Archives April 2015

So work continued on the tile portion of our floor project yesterday which I again monitored via my 6 year old web cam that was sitting on the wall shelf.  Yesterday they had one additional person, meaning a total of four people were on site.  However it never seemed like more than two of them were working at a time.

The most egregious slacker was the woman, who is the wife of one of the guys that actually was working.  She spent most of her time leaning on the kitchen island futzing with her smart phone.  The only real work I saw her do was to spread some grout on the area that was tiled on Tuesday.

Well it turned out that the grout was not done correctly.  We paid for a stain blocker agent that was supposed to get mixed into the grout.  It’s much more effective than the type of grout sealant you only apply to the top after it’s all done.  Well the woman did not use the stain blocker, something Cindy only realized after they left for the day when she saw all 9 bottles of the stuff were still unopened.  Well of course this annoyed me, so now I have to add that to the list of detail items that have been screwed up so far.

The woman had said on Tuesday that the crew would get a lot done Wednesday as they planned to work until 5:30 or 6.  Instead they were out of there before 3 o’clock.  The woman told Cindy she had a “family emergency” and since all four of the people working were related, they all left.  Cindy had doubts about the validity of the excuse but whatever, there wasn’t much we could do about it.

The tile itself looks great, the cracked and wavy foundation is not reflected on the surface at all.  They have finished up to around the kitchen and still have the hallway and dining room to complete along with a couple detail items.  Supposedly they will finish up by Friday.  I am home today since Cindy had an appointment she had to go to this morning.

Cindy also was quite busy yesterday doing more coop related things, the highlight of which was the stand she made for the nesting boxes.  She also did some work on getting steps built for in front of the shed.  So far she has definitely been earning her keep. 🙂

So it did not take long for issues to develop with the tile installation which started yesterday which I was monitoring via my webcam.  The crew of three people showed up, one woman and two men, literally a family, somewhere between 9 and 10AM.  They quickly identified the cracks in the floor and said they would need to be addressed (in heavily accented and hard to understand English).

The first thing told to Cindy was Home Depot normally charges 300 to repair cracks and do leveling but she said they could do it for $100, which sounded like they were offering to do it outside the umbrella of Home Depot.  $100 sounded great to me which I relayed to Cindy.  Well then the woman says they did not have any materials with them to do these sort of repairs which I thought was odd.  They also identified that we were delivered the wrong type of grout.  We had nine bags of unsanded grount, we needed the sanded variety.

So there were a series of phone calls from the woman to her supervisor, from the supervisor to Cindy and finally the supervisor to me.  The end result of this was the $100 resolution exploding into $1100.  The supervisor said with all of the cracks on the foundation the way to address it was to lay down a membrane which isolates the tile from the floor, making it immune to any stresses on the floor that caused the cracks.  It sounded like a good remedy but the price was still shocking.  For whatever reason this membrane costs $1.50 a square foot, more than the high quality carpet pad we ordered.  Well I had little choice, I wanted the tile to be installed in the best way possible.  I authorized the work and provided the CC info over the phone to the supervisor. Well the installers did not have the membrane either and had to go get it.  Cindy used that time to take the incorrect grout back to the store and exchange it for the right stuff.  Everyone arrived back at the house within 5 minutes of each other.

The installers got busy laying down the pricey membrane and laying the first section of tile.  The adhesive used for the membrane had some quite nasty fumes, Cindy kept Tuki in the bedroom to try to protect him from it as much as possible.   She stayed outside a good portion of the day as well to avoid the stink.  My big brother cam let me monitor the work which ended relatively early in the day for some reason.  Supposedly they plan to arrive earlier today and work later.

Cindy had to make a second unplanned trip to Home Depot late in the day.  The metal strips that separate the new tile from the existing flooring that we paid for were not in the pile of stuff delivered to our place.  The installers said they would need the strips for today’s work, for some reason the idea of them simply picking it up on the way to the house today was not in the scope of possibilities.  So in total Cindy put around 80 miles in on the road to address HD screw ups, something we will be pointing out when we get our post work survey.  We are going to look for some sort of compensation for the mistakes.

Cindy said that we could not walk on the tile last night, we had to gain access to the bedroom via the window.  It made for some challenges throughout the evening as we exited and entered the house like a burglar repeatedly.

Cindy and I both liked the section of the floor that had the tile on it.  The faux wood looked really good against the wall colors.  We are very excited on how transformed our living space is going to be when all of the work is completed. Today I am hoping some serious progress is made.

Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Hilary Clinton are the current cast of declared presidential contenders. For me the last thing I want to think about is another toxic presidential election cycle.

Have you started watching Daredevil on Netflix yet?  If not you should be.

Yesterday was a big one on the chicken farm with Lucy producing her first egg.  It was the first egg since we adopted our new set of chickens.  Cindy was quite proud.  The egg was perfectly shaped but very small when held up to a store bought egg.  As Lucy gets older the egg size will probably grow with her.

So after we finished up watching the first Game of Thrones I wanted to head outside to close up the chicken coop.  The chickens now are smart enough to put themselves to bed each night.  We just walk out and close the main door to the coop to make sure they are secured.  Well with the sofa blocking the bedroom window I did not realize it was already dark outside but I wasnt concerned since I knew they would already be up in the coop.

When I walked towards the coop I saw  two shapes pressed up against the door of the coop.  I quickly realized it was Lucy and Lola.  When I moved the coop I evidently forgot to open one of the two doors so the hens could get back inside.  Cindy and I felt terrible seeing them huddled by the door, locked out of their home.

Chickens seem to be very disoriented when it is dark out.  They didn’t even want to move as I pulled open the swing out door.  Lucy eventually figured it out and headed into the coop and up the ramp.  Lola went inside the base of the coop but seemed to be confused about how to get up top.  Cindy shining light into the area with her phone just seemed to add to Lola’s confusion.  Cindy eventually reached in the side door and picked up Lola, something Lola has never allowed us to do before, and placed her up top in the sleeping area.

Today is a big day, the tiling of the main living area is supposed to start.  This morning I got a call saying we should expect the installers to show up anytime between 8am and 11am, a rather large window.  I am crossing my fingers that the install goes relatively smooth, despite the less than smooth/flat surface the tiles will be installed on top of.  I am using my remote control web cam to keep a birds eye view on the install remotely as Cindy will be in charge of handling any on site issues.

Saturday morning Cindy and I were up and out the door early for the lone beach run the the running club puts on each year.  It’s always a pretty small event and we stopped chip timing it a couple years ago.  The sand was always a mess with the computers/timing equipment.

I decided to try to informally time the race using an app for the iPad called Webscorer.  Basically as runners cross the finish line you tap their bib number which registers their time.  I needed to enlist Cindy to help me in the process, her job was to write down the finishers in order so when there is a group of runners finishing around the same time I could go back and assign bib numbers to times.

Early on as it was only single runners coming across the line it was easy, I had plenty of time to tap in each runner and their bib number. As more finishers started coming in I only was able to tap them in to register a time and then had to refer back to Cindy to get the bib number associated with that time.  We started to identify a problem.

Since I never timed a race in this manner I had not thought through some of the speed bumps, like when a runner comes through the finish line with a bib covered up or not wearing one at all.  I did not emphasize enough to Cindy how crucial it was that every person that crosses the line was recorded , even if they didnt have a bib number.  If even one finisher is skipped it throws all the times of the subsequent finishers out of whack.  I got frustrated with Cindy when I realized the problem but later felt bad for doing so.  Like I said, I should have been more clear with how it needed to be done. When we got home we were able to get things sorted out thanks to the GoPro I had capturing the finish line.  We used the video to reconcile times pretty accurately.  In the end we were able to produce pretty official looking finish results for everyone even though the event was officially untimed.

So even though we were tired from the early alarm clock we wanted to get more done on the chicken run.  I had a loose goal of wanting to at least get the run totally enclosed.  Cindy and I worked diligently to accomplish that goal, busting ass until late afternoon.  For most of that time the chickens were inside the run with us, they already seem to like the shade and safety the space affords them.

Shortly after we finished the skies let loose and it started to pour.  I saw this as an opportunity to check the chicken run for leaks.  I ran out through the downpour and stood inside the run.  The main area of the run was great, I saw no water leaks anywhere.  The only problem area was the small gap between the shed and the run, there was lots of water running down the shed wall, something a good piece of weather stripping up top should address. As I was standing out there Cindy came running out in the rain to see what I was doing.  I hypocritically asked her why she came running out in the rain.

