Friday wedding, out of sorts, chicken challenges
When I got home from work Friday we had to change and head right back out to attend the beach wedding service for our next door neighbor’s daughter. The service was held at Delanor Wiggins State Park, a beach I have not been to in ages. I was somewhat surprised that even at 6:30 PM there was someone at the guard shack collecting six dollars to park, it seemed sort of lame. Evidently this is a popular wedding location, in total there were three weddings taking place. It took us awhile to find the correct location, we walked up a couple minutes after the service had started.
It was a very small gathering with two rows of chairs that may have added to roughly 20 total. Almost everybody that was there had traveled all the way down from Michigan for the wedding, including the bride and groom. Despite us driving through rain to get there, the weather by the coast was good. The service was brief but very beautiful with the Gulf of Mexico visual backdrop along the peaceful sounds of the small waves breaking behind the couple.
After the vows were exchanged we headed out ahead of everyone else who were still doing the traditional post wedding meet and greet. The reception was back at our neighbors house and there was stuff that still had to be set up. We said we would get back and get a head start on it which our neighbors appreciated.
Cindy and I got back and buzzed around the neighbors house setting up tables, food and drinks. We were supervised by the neighbor’s daughters dog, Cosmo. By the time people started showing up we had things set up pretty well which Cecelia really appreciated. I had already drank one beer and started on another to help lubricate the gears in my normally rusty social skills. In addition to a large stock of alcohol there was a large collection of rich, mostly homemade food which I indulged in heavily. Cindy and I had a nice time hanging out with the members of the wedding party and other guests. We even brought over the last of the homemade moonshine we had since Xmas. It was a big hit. We wound up staying much later than I would have predicted. Cindy and I didn’t actually fall asleep until after midnight, sheesh.
On Saturday morning the dogs woke me up at 6:40 am, which was very unappreciated by me. I let them out and then did something very uncharacteristic, went back to bed. The combination of drinking, eating and staying up so late was enough to put my ass back in bed where I stayed until I woke back up after 9am. Cindy had been up for at least a couple hours getting stuff done while I snoozed away.
Once I got up I didn’t wait long before heading outside to weed whack. Because of sleeping in I felt like I was behind schedule, a feeling that resonated with me most of the day. Later in the morning we had both sets of chicks outside at the same time. The older chicks were in the chicken tractor, the younger ones in the chicken tractor run. For the young chicks it was their first time running around outside. It was quite funny seeing their reactions. For awhile they just sort of stood around looking at everything, stunned that there was more to the world than the blue walls they have been looking at for the last couple weeks.
Getting the bigger chicks out of the garage enclosure was quite the task. Since it is fully enclosed except for one end Cindy had to crawl inside of it and try to corral the chicks who were not cooperative at all. I had to come up and help her after I finished changing the oil in the Prius to get the last couple chicks moved outside.
One of the new set of chicks has been growing at an alarming rate. At first Cindy thought something was wrong with her until she read up on her breed, cornish, on the internet. Cindy never thought about the breed being connected to cornish game hens, a delicacy on some menus. Evidently this breed has a voracious appetite and will eat pretty much non-stop if you allow them to. Cindy couldn’t believe that many cornish have very short 4 week life spans before they are processed into the food chain. Cindy started pulling the food from the bin on a scheduled basis to try to get the chick’s gluttony under control. The chick is so big that she seems labored simply walking around.
We also continue to have issues with Lola, who again had hard crop issues over the weekend. It’s amazing how she has become a lap chicken, where she almost appears to enjoy being held while Cindy massages her. She makes cute little noises of approval the entire time she is being held and rubbed. It seems like something chicken related needs to be attended to most times of the day right now.
Cindy and I did an errand run with Nicki and Sadie in tow. They love to hang out in the back of the Prius although I am sure it isn’t quite as fun as the party van accommodations were for them. We made our near weekly visits to both Home Depot and Rural King. It seems like chicken and home improvement supplies are always needed.
Saturday night Cindy and I had our second Tarpons arena football game of the year to attend. The game was nociably lesser attended than the first game which was sparsely attended to begin with. Our section of roughly 100 seats were literally only occupied by Cindy and I. This fact made it more annoying when a ticket nazi decided to flex his ticket verification muscle.
To get to our seats we showed our tickets to the woman at the entry to our section. We already knew where we were going. So we sat down and were chowing down on the pizza slices we bought. All of a sudden the seat attendant to our left, who was not responsible for our section walks over and asks us if he could see our tickets. He apparently must have thought we looked like seat jumpers. We showed him we were legitimate but both felt annoyed by the intrusion. The ridiculousness of even giving a shit of who sat where when the place was 90% empty made the inquisition more pointless. When Cindy went out to grab more food she said something to our attendant about the secondary seat verification. She said that our seats were $50 seats and she guessed he just wanted to make sure we actually paid for the primo spot. I still felt the whole thing was outside the bounds of common sense. At this point they should just care about having a body in a seat, regardless of how they got there.
You may recall I mentioned how cold I was at the last game due to an ice rink being underneath the playing field. This time I dressed warmer, wearing jeans, sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt. I still was cold. At one point Cindy and I both had our hoods up and despite the extra layers, by the time we left both of our feet were cold. The game itself went well, the Tarpons dominated the game which made it confusing how the Alabama Outlaws managed to get 49 points on the scoreboard. Good thing the Tarpons put up 68.
I did find myself annoyed with the Tarpons kicker. Despite this being a home game on a field he should be used to kicking on, he seemed unable to avoid kicking the ball into the suspended scoreboard or support beams. He did this no less than 6 times, I kid you not. He would tee up the ball, look at the scoreboard, look at the ball, look at the scoreboard and then kick the ball, right into the scoreboard.
On Sunday morning I wanted to get up and do the Ave Maria bike ride. Two consecutive evenings of eating a pile of less than healthy food left me feeling like a blob. I planned to use the same approach as last week, no gps, just ride at a comfortable level, whatever that may be. Well that plan didn’t work so well for the ride out to the college which was almost entirely into a rather strong headwind. I had no choice but to increase the effort level to keep things rolling at a respectable pace. By the time we rode the 12+ miles to the entrance of Ave Maria my quads and hips were burning.
Luckily on the ride back we had that same wind at our back which made the return ride much more enjoyable. Although my legs felt much better coming back there was no way to make the pressure points on my hands and rear end feel much better. I found myself constantly shifting position trying to alleviate pain/pressure in one spot, only to find myself applying it to another.
When we got back I jumped in the pool to both cool off and give Sadie one of her beloved splash sessions. After 10 minutes of her running around while I hit her with atomic splash after atomic splash she was thoroughly soaked, and happy. After we cleaned up we took the girls back to Ali’s place after their four night visit as part of our DD coffee run. As always it was nice having them around to add their canine flair to our daily existence.
The rest of Sunday was pretty chill. I did a few things but mostly WoW’d until we watched Bad Words Sunday evening. It was a rather funny comedy but I was not a big fan of it putting children in the vicinity of very adult language and situations. Overall it still gets a B to B+ rating, worth a rental.