Bass Boat or Fish & Ski...That Is The Question

We have been looking hard at boats for the past week and have come up with a few that we are really interested in. We are looking at bass boats and fish & ski boats. The difference, bass boats normally just have 2 or 3 seats, in one row, everything else is a deck to fish off of. Fish & ski normally have 2 or 3 seats behind the steering column then fit about 2 people in the front. We would like to have a few more seats to fit about 4 people in, but the fish and ski boats are a lot harder to come by than bass boats. We have a list of about 7 boats we really like and I think only 2 of them are fish and ski, and one is a little older so.... we'll see!

Now if the perfect boat would just fall into our laps, I would be happy!

My Summer Plans

I'm taking one class this summer which is a special topics class. I will be designing a prescribed fire coloring book, I'm really excited about that!

I'm will also be tending to our garden, which we doubled in size this year. We opened up a little more area by our garden and hope to add a horse shoe pit next to it so we can have a little "pretty" place to hang out. The second half of the garden is almost finished, the beds are a tad bit too wet to till just yet, but if it doesn't rain in the next couple of days they will be ready to till up! I already have tons of onions a foot and a half tall, potatoes with 2 feet tall sprouts, strawberries about to ripen, and lettuce about ready to cut. I'm also about ready to transplant some more plants from the greenhouse and put seeds in the ground that are supposed to be started outside. All of our hard work, blisters, cuts and bruises are finally paying off!

We are also throwing around getting a boat. As you read from our previous boat looking experience, it was obviously a disaster. So we are going to be really careful and make sure we find a boat that we want. We initially talked about getting a fishing series pontoon boat, but number one we don't have a big enough truck to pull it (anymore since I sold mine), and number two you can fit more people on pontoons, and we don't want people calling us every weekend just asking us to ride on our boat. We have friends that have that problem and I want no part in that! So we figured a bass boat would be perfect for us. We bought a small v-bottom boat last summer that we are going to use for river fishing, and this can be used for lake fishing, and skiing when I want to show everyone how it's done. No tubing though, tubes take up too much room and beat the heck out of you!

I will also be helping conduct several summer prescribed burns, which I am excited about... I'm pretty excited about most any burns though.

We also have a wedding, Rollow Rally Run (in memory of Todd Rollow), a family Eucha trip and of course Wolf Creek. I can't wait for the summer to begin!

Last Night's Boat Looking Adventure

I know it's been ages since I've wrote a post... but the semester is over and I'll have more time on my hands now.

For now, I'll amuse you guys with our crazy story from last night. We found a bass boat on craigslist that seemed to be a pretty good deal. So we drove to south Norman to look at it, I wasn't all that enthused about it being in Norman, or the boat being maroon, or the dude selling it wearing an OU shirt and driving a maroon car, but that's besides the point. So we meet the guy, looked the boat up and down and Adam says well I would like to take in on the water to drive it. The guy didn't want to take it out, he offered starting the engine in the parking lot. Adam said, well to be honest with you, I'm not buying this boat without getting it on the water, it's like test driving a car. So the guy, unhappily drove us to a lake just about 15 miles away.

Here comes the craziness.... First, the guy doesn't know how to work a ratchet strap....then the guy hops in the boat, Adam is backing the trailer down the boat ramp... the guy gets it off into the water and cranks the key for about 15 minutes, ends up flooding the engine really bad. Then he looks up at Adam and says "Oh Lord, I forgot to put the plugs in." I thought to myself, seriously...could this get any worse??? So then the guy jumps in the water in his jeans, and pushes the boat back on the boat trailer. We pull it out of the water and it was literally half full of water...Adam asks if he wants to hook the boat onto the trailer and the guy doesn't think it is necessary, even though it was about 4 feet too far back on the trailer. I guess the fact that all the weight is on the back of the boat made him think that there was no chance it could fall off..... Adam wasn't too enthused about that idea, so he insisted that the guy hook the boat to the trailer before he drove it off the ramp.

Then they leave me there at the ramp to go driving around this state park looking for water for the engine. This guy obviously had no clue what he was talking about or he wouldn't have flooded the engine in the first place. But I was left there for 30 minutes and could here them somewhere in the camping area trying to start the engine and was just getting annoyed. All I could think about was dude, you don't know how to work a ratchet strap, you flooded the boat, you don't know anything about boats let alone your own boat, and you flooded the engine. There is no way in heck I'm buying this boat from you, take us back to our truck so we can get the heck out of the city!

Lesson learned, never buy a boat unless you test drive it, never look at a boat from someone who lives in Norman, wears maroon (what they call crimson), drives a maroon car, they don't know anything about boats, or have a lick of common sense!