So we had plans to go out to the movies Saturday night.  I was in my boxer shorts getting ready to take a shower when I glanced out the window.  It was still pouring out but now a very gusty wind had accompanied it.  I saw one corner of my Green Machine Timing shelter that we have had outside for shade during the project lift off the ground and look perilously close to becoming airborne which would surely destroy it.  Without pause I ran out the back door in my boxers, into the storm and grabbed the shelter.  I then started lowering the legs while getting absolutely soaked .  The rain felt very cold. Once again Cindy came running out to help me in the rain.  I told her to go back inside, there was no reason for both of us to be soaked.  She insisted on staying out there until the shelter was lowered and secured. I was shivering and looked like I just jumped in the pool in my underwear by the end of it.

So the movie we went to see was Furious 7, a movie that has done blockbuster numbers worldwide.  It was the first movie we got out to see in nearly a month, an eternity for us.  It was weird seeing a movie where one of the main characters died in real life, Paul Walker.  On the way home Cindy read about how they were able to finish the film even though Walker died relatively early in shooting of FF7, it was pretty amazing.

I was worried that drowsiness would be a problem since Cindy and I were up and on the run since 4:45AM.  Luckily Fast and Furious 7 is as good as a two hour cup of coffee.  The movie unapologetically appeals to the lowest common denominator of most movie goers, seamlessly transitioning between T & A, action, and violence in very rapid succession.    Of course the plot was incredibly unrealistic and never in my life have I seen that many people routinely walk away from apocalyptic car crashes but hey, it’s Fast and Furious, not Gone with the Wind.  There is no denying the movie was entertaining, even if a large part of that entertainment was laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of some of the “plans” used by the crew to get out of sticky situations.  The tribute at the end to Paul Walker was touching and sad.  FF7 is B+ fun all day long.

So we designated Sunday as carpet rip out day.  We needed to move all of the furniture out of the great room and dining room areas and then rip up the carpet and pad to prep for the tile being installed this week.  I wanted to get my bills paid in the morning so I would not have to access certain areas of the office which would be stuffed with relocated furniture.   We got started moving furniture late morning.

We utilized furniture sliders to move everything of considerable size into the guest bedroom, hobby room, master bedroom, and the office.  It was a tight squeeze but we got everything out of the main living area.  Cindy was much more excited about ripping up carpet than I was.  My primary role was to be the pack mule, cutting and rolling up old sections of carpet and padding to be lugged outside.  Cindy was the tack strip remover, popping the carpet strips out with a hammer and wonder bar.

Pulling back the carpet revealed the less than ideal foundation.  I already knew the floor was wavy in spots from my previous experience tiling the kitchen, utility room, and both bathrooms.  The bare cement also showed lots of lovely cracks, something else I expected and one of the side effects of houses being built on mounds of sand.  My assumption is professional tile installers will be able to remedy any foundation imperfections.

After all the old carpet and pad was yanked out the bare floor needed to be “cleaned”.  I first went around with a flat edge shovel and scraped any padding that was stuck to the glue that was used to secure it.  I then grabbed the big garage push broom and swept up the debris.  I was surprised how much dirt/sand was in the pile, a testament to the downfalls of carpet in a high traffic area.

After sweeping the entire area I went back through it with the Shop Vac to vacuum up as much junk as possible.  As you can imagine this process created a lot of dust.  To try to make things less nasty we had a bunch of windows as well as the front and rear doors open to air out the house, despite the warm and humid air outside.  By the time we finished up we were confident we prepped the floor sufficiently for the tile installers to come in and hit the ground running. The echo in the great room with nothing in there was dramatic.  When we brought Tuki back in there he seemed to enjoy the new sound his various noises/words now delivered.

We again did not finish up until late afternoon.  We ran out to Home Depot for a couple items and then picked up eggplant parm subs on the way home, the house wasn’t in much shape for cooking.  We had to adjust to our suddenly very crowded living conditions.  The office is jammed with furniture, the only usable space is a small square in front of my desk.  Our bedroom has the sofa and loveseat jammed inside of it, affording us about a one foot passage way to get past the bed.  We have been eating meals on the floor of the bedroom.  It’s not ideal but tolerable for a few days.

Despite the very full weekend I threw new rear hatch struts on Cindy’s Prius.  The old struts had a bad habit of collapsing when it’s cooler or in a strong wind.   The new struts are like night and day compared to the old ones.  Of course I had to tape it to add to my large and growing automotive maintenance series on YouTube.

Today is Cindy’s first day of her new situation where her primary focus is studying for her PT exam, working out, and attending to the myriad of house related upkeep/projects.  I think it will turn out to be a win/win for both of us.

