Archery

The rain finally ended sometime late yesterday. It did cause us to have a fairly restful weekend, which I'll never complain about. Actually, I'm hoping to use Kearsyn as an excuse to get out of all the activities for next weekend. Next Saturday is supposed to be what yesterday was scheduled to be, except no softball tournament (that's been moved to Oct 21-22). We just took the soccer schedule and moved it all to next Saturday, including the chaotic picture schedule. If you ever want to see a true racket (in the scandalous sense of the word), have your kids join a sports league. Then sit back and watch the money being spent on those picture packages. People who will bi**h and complain about registration fees will willingly shell out big bucks for pictures of their kids in uniform; pictured on fake trading cards, fake cereal boxes, fake magazine covers, etc. It's like they care more about this image of their kid playing the sport, than their kid actually getting any benefit from playing the sport. I admit I have gotten sucked into this in the past (although I've never spent more than $25 per kid for sports pictures), but then it dawned on me how silly this all was. I have boxes full of these old pictures. The ones I actually keep out are the ones I've taken myself. Nobody is ever going to care what any of my kids looked like in their soccer uniform, pictured on a fake trading card. I'm not buying pictures this year. I've resolved to only pay for pictures when we have our family portrait done in the Fall. Our volunteer fire department hosts a professional photographer to take portrait photos as a fund raiser. It's actually incredibly cheap compared to those studios (plus: no sitting fee, which would bankrupt a family our size), and some of the money goes to our volunteers.

I'm glad the sun returned today. Our Knights of Columbus council holds several activities for kids of our parish and today was week #2 for archery. We had a soccer shootout a few weeks ago. The winner of that, in each age group, gets an award and a chance to compete on a regional level. Archery is something we do for just our parish, and the kids get to shoot arrows at targets for three consecutive weeks (as the weather allows). The guy that runs it (he's pictured with everyone except Connor) is a real archery lover. He supplies all the bows, arrows, and targets for us to do this. And for the kids that get the best scores, he converts old trophies that he's won over the years into awards for the kids. He just changes the plaque to read the kids' names. Connor actually won a trophy the first time we did this a couple of years ago. Here's pictures of all the kids taking their best shots today.

Alex if off at a paintball birthday party. That's something new from when I was a kid! Although we have paintball guns, we don't use them much, so Alex was very excited to get a chance to go shoot his. I've been promising the kids we'd go to the paintball park all Summer, be we just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe we'll go now that school is in session, and we can have the park to ourselves.

Finally, no baby news. I assume Vicki has updated her blog. I haven't checked today because of football, which I'm missing right now, so I'm going to end this and get back in front of the TV. I only have a couple hours before I'm supposed to go play indoor soccer with some friends of mine.

GRRR

It's Raining! No pumpkin patch. >:(

No baby news, either. Vicki's still in bed so I haven't found out how she's feeling today. Probably grumpy, since the kids were up, making all kinds of racket this morning. Despite, the downpour, Chicken Girl, and some of her brothers, still got up to tend the chickens. I think they had to swim, 'cause there's a lot of water out there. We should be raising ducks on a day like this.

Well, it's First Friday, and that means we go to church for Mass and First Friday Devotions. I wish I could go to Mass every day, but there's just too much going on. So, we settle for the first Friday of each month and the occasional Holy Day of Obligation, and whatever other events inspire us to go to church throughout the year. In fact, I now have 15 minutes to get to church, so I'll talk to ya later....

Need Your Help With the Rain

They're calling for rain tomorrow: 70% chance. That's good, except I'd rather have it on Saturday. The kids and I scheduled a field trip to the pumpkin patch tomorrow. I'd hate for that to get rained out. The chance for rain on Saturday is only 40% but rain would solve all the running-around chaos scheduled for this weekend, and force us to do nothing. I like doing nothing, every now and then. So, everybody on the east coast, aim your fans west, to push the weather back a little. To the west of Chesapeake Bay, get out your vacuums and start sucking the weather back toward you. Maybe, together, we can hold that rain off until Saturday. We just need to slow it down by 24 hours.

Thank you.

No change on the baby front. Next doctor appointment is Monday. We might induce then, but we're not sure, yet. I see Vicki's been neglecting her blog so I'll try to keep you updated.

The Final Tally

The final count: 16 chicks. Out of 24 eggs, 7 never developed into chicks and one pipped, but died in-ovum. Not too bad, I guess, for an attempt to hatch chicks this late in the year. With any luck, we'll be getting our first eggs sometime around Easter and perhaps start our next brood of chicks next Summer!

On the baby front: no baby yet. Vicki's appointment this morning ended with a trip home and a "come back next Tuesday".

Now, I just know this baby is planning on messing up our weekend. Kenzie has her tournament (Saturday AND Sunday) in Salisbury (about 90 minutes to 2 hrs away, depending on beach traffic), and everyone else has soccer games on Saturday, except Alex, who'll be reffing all day. To complicate things further, Alex and Connor are scheduled to be Altar Servers at the Saturday evening Mass and I won't be home from Salisbury until much later. Kenzie and I are going to have to get up early and go to 7:00 am Mass on Sunday and then head back to the tournament. If her team goes to the championship game on Sunday, we won't be getting home until very late. This would be easier if her team had more than 9 players, but it doesn't. The tenth girl recently broke her wrist. They need everyone there, if at all possible.

Kearsyn, if you want to make friends with your future siblings, you'll just relax where you are until next week, girl. It won't help that Vicki will be driving kids around all over the Island in my absence on Saturday. It's a good thing she's made from pioneer stock.

Make That a Dozen

We have a dozen! Five more are still hatching. I think one of those won't make it. He's been stuck in his shell for 24 hours and just can't seem to break out. He broke through the shell, but seems too weak to break that membrane. Anyway, we should have at least 16, maybe 17, chickens by the end of the day.

School's going to be tough today, with all that peepin' goin' on. But, we've been doing school all weekend, with these little chickens teaching us about God's greatest miracle, the miracle of life!

I just had a friend call who wants to bring her 6 kids over to see our new flock. We're turning into a regular old petting zoo. So Cool. We need more animals. I know Vicki asked you all not encourage goats, but you can just ignore that bad advice. I definitely see goats in our future. If Kenzie got such a kick out chicks hatching, imagine how excited she'll get when we have our first baby goat?

Before and After

BEFORE

AFTER

First Chick

This little thing is twenty seconds old in this picture, not including incubation time; the very first of our hatchlings. Chicken Girl McKenzie was there to witness the hatching at 6:34 this A.M.! I know he looks a little dead, but I assure you, he's up and about. I'll be moving him to our brooder as soon as he can stand up. Several other eggs have been 'pipped' so we should see more chicks soon.