The sport of racing pigeonsThe lessons I’ve learned from my lifelong interest of racing homing pigeons have been profound. It's a family sport! “Racing Pigeons?” you say. “What? Well, now I’ve heard it all!” As a pigeon enthusiast, I have heard the comments before. No problem, I’ll explain.
As a kid, my father earned a merit badge for the Boy scouts by raising and racing homing pigeons. He has had pigeons most of his life. My brothers and I joined in his hobby as young boys. Their interest in the birds waned, but mine is stronger then ever. It’s something that my two sons now look forward to doing with me. I am glad to see the generational connection with my family because of the birds.
Pigeon racing is a sport that is extremely competitive, and it has always been something that has brought our family closer together. We shared the duties of training, cleaning, and feeding the birds among the four of us working hard for that extra advantage so that the birds performed at their highest on race day. We would fight over who would get to let the birds out or feed them, and we especially enjoyed waiting for the birds return from races on Sundays. We’d plan our days around the estimated arrival times and get together for lunch waiting for the birds to come home from the races. My wife and sons share in the same traditions at my home now. It’s a great way to have the family together on a weekend. In this day and age of fractured families, television, video games, and electronics, it’s nice to have my boys outside either helping me with the birds or together waiting for them to return from the races. It’s something they enjoy, and it gets them out of the house away from the many distractions of today’s modern world. Plus we’re together! That’s cool!
Pigeon racing is all based on speed. We call them “Thoroughbreds of the Sky.” Much thought (and sometimes money) goes into developing the perfect racing/flying machine. I’ll explain as I add to my blog.
More to come!
So how exactly do you race pigeons? It doesn't sound liekthere is a start and finish line. More detail please.
ReplyDeleteConrad, what I love about your posts, especially this one, is that your passion comes through in your writing. Whatever you are doing, keep that up. Also, most of your posts have been about places or things that many of us have not been to or do not know about which draws us in even more. If you continue to write about the sport of pigeon racing, I would explain exactly what it is or how it's done. Nice Job.
ReplyDeleteConrad,
ReplyDeleteYou have three great pictures and stories to go with each, have you decided which you will revise? It looked like you could add more descripition and details to the post about camp or the Pidgeon post. Both posts have a solid start and could be developed further.