Football

(The pictures for this post were taken during Sunday afternoon's football game. Andrew was the photographer and I was walking in the woods during the game, so I wasn't there either. Normally, we play our games in the evenings so the pictures don't pertain to this particular blog story.)

With cows for an audience and poo piles for goal lines, the eight of us line up against each other--four on four--and once again prepare for the kick off. On the other side of the field, Andrew cocks back and lands another powerful kick on the worn football with a merciless amount of force. It was a high one. An excited cry went up on our side of the field when Stephen caught the ball and took off. The other team suddenly became alive. While Stephen was able to out juke Michael, he was no match for Andrew who tagged him (yea, we were playing two-hand touch) at the 35 yd. line. Stephen whipped the ball over Michael's head toward Annie's waiting arms, but before the ball reached it's intended, it was snatched out of the air (once again) by Andrew's long arms. "Oh yea!" I hear Johnny shout from behind me. It's obvious whose team he's on. There's an uproar from my team as he streaks across the field. "Get him, tag him!" However, the boy is slippery and fast and made it to the 10 yd. line before he was finally tagged by Theresa. He gently tossed the ball to Johnny who promptly started running the wrong way! "Johnny! Johnny, wrong way!" By the time he turned and started in the right direction, I was able to easily touch him. Johnny threw it back to Andrew with pride (even though he didn't actually make any yards on his play). Andrew caught it and was immediately touched by Theresa. He quickly tosses the ball behind him to Michael and proceeds to block for him. However, the pass was knocked down by Stephen who quickly recovered it and threw it to me. I feel Lizzy's hands tagging me even as I caught the ball. I tossed it to Annie who was hanging on the outskirts of the group. She made it over halfway across the field before Andrew caught up to her and touched her. She passed it across the field to Stephen who was immediately tagged by Michael but got the ball to a wide open Theresa in our in-zone who completed our 5th touchdown of the game. "YEA!" we all yell. "Drat!" they all respond. Everyone is excited and riled except the cow that is still standing in the same spot calmly chewing her cud with a look of mild interest.
"Oh no," I hear Johnny muttering as he follows his idol, Andrew, back down field to their side. "It's okay," I hear Andrew encouraging his team. "We'll cream them on this play." "Yea right," Stephen informs us, stepping back for the kick. It's good...










For me, our football games are one of the most peaceful times of the day. It's dusk and, though we have to play hard to beat the impending darkness, there's a certain peacefulness that comes with watching the vibrant colors of daytime wind down into shadows and silhouettes around the farm. The evening streaks of red, purple and orange streaming between fall colored trees outlines the gentle, cud-chewing cow causing her to appear the perfect picture of peace.



Oh, and behalf of a sister, I'm supposed to inform you that the girls won the game that Andrew photographed above.

(My apologies toward the poor quality of these pictures. They are actually stills taken out of various movie clips that the boys are/were making about our football games. If their movie turns out, maybe I'll get to share it with you!)