Disney + went live today and the show I most wanted to watch was The Mandolorian. At first, I was a bit worried, I couldn’t find the app on my iphone, but after a bit of searching it came up. It was easy to find on our smart tv with Roku. The rest of this review will contain spoilers.

The quality of the Mandolorian is cinema-esque. The sets and special effects are as you would expect from Lucas Films. The acting is great, although there isn’t a ton of actor to actor interaction on which to base that.

We find the Mandolorian in the on a winter planet entering a cantina, and he purportedly saves a man of alien species from some bullies. We come to find out he wasn’t actually saving him out of the goodness of his heart, but rather the alien is his bounty. After encasing him in carbonite, he returns to a planet to collect several bounties.

As none of the new bounties provide enough incentive, he is given an off the books bounty and only told the age of the mark, 50 years, and the last known location. He is also given a down payment of Beskar steel. This is the type of steel used to make Mandolorian Armor.

He takes the small block of steel to what seems to be a remnant of Mandolorian people and has more armor made from it. What is left of the steel is used to support what I believe they called foundlings. More or less orphans from when their people and planet were attacked. He has a flashback that shows us he was a foundling.

He then flies to another planet to find his mark. After encountering local wildlife as well as a local inhabitant, he makes his way to the encampment of the mark. It is well guarded. Before he can formulate a plan, a bounty droid attacks the stronghold. After the two decide to work together, they are able to defeat the defenses and find the mark.

Inside, their tracking locator leads them to a pod. Inside is their mark. An infant of the race of Yoda. The droid was given the bounty of dead, not alive. As the shot cuts to the droid about to kill the infant, we hear a blaster shot, and the droid falls to the ground.

That is the first episode. So while The Mandolorian has no problem returning a bounty who has a family, he apparently draws the line at killing an infant. Only time will tell if he returns him for the bounty, as his reward would be much more beskar steel.

Let me know what you thought of the first episode if you watched it.

At our home parish, before Mass starts we are invited to stand up, introduce ourselves to those around us, and ask for prayer intentions. As the body of Christ we are called to pray for each other so I love this practice. Many times people will ask for a general prayer for their family members, maybe healing for a friend who is sick, or if they are a younger person help on an upcoming test. I have to admit, if something specific doesn’t come to mind I typically ask for prayers for our family. It seems like a perfectly reasonable request. With seven kids and my wife and I, there is always one of us who could use prayers.

For the past three or four weeks though, I have been asking for a much more specific prayer. A prayer to help a transition that our family is about to go through. One of the toughest times I can think of in family life. My wife will be going back to work after being off on maternity leave. My prayer request has been for my wife as this hard transition is looming. Really though, it should be for all of us as we go through it. It’s hardest on her, to be sure, after several months of being home with the new baby, and all her babies, going back to work is not something about which to look forward.

I do my best to support her and try to lessen the transition. When we were younger I would bring the baby, and any other kids we had to her work so she could see the kids and feed the baby. As our family has grown, it has become harder to do that. With more school work and co-op days to attend, the ability to go visit mom has dwindled. I’ll still do my best, but it will be more difficult.

But the transition will be difficult for those of us at home too. The kids have gotten used to having mom home every day. They could ask mom a question, when dad didn’t have the answer they wanted. Mom could help heal their boo-boos when a knee was scraped. For me, it gave me another person to help check homework and keep kids on task during the school day.

Knowing the date that she was going to go back to work has been kind of a cloud hanging over she and I for the last few weeks. The time at home has been great, but we both know it is coming to a screeching halt. Because of this I have started thinking more about how I can try to earn another income. My goal is modest, I want to earn enough money that she can come home from work one day a week and just work four days a week. As modest as this sounds, it still will be a great challenge. She has a great job that keeps us financially comfortable. And my ability to earn an income is limited by my time constraints. Being a stay at home dad, taking care of 7 kids(one of whom is a baby), homeschooling our kids, coaching basketball, along with our other host of activities greatly limits my “off time”.

The good news is I do have opportunities. I have my YouTube channel, this Blog, and other associated social media enterprises. I know other YouTube channels that have been able to make great side, or even primary incomes. This has lead to a change in my channel. When I started this blog, and then my YouTube channel, my wife and I agreed that our kids would have a minimal role in both. This was done as a security measure. We didn’t want strangers to have access to what our kids were doing, their names, etc. While I still plan to be prudent regarding our kids information, I plan on including them, and my wife, more on the channel. I cannot be Homestead Dad without my wife and kids, so they will be more a part of every video.

This change may or may not help the channel and the blog, but it certainly can’t hurt them. My plan is to actively work on improving the video content, and the frequency of blog posts in an effort to grow both. Let me know what you think, and along the way let me know how I’m doing.

We made a quick family trip to Wisconsin over the Labor Day weekend in order to visit family and friends. Visiting, swimming in the hotel pool, going to Mass at a Basilica, and spending some time at the lake were highlights of the weekend.

I found a way to make Homestead Dad gear available. Check out this link, or find the new page on the website.

We were able to go on a trip to Greenfield Village with all the kids, my mom, and my nephew.

I did a review on this cane pole years ago. Here it is in action.