Archives 2015

Well it looks like tonight will be a busy one.  First I need to once again do the best I can to cover the landscape to protect it from some very cold air, which in our area could be hovering right around the freezing mark.  That is cold enough to cause all sorts of carnage in the yard.  I’m already writing off the banana trees which will once again brown, die off and reemerge in a few weeks.  The areca palms are another annoying casualty when it gets this cold.  Their outer fronds will all die and turn brown, requiring a labor intensive clean up afterward.  My main concern is the garden and the plants along the pool.  Hopefully I can get frost cloth over everything.

Of course we will be doing our best to protect the chickens from the cold as well.  The ramp being up and covering the coop in old comforters hopefully will keep the chicks ok.  The chickens provide their own insulation when the temps get cold by piling on top of each other.

Now of course complaining about temps around 32 degrees seems ridiculous to my friends/family that live in the northeast where the highs for the day barely reach double digits along with snow storms that seem to be one after the other.   Thankfully this cold streak will be short lived.  By Sunday the forecast high is all the way back up into the low 80’s.

The other task for tonight will be pulling off the reverse osmosis faucet.  It has developed some sort of leak that needs to be addressed.  My futzing around with it this morning actually caused a drip under the sink as well.  Working on it is going to be a pain in the ass because of the deep tub sink we have in the kitchen island.  I have limited space to work and limited plumbing expertise to back it up.  The RO system uses those pressure/push fittings instead of good old fashioned brass fixtures with nuts.  I find these pressure fittings problematic if you ever have to touch them once they are installed.

I forgot to mention that for the last week Cindy and I have been participating in the Neilsen tv survey program.  I got a call a few weeks ago asking me if I wanted to participate and I said sure, I was curious what it would be like.  Early last week I got my kit in the mail along with my five one dollar bills, the standard rate for doing the survey.  I have to say I was quite surprised just how low tech this process is.

You are sent one log for each tv in the house.  Each log has a number of questions regarding your tv service in the front.  It also includes detailed instructions of how to fill out the log.  The log is broken into 15 minute increments.  For any tv that you watch you need to record the station call letters, the channel, the program name, and if you are watching on a dvr, the original air date and time.  You then draw a line downward to cover the 15 minute blocks of time you were viewing tv.  This gets logged for every person in the household, luckily Cindy and I normally are watching shows together so we can just duplicate the scribbled lines.

The process gets very annoying very quickly.  I just can’t believe that Nielsen has not found a more efficient way to track tv viewing numbers with the wonders of technology in 2015.  Our one week enlistment ends tomorrow, I won’t be reupping for another tour.

Last night I got in a little WoW time with my suddenly powerful and menacing death knight.  I was playing a map where my role was to guard a tower from being attacked by horde players.  I was at the top of the tower, some three stories high.  A horde player came rushing in and started to engage me but quickly realized I was beating the hell out of him.  He decides to run for it and jumps off the tower to escape my wrath.   I use my “death grip” ability which is basically like a tractor beam, pulling the enemy player off the ground and back up to me where I promptly finish him off.   I was laughing out loud as I did this, it was just so fun.  Cindy was in the office laughing at my laughing.

I am really having a good time with my new found superpowers.  Hopefully tonight I will have some time to strike more fear in the hearts of enemy faction players.

So this morning when Cindy went out to do chicken maintenance she reported that we have a new resident in the live trap, a possum.  At first I did not consider the possum a chicken threat but Cindy sent me a link later that confirmed they too are poultry predators although not as dexterous or creative as a raccoon.  The possum was not quite as aggressive as the raccoons with me.  It hissed and showed it’s very sharp teeth but it did not strike at me as I carried the cage to the truck. Before work I relocated him near the Bird Rookery Swamp area.  He was probably the most problematic of the three animals to get out of the live trap.  He wound up backing out of it ass first.

So the possum is added to the raccoon and hawk as current chicken predators on our property.  Speaking of the hawk, it was back last night sitting on the fence post confirming that I didn’t injure the bird seriously and that the bird can’t take a hint.

So yesterday pretty much went as I hoped.  I worked on various minor to do’s for the first half of the day, with things like doing laundry, paying the bills and washing the SSR, well I ran it through a touch free car wash and then dried it by hand.  During the rest of the day I chilled, playing a bunch of WoW and just unplugging from most real thought.