Recent Burning Pictures

These are pictures from recent burns I've been on. The last burn was absolutely amazing! The burn unit hadn't been burned since 1996 when a wildfire went through part of it, that's a long time since fire. Then about ten years ago they chained it, two dozers had a HUGE chain in between them ripping down all the cedars, and other trees with the chain. This left cedars still alive growing on their side, nasty oak resprouts and a green briar forest! It was so nasty, so we were pretty excited to see it burn. And it burned 20 times better than any of us imagined. Oh ya, and I got to light the head fire, it was a rush, and the best head fire I've ever lit!

We actually don't have any pictures of the head fire because it was so fast pace and so intense... it was light and go, I was in a half run when I was lighting, just looking back every once in a while at the masterpiece I was creating.

This is just some of the cedars burning, this wasn't even the head fire, imaging if this fire had wind behind it (head fire)!

This is the fire roasting some green briar about to smash into a bunch of cedars.

same thing...

About to hit those cedars!

Killing cedars!
After mopping the fire up a few of us went morel mushroom hunting and found probably around 50 lbs. This wasn't even all of them. Two other guys had about two shirt fulls as well. If you can't tell, these are our yellow fire shirts that we took off, tied off the sleeves and piled mushrooms in!

This is from a patch burn I was on last week. The cattle are curious to the fire...they'll be loving us in a week or so when they are nibbling that fresh green forage!

Burning At Cross Timbers Experimental Range

Yesterday was a looooong day. We burned a unit near our house at CTER (Cross Timbers Experimental Range). The unit we burned was the one I wrote a burn plan for in class. It was a pretty successful burn, we got some cedar trees to crown out and most of the leaf litter burned. We started at around 9 in the morning and finished lighting around noon, went to lunch and came back and lit leaf litter that didn't catch. It burned really good the second time around because the humidity dropped a bit. Here are some pictures from yesterday's burn.

Cedar trees crowning out!!!

die die die!

Too bad we didn't have a smidge more wind to carry on to more cedars!

We walked up on a turkey laying on her eggs. I snapped a picture and quickly left so she could come back and tend to her eggs.

Adam is lighting leaf litter in the rocks.

Cool looking smokey creek bottom.

Dixie was exploring around all the rocks. It is so nice to have a dog that doesn't mind fire. We get to take her on burns and she stays pretty close and just walks around the fire.

A random picture of a fallen tree.

Dixie retrieving a shed.

Good puppy!

Second shed of the day.

Bringing her shed to me! Such a good girl!


#3 and 4 of the day, nice set!

Me, very very dirty after 8 hours of burning and mopping up the burn. We were on our way back to the house where I then mowed for 3 hours. I was filthy! I feel sorry for our washer for having to wash the clothes I wore yesterday!

Burning At Klemme

Yesterday we burned at the Klemme Experiment Station in western Oklahoma. These are a few pictures I snapped before, during and after the burn.

This is a crop-dusting plane that was swooping over the road right in front of us and over us.

It was fun to watch.

Here is the first burn unit before the burn.

another shot...

This is a student in the class lighting fire... without a helmet, goggles or shroud.. he regretted not having his helmet later on when he was about to choke in the smoke...the new students will learn.

Pretty smoke

This is during the end of the first burn.

Fire line

A shadow of me with the leaf blower on, cleaning up the fire lines.

Fire!

Smoke whirl


Smoke whirl, notice they act kind of like mini tornadoes

Big fat smoke whirl

Long skinny smoke whirl

This smoke whirl was moving fast off the burn unit

Seeeee, they look like tornadoes

Jumping the fence


Burning on the other side of the canyon

Me and Adam after we mopped up the first burn

Adam taking the weather after the first burn

Me being goofy

PRETTY smoke!

Adam patrolling the line during the second burn

Nice, clean fire line

Northern & Southern States, Truth About The Mason-Dixon Line

Last night I was watching the History Channel and I was educated about what line really separated the union and confederate states. It was pretty interesting. Most people refer the Mason-Dixon Line as the line that separates the north from the south, however that is not true. The Mason-Dixon line is part of the line that separates the north from the south but just a very small portion. This picture below illustrates the line that separates the union states from the confederate states, with an exception of Missouri. Missouri was a confederate state that was an exception to this line. Notice that not the entire state of Oklahoma is in the south, meaning only the part of the state under the line was considered confederate. I thought the whole state was a confederate state, you learn something new every day!

I made a little green star on that map that you can barely see, where I grew up, which shows I'm on the southern side of the line, I'm a southern girl!!! I told Adam last night that I was going to look at where I grew up was compared to the line and I figured it out this morning!


This blue line represents the Mason-Dixon Line.