Lots of Fun in Iraan

Again, I wanted to say Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there! Hope yesterday was a very blessed day for you.

Also, I have some PBR bonus pictures that I wanted to share with you. I thought about adding them last week, but that drive back to the ranch was long and hubby and I were tired. Hope you enjoy!

PBR always starts out with a flash.

Natalie and myself.

Ben, Natalie, myself and hubby.

Bulls can be mean.

We stopped by to see hubby's dad before we left to back to the ranch.

Last week was fun, sad, and exhausting. Monday, I was able to mow for two and a half hours and that felt good, but the sun, wow, it got me. That is the exhausting part of last week. I was on our zero turn, so I just sat, but the heat can get to you for sure. I did get some pink color on my legs, hoping that will turn dark. Strange tan lines for me these days. I also went to check the Ewoks (Hedgehog Cactus) and that was sad for me.

Here she is, our zero turn. Served us well in Hockley and continues to serve us well out here.

Not sure if you remember that beautiful bloom, well, it is gone now.

Tuesday was a fun day; we went to watch tee-ball. From the last time we watched the teams, this time the children had improved. Monday thay had practice and then Tuesday they played the older team. I didn't take any pictures, just enjoyed them playing. It really is like herding cats. 
 
Wednesday, we went to town to run errands. I made tacos for dinner. Just a nice chill day. Then Thursday, back to tee-ball. Tess (4) and Reese (3) did great. It was fun to watch them, and they did really well at hitting the ball. Sometimes Reese liked playing in the dirt more than trying to catch the ball, but with all the chaos on the field I don't blame her. Every time she tried to go for the ball some other child got it before she did. After the game they joined us for dinner at Isabella's. Kirsten (their mom) was there as well. One thing about Iraan, the restaurants are ok. Like I have mentioned before, pizza and BBQ are the real stars of the town. Kirsten was also telling us about the Food Trucks, I will have to have a better idea when they will be in town. We did get a cover for the Polaris. I wanted to stop the birds from sitting on it and using it as their restroom as well as not have the sun beat down on the newly covered seats.

"Keeping it real" it is easier to take off than put on. I can take it off by myself, 

but not sure I could put it back on by myself. Hubby and I put it back on together.

Since we are going to watch tee-ball, I was thinking about how baseball began. So, I now know and have some history to share with you. The earliest known mention of baseball in the US is either a 1786 diary entry by a Princeton University student who describes playing "baste ball," or a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts, ordinance that barred the playing of baseball within 80 yards (73 m) of the town meeting house and its glass windows. Another early reference reports that baseball was regularly played on Saturdays in 1823 on the outskirts of New York City in an area that today is Greenwich Village. The Olympic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia was organized in 1833.

Greenwich Village.

In 1903, the British-born sportswriter Henry Chadwick published an article speculating that baseball was derived from an English game called rounders, which Chadwick had played as a boy in England. Baseball executive Albert Spalding disagreed, asserting that the game was fundamentally American and had hatched on American soil. To settle the matter, the two men appointed a commission, headed by Abraham Mills, the fourth president of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs. The commission, which also included six other sports executives, labored for three years, finally declaring that Abner Doubleday had invented the national pastime. Doubleday "...never knew that he had invented baseball. But 15 years after his death, he was anointed as the father of the game," writes baseball historian John Thorn. The myth about Doubleday inventing the game of baseball came from a Colorado mining engineer who claimed to have been present at the moment of creation. The miner's tale was never corroborated, nonetheless the myth was born and persists to this day. Which does not mean that the Doubleday myth does not continue to be disputed; in fact, it is likely that the parentage of the modern game of baseball will be in some dispute until long after such future time when the game is no longer played.

Henry Chadwick.

Albert Spalding.

Abner Doubleday.

The first team to play baseball under modern rules is believed to be the New York Knickerbockers. The club was founded on September 23, 1845, as a breakaway from the earlier Gotham Club. The new club's by-laws committee, William R. Wheaton and William H. Tucker, formulated the Knickerbocker Rules, which, in large part, dealt with organizational matters but which also laid out some new rules of play. One of these prohibited soaking or plugging the runner; under older rules, a fielder could put a runner out by hitting the runner with the thrown ball, as in the common schoolyard game of kickball. The Knickerbocker Rules required fielders to tag or force the runner. The new rules also introduced base paths, foul lines and foul balls; in "town ball" every batted ball was fair, as in cricket, and the lack of runner's lanes led to wild chases around the infield.

New York Knickerbockers.

William R. Wheaton.

William H. Tucker. 

Initially, Wheaton and Tucker's innovations did not serve the Knickerbockers well. In the first known competitive game between two clubs under the new rules, played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, on June 19, 1846, the "New York nine" (almost certainly the Gotham Club) humbled the Knickerbockers by a score of 23 to 1. Nevertheless, the Knickerbocker Rules were rapidly adopted by teams in the New York area and their version of baseball became known as the "New York Game" (as opposed to the less rule-bound "Massachusetts Game," played by clubs in New England, and "Philadelphia Town-ball").

Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Despite its rapid growth in popularity, baseball had yet to overtake the British import, cricket. as late as 1855, the New York press was still devoting more space to cover cricket than to baseball.

Cricket.

At an 1857 convention of sixteen New York area clubs, including the Knickerbockers, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) was formed. It was the first official organization to govern the sport and the first to establish a championship. The convention also formalized three key features of the game: 90 feet distance between the bases, 9-man teams, and 9-inning games (under the Knickerbocker Rules, games were played to 21 runs). During the Civil War, soldiers from different parts of the United States played baseball together, leading to a more unified national version of the sport. Membership in the NABBP grew to almost 100 clubs by 1865 and to over 400 by 1867, including clubs from as far away as California. Beginning in 1869, the league permitted professional play, addressing a growing practice that had not been previously permitted under its rules. The first and most prominent professional club of the NABBP era was the Cincinnati Red Stockings in Ohio, which went undefeated in 1869 and half of 1870. After the Cincy club broke up at the end of that season, four key members including player/manager Harry Wright moved to Boston under owner and businessman Ivers Whitney Adams and became the "Boston Red Stockings" and the Boston Base Ball Club.

Cincinnati Red Stockings 1869.

Fun fact: in 1858, at the Fashion Race Course in the Corona neighborhood of Queens (now part of New York City), the first games of baseball to charge admission were played. The All Stars of Brooklyn, including players from the Atlantic, Excelsior, Putnam and Eckford clubs, took on the All Stars of New York (Manhattan), including players from the Knickerbocker, Gotham, Eagle and Empire clubs. These are commonly believed to the first all-star baseball games.

Vintage All-Star game photo.

Life on the Ranch is interesting. For example the blink camera that is pointed towards the bird feeder took a video of a huge Jack Rabbit. You have to look closely, and you will see it cross the camera towards the end of the video on the right side. See if you can spot the bunny.

Hope you did. I had to watch it a few times. "Have a Hoppy Monday", Anonymous.

Hope that you and yours has a blessed week. Sorry this blog came out a day later than it should have. "Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers." 3 John 1:2 (NASB).

If there is something special you would like me to take a picture of, please let me know!
 
Drop a comment for me and let me know your thoughts on the blog.
 
God, the RV & me...