Later in the afternoon I wanted to let the chickens out for a bit while I moved their coop.  As soon as I stepped out back I saw the hawk that has been hanging around sitting on one of the posts of the fence.  I grabbed the bb gun and fired another warning shot by him.  The hawk flew off the fence but repositioned himself on top of the electric pole on the far side of the neighbors house.  He was probably 100 yards or more away but still obviously watching the yard.

Well I still didn’t feel comfortable leaving the chickens out with the hawk there so I pumped up the air rifle again.  Like I said the pole was on the far side of the house so only a small portion of it was in view over the roof line with the hawk perched on top.  My hope was to hit the pole to scare the predator away once again.  The sight on the air rifle is not very accurate at all, you have to aim right of your target.  Since the bird/pole was so far away I aimed a little high, figuring the bb would drop somewhat over the 300 plus feet it had to travel.

I steadied the gun and pulled the trigger, about a half second after the pop of air was the sound of a second impact followed by the hawk flinching and then diving off of the pole.  I think I actually hit him.  Instantly a wave of guilt washed over me.  I didn’t want to hit or hurt the bird, just scare him off.   Immediately I put down the rifle and walked across the neighbors yard and into the open lot next to them where it looked like the hawk flew down to.  I was hoping I didn’t see the bird on the ground injured or even dead.  I went in the field two separate times, increasing the search radius the second time.  I did not see or hear anything so I am crossing my fingers the bird just got a little stinging reminder to steer clear of the yard and our chickens.

One of the things I did while I was in WoW yesterday was to set up and configure an add in that makes it easier to fight in game.  Basically it takes most of your abilities and creates a macro that fires them off sequentially and repeatedly in  way that maximizes your power.  After doing this I went into a bunch of PvP (player versus player) battlegrounds, an area of the game I am notoriously poor at, and proceeded to kick ass and take names.

My blood specced death knight was a holy terror, dropping enemies left and right.  I was consistently one of the top offensive players in every game I played. I was so used to getting my ass handed to me anytime I did PvP, this felt amazing.  Having opposing players scramble to get away from me only to get death gripped back into my lethal range was just tons of fun.    This was the equivalent of the 98 pound weakling suddenly being able to bench press 400 pounds.

Anyway, I will be using a similar strategy to make my other characters equally lethal.  I just hope I can find some free time here and there to enjoy it.

On Friday I left work early to get a head start on covering up the property from the cold air which was predicted to drop into the 30’s in our part of town.  My prep is less extensive than it used to be, I basically just cover the garden and move anything that is in a pot inside the shed.  Cold prep also means we move the chicken coop as close to the house as possible as well as covering it up with some old comforters to block cold air.  It turned out it didn’t get cold enough to do damage but it was good insurance anyway.

The 39 degree air Saturday morning did make it challenging to time the 5K.  Cindy and I both bundled up majorly for the event.  I had 4 layers on up top.  The race was very small, not even cracking 200 participants.  Timing the event for me went pretty much flawlessly.  The only issue I had was one older guy that crossed the line with a dead chip later in the race that I caught immediately.

The race did have one wart.  The course is a simple out and back.  Well the turnaround point was misplaced which made the course nearly 2 tenths of a mile long, that’s pretty bad.  Course measurement is beyond the scope of my responsibility however.  In the past I would have probably made a bigger fuss about it, as an accurate course is one of the basic fundamentals of putting on a race.  However nowadays I keep my concerns more focused on the areas I have direct control over and responsibility for. Cindy and I rolled out of there by a little after 9:30 and were home by a little after 10.  Much like the race itself, the post race work at home was nice and tidy, things were back to normal before we ate lunch.

Saturday afternoon we worked around the house, undoing most of the cold prep I had done the day before as well as a number of smaller to do’s.  It was Valentine’s Day after all so we didn’t want to make the labor too exhaustive, although Cindy decided that she needed to do some weight work and back yard sprints just for fun at one point.

