Water Ball

My brother-in-law, Ben, is running for Sheriff.    Some of the family got together a few weeks ago to help him campaign.   We were in a parade in the small town where Ben, my sister Tonja, and their five darling daughters and one spunky son live.

 

It was a busy weekend for Ben, he spent most of it at his booth at the fair.

It was up to the rest of us to represent him at the events in his hometown.   The festivities in Ben and Tonja’s  hometown raises money for the volunteer fire department. 

I’ve previously written about the cow plop, which we attended again this year.     However,  this year, I’ve got something much more exciting to report about than a cow pooping.    This year, we formed a team for the water ball competition.   We were the only non-fire-department team.  Ben’s volunteered for the ambulance for fifteen years and we participated with gear borrowed from the Rescue squad.

If you’ve not seen a water ball competition before, it’s  kind of like tug-of-war, except you aren't pulling a rope with your hands, but instead pushing a ball with water.

Teams of firefighters (or in our case, three clueless sisters and three men with muscles) spray a fire hose at the ball to try to get it to slide along the wire to the opposing team’s side. 

 

One member of the team stands on the side lines and gives directions on where to aim the hose;  back back back , up up up, down down down.    

 

The team member in front gets to control the hose.

The one in the back keeps kinks out of the hose so the water pressure stays high.

The rest help control the hose. 

 

We all got our turn being in front.    When the referee says go, it’s time to run forward as quickly as possible to get the water on the ball,

 

Out of the ten teams,  I only saw one other team that had a female member.    We were definitely a minority, and the underdogs.

We just kept going.  

At one point, a competing team quickly got the ball over to our side and then turned their hose straight on our team.

I happened to be in front for the spraying.   I couldn’t see anything.  I couldn’t  stop laughing.   I couldn’t remember how to turn of the hose.

There are no pictures of this because everyone on the sidelines was running for cover as I sprayed the spectators in front of the bar.     I had no idea I did that until someone told me later.

 

  It’s really hard to see with a fire hose spraying you.  

 

We were all soaked through from our head to our shoes.    

We were doing quite well.   The crowd was cheering for us.  

Before we started, we were doing this mostly for entertainment.

Once we picked up that fire hose though, we took this competition pretty seriously.

  

I guess it paid off.  We came in third place in the competition!