All work and no play makes Ian a dull boy!

We absolutely treasure the life that this farm gives us. We have often thought that even our worst days are more interesting and rewarding than many people’s best days. Having said that though, it’s still nice to get away every now and then too! We just got back from a night in Boston taking Jen for her first experience of sitting up on the Green Monster at Fenway Park! Especially during batting practice there is nothing quite like sitting there on top of a 40′ high wall, just some 300 feet from home plate as the players pound fly ball after fly ball into the seats around you. It’s definitely a lot more intimidating than it appears to be on tv.

This whole tradition with the Monster started a couple of years ago in April of 2008. See out older son, Sam, had the misfortune of being born on the day that would come to be in the years ahead the same approximate date as the Futurity Show & Sale. April ’08 marked his 10th birthday and wanting to make up for the fact that a frickin’ alpaca show (albeit perhaps the most important show of the year) was messing up yet another birthday of his and the fact that his mother was not with him I decided to do something special: seats for himself, his little brother (that’s Maxy last night in the picture at left being exploited for marketing gain by his parents), myself, and our dear friend Dave McCarthy atop that venerable wall. Little did we know what we had in store for us that night! First, another fan up on the Monster convinced one of the visiting outfielders to toss Sam a ball up during BP (“Hey, it’s this kid’s birthday can we have a ball?!). Cool! Max quickly turned to me and asked whether he could have the next ball. Yeah, sure kid. I had been going to Fenway for over 25 years, sometimes for 10+ games a season, and had never gotten one ball, let alone another ball. Heh. So there we were enjoying ourselves with hotdogs, beer, etc…when David Ortiz came up to bat with the bases loaded and proceeded to hit a rocket that ricocheted off of the birthday boy’s left hand (he felt that one), bounced off the wall behind us, and was recovered by his little brother. Max of course loves his brother and instantly understood that that ball would have to be shared. Never missing an opportunity to be snarky with my dearly Beloved we of course instantly started sending off smart ass text messages along with photos of where the ball had bounced off of the wall (complete with indents of the ball’s stitches) to Jen at the Futurity much to the amazement of all of our friends present there. “We just caught Big Papi’s grand slam ball, what have you done today?”

Last night’s game ended for us a little prematurely—and with considerably less personal drama than the game of two years ago—after 8 innings with our now 9 year old passing out in his seat. We were, however, able to see the Sox win it in dramatic fashion an hour later from the comfort of our hotel room in the 11th inning! As an added bonus (this is for you Big Guy), we even got to go to a certain favorite show circuit restaurant for lunch before we hopped in the car for home today and now have some delicious cheesecake waiting in the fridge for a late night snack! Right then, back to work…