Before we went out to dinner we exchanged our small presents.  Our big present was the iPad Air that we both will get use out of.  Cindy got me some special half gloves that are specifically designed to protect the hands from getting ripped up during bar work.  Last week my hands were hamburger from two callouses that tore open. I got Cindy a cute little necklace of two giraffes with their necks wrapped around each other in a cute way.  One has small black diamonds (me) and the other has small white diamonds (Cindy).  It just seemed like a good depiction of our relationship.

I had suggested something that may have sounded borderline insane for dinner, Carrabbas.  Surely the place would be just mauled with people on a Valentine’s Day that fell on a Saturday night.  Our plan was to go earlier to perhaps lessen the blow.  Even if it was a mob scene I was prepared to just drink beer and people watch until we got a table.

So we pulled in shortly before 6PM and were handed a buzzer with an estimated wait time of 90 minutes.  Now normally this would scare me off but like I said we were prepared for a big number.  We made our way over to the bar area and ordered some drinks.  The new layout of the restaurant has made standing around the bar pretty inconvenient.  There just isn’t room to do it with the long bar seating tables wedged in there now.  There really is no good area to just stand around in and drink.  Ironically this wound up working in our favor.

Cindy spotted two ladies at the bar getting up to leave.  Since there was no room for anyone to stand near by that meant we had a clear shot to snagging those two chairs which we did.  Neither Cindy or I minded eating at the bar.  I handed my buzzer back in to the hostess, feeling like we just gamed the system, 90 minutes turned into 9 minutes.  We had a perfectly enjoyable meal at the bar, the three female bartenders were all very personable.  We were out of there by 7:30 and on our way back home.  Instead of going to the movies we thought we could watch John Wick, which I had waiting in the Netflix envelope.

The movie wasn’t quite what I expected.  Sure I figured it was Keanu kicking ass and taking names but it got a little nuts.  By the end of it I realized that John Wick may have just knocked Commando off the throne as the most bad guys killed by a single person in a movie category.  It was like singing Old McDonald substituting “head shot” with any animal reference in the song.  It was literally a head shot here, a head shot there, a head shot everywhere.  Now thankfully they didn’t make the head shots overly graphic or dramatic, for the most part it was just CGI blood.  Still, I thought it was a little nuts.  The movie was a solid revenge themed action flick but I can’t go any higher than a B+ on this one.

Sunday morning it was once again brisk but a few degrees warmer than Saturday.  I talked Cindy into braving the cold to do the roughly 5.5 mile “track and back” run where we run from the house to the middle school track, do one lap, and return the way we came.  We both had on long sleeve shirts when we started and both took them off at the half way water stop.  I personally love running in temps around 50 degrees.  Cindy likes it warmer but she did ok anyway.  This was the first time I tried the T and B since my various knee, calf and groin problems I have dealt with for the last couple weeks.  I was happy to be able to complete the run feeling pretty good and doing so at a pace 10 seconds a mile faster than the last time.

We had some errands to go run which we did in the top down glory of the SSR.  One of those stops was Rural King for the second week in  a row.  For the second week in a row they had baby chicks there and for the second week in a row Cindy was seriously considering adopting some of them.  Once again we were able to resist the temptation and left there with just supplies for the four chickens we already have.

Cindy’s daughter and her boyfriend stopped out a little after lunch time.  They were coming to borrow the Tacoma to pick up a table.  Both Katie and Daniel have stopped smoking for the last month and a half which Cindy and I were both very happy to hear.  I also got to check out Daniel’s new 2005 350Z he just picked up.  It’s a sharp set of wheels, maybe a little too sharp for an 18 year old, hopefully he doesn’t get in trouble with it.

Sunday afternoon I decided to begin what I knew was going to be an unpleasant task, stripping out most of the mulch around the pool deck area.  My intentions were to pull out the old mulch and the old weed block beneath it.  I would then later lay down fresh block and recover the area with the shredded tire mulch that lasts forever and will not cause mulch dirt to get spread on the pool deck if the chickens dig in it.  Well this task was very labor intensive.

Normally Cindy would be right in there with me digging and carting but her lower body was very sore from the weight work on Saturday followed up with Sunday’s run.  That left me as the sole pack mule.  The mulch removal process was slow, dirty and aggravating.  I would try to grab the edge of the weed block and pull it up to allow the mulch to pile up, making it easier to shovel into the yard cart.  Each time I would fill the cart I would drag it to either the orchard or a low spot next to the garden to dump it for repurposing.  It just got to be a lot of labor.

