Early start, knew going in, 30+, fly by, baby birds, McFarland, more roost, screaming, the real day

I got out of work a little early on Friday, I put the time to good use.  After stopping at Sam’s to get a few bulk items I was still home before 5.  I immediately changed clothes and headed outside to get a jump start on the weekend chores.  I got all of the weeding done as Cindy was still finishing up mowing on the tractor. It gave me a nice mental head start on the weekend.

For the past week or two we have had a couple baby turtle doves living by the side of the house on the ground, they are a little larger than a parakeet.  At first when we saw them we assumed they fell out of a nest from the oak tree and were stuck on the ground. That theory changed when saw them sitting on top of a fence cross support and later saw them fly pretty capably short distances.  They seem pretty docile.  As long as I walk quietly I can pass them with only a couple feet leeway.

At one point over the weekend I saw the two baby birds on the ground flapping around, it almost looked like they were fighting.  As I got closer I noticed there was a third bird, an adult turtle dove who I assume is the mom.  The babies were just very excited and I assume mom was feeding them, explaining how they have survived on the ground. It was cute.

First thing Saturday morning Cindy and I worked on deworming the chickens.  Instead of trying to catch each one and shoot liquid down their throats we decided to inject the dewormer into blueberries which the chickens love.  For most of the birds it was pretty simple as they gobbled up the blueberry after which we set them loose in the yard.  Kristen and Pumpkin were the most challenging but eventually they downed the medicated berry as well.

After de-worming we picked up the dogs during a DD coffee run.  I hadn’t seen them in two weeks.  We kept them the rest of the weekend until I dropped them off this morning.

There was more coop tweaking on Saturday.  When we were cleaning the coop we noticed the floor near the automatic chicken door was quite wet.  I have had a problem with some water seeping down the wall of the shed where it meets up with the chicken run but I didn’t think it was that much.  When I built the run I filled in the small gap between the roof of the run and the side of the shed with a piece of plywood.  When I took a look at the wood it looked like it had developed a slight warp that resulted in a slightly downward tilt, directing any rainwater that fell on it against the shed wall.

I took my one leftover spare corrugated white plastic roof panel and cut it down so it would fit on top the area where the plywood resides.  I installed the piece at an angle sloping away from the shed to keep as much water away from the shed wall as possible.  I have to wait until the next good thunderstorm to see if my efforts were fruitful.

I also did some extensive yard maintenance on Saturday hopping on the tractor to mow down the back of the property.  Since we were in one of the dry spots during wet season I figured I better mow while the mowing was good.   Mowing the back is a slow process due to the height of the grass.  Certain spots require you to either go very slow or to back up over a second time to get the high stalked stuff. The canopy on the tractor makes the task so much better on a hot August day.  After I was finished mowing I still had some gas in my motivation gas tank.  I grabbed the weed whacker and started hacking away at the thick high grass that filled the ditch towards the back of the fenced in portion of the yard.  Getting through the stuff required max throttle and a gradual chopping strategy where you knock down the grass/weeds with multiple passes.  When it was all done the backyard matched the front of the property for one of the few times each year.

On Saturday night Cindy and I made our near weekly trip to the movie theater to see Fantastic Four. Both Cindy and I had read the bad reviews of the film ahead of time but we normally prefer to make our own judgements.  Once again we had issues with other theater patrons.  There were two presumably teenage girls that were about 3-4 seats down in the row behind us that had near continuous conversation going on.  It started doing the previews.  Cindy and I assumed they would have the common sense to shut up once the movie began.  Of course we were mistaken.  They got a couple looks from me and a lot more from Cindy, including a “Psshhht!” which did not appear to do anything.

When I weighed the options of getting up and making a scene versus simply moving to another section of the mostly empty theater the latter choice made more sense.  A couple young girls are not going to respond well to requests for common courtesy, a trait the majority of modern day youth are devoid of.  We relocated to the top left corner of the theater with nobody within spitting distance and had a much better experience.

I have had a long streak of having favorable reviews of every Marvel movie I have seen.  Even lesser known titles like Ant Man and Guardians of the Galaxy exceeded my expectations.  Well this latest Fantastic Four broke that streak.