So last night it didn’t feel like we got as much done as we had been.  Part of the reason was I got home later as I leave work an hour early when I have the dogs.  I also wasted time struggling to figure out how I wanted to attach hardware cloth to the side of the run.  Because I had the roof beam on the inside of the 4×4 supports I had an uneven area to try to attach the wire to.  I messed around with several attempts that involved trying to cut/bend the hardware cloth to accommodate the  area but none of them were satisfactory.

Cindy and I came up with the idea of attaching lumber along the roof line which would give us a level surface to attach the wire to, making life much simpler.  I was originally going to use a 4×4 for the piece, Cindy was the one that suggested just using a 2×4 which worked just as well and actually fit better.  I also had to attach some additional lumber to the frame in the back by the shed.  This time it was needed to make the gap between the posts small enough that the 4 foot wide hardware cloth could attach easily.

Cindy was going around with the stain/waterproofing covering the new pieces I put in place.  I wound up only getting one section in the rear middle covered in hardware cloth before we called it a night.  I am hoping that somehow we manage to find some time this weekend to at least get the run totally enclosed.

Today is a big day for Cindy.  It is her last day working at a conventional full time job.  Although her current job offered her better hours and less wear and tear on her body, there were other aspects of it that just were not a good fit.  The plan is for Cindy to leave the conventional work force as of today to work hard on getting her personal trainer certification, a career that is much more suited for Cindy’s strengths and personality.  She may also supplement with a part time job but luckily for her, her monthly bills are very minimal and don’t require a lot to cover.

The timing of this actually works out very well since the tile portion of our flooring project is scheduled to start on Tuesday.  Cindy will be able to be at the house to handle things, freeing me from consuming a ton of PTO unnecessarily.  Of course there will be a number of other benefits for me by having Cindy home a lot more.  She is very eager to dig into various home projects, cranking up her fitness routine as well as working on her PT cert.  I am excited for her.

This weekend we have a race on Saturday to handle.  The event is small and not chip timed so it relieves a lot of overhead for us.  I am however consider trying to time the race unofficially using an iPad and a platform called Webscorer.  Basically you preload the participant list into the system and then as runners cross the line you touch their bib number on the iPad app.  Obviously this would only work with small events so I figured this would be a good test.

After the race Cindy and I get to dive headfirst into moving all of the furniture in the great room and dining room somewhere else and then tearing up the old carpet.  It should be tons of fun.

Once again last night Cindy and I spent most of the evening working on the chicken run.  We now have the run completely under roof thanks to mostly Cindy’s efforts.  I was annoyed that after buying 100 more panel screws at Home Depot after work that we are exactly ONE short of what we need to finish completely.  Yet another HD stop will be on the agenda for today.

I also put the hardware cloth on the door to the run.  It went ok except for the three or four puncture wounds on my shins where the cut wire banged into them.  After they started bleeding I had swarms of gnats feeding on my wounds, it was lovely. I also sealed up the gaps on the front and back of the run where it meets the shed.  I did so with a combination of scrap wood wedged together Tetris style, secured by 3 inch screws.

The chicken run is really starting to come together, if I could get a solid four hours I think I could get the run itself done.  Once that happens there is additional construction that has to be done to turn the interior of the shed into a chicken friendly area.

So anyone that has played WoW has probably heard of “chinese gold farmers”.  For almost as long as the game has been around, gold farmers have as well.  At first gold farmers used “bots” to have their virtual selves repetitively and incessantly kill high profit virtual targets in the game to generate gold, the game currency.  They would then in turn sell this virtual currency for real world dollars to individuals that did not want to invest the time to make the gold, they just wanted to pay for it.  This has always been against Blizzard’s terms of service and they have waged a never ending battle against these farmers.

As time progressed the methods used to gain gold by farmers became much more devious and criminal.  They started hijacking accounts using malicious web sites and malware to capture a player’s game password.  Once they got access to the account they would strip every character the player had of all of their items and gold, shipping it off to be sold to someone else.  This problem was rampant and forced Blizzard to develop and implement much more secure authentication to the game, including using separate authenticator devices to prevent hijackers from simply stealing passwords.

Well this week Blizzard may have put the final knife in the back of Chinese gold farmers with the introduction of the WoW token which is basically a way for players to buy gold legally in game, something they never have been able to do before.  A WoW token is a virtual brass ring that if bought by players in game on the virtual auction house is worth 30 days of game time, something that normally costs, roughly $15 a month.  It allows hardcore players to pay their monthly fee totally with virtual currency.