The process was complicated by things that were buried in the mulch like long, steel cable like roots, and the old drip irrigation hose system that I used before I installed the sprinkler system.  It all had to get ripped out.  During this process I discovered that the 14 foot high cactus by the one door has INCREDIBLY long roots, some extending at least 50 FEET from the cactus.  It was pretty incredible.

As I was outside I had the chickens out of their coop as well.  However I also kept an eye on the sky.  Over the weekend Cindy and I noticed a hawk perched in the backyard with a clear eye on the birds.  It’s bad enough to have to deal with raccoons waging a ground assault on the birds, now we also have to watch for aerial attacks as well.  I had my Crossman air rifle out there with me and actually took a shot at the hawk as it was in the tree to scare it off.  I didn’t aim for the bird of course, just close enough for it to get the idea it wasn’t welcome.

The chickens loved being able to roam about although they spent most of their time nestled deep inside the one bed area, giving themselves dirt baths.  It seems clear that they are getting more used to us and don’t see us as threats.

We finished up outside around 6PM.  I was BEAT and running on fumes.  The rest of the night we relaxed and took in another “Better Call Saul” episode, the Breaking Bad spinoff.  I am quite pleased that so far the spin off seems to have a good taste of the flavor that made Breaking Bad so interesting.

Today I am enjoying my government holiday.  I hope to only have a small dose of chores/work mixed in with a big glass of just chilling.

Yesterday at work I got inspired to clean some shit up.  Once every few years I get disgusted with the clutter that accumulates in my office and I do a massive purge, yesterday was one of those times.    I went around the office filling various trash cans with mountains of stuff that at one point I deemed valuable but no longer have a use for.  This included hundreds of old cd’s, disks, as well as a bunch of outdated training and reference material.  After I got rid of shit I followed up with a much needed detail cleaning where I wiped down the 25 feet of total desk space that was dusty and gross.  The cleaning lady came through this morning with the vacuum cleaner, completing the task.  This morning my workspace felt fresh and new.

Cindy and I were happy to see Nona acting normally last night after a full day in the coop with the other three birds.  Cindy was not happy when she got home and saw I had all 4 birds roaming freely around the back yard.  When I let them out you could tell the chickens were confused, like they didn’t know how to react to having no immediate barriers in front of them.  Cindy said they were too little to be out of the coop.  I told her we weren’t letting them roam unsupervised.  She was also concerned about getting them back into the coop, that was a more of a challenge.

It was getting dark so we wanted to get the birds back in. Doing so took some patience, cracked corn bribery and gentle herding.  We don’t want to scare the chickens back into their coop, we want them to know when they go in there rewards are waiting, something Betty, Wilma and Pebbles knew well.  Cindy picked up and carried Nona back to the coop.  The other three we slowly guided around the coop perimeter before they eventually stepped back inside.

So when I stepped out into the chilly morning air I was surprised to see that my live trap had a new resident, ANOTHER raccoon.  This guy was much smaller than the animal I caught Tuesday night, I quickly guessed this could have been one of the “kids”.  It looked scared but as soon as I rolled the cage upright it hissed and carried on just like it’s bigger relative.

Well I had to quickly grab my raccoon relocation gear as I had not anticipated catching another one so soon.  This time I used the Tacoma, putting the trap in the bed in front of my cargo bar so it wouldn’t slide around the back.  Despite the raccoons treacherous intentions towards my birds I just can’t find a shred of enjoyment or pleasure out of making it suffer.

I took him to the exact same spot as the first for release.  The smaller coon was more reluctant to leave the trap once I opened the door, I had to tap and shake cage quite a few times before he scurried out.  I pulled out wondering if he would somehow find his “mom” if that was actually who I caught Tuesday.  Obviously I will continue to arm the trap each and every night from this point forward.  It’s cheap chicken insurance.

We have a small 5K to time tomorrow morning.  The timing portion of the event should be pretty simple, the worst part of it will be dealing with the frigid for Florida temps that may dip into the upper 30’s over night.  I will be sure to overdress for the occasion. I have one of those awesome government 3 day weekends since the office is closed for President’s Day.  Not much framework for it has been established yet but it should be a good 72 hours.

