Just a quick pop in to say hi and share two photos.  I didn’t know we were going to be getting any weather in, and look what a beautiful sight I woke up to this morning:

A lovely surprise this morning

And here is where we’ve been the past two days:  the Sanford Invitational wrestling tournament.  It is in southern Maine, an invitational of top teams from New England from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.  The competition is probably at the highest level you will see in Maine.  One of our state champions from last year who IS a really good wrestler didn’t even place!   The meet last weekend at Noble and this weekend at Sanford are so competitive, that they award medals to the top six, not the usual top 4.

Usually, Camden Hills is among the top 3 or 4 teams at Sanford, but we lost 7 of 13 starters to graduation last year, and two of the remaining varsity wrestlers were unable to compete due illness/injury.  That meant we had a whopping 4 kids of 13 who had competed there before.  Still, FIVE managed to place:  four came in 5th:  James Archer, Chris Weiss, Connor Winchenbach and Jared Gilbert, (Connor is a Junior, the others are sophomores), and ELI came in 6th!  Yes, as a Freshman he PLACED at Sanford!   So we are popping proud of our boy, of all the kids who wrestled, and the entire team who came along (even the one with a bad stomach flu came down with his mom to cheer on the team as best he could) to support the wrestlers.  Way to go CHills! (short for Camden Hills Regional High School).

The critical win: the other boy was in the lead by 8+ points, a “major decision,” when Eli realized well into the final period that is was do-it-or-die. He DID it! And here is the result… Eli has the kid in a pin, and the ref is down looking to see if both shoulder blades are on the mat for one second. DONE! It is remarkable for any Freshman to medal at Sanford, and especially not in one of the major competitive weight classes (it is still difficult, but not as bad, in the extreme upper and lower weight classes as there are fewer wrestlers in the 220+ weights or the 106 and 113 pound classes).  That’s the sound of mama’s buttons popping with pride!

And if there are any other wrestling moms out there, here is an article in the PenBay Pilot, a local online newspaper.

And a PS:  thank you Dorothy for asking what a Freshman is!  We have kindergarten (usually age 5), then eight “primary and middle school” grades starting at age 6.  High school is grades 9-12, and Freshman is the 9th grade, followed by Sophomore, Junior and Senior.  I’ll add that to the blog!

Well, it is clearly winter in Maine!   Now that Eli is in high school, wrestling begins around Thanksgiving and winds up in early February (in high school it began late January and ended the very end of March), just in time for the coldest and snowiest weather outside.  Currently we have warmed up to 21 F, with a wind chill of 7.  Hmmm.  Good day to stay indoors!

About 11 a.m. this morning. Notice the plow pile that is taller than the car and about 35 feet wide?  The snow on the walk is more than knee-deep!  When Eli shoveled them later, he measured:  24 inches deep in spots!  We didn’t get that much in snowfall, but it blows like crazy on our hill.

This is the view out the door this morning….that is hubby’s car and the snow plow pile.  We have received all that snow since the 26th!  Sheesh!  Snow is still coming down.  Well…coming down sideways with the wind!  Our drive wasn’t plowed when I got home last night and I slid sideways into the plow mess on the side, so will call AAA later this morning to pull me out!  Our wonderful neighbor and plow guy came when I called about 7:30 to plow and put down sand for me, but no luck getting out on my own.  So he drove me up to the house (a quarter mile from where I was stuck) and then finished plowing.  Then Paul got home several hours and inches of snow later, and he got stuck, too!  He got his car up this morning though, so only I need AAA!

So why were we out in this mess?  Well, this weekend was the Noble Tournament, the biggest, most competitive high school wrestling tournament in Maine.  There were 41 schools and over 400 wrestlers!  That’s a lot of sweating, mostly male, bodies <grin>! Eli did well for a Freshman, and came up against some serious competition.

The Meet is large: four mats going at once to get through the 400+ wrestlers on Day One.  PS:  Eli learned that Noble (the high school) is an acronym for North Berwick and Lebanon, the two towns!  Cool!