The people looking to buy gold (me), purchase a WoW token with real money ($20).  When they do so you are shown how much gold that $20 will get you in game, the amount changes based on supply and demand in game.  Once somebody buys your token in game you are sent the amount of gold shown when you bought the token.  When the token was released on Tuesday I immediately bought one.  I was curious how it would work and I also could use some extra in game currency.  When I bought the token I locked in a value of 30,600 gold for it, which I got in the mail the next day.

As I mentioned the amount of gold you get for that 20 dollars will fluctuate, possibly greatly.  When I checked on Wednesday how much gold it was worth it had dipped significantly, down to 23,000.  I felt fortunate to jump in when the getting was good.  Regardless I think the WoW token is a good thing on several levels.  Anything that squeezes out the farmers/criminals that literally stole from people to fund their business is a good thing.  Being able to buy gold instead of having to spend hours upon hours earning it in game is a nice luxury as well.

I think from Blizzard’s business perspective this is pretty brilliant.  Basically what they are doing is getting $20 for a 30 day subscription instead of $15 from every WoW token transaction that takes place.  Somebody deserves a raise.

I saw the video of the Charleston police officer putting 8 bullets in the back of the black man that was running away from him.  Just like everybody else  I found the video disgusting.  The officer deserves whatever punishment is handed down, no matter how severe.  Surely this incident will put more momentum behind the body camera push for law enforcement where literally every second of their interaction with the public is caught on tape.  Although I can understand the value in recording all police interactions, it’s still sad to me that this is what society has come to.

Last night on the way home I made another stop at Home Depot, a near daily ritual recently.  I needed to grab a 2 x 10 to fill in the gap between the shed and the run on the far side.  The skies looked rather threatening in the backyard but that did not deter me from getting more work done on the chicken run.  The focus of the evening was the roof. As soon as Cindy got home she jumped in to help.

Attaching the roof panels was a multistage process.  First the roof panel support pieces were connected together and attached to the support beams.  The middle section was unreachable from a ladder so Cindy was enlisted to climb up top due to her significantly lower body weight.  The structure didn’t budge a millimeter with her on top so I am pretty sure I could have climbed around up there too if need be.

After getting the supports in place we started laying out the panels and securing them.  For maximum strength we sunk a two inch panel screw through every channel, meaning each one would be secured with over 20 fasteners.  At first we were drilling the pilot hole and then cranking down the screw with a socket inserted into a screwdriver.  This quickly proved to be a forearm destroyer so I grabbed my old Black and Decker cordless drill to insert the socket into.  Things moved along much quicker afterward. Cindy was having fun being an amateur roofer, she was drilling holes and driving screws like a pro in no time.

We had the dogs and the chickens hanging out in the yard while we worked.  Even though we were working it felt peaceful and serene.  I got some good pictures of Cindy working on the roof as the sun was setting. We only got two of the seven panels installed before we ran out of daylight but I am confident that by tonight we will have the entire run under roof since we have the kinks worked out.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty beat up from my weekend of work so instead of going to the gym at lunch I went to Home Depot.  I wanted to get the roof panels that we will use to cover the chicken run.  I bought 7 SunTuf panels (made in Kutztown, Pa) and some special screws with rubber washers and thought I was good to go.  Well later in the afternoon I looked up the installation instructions for the panels and discovered I was missing a key component.

I assumed I would just be drilling a hole through the panel and securing it to the roof supports.  It turns out you are supposed to use these special strips under the panels which offer additional support.  You should attach the screws through the high channels of the corrugated platform, not the low ones like I originally assumed.  So on the way home I stopped once again at HD to grab enough of these supports for the three attaching points we will be using for each panel.

Last night Cindy and I worked more on the run.  My goal for the night was to get the rest of the roof wired in.  Each successive strip of hardware cloth I put on went on smoother than the prior thanks to experience.  I used a couple hundred staples in the process which I went back and tapped flush with a hammer to snug everything as much as possible.  The combo of the wire topped off with the corrugated roof panels should make top access to the chicken run close to impossible for the type of predators that visit our backyard.

Cindy also got some more staining/waterproofing done.  We are trying to get the structure stained before we lay wire across an area of it.  We worked right up until sunset.  I’d love to be able to get the basic run construction done this week with evening work sessions but the odds of that happening are not strong.  There are just a lot of things to do still.