Last night as Cindy and I were doing evening chicken maintenance Cindy noticed one of the chickens, that we have now named “Nona” was acting strange.  She was hanging her head low and seemed lethargic.  Some of the other chickens appeared to be picking on her as well.  We watched her for awhile to see if she would snap out of it but she just seemed weird.

Cindy crawled into the chicken run and brought her out.  Nona hardly struggled as Cindy laid her down on her lap.  As Cindy gave the bird a head to toe look over Nona just laid there chilling.  Cindy started petting her head and neck.  It looked odd to have a chicken just laying on a lap, looking almost like a content cat would.  It seemed like Nona would have laid there for as long as Cindy wanted.

So we were both concerned obviously but weren’t quite sure what was wrong.  We decided to grab one of the empty Rubbermaid containers in the shed, fill it with wood shavings and bring Nona inside with us.  It was sort of odd having a chicken indoors.  At first we had her in the laundry room but we then moved the container to the guest bathroom.  I thought I was going to have to put some sort of lid on it to keep the chicken inside but it quickly became apparent that Nona was too tired to try to hop out.  I put a barrier in front of the door just in case but we didn’t need it.

Cindy and I did a lot of internet searching for chicken ailments.  We read about crop problems.  The crop is a sack at the base of their throat where food is deposited first before it is digested.  Sometimes that sack can get stuffed and blocked up if the bird drastically over eats or eats something long and fibrous.  An expert pair of hands may be able to feel an impacted crop.  Cindy couldn’t really tell much.

Cindy called up the lady we got the chickens from and had a long talk with her about Nona and chickens in general.  The consensus was it was good to keep her separated from the others last night and see how she is in the morning. Cindy was worried Nona would feel lonely in the tub by herself.  She added a towel and one of the dog’s stuffed toys as a companion.  It looked funny to have a chicken laying next to a dog toy.  Nona was very quiet and calm.  I was worried that we would wake up this morning to another chicken tragedy. I went to bed feeling unsettled. All this chicken drama, the raccoon, the hen/rooster questions and now a sick bird was weighing on my mind.

So this morning when I got up of course the first thing I did was peek in the bathroom.  I held my breath for a second when in the darkness I saw a body that appeared to not be moving.  I exhaled when Nona woke up and saw me.  She immediately stood up. She seemed pretty alert and normal to me.  Cindy agreed that she seemed much better than last night, good enough that we returned her to the coop this morning.  She seemed to jump right back into the flock and was acting normally.  Cindy and I hope this was just a little bump in the road and that Nona will be ok.

We did more saddle feather exams last night trying to see if any of the birds have long pointy feathers coming in.  Again neither of us saw anything obvious so we are still on a wait and see pattern.  The live trap was untouched last night which I was glad to see but expected.

After work I went outside to give the 4 chickens a thorough visual inspection.  The info I found online indicated that by the age of 3 months you can normally tell if a chicken is a pullet (hen) or cockerel (rooster) by the shape of the feathers on it’s “saddle”.  If you imagine where the sides of a saddle would fall if you mounted it on a chicken, that was what I was interested in.  With roosters the feathers in this area are long and pointed.  With hens the feathers are shorter and rounded.

I looked at all four birds and as far as I could tell all the feathers seemed more or less rounded in the saddle area.  When Cindy got home she inspected them as well as taking a number of pictures that we can hopefully put in front of some expert eyes to help us sex the birds.  We both agreed the feathers appeared rounded to us but then a minute or two later two of the chickens again squared off rooster style so I don’t know what the hell to think.

I did call the woman we got the chickens from and let her know that we may have some roosters in the group.  She said we should wait a bit as she has seen hens square off in a similar fashion but if they turn out to be roosters she is fine to take them back in.

While I was out there I also re-baited the live trap.  This time I decided to make the bait tougher to loot by punching a hole in the middle of the chicken jerky (ironic I know) and then tying it to the back of the trap with fishing line.  My hope was the line would require the raccoon to have to fully enter the trap and step on the trip plate.  The chicken coop was moved up close to the house and I placed the trap right around the corner in front of it.

