Times are changing, Not supposed to happen

There hasn’t been much from me since late last week because I was mired in moving one of our branches.  At this point I have all of the network services at the new location up and running but the computer equipment is not up because the company that is building/installing the counters is terrible.  The counters were supposed to be finished two weeks ago and they still aren’t done.  The last I heard was “hopefully” by Wednesday.

On Friday night I baited the live traps by the coop with peanut butter as I had seen movement around the run while I have been out there at night.  On Saturday I saw one of the traps had snapped shut, what I didn’t expect to see was a baby palm rat hanging out the other side.  Somehow he managed to get half of his body out of the tiny wire square which looked impossible.  However he only got halfway.  At first I assumed he was dead but when I approached he started to move.  Great, this had now gone from a trapping to a rescue mission.  I felt absolutely horrible as I carried the cage up to the garage as I supported the baby rats weight so it didn’t hurt him even more.

I knew I had to sacrifice the cage if I was going to get him out.  I carefully cut a perimeter of the wire around him loose before I attempted to cut the square that he was actually stuck in.  With the precision of a surgeon I made the cuts to the wire that he was stuck in, making sure I did not cut the baby in the process.  I was able to get him free.

I carefully placed him in a bucket.  He was not doing well.  I had little doubt that during his struggles he caused all sorts of internal injuries.  I brought him some chicken feed and a small dish of water and let him rest while I finished up the chicken work.  When I was done I came back hoping to see him moving around some.  He was still very stationary, but still alive.

I loaded him up in the truck and took him to my normal drop off point.  I placed him intact on the paper towel under some brush with the food and water intact.  I have minimal hope that he survived the day and I felt terrible that I had any part even inadvertently with his demise.  The cage that I cut apart went in the trash.  I still will continue to live trap but I need to make sure this scenario does not go down again.

On Saturday while I was doing my errands I saw another example of how the world is changing around us.  I needed to stop at Home Depot for a couple items.  They still did not have paper towels but they did have a four pack of blue shop towels which serve the same purpose in most situations, I was surprised no one else had grabbed them.

When I approached the store I noticed the garden center door was closed and instead there was a row of canopies leading to the front door.  They were doing limited access to the store.  By the cash registers they had tape on the floor to encourage customers to distance themselves properly.  They also forced everyone to exit at the far end of the store to minimize the amount of face to face interaction that happens with two way traffic.  It was bizarre but I appreciated their efforts.  I did have my buff on the entire time I was in the store.  I saw more masked people than the week before but still overall, maybe 5% had masks, everyone else was bare backing it.

I spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon working on the yard with an assist from Cindy.  Although we are in the middle of dry season drought there were portions of the yard that were getting a bit gnarly looking. I should be good to go for another month at least.

Saturday night we plowed through the remaining episodes of Tiger King, the bizarre docu-series on Netflix that has been getting a lot of press.  I never knew much about people that raised large exotic animals for a living.  Now I do and I know that they are more than likely bat shit crazy.

On Sunday morning Cindy and I went for another ride on our mountain bikes for the second time in a week.  It’s good exercise and just fun exploring the relatively quiet streets in our general area.  We rolled around for between 7 and 8 miles.  Mountain bikes are heavy with big fat tires so you feel it, even after that amount of distance.

Mid-afternoon I got out on my 16X for a quick ride to Ave Maria.  Despite the relatively quick ride it was a long video as I brain dumped my personal thoughts and experiences with Covid 19 thus far.

If things in the world weren’t shitty enough, I got a call from Cindy this morning that one of our hens, sweet little Ginger was dead in the coop this morning.  She has not been showing any signs of illness so my assumption at this point is she fell off the perch and broke her neck.  I will check the security DVR to verify.  Regardless, it breaks my heart.  Having hens has been emotionally tough for us.  We love them like regular pets but their fragility makes losing one a constant possibility.