I was packing up for the day at work and getting the hawks ready to hit the field when my lovely wife started lighting up my cell phone. My hands were full so I didn't get to answer the first time....or two, but I called her back when I was all packed up. She was extremely excited on the other line as she exclaimed "It's a boy!"
Long ago, before we got even got married, we had decided that we wanted to have 2 kids to "replace ourselves in the world" and then adopt a third through DHS. Well the time of "replacing ourselves" came and went with the birth of our second daughter in 2009. So in the fall of 2010, we went through the long process of getting approved through the state to adopt. Long boring story short we were approved in the summer of 2011, but really had no realistic chance of adopting anywhere in the near future, or so we were led to believe.
Back to January 25th....
We got the call that they had a 2 year old boy for us and that we were chosen from over 200 families to be the parents of this great little kid. Just a few weeks after that he moved in with us and has been here ever since. Needless to say the rest of my falconry season was laid to rest. I gave the Harris' Hawks back to my buddy who was glad to finish out the year flying them.
Since then I've mainly been spending as much time with my family as possible and working my butt off. This time of year it's always something. For instance, last week we got the report that an eagle nest had fallen down and the babies were still alive but on the ground. We had already worked a full day, but duty called, and we made the hour and a half trek to the nest to build a nest platform and get the birds back in the tree. All in a day's work I suppose.
On the falconry front I'm most likely going to start anew next year but I just haven't quite decided on what yet. I'm sure time will tell this summer....
-RVZ
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