So during the night I am woken out of my sleep by a noise.  In my groggy stupor it sounded like the chickens squawking loudly.  I shot out of bed, and into the 50 degree air in my boxer shorts.  There he was, the raccoon, unhappily stuck in the live trap which was on it’s side.

As I approached around the coop the raccoon was quietly sitting there, not doing much, almost looking cute.  However as I got within a few feet it sprung to life, hissing and growling like a VERY angry cat.  As I rolled the cage to it’s proper orientation he was trying desperately to get a hold of me through the small squares in the cage.

Cindy had followed me out and was freaking out.  She was glad that we caught it but not agreeing with my intentions of relocating him myself.  She had read the information about the dangers of raccoons and how they are not something to be taken lightly.  Despite their relatively small size they will act aggressively towards pretty much anything threatening, regardless of size.  I told her I would be able to handle it. She was still concerned, overly concerned from my stand point.

I went inside and dressed in clothing more appropriate for raccoon removal, including jeans, a sweat shirt, my rubber boots and leather gloves.  When the cage rolled the handle for the cage fell out.  I certainly wasn’t going to put my hands underneath and carry the angry animal like a sack of potatoes.  Instead I grabbed the cage by the trap door side where I was out of reach and drug it around the front of the house to the driveway with the raccoon carrying on the entire time.

Cindy was still pleading with me to not release the raccoon myself.  I again assured her I was going to be cautious and that I was confident in my ability to set the animal free far away without collateral damage.  I told her I was just going to throw the trap in the van, drive the coon to the swamp sanctuary 8-9 miles away and release it.  Cindy was still worried that somehow the raccoon could escape while it was in the van and eviscerate me.  She asked if she could at least follow in the Prius to make sure I am ok, I told her it was fine.

I grabbed a couple other tools for the release, an old comforter, an extension pole for a paint roller and a shovel.  The comforter and pole were for if things go smoothly, the shovel was for just in case it didn’t.  As I drug the cage down the driveway one leg of the raccoon was hanging outside. I gently set the cage down and told him to pull his foot in.  As I did my left foot was within a few inches of the trap.  The coon shot his arm out and wildly scratched at my boot.  I said to him “you better knock it off buddy.  If you attack me, I attack you…” I threw the comforter over the cage after I plopped it on the back floor of the van to keep the raccoon somewhat calm.

The drive to the sanctuary parking lot was uneventful, I heard the occasional hiss from the back seats.  I wondered if the raccoon had any idea that he actually hit the lottery as there aren’t many people that would let him live after what happened.  My nearly universal love of all animals and my partial responsibility for allowing it to happen with shoddy coop security is what granted him this pardon.

I parked the van and pulled the cage out in front of the headlights and about 10 feet from the tree line. Cindy watched cautiously from a good 30 feet away.  I covered all sides of the cage except the door side with the comforter.  I then carefully got the spring loaded door cracked maybe an inch or so and placed the pole under it, giving me the ability to fully open the door with my hands safely on either side of the pole instead of near the door.

Once I had it open the raccoon did not immediately shoot out, perhaps thinking it was a trick.  I said “Go on, get going…”  He shot out of the cage and straight into the woods.  I told him to enjoy his new life as I returned to the van.  Cindy was quite relieved that the raccoon had been relocated and it went down without me contracting rabies.

Just because the killer raccoon has been captured and removed I don’t plan to let my guard down.  The live trap will be set up every night nearby the coop.  I will keep trapping and relocating for as long as it takes.

Of course I had no shot of falling back asleep once we got back home so I just stayed up, played some WoW and had to deal with another round of malware infections which I think I finally have eradicated once and for all.

Last night as Cindy was finishing up dinner prep I flipped on the TV and saw there was a Walking Dead episode on the dvr.  WTF, I figured the DVR taped a rerun.  Well imagine my surprise when it was a brand new episode.  I had absolutely no clue that the season was resuming already.  I’m not quite sure how I didn’t see something on tv or social media mentioning it.  It was a good episode, setting up what I hope is a solid second half of the season.

This morning when I went out to the coop it was obvious that the raccoon had been there last night.  As I got closer it became evident he was all over the coop.  The plastic sheet we have on the outside of the cage to keep the food dry was ripped loose, another similar sheet by their grit was bent, a pvc pipe we have inserted through the wire as a perch was knocked out, the lamp portion of the flood was pushed downward, and there were what looked to be muddy footprints on top of the corrugated plastic that covers the chicken run.