Two out of the three last weekends Cindy and I have worked ourselves silly on construction of the new chicken coop(shed) and the attached chicken run.  When I first envisioned upgrading the chicken living quarters I grossly underestimated the amount of time, effort and money it would consume.   It’s getting to the point of near lunacy but there is no turning back now.

The chicken lady was supposed to meet us Friday after work to do the rooster exchange.  When Cindy called her to set up the time she got a call back saying Friday night was no longer going to work, neither would the rest of the weekend.  In addition the chicken lady actually was skeptical that we had roosters as she said she has not seen Nona, the rooster we already gave back, crow yet.  Well this just further aggravated us and made us decide we were done dealing with this woman.  Her sloppy sexing of her chickens had caused  Cindy and I enough stress.  We hated the idea of giving back Curly and Kathy, a situation we would not have had to be in if Anna was more careful with her chicken sexing.

On Saturday morning I placed an ad on Craigslist saying we had two free roosters available to a good home where they would be used for breeding or free ranging.  I had exactly one person respond who I could tell from his texting was probably hispanic.  Of course this raised a red flag as rooster fighting is a mostly hispanic hobby.  When we were driving back from picking up lumber at Home Depot I had Cindy call him to vet him a bit.  Her spanish speaking ability would help. Ernesto seemed to be on the level.  He said he has a bunch of hens and he wanted to start breeding them.  Both Cindy and I got a decent vibe from the guy so we made arrangements for him to stop by later in the morning to get Curly and Kathy.

We had all the chickens out all morning.  Just as they normally do, the two roosters were the most interested in following us around the yard.  I felt very guilty that they had no idea this was going to be the last time they were going to be able to roam the wide open spaces of our back yard.  When Ernesto showed up he was carrying something that almost looked like a briefcase.  The holes on the side clued me in that it was for animal transport.  It looked too small for even one bird, let alone two.  I told him he could have one of my unused Rubbermaid containers for the birds but he said it should be fine, he has transported a couple birds in it before.

We first got Kathy to come over as Cindy sprinkled corm into the chicken run.  Ernesto, who obviously had experience catching chickens, crawled in and was able to grab Kathy’s leg and then was able to get him under control.  Kathy was carrying on the entire time but did not try to peck or attack Ernesto.  Cindy and I tried to reassure Kathy as we got him in the small box and closed the lid.  Of course we both felt terrible.

We used the same tactic for Curly and felt the same guilt and sadness as he got stuffed into the small box more or less on top of Kathy.  Ernesto could tell that Cindy and I were attached to the chickens and asked us if we were sure we wanted to give them away.  We told him we were and we just hoped he would take good care of them which he said he would.  The rest of the day  it felt weird and sad being out in the yard without the two roosters hanging near by.

On Saturday the chicken run construction was slow and steady.  I got a total of nine 4×4’s cemented into the ground as well as getting the automatic chicken door mounted into the side wall.  I was worried that getting the chicken door installed in a plastic shed would not go very well as it is designed for conventional construction buildings.

My rigged mounting system worked out pretty well.  I have to admit I felt some hesitation as I used the drill to punch a hole in the wall of our brand new shed and then hack out the rectangular template with my sawzall.  Cindy and I were quite pleased with the end result.  The door install looked clean and worked well as documented in this video.  We worked until after 5 on Saturday before calling it a day.  We were both beat.

Saturday night we watched Million Dollar Arm, a movie based on a true story, which I had no idea about until Cindy told me afterward.  It was just a feel good, high quality movie all the way around.  It’s story revolving around baseball, the sport I thought I would make my career in my youth added to my enjoyment of my film.  It’s a high quality A- rental all day long.

Sunday morning Cindy and I got busy early.  Going into the weekend I had ideas that by the time Sunday night rolled around we would be completely done with the chicken run.  I still had that pipe dream in my sights early on Sunday.

I made a poor decision early on when after removing the support braces I had in place near the base of the 4×4’s while the cement set, I decided to dig a trench in front of the front edge to attach a 2×6 and bury some hardware cloth.  I did not fully fill the post holes for 4×4’s with cement on Saturday, I planned to top them off later Sunday.  Well digging the trench actually made a couple of the posts loose so I had to replumb and secure them.  I was annoyed by my stupidity.