Eli’s first match again a kid from LaSalle in Rhode Island he lost by just two points.  He was seriously irked with himself, as he felt he could have wrestled better, but he worked hard and never gave up!  It was hard for Eli because in all of 7th and 8th grade, he lost a grand total of ONE match!  Welcome to high school and the big leagues and being the youngest again.

Eli is in red. The LaSalle boy has his arms in control, so Eli is arching up to keep from getting pinned. He managed that, losing only 5-7.

Alas, it ended this way, but still Eli didn’t let the kid pin him, despite being there:

Eli got out of this scrape…you can see the ref’s hand on the left where he is down on the mat looking to see if Eli’s shoulders are on the mat. Fortunately not!

On the way down to the meet earlier in the day, I pulled over in Appleton, about 3 miles from home, to snap this picture of the valley looking east–this is for Debby H. and all of you who prefer your snow vicariously:

The view from Route 131 over the valley; Sennebec Lake is down below the crest of the near hill.

Back to the meet:  Eli won his second match (also on day 1) handily:

Eli dominated in this match. Here he has his right are wrapped around and under the opponent’s right arm, with one hand on his neck to then lever and turn him over on his back.

And another move: grind your opponent into the mat so he can’t move. Erk! Here Eli is  doing that under-over-twist thing again.

For his third match on day 2, Eli  lost 11-0, his first shut-out in about three or four years!  They had removed one mat and opened up more bleachers, which made seating more spacious.

Despite the fact that the Massabesic kid (who was in the State finals last year, meaning one of the top two), Eli was able to be in control for a bit of the match, and there were several times where the ref called a “stalemate” and had them get up and return to starting position. On the lower left you can see Asst. Coach True Bragg in the black shirt.

Most of the match, though, the boy in green dominated.  He looks like a Junior or Senior.  My personal theory is that boys grow like dog years.  For every calendar year, they get 7 years of growth/strength.  If you take two boys of equal skill and weight, but one is two years older, the older boy will absolutely be stronger.  So Eli did a great job NOT getting pinned and taking him to stalemates.

About 2:20 pm after Eli was out of the matches, Paul came and suggested that, since Eli was out, I might want to head home as the storm was coming.  I decided that I could wait until it was all over at 8:30 and drive home tired, in the dark, in the driving snow, or I could be sensible.  For the first hour on the way home I regretted leaving, but the more I drove and the more it snowed, the happier I was that I was that much closer to home.  A two and a half hour drive turned into four hours.  The interstate speed limit is 65.  They had a storm speed limit up of 45.  Everyone was driving about 30 MPH!  At least here in Maine, folks are sensible and go only as fast as conditions allow even if the limit is higher.  I got to the bottom of the drive at 7.  Finally got to the house (3/10 a mile uphill) about 40 minutes later.  Thanks again to Alex!  Paul, Eli and the schoolbus got back to the high school after midnight and to the bottom of the drive at about 1 a.m.  I finally got back up and watched a Project Runway episode while I waited and worried.  It took them over half an hour to try to get up the driveway, then walk!

So that’s it for now!  I hope to finish a book about some people called the Red Paint People who lived in Maine 4000 (yes, four THOUSAND) years ago today and tomorrow, then start a quilt for a juried invitational exhibit.  It’ll be good to get back to fabric and thread!

Sheesh…. crazy busy here!   I had surgery on my left foot on Friday, the same as what I had in August on my right foot, for arthritis removal.  Things are going quite well and pain-free, but I have been insanely busy getting stuff done in anticipation of bobbing around on one foot for a week!   Last Saturday was the start of Eli’s high school wrestling career, with a pre-season meet that included Class A, B and C schools (Camden Hills is Class B).  Eli had three matches:  his first was against a senior and the defending Class C State Champion (!!!!).  Astonishingly, Eli managed to get a couple of escape points and NOT get pinned, which under the circumstances was amazing (since boys’ strength increases exponentially each year…kinda like dog years!).  Then he won his next two matches convincingly.

Illuminated script lettering from Val Webb’s Watercolor Lettering class.