1:15, All fired up, All chewed up

Yesterday I called my dad, returning a call he made a couple days prior that I forgot about.  As usual we talked about various subjects, one of which included a very aggravating situation I have been dealing with where there are layers upon layers of bullshit involved.  Dad has a long and not so glorious history of bucking the system and fighting various situations where he felt he has been wronged.   Sometimes he has been successful in his cause and other times he was just successful in pissing a lot of people off, which he also considers a win.  Well in my case there is absolutely zero doubt I am being wronged.

After talking to dad on the phone for quite awhile it got me all fired up and reignited the anger I have had bubbling for going on two months about the situation.  Well that anger and frustration carried on through the night and kept me awake until after 1:15 AM where I finally forced myself to sleep after reading a book for awhile to redirect my mind.  I have a decision to make regarding this with two distinctly different mindsets.  Once choice is basically rolling over and allowing common sense  to be thrown out the window in exchange for a known quantity of result. The second choice has a much wider range of outcomes varying from better to worse but involves identifying a spade as a spade and possibly exposing myself to additional risk.  Last night I was definitely all about the latter option.  I still have some time to decide what ultimately makes more sense in the big picture.  Either way, I very much look forward to sharing full details sometime in the future.  It’s a real diamond.

So in addition to the problems with the chicken coop door we still have had problems with mice in the chicken run at night.  We spotted them on the security dvr the other night and I saw them again last night.  We started pulling the two feeders way up in the air at night, removing the food source for the mice which I would hope would convince them to move on to a new area.  On the camera last night I saw the mice looking for the food and being frustrated that it is no longer easily accessible.

So this morning I woke up and checked the dvr to see if the chicken door worked.  It did not, apparently once again falling prey to the cold temperatures.  However when I cheeked the live feed three of the four cameras were not showing video, odd.  I said to Cindy that maybe for some reason the cold temps were affecting the cameras.

So I went out to the coop with my volt meter to measure power output to the motor that runs the chicken door.  When we opened the door to the coop we immediately noticed debris inside the front door by the small holes in the flooring, something that should not be there.  At just about the same time Cindy and I realized it was from a mouse.

We quickly put together what happened.  Since there was no food accessible out in the run, at least one of the mice worked it’s way inside the coop before the door automatically closes at 8PM.  It apparently was inside when the door closed, trapping it. So the debris was from the mouse looking for an exit point.  Of course it could not dig through half inch treated plywood so I assume the mouse was still in the coop hiding in some corner which of course freaked Cindy out.

Well as Cindy was cleaning up some of the mess she saw additional debris in the front corner.  She pulled away the stuff that was stacked there and discovered the source of my camera problem.  In that corner is a 1 inch hole where the wires for the cameras and the ethernet cable enter the coop.  The hole was plugged with a bunch of foam pipe insulation, or used to be.  Not only did the mouse chew away the foam, that little fcker chewed through all three wires for the dvr cameras that are outside, disabling them.  It just got personal.

In addition to destroying the camera wires he also munched on the casing of the ethernet cable.  Luckily it appears he did not get far enough to break that connection.  If he did my anger would be multiplied many times over as replacing that cable is more expensive and labor intensive.  As is I am hoping to be able to splice the camera wires back together and then cap that hole with something more teeth resistant.

This weekend is the first running club chip timed event in more that eight years that will take place without my involvement whatsoever.  Cindy and I are both looking forward to not setting the alarm clock and waking up when our bodies tell us instead of a buzzer.  It will be interesting to see how things turn out with the race.

This weekend I will have some timing related items on my schedule.  I am going to be heading down to a track meet that Chris is timing for an hour or so to get some familiarity with the camera based timing system that is used for track meets.  There is the possibility that I may help him occasionally with these events so I need to get some face time with the equipment.

Saturday night Cindy and I are doing a dinner/movie combo as a belated celebration of my retirement from club race timing.  We haven’t been to the movies in eons, partly because of scheduling partly because of a desire to save a few bucks due to the strong flow of dollars leaving my bank account the last few months.