently tell a landowner what he needs to do for us to be able burn his property. I must say, the stress level has dropped dramatically. I am becoming a much better people manager and Ronnie continues to learn more and more about fire and how it behave, and she has progressed to the point where she now carries the drip-torch on all of our burns and is in charge of the ignitions. It makes me very proud to see her interact with all these old ranchers and explain to them why we are doing something a certain way, and I love the way she puts all the old timers at ease by the way she calmly handles the tough situations. This business is very male-dominated and Ronnie has certainly been a breath of fresh air. You can see that for some of these guys the thought of bringing their wives on a burn never occurred to them. But after spending a day with Ronnie, we are starting to see a wife show up on a burn here and there. We’ve truly been blessed to be able to spend our days traveling the state, meeting with ranchers, and setting things on fire, and the best part of all is. . . I get to do it all with my best friend!

Colin