Furiously fast four, chicken madness
This extended four day weekend seemed to literally be over in a blink of an eye. I really didn’t get much time to just hang out until mid afternoon yesterday. On Saturday morning I headed outside to do a few chores before we headed out to run some errands. One of those errands was to buy four new rollers for the patio slider. I had already ordered four rollers on Amazon but when they arrived I saw they were slightly smaller than what was in place. We struck out trying to find a match at Lowes but luckily found four rollers at Home Depot that looked nearly identical in size and layout. They were less than what I paid via Amazon.
During the afternoon I took on the replacement of the rollers. Removal and installation of the rollers were both more challenging than I expected. Both operations required used of a prying tool and a hammer, tools you would think don’t mix well with big panes of glass. While I worked on the rollers Cindy was busy cleaning years of dirt, grease and hair off the track for the doors. When she started the track area was basically black. When she was finished it looked brand new.
When I put the first door back on the track after replacing the rollers I was disappointed that the door still needed more effort than it should to open or close. When I pulled the new rollers out of the box they were stiff, which I thought was odd. Well I figured I may as well shoot the brand new rollers with some WD40 to see what would happen. The miracle lubricant immediately made a big difference, the new rollers now spun like skateboard wheels. The reduced friction resulted in both doors sliding more freely than they have in the last 10 years.
Late in the afternoon we had to go pick up the race bibs from the running store which was hosting early packet pick up for Monday’s race. On the way there I dropped Cindy off at the ATT store across the street, we were wanting to get her upgraded to an Iphone 6. She has been using my old Iphone 5 for awhile and it was starting to develop some issues.
After I picked up the race gear I met up with her at ATT while she was still in the middle of the transaction. The phone swap took longer than I expected. Time was tight because we wanted to go to the movies Saturday night and we didn’t leave with the new phone until a little after 6. We had to still run home, eat dinner and shower before heading out to try to catch a 7:35 showing of Mad Max. At first I thought we had no shot of making the shortage of time work and even suggested we just bag it. Cindy was confident we could do it and she turned out to be right. We got seated in the theater shortly after the previews started.
I saw the original Mad Max but don’t recall lots of details about it so I didn’t have a lot of expectations going in. Well both Cindy and I were pleasantly surprised. The movie was extremely entertaining from start to finish. The crazy vehicles and the crazier people that drove them were worth the price of admission alone. Luckily the rest of the movie held up as well. It was just good old fashioned fun to watch, a very solid A summer flick.
When we got home Saturday night Cindy said she wanted to check on Lucy and Lola to make sure they got in the coop ok. Well when we looked in the window we saw Lucy up on the high perch but no Lola. Of course Cindy immediately freaked out. We went in the run with the light and saw Lola was sitting on the ground under the shed platform. We could only assume that she felt too weak to climb up the ramp which of course which was disturbing. She had been exhibiting symptoms that made us think something was up for awhile. She had seemed particularly slow and low energy during the day. When we saw she didn’t even have the energy to make the short ramp climb we knew things were pretty serious.
Cindy had been doing lots of chicken research recently and was scared that Lola had developed Marek’s disease, a herpes type virus that has a 100% morbidity rate and there is no cure. A lot of the symptoms Lola had matched up but the thing is, the symptoms match up with a lot of other chicken afflictions as well. I found a local vet that said they specialized in birds and made an appointment for Tuesday. The rest of the weekend we kept Lola mostly in the chicken run so she wouldn’t tire herself out walking all over the yard. The other disturbing thing was if it was Marek’s it is highly contagious, meaning Lucy would have it more than likely. Fortunately we have seen no energy or appearance issues with her. It also meant that if we wanted to protect our 11 baby chicks we needed to give them a Mareks vaccine, which I ordered over the weekend as well.
On Sunday morning Cindy and I did another GPS-free bike ride, to Dunkin Donuts this time. The 10 miles there felt very easy. We maintained speeds over 18 mph without working very hard thanks to a tail wind. Of course this meant on the way back we fought that same wind the entire way, making the return trip much more challenging.
Over the weekend we also hung an American flag to the chicken run which made for a nice patriotic addition to the chicken housing. Doing it on Memorial Day weekend seemed appropriate.
Sunday felt very busy for us. It seemed like we had lots of little things to attend to and a lot of them were chicken related. The amount of chicken related to do’s Cindy deals with on a daily basis is surprisingly long. The 11 baby chicks need very regular feeding, watering and clean up.
Since integrating the chicks they have mostly got along although there are brief pecking order battles now and then. Despite the general peace in their chicken tractor home when it comes to hanging out the original 6 chicks and the week younger 5 almost always do so exclusively with their own group.
We also carted the chicken tractor outside to the front yard over the weekend to let the chicks experience the outdoors. All of them freak out to varying degrees as I am rolling the chicken tractor, with them inside from the garage to the yard. However once I place the tractor in the shade of the oak tree the babies LOVE having grass under their feet. They immediately went nuts and looked like they were having so much fun. They also have started to explore the second floor of the chicken tractor where some of them will hang out from time to time.
Sunday also was a day I had to prep for the Memorial Day race I was timing. Things were complicated by the 5:30 Tarpons football game we were going to. I needed to make sure most of my race to do’s were covered before heading to the game. We actually left early for the game as we wanted to make a couple pit stops along the way at Rural King and Miromar Outlets which is next door to the stadium. We stepped inside the arena just before they started with the national anthem.
