With anticipation and dread I walked into the field this morning.  Six cows greeted me.  Lily, the seventh, was not among them.  

Upon cresting the hill, I saw Lily coming toward me.  A decided spring in her step was the first indication of her postpartum state.  She also looked quite a bit less beamy.  These were really good signs.

Okay, so it’s been a while... a few things have happened around here in the past year and a half, most of which have led to a downsize/rethink/put-your-head-down-and-keep -going approach to life. I’m still on the farm, still have the full complement of animals, still have bigger gardens than I should have, and still have way too many projects on the books. But I have come to accept that this is the way life is and I am still struck with the occasional swell of feeling that this is what I am meant to do. There are more changes to come, but I’m optimistic that good things are afoot.

We've relocated our online coverage of UNH football and hockey to the Monitor's general sports blog at www.concordmonitor.com/sports. Please follow the link to visit us there, and thank you for reading.

Driving my son to work this morning meant I wasn't able to go out fishing with my S.O. this morning.  There may have been a time in my life where this parental responsibility intruding on my time would have kicked up feelings of irritation and even resentment, but I've come to know that life is just too short for such things.  My experiences over the years has taught me to enjoy every moment of my life, including those that may seem mundane and intrusive.  I chose to have children, thus I made the choice to give up much of my "me" time for several years to come.  It is a choice I do not regret.  Instead of sitting in a boat near the ocean feeling the bite in the air and tug on a fishing line, I spent a few more minutes with my son, and even though we exchanged very little conversation, it's time spent with as much importance as the couple of hours in that boat with my S.O.

If yuo're overf 60 and a baseball fan, there's probably nothing I can tell you about Bobby Thompson and "The Shot Heard Round the World" that you haven't heard before, except maybe that Thompson died Tuesday, August 17, 2010.  Younger people might not understand how a single home run -- even one that decided a pennant -- could be heard around the world, and never be forgotten, or change two lives forever, and make them immortal.

Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder if habitual liars will ever realize how they are viewed by those around them.  Fibbing is all about self image, but instead of the desired effect of great prowess and achievement, the offender usually appears to others as a complete idiot who can’t be trusted.

The oldest, possibly most important baseball cliche is, "The game's not over till the last man is out."  Or as Yogi Berra put it: "The game ain't over till it's over." There is no clock.  Every team gets 27 outs, or nine innings of 3 outs each.  If the game is tied after nine innings, they keep playing till somebody wins.  It is not sudden death overtime, where the first team to score wins.  If the visiting team scores in extra innings, the home team still gets three outs to tie or win.

I watched the Mickey Mouse Club when it first appeared in the 1950's, including the original troupe of teen-age song-and-dance people known as Mouseketeers.  Everybody had their favorites. I was unhappy whne it came on because it knocked Howdy Doody off the air. 

Signs that I'm ready to become an American: