I had a great match at pool last night—4-0 over another 4-handicap like myself.  I don’t know what happened, but after a couple weak shots in the first game, I ran the table and hardly missed another shot after that.  One shot had the whole bar cheering, although it was more strange than difficult.  I don’t have the angles quite right because this is really pushing the limits of my drawing skills, but it looked something like this:

The blue balls were my opponent’s, blocking that pocket.  The red and black ball were mine.  (Yes, I know the second ball shouldn’t be black in 8-ball, but I’m not gonna redraw it.)  I had to cut the red ball fairly sharply, and it cut the second ball, sending it back across the table at well under 90 degrees to my original shot.  It looked really cool, but making the shot isn’t hard as long as you can see the angles.  It’s not the kind of shot you need to try very often, though, because there’s usually a simpler option available.

Four weeks to go in the session (plus Easter off).  We were six games out of first place going into last night, and we took 3 of 5.  So our chances aren’t good at this point, but we’re not out of it.  Last night reminded me why I play league: Livermores’ is a nice corner bar where the people are usually pretty laid back and friendly; the other team was cool and sportsmanlike; and the music wasn’t overly loud.  All in all, it was a good night.  Maybe for the summer, while I take a break from pool, I can find a softball team that needs a slow-footed infielder.

I don’t know if I mentioned it already, but we bought eight chicks a few days ago.  They’re in the garage under a heat lamp for now, and they seem to be bigger every time I go check on them.  They’re eight different egg-laying breeds, seven girls and one who hasn’t chosen a gender yet.  We’re not sure if we’re going to build a chicken house or use some sort of large mobile “tractor” cage, but we’ve got some time to figure that out.  Angel’s going to be blogging about them with pictures, so I’ll just point over there when she does.

Lettuce and Swiss chard are coming up in the garden now, so I’ve seen everything except carrots.  They usually do take longer.  After the snow, the soil was really saturated, but the sun later that day helped dry it out a little.  Even our 11-inch-high raised beds were holding water for a while, but they drain a lot faster than the soil at ground level does.