Chim Char enjoys sleeping on Eric’s bed. He enjoys the company.
Sleeping with the cat
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AYSO Boys U8 Team 3 Season Finale
Making funny faces. Front row: Eric, Jaden Joey, Josh. Back row: Trevor, Cole, Patrick, Dylan, 3rd row: Coach Jim
Our AYSO Boys U8 Soccer team is wrapping up it’s season. I collected pictures from the year and assembled a short movie to give to the kids.
Little League Picture Night
The team got together for picture night and then went out and played a great game, beating the previously undefeated red team.
Mount Saint Helens – 30 years ago
On May 18th, 1980, thirty years ago today, at 8:32 a.m., the ground shook beneath Mount St. Helens in Washington state as a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck, setting off one of the largest landslides in recorded history – the entire north slope of the volcano slid away. As the land moved, it exposed the superheated core of the volcano setting off gigantic explosions and eruptions of steam, ash and rock debris. The blast was heard hundreds of miles away, the pressure wave flattened entire forests, the heat melted glaciers and set off destructive mudflows, and 57 people lost their lives. The erupting ash column shot up 80,000 feet into the atmosphere for over 10 hours, depositing ash across Eastern Washington and 10 other states.
Kathryn and I were living in Eugene, OR at the time and it was a Sunday morning. I was awake and reading in the living room while Kathryn was sleeping in. The blast shook the windows in our house and got Kathryn awake. She came out and asked what the noise was. Not knowing, I told her it sounded like a quarry blast, but I didn’t know there were any quarries around and who blasts on Sunday morning.
About 9am we heard the news.
The next day I drove to Portland for a computer training class and saw the reddest, most spectacular sunrise.
Some outstanding pictures of Mt Saint Helen are here.
Little League Opening Ceremonies
The Northern Community League had an opening ceremony for all the Little League teams. Below Eric’s team gathers in preparation. One by one all the kids were called out by name (a long process). Eric was 1st for his team.
Eric greets his team mates as they get called out to join the lineup. The field ended up being filled with all the teams represented by a multitude of uniform colors.
At 4pm Eric’s team had a game. He played pitcher and did a good job of fielding the ball.
Eric was 1 for 3 hitting.
Canoeing Schoharie Creek
Saturday Skip and I paddled Schoharie Creek from Fultonham rest area to Central Bridge; a distance of about 18 miles. We were joined by an old friend Albert Hodder, who was my primary camping buddy during my high school and college years, paddling his kayak.
The Breakabeen River Gauge was at 3.4 feet – which is normal summer time levels. One wouldn’t want it much lower.
There was a small thunderstorm on Thursday night that gave a little bump to the water levels. The extra 3-4″ of water helped us get over some riffles that would have grounded us otherwise.
Our greatest concern was the wind which was gusting from the west in the 15-25 mph range. While the Schoharie River is protected in the upper stretches, in the lower sections it opens up and we knew we would be battling winds as we finished up our trip coming into Central Bridge. Temperatures were in the high 50s-low 60s, just enough to warrant a 2nd layer.
The upper stretch was interesting, with lots of turns, little riffles, and lines to pick.
We launched at 11:30am. We had several nice views of Vroman’s Nose.
We saw Osprey and several ducks. We saw lots and lots of kingfishers though out our trip. We stopped for a creek side sandwich in Middleburg. We took a 2nd break in below Bridge Street in Schoharie and got to the Route 7 bridge fishing access in Central Bridge at 4:30pm. We really lucked out with the weather, until the last stretch into the take out. We avoided the wind until the last 30 minutes when we really had to slug it out against the wind.
Eric’s Red Hair
Eric and I got our hair cut on Wednesday night. Kim spruced up Eric’s hair with some red hair gel. He thought it was pretty cool and wanted to wear it to school the following day so he could freak out his teacher.
Snowy Mother’s Day
For Mother’s Day Eric made a watering can bouquet for Kathryn.
Kathryn is vacationing Aruba with a view of a sunny beach. Sunday’s forecast called for Scattered Clouds. High: 91 °F.
Eric and I stayed home. Saturday morning we had a 9am AYSO soccer game in the rain. We won 12-3 and Eric scored two goals and got very wet. Trevor accompanied us home and played until 3pm. The boys swept & mopped the kitchen and washed my Volvo. After dropping off Trevor Eric went to Jacob’s house and played until 6:30 while I primed the ceiling and walls in the foyer.
Sunday morning we awoke to 1″ of snow.
We have had a Rose Breasted Grosbeak hanging around the feeder lately. I couldn’t tell if he had just one leg or had the other leg drawn up against his body.
Eric’s 1st Little League Game
Eric decided to play Minor B Little League this year, primarily because his pal, Jack, was playing baseball. In Minor B there are called strikes, coaches on the field and a coach pitching. After 3 practices they had their 1st game. Eric was tagged as catcher for the game. He said he didn’t like the position because he got hit with the ball a lot – even though it didn’t hurt. By the end of the game he was catching a few of the pitches / tips.
Eric batted 6th and in his 1st at bat came up with bases loaded and two outs. He made contact; a slow roller down the 1st base line. The 1st baseman picked up the ball, stood up and was mesmerized by all the kids running. His coaches, parents and spectators were yelling for him to step on 1st base. With all the chaos he froze and Eric beat it down to 1st base safely. Over the 1st two games Eric has 5 hits for 6 at bats. You got to love playing on stone dust, because once the ball is rolling it carries out of the infield.
Planting Trees
Each spring we get trees through Oneida County Soil and Water Conservation District. We have mainly planted spruce trees as windbreaks, but also some white birch and lilacs. This year I ordered 50 spruce trees, 10 lilacs and 10 red oaks. The trees came in on Saturday morning. I traveled to Schoharie on Saturday for our High School reunion meeting and left for Bellevue, Nebraska on Sunday morning. Kathryn ended up planting all the trees with a little bit of help.
