Cold to the Bone, and STOP THAT HURDLING!

It's way too early for this much snow and such cold days.  

The annual leaf pickup and haul off began yesterday-----once the lawnmower decided to start.  As usual, this project will continue for the next few weeks, weather permitting. 

As I told Bill, the more I pick up now, the fewer there'll be later and the less likelihood of their freezing to the ground.   

With maple, poplar, oak and cottonwood trees around our buildings, we have more than our share of leaves to gather up each year. 

The job has been much easier the past few years when the lawnmower bags and scoop are working and when the lawmower starts.

It has been SO cold the past few days that starting the mower takes some tender loving care cuz the battery thinks it's winter hibernation time. 

Eventually, the mower fired up, and while doggies watched from the run and Bill gathered up some more wood down in the woods, I took off across the lawn.  

Twas a cold, cold job and after a while, my fingers---even inside of gloves----threatened to quit functioning.

About ten trips to and from the lawn later, most of yesterday's accumulation of leaves had been chopped up and thrown into piles at various dump spots around the place. 

And, if that job wasn't cold enough, I followed through on a promise later by attending my first Bulldog football game where the brand new grandstand opened earlier this year. 

The place is impressive, to say the least, but I learned right away that I'm either old or the climb from one row to the next is a little more challenging than what we experienced for a lifetime at the old grandstand.  

Please tell me there IS more distance involved in lifting one's leg up into the next row.  Whatever the case, it took me two tries, and, luckily, I succeeded on the second.  

Later, I noticed that the designers included pathways with rails to grab at the ends of each row AND even later, chose that route rather than stepping down and falling forward and going splat onto the new cement base.

Last night's game pitted the middle school Bulldog red-and-white team against the green team.  

Nobody around me seemed to know who the Bulldogs were playing, so I suggested we call them the Martians, to which one fan gently chided me by saying, "Usually, they (the mascots) are animals."  

I thought about that for a minute and decided not to challenge her comment with query of "How do we know Martians aren't animals?"  

I went to the first Bulldog football game in years on a cold, cold night because my neighbors told me that Boston would be playing. 

Not the Red Sox, mind you, but Boston, who was wearing No. 23 in a red and white uniform.  Boston, who's 13, plays guard for the Bulldogs. 

SHE lives down Selle Road from us. A while back, she, her sister Terra (of Lefty fame) and mom Tricia stood in my driveway one evening where a majority of conversation centered on Boston's first year as a gridiron player and her aspirations to one day play in the NFL. 

Boston is one of two girls playing for the Bulldog squad, which I'm told, have generally played together since they were iddy biddy Bullpups----with the exception of Boston, of course. 

Upon leaving, they promised me they'd let me know when Boston was playing at home. So, last night, I met up with Terra and Tricia and later dad Trent and watched the Bulldogs take the field against the visiting Martians.

It was soon evident that the years of experience of playing together were gonna pay off for the Bulldogs.  They led every time I looked at the scoreboard.  

That doesn't mean they weren't behind at any time, but when you're participating in or listening to conversations in an immediate 360 degrees and deep, scary shout-outs from "informed" male voices at the top of the grandstand, it's easy to get distracted from scoreboard happenings.

When suddenly the Bulldogs led 24-to a whole lot fewer points, I announced that I must have missed something.  To which Tricia, who was mentoring Steve and his family, who'd never ever attended a football game until last night, informed me that the quarterback ran it all the way to the end zone. 

Must've missed that one, I thought. 

Well, I did bundle up for the game, wearing four layers under my coat and a Sounders scarf and some gloves, but those jeans just weren't packing it as the teams continued to go back and forth down the field, and Boston ran back and forth into the game for brief periods. 

At one time while realizing I was freezing to the numb stage, I looked at the scoreboard with relief, thinking that the second quarter had sure zipped by fast.  

Oops, I had been looking at the wrong number.  No, by golly, we were still in the first quarter, and we'd already been sitting there for nearly 45 minutes. 

I'm guessing that when those players are that young, they probably make more mistakes than their high school counterparts whenever they scrimmage, so the refs are pretty busy and the clock stops a lot!

It kept stopping over and over again, and when a ref yelled that "hurtling" was a foul worth 15 yards, everyone in the crowd first asked, "What's hurdling?" 

Then, the uninformed chorus, without exactly pinpoint timing, commented, "I didn't know you couldn't leap over another player."

Well, no, you can't!  

According to the Internet armchair quarterbacks:  Hurdling IS illegal in the NFL and it is similar to the NCAA rule. 

Hurdling is defined as jumping over an opponent that has no other body part besides at least one foot on the ground. Basically, you cannot jump over another player who is standing. 

After several such comments within my 360-degree area, I finally announced:  No, you're just supposed to step on them; then you won't get a penalty. 

So what if I had no idea what I was talking about: people laughed, and when you laugh, that keeps you warm. 

Finally, in the second quarter other people besides me started looking at the scoreboard for information other than the ever-growing team scores.  

They, too, were wondering how much time was left in this game, and I'm betting their legs were getting cold too. 

Well, the last two minutes of the second quarter lasted for about 20, and I think we even heard of a second case of hurdling.  

I figured that since it was pushing 8 p.m. in a game that started at 6:45 sharp, I could politely excuse myself and head on my way. So, I did with the Bulldogs ahead at the half by 20 points. 

By the time I arrived home, my legs and feet had not yet thawed out, so I jumped in a hot tub, and that did the trick. 

It was actually a fun experience seeing the new grandstand and visiting with a much younger football crowd, or maybe I should say more unfamiliar crowd than I've been accustomed to in past Bulldog games-----probably at least 15 years ago. 

Still, I'm happy to say that there is definitely generational lineage coming up through the ranks, with names like Vandenberg and Bopp and Benefield spotted on the backs of those red-and-white jerseys, so the hometown appeal is still alive and well in Sandpoint. 

Plus, it looks like a bright future for the Bulldogs. 

I just don't know if it's the same in Martianville. 

Today is a warmer day, and that is good and leaf collecting may be a bit more comfortable. 

Happy Sunday.