Cindy and I had a couple sticking points throughout the day Sunday while we made adjustments to my mental blueprint on the fly.  It took some thought to come up with how we wanted to lay out the roof beams in a way that will allow support of the corrugated pvc panels we are going to cover it with.  We also had to come up with ways to fill the small gap that exists between the shed and the run due to the small platform offset.

It felt weird just having the two hens, Lola and Lucy running around the yard on Sunday. I thought about Kathy and Curly quite a bit and hoped they were doing ok in their new home.  I actually texted Ernesto this morning, he said they are doing fine and were happy.  I can only hope he is telling me the truth.

I got a decent amount of work done solo when Cindy ran out to get coffee, some brackets from Home Depot as well as pick up the dogs whom we are watching through Wednesday.  By the time she got back I had the front and rear roof line supports in place.  We continued to work right up until Cindy’s mom showed up for our casual Easter celebration.  The stopping point for Sunday left the frame for the run pretty much complete with 2/3 of the front wired in as well as the left roof section.  There is still a painful amount of work to be done which I hope to chip away at somewhat after work this week.

Cindy’s mom, brother, niece, and her boyfriend all were over.  Only her mom was there the entire time with the others stopping by a little later.  Cindy’s daughter was a no show which was disappointing as I knew how much Cindy was looking forward to seeing her.  I was very frustrated by it but this has been a pattern that has gone on for as long as I have known Cindy, so sadly, I wasn’t that surprised.  I can only hope sooner or later she will understand how much she hurts her mom when she breaks promises again and again.  I know at twenty one my biggest concern was not how my actions affected my parents. Hopefully as time passes she can gain some more appreciation and awareness of a circle bigger than what is directly in front of her at that moment.

Sunday night Cindy and I were pooped from another weekend of mostly non-stop work.  In addition to helping me Cindy found a way to put together a nice little Easter celebration for her family as well.  As I mentioned at the start of this entry,  the chicken coop project has mushroomed into something much bigger than I originally expected.  I am confident the end result will be a pretty awesome living space for however many chickens we house.

With my Easter weekend being so busy I hardly had any time to dwell on it being the first time the holiday was not shared with my mom.  At this point there have quite a few “mom isn’t here any more” moments that still seem foreign and impossible.  They are slowly becoming more realistic each time it happens.

If you want to see the video of the run construction so far, look no further.

So getting the two roosters, Curly and Kathy (yes I still call him Kathy) re-homed has been something I have been working on this week.  The longer we have the roosters the more difficult it is going to be when we have to give them away.

In addition to leaving a message for the chicken lady I also was in contact with a big chicken farm in North Fort Myers, asking them if they would want a couple roosters to just live instead of becoming a meal.  They said they can’t guarantee anything as it depends on how the roosters act.  If they become overly aggressive they are a problem, and problems need to be “corrected”.

I even called Jack and Ann’s feed store in Immokalee, asking if they knew of anyone that would adopt roosters without the intention of eating them.  The guy on the phone chuckled a little bit.  He said he can pretty much guarantee me that if we would give the roosters to anyone that lives in Immokalee the roosters would either be involved in chicken fighting or chicken stew, neither of which were viable options.

I was getting depressed about our options and was thinking our best choice was to take them to the chicken farm, letting the chickens roll the dice that they integrate well into the flock.  Well late yesterday afternoon the chicken lady finally called me back.  She said somehow she missed the message I left earlier in the week.  I talked to her about the birds.  She said she definitely could use one more buff orpington rooster to help service her 30 hens.  The other one she doesn’t necessarily need but she could take it as well to hang in the flock with the possibility of adopting it back out to someone else since she does a lot of chicken transactions.  Obviously she has a lot more opportunity to re-home a chicken than we do.

So the new plan is to try to meet up with Anna after work tonight so we can give her the two roosters and she was going to give us one more hen.  Curly and Kathy are quite content with their current living conditions and both Cindy and I are fond of them as well. Both birds are the first two to come charging across the yard to see if Cindy or I have a treat for them.  Trying to catch both roosters to get them in the cat carriers is going to be quite the chore as well.  I just want it to be behind us so we can have a total female chicken population from here on out.

This weekend there is going to be a lot of work on phase 2 of the the chicken coop project.  I am hoping to get the automatic chicken door installed as well as a good portion of the attached chicken run finished up as well.  It shouldn’t be quite as grueling as the original platform/shed build but I am sure it will offer up it’s own set of hurdles to overcome.

We need to try to get as much done coop-wise as possible this weekend since starting next weekend we will have almost two weeks of flooring project to fill our days.