A Little Bit 'o This and That

10 games in a bit over two weeks. Our baseball season opens with two tournaments that overlap. We get to play games when other schools are practicing.  I think it should make us better.  The good news is we are 8-2.  More good news is we won a tournament and lost in extra innings in the championship game of the other.  The bad news is we've lost the last two games, including the opening game of our league season.

Our sports governing body has rearranged our contests and changed the priorities somewhat.  We now have in many ways three seasons in high school athletics.  We have a preseason with games  to prepare us, and also count in our overall record.  We have the league season, but leagues are arranged by distance as a priority to save transportation costs.  This creates unbalanced leagues of big and small school.  Some schools have a very difficult time competing in league with little chance of a league championship because of the arrangement of schools.And the third season is the playoffs.  Except in the playoffs anyone can enter.  You don't have to be a league champion, or even a runner up.  This has always seem to me to negate some of the meaning of a league and the value of the championship.  Not my call though, I just have to learn to play by the new format and try to make it work for us.

Yesterday we had a "lockdown" at school. Turns out there has been an undercover narcotics officer on campus from the beginning of school. 11 students were arrested for selling various drugs on campus.  Eight were from our school and three more from the continuation school.  It was a strange feeling of apprehension and uncertainty.  Doors were to be locked and curtains drawn.  No one was to leave their rooms.  I happened to be in another classroom and had to stay there for the remainder of the hour plus. To many it was quite a shock to see a classmate walked out of class with their hands behind them by a sheriff officer.  I had in class five of the students and one was currently playing baseball for us.

One of the negative and difficult outcomes of coaching so many games at this time of the year is I get little time at home.  With tournaments on Saturdays, Sunday become the only full day to help in the garden.  And with the planting and preparing going on that means the bulk falls to Maureen. And it means Sundays becomes a workday.  We have been rearranging the backyard and creating more garden space. We officially have no grass growing anywhere in the yard.  Secret;y I have joked that it would be fun to get to this, and now that we have it will be interesting how it plays out.  The dogs will have to make the biggest changes.  Trying to change their bathroom will be the toughest.

The new yard layout is nice though.  We will have a wine barrel orchard of fruit trees and berries. The chickens will get a revamped pen, and there will be more planting areas for vegi's.  A collateral benefit of the changes is some of the mess has been replaced with order and there is a calmness to walking out into the back now.   Not that it was missing in a great way before.  It just is different now.

Our school survived its accreditation, at least we weren't closed.  Now the big question becomes how will the findings be applied by the administration.

Easter break is coming.  Some kids will be home.  Family will be visiting and more fun and work wil be had by all.