Happy 14th Birthday Greg

Ths bllplyer got a nw fone 4 his bday w/ unlmtd txtng

Every year since Greg was 10 I have said that I wished I could freeze him at "that age"....each year he has brought me more and more joy. He has developed an awesome sense of humor and I love just being around him. So once again, I am thinking 14 is going to bring more of the same fun....Bring on the high school years!!! Ok. yeah. I. Know @ the turbulence. Sometimes it is better to watch him from afar. But that is because he is so darn handsome and he definitely acts more polite with every other person on earth besides the three people who have to live with him. I'm ready....my friend tells me he'll come back around @ about 16 and a half. Whatever. He's calling me right now to come and tuck him in. Shhhhh!!!

game over...

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

The luck ran out this morning....the South Troy Dodgers lost to an undefeated team who was described by everyone as "hitting machines".

Their record at the end of the tournament was 6 wins and 2 losses.

Bit by bit I am getting more information about particular games. My father told my mother that Greg pitched so well that after a couple innings there were about 500 people gathered to watch him. The ump closed the strike zone down in the last inning and a few "easy" plays weren't so easy and that is how they ended up losing it.

The coaches gave the kids an awesome speech before they got on the bus to come home. I can't wait to hear more about it. I can't wait to see them tonight.

lots to smile about in Michigan

Greg and Mike getting off the bus. These are the two "local" boys the newspaper is now talking about. Guess what Post Star....you are going to be covering these two aces for the next 4 years! Today they combined for a Triple play....Greg was playing third and #20 was playing first base. Greg caught a line drive for the first out, threw to first base where Mike got the runner who was trying to come back to first and then Mike gunned the ball back over to Greg at third where the runner who was trying to advance from second was tagged out!!!

Opening ceremonies for the Sandy Koufax 13's World Series. There are teams from Connecticut, Maryland, Indiana and Michigan to name a few....

I love the candid style of this picture and how it somehow captures the essence of Team.

Greg hit .500 in the first round with 2 doubles, a triple, some singles and only 2 strike outs. He had 3 RBI's and scored 5 runs. That is puttin' up some numbers!


The Scoreboard after the first round of pool play. 20 teams were broken into 4 pools. South Troy is shown undefeated and advancing to the start of the double elimination round. Greg got the starting game of the second round and although pitching a "gem" according to Dan...the game ended in the team's first loss of the tournament at 9-7.

They bounced back in the next two games that were played Friday and are now in the final four. The Dodgers go up against an undefeated team at 10:30am Saturday morning. Each win so far represents an advancement that FEW kids who play this game will ever experience.
All of these photos came from one of the parent's flickr sites. How awesome for me to be able to access them while the series is still going on. Makes me feel like I am there. Which at this point....it is killing me that I am not. Something tells me though, that I am going to have the opportunity to see lots of great moments like this in the next 8 years.

Ridgeview Dairy Farm in Argyle, New York

When I was growing up my parents and grandparents raised cows, chickens and pigs. They had longtime friends who lived in Argyle and also raised animals and did farming. We tended to spend a lot of time with them since they had the same interests. Often we would help them with a particular farming task and they would return the favor with whatever we needed done. When we drove to Argyle growing up, my father would roll all the windows down and proclaim that he LOVED the smell of cow manure and corn silage. All the while my sister and I gagged ~quite dramatically I might add. I was always the oldest of all my parent's friend's kids. And the Argyle friends' kids came along when I was 9. Their son was about 4 years old when they were in the thick of farming. That little boy LIVED and BREATHED anything farm related. Well, his father eventually got out of farming....he always had a "regular" job anyway and it just got to be too much. The couple ended up getting a divorce and needless to say we didn't see a whole lot of them. I get kind of emotional (yup, me..) when I see the kids...all grown up now...AND the son is a big time FARMER which is actually no surprise. He is undoubtedly living his lifelong dream of being a dairy farmer. For the past 3 years or so he had been renting a farm and running it himself. It was a dairy farm which he worked for the whole 3 years to turn over to Certified Organic. Then he decided that it was counterproductive for him to try to rent from someone else....so he bought his own 50 acre farm. Every time we would run into his mother we would tell her that we wanted to bring the kids over to see the animals and the working farm but never seemed to have (make) the time to follow through. So once again after seeing her last week (and not seeing my sister much at all due to the hectic baseball schedule) we bit the bullet and made the trip. It was better than any school field trip. The farmer and his girlfriend made time in their busy farming schedule to show us around and answer questions...and they didn't hesitate to let us know that they had to get back to their work...because chores need to be done before the 4:30pm milking time.

In this barn, 65 dairy cows are housed. I have to tell you specifically about the conditions these cows are cared for in. Although the barn is old, it has huge fans on the end that draw the hot air out and provide circulation of air. There was a cool breeze throughout the stalls where the cows are hooked with a chain but loosely and such that they can lay down if they want or stand up. They had good looking fresh hay in front of them and the blue buckets in front of them are filled fresh every 10 minutes by a built in water spicket. The cows had plenty of room between them. They don't go to a milking parlor, they are milked right in their own area. To music. The barn had a sound system piped throughout. Hearing top 40 music in the barn actually made it seem like a cool place to work. Although it must have been potent in there because even I could smell it.

The several contraptions that hook to their utters are also hooked to the steel lines that run from the stall over head to the big milk tank where secure bio protocols are in use. I think that means clean? The farmer moves down the line of 65 cows milking each of them individually.
The farmer (Dan) said they get 7,000 gallons of milk every other day. A refrigerated truck comes to take the milk. He used to supply to Stewart's but he said they don't pay the farmer what he deserves, so he sells his milk to a co-op. He is working on getting his current farm switched to organic and said that he will get 3 times more money for the organic milk that will be produced.

Other than the dairy cows, they had one horse, 4 pet goats, 2 dogs, 15-20 heifers (one year old cows) and banty chickens and some baby chicks.

The baby calves stole the show for the kids. This little guy below licked and tried to suckle on my littlest nieces fingers. Needless to say we are going to HAVE to go back. Reagan was surely impressed by the vastness of owning the land and THAT MANY cows and other animals. I think it made an impression on her that he SELLS milk to the stores and that our milk ORIGINATES right there. She was actually a little grossed out by that, but we explained the homogenization process and she was better. I was mindful during the visit of the respect we must give these hardworking beyond explanation people that do what they do for our food supply. How ridiculous that someone would consider heaping more tax on a farmer.....

Reagan asked on the way home if he is rich. My sister and I almost in unison answered..."If you call doing what you love rich..then he certainly is.

smart bear in the adks

I hope I don't come into contact with the bear named "yellow-yellow" during my next backpack trip. I don't use a bear vault, but this girl may figure out what do with a coin by then.