The arena appeared to be the least full of any of the three games we attended so far. I would be surprised if there were even 500 rear ends in the seats. The Tarpons were playing some team from Georgia whose 1-6 record indicated that they were not very good. Once I saw their QB I understood why. This guy was the fattest quarterback I ever saw in uniform. He would have been fat for a lineman.
In addition to his girth he was short, probably the shortest player on offense which really stacked the deck against him. Almost every single pass he threw had a big arc on it, the type of trajectory you use for a corner route or a long bomb. The passes had no zip on them whatsoever. The end result of this was him getting picked off repeatedly by Tarpons defenders.
The game was a blowout from the very start. We left early due to race prep yet to be done but the final score was an absolutely ridiculous 92-12. The most points scored and biggest margin of victory in Tarpons history.
This year was targeted as a step up in the Tarpons history. They joined a new league that supposedly had more/better teams. I have not seen anything different in the level of play on the field and the continued dismal attendance numbers make it seem impossible that the team continues to exist beyond this season. It HAS to be bleeding money.
The entire night the Tarpons did not attempt a single extra point, instead opting for two point conversions. I joked to Cindy that it may have been a deliberate cost savings mandate from the owner since any ball that goes into the stands is allowed to be kept by the fans. The funny thing is the odds of that penny pinching mandate being true are pretty good.
Crawling out of bed at 4:15 Monday morning did not feel great but it never does. We opted to leave loading the truck as an early morning chore so we had to get up and cranking immediately. The race was being held at the location of the water park so we at least did not have a huge drive to get there. Everything related to the race went rather smoothly. I really had no major bumps in the road at all, just how I like it. It also was the last race where I will be timing with the Ipico equipment which should be swapped out by the time our next race rolls around on the 4th of July. Between now and then I have a lot of work to do getting familiar with the new equipment.
Once we got back it was post race duties followed by some more odds and ends. One of those was getting around to replacing a section of the trim board in the lanai. When the pool was added on to the house the old screening/framing of the lanai was ripped out. I covered that opening with a border of painted 2×6 boards back then. Well a couple months ago I noticed the bottom of one of the boards looked odd. When I pressed on the area with a finger it immediately collapsed, the wood underneath was severely rotted. When I did a knock knock test on the board it appeared the rot only extended maybe 6-8 inches from the bottom.
I decided that instead of replacing the entire board which would have had additional complications, I would try just cutting out the bad portion of the board and “splice” in a replacement section. I went out and bought a small hand saw, something I did not own believe it or not. I did my best to keep my cut straight and level. My best wasn’t good enough. The cut was straight enough but not very level meaning the replacement piece had a small gap. Luckily a generous application of wood putty and some sanding should make my boo boo less of an eye sore.
Late Monday afternoon we headed down to the running club Memorial Day picnic, a festivity Cindy and I have participated in annually. This year the picnic was not at the private beach it has normally been held at. Instead it was held at Lowdermilk Park which is a beautiful place but also heavily utilized by the general public. Obviously the cozy, exclusive feel the event used to have was gone.
The weather was not very good by 4PM, most of the time it was either raining or looking like rain. Luckily the club brought some of their pop up shelters to provide additional dry real estate. The change in venue did seem to bring additional people out for whatever reason. It seemed like more people were there than past years but of course if you know me and my view of social situations, more does not normally translate to better in my book.
For most of the time Cindy and I were hanging with some of our friends from the club in one of the outlying tents. I drank enough beer to take the edge off. There wasn’t much auxiliary entertainment going on besides food, drink, and an MP3 collection from somebody’s phone playing on the PA system that was borderline maddening at times. Cindy and I threw around my vintage, falling apart black XFL football for a little while but the vast majority of the time was just hanging out. Overall the picnic was fun but I am holding out hope next year it returns to it’s former venue.
Yesterday we took Lola to her vet appointment. Even though we had the cat carrier with to take her into the vet, the entire ride she spent on Cindy’s lap. Lola has become incredibly docile and seems to absolutely love being held, petted, and scratched. She makes noises that sound like purring when she is getting attention.
So when the vet comes in the first thing she says is although she specializes in avian medicine, it is a subset of medicine that doesn’t really include chickens, she deals more with conventional pet birds. She said she might see 3-4 chickens a year. Even so she was willing to help us best she could.
We gave her the background on Lola. The vet was able to pull off what was identified as chicken lice from one of her feathers and was later able to do a stool test after Lola did her business in a towel. The stool test revealed she had parasites which in a weird way was a good thing, compared to potentially having Marek’s disease. A parasitic issue can be treated conventionally.
We left Lola at the vet for a couple hours while she waited a call back from a chicken expert to see if we could get a clarification about the possibility of her still having Marek’s. The call did not come back quickly so we picked Lola back up however today Cindy heard that the expert doubted Lola had Marek’s, which again is good news. Regardless, we are still going to vaccinate the baby chicks to give them the best chance of a healthy and long life.
Both Cindy and I had hoped yesterday would give us a chance to relax for a period of time since we got to do little of it in the prior three days. I eventually got some WoW time in but Cindy was still busting it for most of the day with mostly chicken related tasks. It gave me an appreciation of just how many little things can easily consume lots of time. I am very lucky that Cindy loves to stay busy. 🙂