Football, anyone?

As my father enjoyed football, we grew up watching football. While we all had our favorite teams (Bears, 49ers, Broncos, Titans), we were willing to watch any match up.

Usually this time of the year our family gets together for a meal and the 8 boys to hit the gridiron, although sometimes a cousin, neighbor, and now sons join in the fray.

The weather is immaterial - we play in mud, snow, grass, or whatever the day affords. We are older now. Some of us are slower and


smarter. Well, maybe slower anyway! The ladies question the smartness. Today we hit the field and after picking teams (picture one) we were underway. I shortly hit my brother Joe for a nice gain (picture 2) Before he blew out his knee (he can rotate his patella between his ankly and waist), he was truly an incredible athlete. Long ago in a game on a 5th down and the whole field to go, I hollered to the defense I was throwing to Joe rather than punting. Amidst quadruple coverage, he leaped up, tipped the ball to himself, and scored. The knee has slowed him a little, but he is still the favorite target.



We get a little too excited and rowdy and the young kids still are a little intimidated to get too close. We tried handing the ball off to Jesse and have him run behind us in an old "Flying Wedge" play, but he got scared and got sacked for a loss. Here we have him doing something (picture 3) I am not sure exactly what. Surely celebrating a splendid play by his father.


Picture four reveals a great defensive play on my part, in which I rushed in and sacked my brother Mike for a big loss. He "slipped" prior to the

sack, although I suspect he actually fell rather than face my furious rush. I gave him a nice slap on the hinder to accentuate my continued domination, even in my old age!

When will we quit playing? My wife has no sympathing for my aching back and sore knee. She seems to think that one day I should grow up and put away childish things. I have just too many fond memories playing with my brothers while we were growing up. If you throw in my sister (who plays like a girl) we grew up with enought for a baseball team. I have a lot of fond memories and even a few injuries left from an endless number of historic skirmishes. I suspect that 40 years from now we will be out with our canes and wheechairs arguing whether or not we tottered across the line. I doubt that we will have gained any sympathy from our wives yet at that point, but I sure hope they will come out and help us find our dentures after we are done!

There was a very grievous conclusion to the 2006 skirmish. Wishing to take a few photos of our athletic prowess, I set my digital camera on top of one my brother's vans. With a shock of dismay, I recalled my action right after they had left. Two miles down the road I located the camera, which was sadly worse for the wear. Evidently foreign camera makers cannot make a camera suitable to withstand the rigors of falling six feet at 60 miles an hour onto the blacktop.

As we opened up our Bibles for our evening Bible study, we read Proverbs 1 and in defining the words discretion and judgment I used my nearly four hundred dollar lapse of judgment as an example to define what good judgment and discretion mean. I knew better than to trust my absent minded brain to leave it there, but really, could I risk missing a play if I were to take the time to set it safely inside?! No way! "Hike!"

December update

We survived the first midwest snowstorm, although the effects of that storm are now memory. A week of mild weather has melted the snow and now things are muddy mess.

Work has slowed down and I have ben spending more time in the shop. Soon I'll post a few pictures of some of our last projects.

The kids have been healthy and continue to work in their schooling. Since the aunts have been complaining about the pictures of bird, I though I'd better shape up and show a couple of the kids!




















Now how did this get here?!

Finally, a decent snowfall!

We managed to get clipped by the midwest snowstorm that made the news, although we were right on the edge. We managed to get 4" here, although 20 miles to the west there was nothing and just 10 miles east there was 8"

Following the snow were very cold temps - with the morning temperature only 7 degrees. A distant memory are the nice 55 degree days we enjoyed earlier this week!





The hens are tucked in their chicken house with care. I insulated the ceiling and have the water heater on. They are a little grumpy about not being let out to forage around the yard, but I am thinking they would not find much for now. With 42 hens, we've been getting about 3 dozen eggs a day.