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The Gentleman Farmer

~ Found somewhere in a part of the country known as north Florida and south Georgia…

The Gentleman Farmer

Category Archives: Sporting Life

Football

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by thegentlemanfarmer in Family, Living, Passages, Seasons, Sporting Life, time

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

bulldogs, college football, dawgs, dreams, georgia bullogs, hedges, heritage, sanford stadium, season opener, southern boys, tradition, uga 1

For me, the high holy season of college football begins this Saturday when my school, my team takes to the field.

started young...

me and uga one…

It is an acquired taste, not for everyone, though very important in my part of the world.

We start young, us southern boys, playing and dreaming as long and as far as our playing and dreaming will take us.

Throw in the generations of family men who played and dreamed before and will play and dream to come.

Mix in the atmosphere, the pageantry, the tastes, smells, drinks, sights and sounds.

Add the excitement, the energy, the contact, controlled violence.

Then you can see why it is in the blood.  Then you can see why it is who we are.

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It’s A Sporting Life (1st of a Series)

08 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by thegentlemanfarmer in Living, Sporting Life, time

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

120 years, calisthenics, continence, daily routine, exercise, living long, living well, moses, numbers, old age, pushups, rock stars, situps

Have I ever mentioned that my plan is to live 120 years, just like Moses and twice as corny?

coming after you, big guy...

coming after you, big guy…

Well, in my mind, to do that I got to keep in shape.  No, really, I do.  Heck, for that matter, you do too.  I mean, wouldn’t it be fun if we all lived to be 120, together, rocking through the ages, still with our teeth, our senses, and, of course, our continence?

just like these guys, only different...

just like these beloveds, only different…

Okay, so, this is my plan.  Each day, in fact each and every day, at the least, I do a set of calisthenics.  This year, to date, I have done 30,590 pushups and 30,590 sit-ups.

bracing for the pushup...

bracing for the pushup…

bracing for the situp...

bracing for the situp…

How did I get there you ask.  Well, I started out on January 1, by doing 10 of each.  Over the next two days following, I did 20 apiece.  From January 4 through January 6, I completed sets of 30, and, well, I’m guessing you can see the pattern.

view from a pushup...

view from a pushup…

view from a situp...

view from a situp…

Of course, the deeper question is why.  For that I have no answer, other than there is great joy to be found in rhythm, routine, number counting, and living to be 120.

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Stuff of Dreams, Stuff of Boys…

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by thegentlemanfarmer in Family, Living, Passages, Relationships, Sporting Life, time

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

archery, avon old farms school, bait fish, boarding school, fishing, golf, hiking, hunting, lacrosse, landlord, quail, roommates, savannah college of art and design, tadpoles, woodberry forest school

Do you ever think that life shows you, gives you, just what need, when you need it, as you need it?

stuff of boys, stuff of dreams...

stuff of boys, stuff of dreams…

Case in point, entering every day into the world of gentleman farming at Totem Hall, I pass a little corner in my home.  Until yesterday, I never paid it any mind.  It was just stuff.  But for some reason, for some reason, yesterday was different; I sat down and, as if for the first time, I saw the stuff of dreams, stuff of boys…

gotcha...

gotcha…

Blessed, our family has always lived surrounded by nature.  Nature has all sorts of bugs, butterflies, tadpoles, and baitfish that need catching by young boys.

boys and bows and arrows...

boys and bows and arrows…

My two sons and I like to hunt and fish.  After summer camp one year, one of the little rascals, maybe both got the idea of bow hunting and fishing.  So we bought an archery set.  Now the only thing left is the bow, the arrows are long gone.

walking and talking...

walking and talking…

I take long walks on our land.  Because of the possibility of running across a rattlesnake or water moccasin, just about all the time I’ll carry a stick with me.  For me, it’s better than a machete, which is too close quarter.

get up and fly, dagnabbit...

get up and fly, dagnabbit…

My part of the world has quail.  Sometimes even if your dog sets and holds, the bird might be a bit reluctant to get up and fly.  The boys use this strap to beat the bushes in hopes of getting the bird to move along.

full count...

spring sports…

Both the lacrosse stick and baseball bat are relics of the past.  My oldest son earned a varsity letter playing lacrosse at Avon Old Farms School.  My youngest tried baseball when he was much younger, maybe not even ten, in the end deciding the sport was too slow for him.

I did not even talk about golf, or tennis, or squash, whose tools of the trade you can see in several of the pictures.  And there is no way I can possibly describe how much fun I had teaching and then getting bested by my two, just a great way for me to grow up and stay young at the same time.

all gone now...

all gone now…

Okay, I staged this scene, but still, why not a bit of poetical license, after all we are all adults here.  The oldest is off to college in Savannah by the end of the weekend, moving into a home with four other roommates.  God help the poor landlord.  Then our youngest son leaves for Virginia and the start of his boarding school career next week.

Time moves along downstream like a river, always present, always changing, always there, never there…

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Recent Background Noise

Perhaps my ennui stems from David Bowie's death. I read somewhere that we should consider ourselves lucky to have lived at the same time he did. I do. Many years ago, there was a girl in my secondary school, Debbie P., who was very hip, very groovy, and very pretty. Now I attended Catholic schools and so, as you might imagine, we had to wear uniforms, except, of course, for after-school activity, and that's where I get to the point of the story. Our school was putting on its big play of the year, I had a small part, Debbie was working backstage. One evening during rehearsal she showed up wearing a Ziggy Stardust tee-shirt. I was young, naive, not hip, not groovy, and not knowing who the ambiguous Ziggy might be. During the weekend that followed that rehearsal, I went to a record store and discovered just what David Bowie was all about. It was a transforming experience. Now some forty years later, I farm, David is dead, and Debbie is into Christian rock bands. Did I say ennui...

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Granny's Wonderful Chair is still my bedside read for reasons discussed nearby...

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