To be honest the first 75% of the movie was ok, it kept my interest and portrayed an interesting background of how the FF 4 obtained their powers, something I did not know.  However once Dr. Doom emerged as the feature villain of the film things totally flew off the track.  The story all of a sudden got incredibly stupid, simplistic, and unimaginative.   It was like the writers walked off the film at this point and were replaced by 5th graders.  Dr Doom has unimaginable power, literally being able to just look at somebody and make them melt, or open cosmic black holes, yet somehow he winds up in a conventional hand to hand battle with Mr Fantastic, played by an actor no one cared about.  The ending of the film was just incredibly moronic.  It took what was possibly a B+ flick straight down into B- or even C+ territory, it was that dumb.

The movie also was animation feature film short, barely 90 minutes long.  Again it felt like they lopped out huge chunks of film towards the end and just threw whatever was left against the wall.  Hell it was so bad that even Stan Lee did not have an appearance in the movie.  Like true Marvel suckers we stayed till the end of the credits, hoping to at least catch something of interest.  Our reward for waiting was a blank screen and a closed curtain.  The movie certainly is not worth of spending movie theater dollars to see.  Sure rent it on Netflix but don’t expect to be impressed.

Sunday morning Cindy, who just got clearance to bike last week after her toe surgery, and I planned to get out on the road for a bike ride.  We were joined by Kerri whose son is going to be our chicken sitter during the road trip.  She lives close by and has just started road biking.  We decided to ride out to Ave Maria since it was on the way to Kerri’s place.

Prior to Sunday the longest ride Kerri did was about 3 miles, going all the way out to Ave Maria was about 25 miles for her and 30 miles for us so she was making a dramatic increase in mileage.  Kerri however is a good endurance athlete with several marathons under her belt.

I lead most of the ride keeping a pace that was around 16 mph on average, trying to account for the extra distance and Kerri’s lack of riding experience.  On the way back I picked up the speed a bit doing 17-18mph for a good portion of the distance and Kerri was able to hang.  By the time we got back to the entrance to her development both Cindy and I were pooped.  Neither of us had rode 30 miles in quite a long time.  The last 3 miles to the house were not enjoyable between a sore rear end and tired legs.

We still are having issues with chicken sleeping arrangements.  Saturday night we had to remove Peaches from the top of a barrier screen Cindy mounted in front of the electronics.  Every night all 11 birds try to jam on to the top perch area, despite there being three totally empty perches below.  As the birds continue to grow there is less and less space up top.  Cindy and I are considering yet another modification where we turn the big perch structure we made on it’s side so there is a large triangle of perching space all at the same height.  There are some design changes and proof of concept that need to be worked out but hopefully we can make it work.

I got my DJI quadcopter out for the first time in months to shoot some aerial video of the property.  Right after taking off for my first flight I saw something very odd on the horizon.  It was low, bright to the point where I could see it even behind clouds and appeared to be moving very slowly. I tried to position the copter so it was pointing in the direction of the object but on the video I can’t see what my eyes tracked.  My logical assumption is what I saw was a plane with a reflective exterior that was catching the high sun at just the right angle to reflect in my direction on the ground.  The copters higher vantage point may have erased that angle which is why I couldn’t see it when played back.

I burned through all three battery packs shooting my property from different perspectives.  I think the video turned out decent after a lot of cutting and trimming.  You do get a good aerial view of the new coop and chicken run from an overhead perspective.

Over the weekend I was watching several videos of what the first few hours of recruit basic training is like.  The drill instructors screaming repeatedly inches from the recruits face was disturbing for me and I wasn’t even there.  I don’t know for sure how I would react if I ever decided to enlist in the military but I presume it would not be good.  Sure you have to know going in what your role is going to be and that treating you like dirt is how they break you down to reshape you as a soldier.  I just wondered how many of those kids were thinking “What the fck did I get myself into…”

Sunday night Cindy and watched my current Netflix rental, McFarland, a movie about an unlikely cross country team coached by an unlikely coach in a very Hispanic town in California.  Even if you know nothing about cross country running I am confident you will find the film touching and inspirational.  It’s a solid A in my book.

So we are a few days away from the one year anniversary of my mom’s passing away.  To me, the 10th is really the day that mom left us as she was found unresponsive behind the wheel of her car only to be revived too late to save her brain.  The idea of mom feeling the heart attack coming on not being able to do anything about it is something that frustrates me and brings heavy feelings of sadness  and remorse.  I feel like somehow I should have been able to so something to prevent it, somehow.