June Rolls In....Wet and Warm!

With Patricia away in Wisconsin for the Memorial Day Weekend, I had a chance to do nothing....of course that is not quite true...but it sounded good....the time fly by in the blink of an eye, and I stayed relatively busy. Sam was home for about 1o minutes on Friday, he drove from Columbus to umpire an ACME Scrimmage, then headed back to Ohio State, where finals await. Hal came home Sunday afternoon, we had a few beers when I was done with lawn work, and headed over to my sister's place where the family downed a few and watched the brother-in-law grill some brats and burgers....Hal and a few college and High School friends from years gone by, got out the cards and X-Box and finished off the evening doing those. Hal returned to Beavercreek yesterday afternoon. I also watched daughter Anissa for a few hours each day, then she would return to her place, where the caregivers would work with her the evening and overnight hours.

I completed my First ever Regional Final Assignment in High School Baseball(to go with the 4 District and 3 Sectional Tournament games this season)...last year I had a Semi Final. It's amuses me that although usually, not always, I am the oldest umpire in the crew at 61...I'm not the longest serving when it comes to years served in the high school game. This weekend was no exception.

My Partners for the Regional were Bob Grubaugh, a mid 50s/20+ year Veteran of Baseball, and Softball(he has a State final 4 Softball game this week), and Ron Goleman, who at a few months younger than me, has well over 20 years in baseball and basketball. Bob is also from Celina and Ron is my Association Secretary from Van Wert, who got me started down the High School trail. The final featured #2 ranked Clear Fork against #9 rated Blumdale Elmwood, who had taken out top rated Coldwater on Friday...Clear Fork, despite 6 errors, got out of a bases loaded jam in the 7th inning and held on to win 6-4 to move on to the State Division 3 Championships from Thursday through Saturday this week in Columbus.
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The first 3 days of the 4 day weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, were sunny and warm...yesterday? Not so much....the rains arrived early afternoon, and it poured and stormed on and off for the rest of the day. The next 2 weeks, if you believe the forecast, will have plenty of rain to go with the already wet Spring season...just in time for the beginning of tonight's ACME and American Legion Baseball seasons that will make my month of June full, depending on rain amounts.

June, along with April, are usually the busiest when it comes to umpire work...although April usually is plagued by rain outs, more so than June. Things change to Summer Tournament action in July, and then Football beckons at August signals the wane of Summer. Something I am not ready for....I want some dry and warm/hot to enjoy for the next few months before the reality of Ohio's short warm weather season comes to a close.
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ACME, Junior ACME, the JV of the Summer season is what I have on schedule tonight at Celina's artificial turf...when that is completed, I head to the Dayton Airport at Vandalia to pick up Patricia., although she may be waiting for me to arrive for an hour or so.
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The wet and sun mixture has managed to keep the cash crop of weeds around the growing and changing flowers in the back yard...the 80 or so Sunflowers and other Summer Flowers, are going to have to battle the weeds for water and space....meanwhile the grass, needs mowing about every 4 days....No Drought in Western Ohio, to say the least.

I managed to catch a few Reds games on radio and the tube...and the Philly Flyers in the Stanley Cup finals..sorry to say the Flyers are down 2 games to none, losing a couple of 1 goal games at Chicago. Last night's 2-1 defeat was a much better game than the 6-5 defeat on Friday...I still have some hope, the Flyers have been down before(see 3 games to none, and 3 goals to none in the 7th game against Boston)...and are playing pretty well...game #3 in Philadelphia, for sure a must win for my Flyers.

Meanwhile the Reds. lost big time at St. Louis yesterday, but still find themselves in a first place tie with the Cardinals...2 more games left at Busch Stadium in the series.

June is going to be busy that is one prediction I can make.

back later

Photos-The back yard flowers are changing from the Spring to Summer Variety, meanwhile the first of the Raspberries appear..all will have to contend with birds, weeds, and the ceaseless rain.