As a further FU to us, the chicken jerky I baited the live trap was gone.  Evidently the coon managed to step over the trip plate and snag the bait.

Of course when Cindy came out she was freaked out.  Last night I did not put the ramp to the coop up, I just closed and locked the door leading to the run area.  Even though the coop held up to what was obviously a pretty thorough assault by the raccoon it made me feel like I need to close that ramp every night, just to make sure the birds stay safe in case the raccoon shows up with a pair of wire cutters next time.

We were already bummed out about the raccoon visit.  As we were working on the coop one of the chickens was chasing and pecking the smallest chicken, which Cindy has dubbed Lola.  Then another one of the birds squared off with the aggressor.  They stood toe to to toe, stuck their chests out, held their heads high and then threw their feet at each other.  Instantly Cindy and I recognized this as the ways roosters fight.  Betty, Wilma, and Pebbles would fight once in awhile but never in that manner.

Ironically these were the two chickens that were the two middle birds size wise.  If we had a rooster I assumed it was the biggest bird but now I don’t know how many we have.  I am going to call the lady we got the birds from and describe what we saw.  Unfortunately she does not use testing to definitively sex the birds when they are young, she just uses physical characteristics.  So if we have roosters in the group they are going to need to go back asap before we get too attached and/or one of them hurts another in the group seriously.

On Friday I stopped by one of the local ATT stores with the new iPad, looking to activate the LTE service on the device.  As soon as I stepped into the door I was greeted with a chaotic environment.  There were two young kids whose mother thought needed no supervision. The boys, both somewhere around 5 were sprinting around the store, screaming, treating the place like a playground.  This went on the entire 10-15 minutes that I was waiting to talk to someone.  I could not believe the mother or the the ATT staff did not do anything to curb the behavior.

I also got to listen to an old man that was in front of me give an ATT clerk a shakedown over his bad phone reception.  The clerk politely listened to the old guy rant about how he can’t make calls from his home but in other areas of the state he has no problems.  The clerk told the guy that it sounds like maybe there is a signal issue from whatever tower he is closest to but explained that was outside his jurisdiction.  The old man did not like that answer, snapping back “The logo on your shirts does say ATT doesn’t it??!!”, meaning that any ATT employee should instantly be able to address any issue any customer has.  The clerk shot me a glance during the exchange where he saw the smirk on my face.  The old man asked to talk to the manager who I think basically said the same thing however I think they gave him some free phone accessories to shut him up and get him out of the store.

So finally after watching these various sideshows a clerk came free.  I explained to him what I was looking to do and that I had looked online ahead of time and was thinking I was finally ready to let go of my “unlimited” data plan on the two iPhones and team them with the iPad on a shared arrangement.  I picked a good time to add a tablet to my plan as ATT was running a special of a $100 credit when you add a tablet to a data plan, presumably because they assume you will gobble up data faster that way.

By dropping my mom’s old phone off my plan and utilizing the 17% break state employees get I was able to score a 15GB shared data plan for almost exactly what I was already paying, plus the $100 kick back.  I also pick up unlimited texting, calling, and hotspot usage in the deal.  I was a little paranoid about letting go of my unlimited data plan but with ATT’s new rollover data policy which allows me to include unused minutes from the prior month into the current month, the odds of me ever exceeding my monthly allowance is nearly impossible.

This weekend was one Cindy and I had looked forward to because it was open without a race or other event cramping our style.  Of course this didn’t mean we were going to lay around and eat bon bons all weekend, it just meant we had our schedules cleared to get stuff done and that is what we did.

I had a number of small things to handle outside, some of which Cindy helped me with as well.  There are just a ton of little things that need regular attention when you have a house with a good chunk of land. We also tackled one larger job, removing the stone path that used to split the orchard in half.  This was tedious as we first had to shovel the stones from the path, clean them to some degree with a hose and then dump them at various spots around the house stone border where coverage was light.

After that shitty job was done we started skimming mulch from the border around the pool cage and repurposed it in the strip where the stones used to be.  The reasons for this rotation of ground coverings is two fold.  The rock path in the orchard was something I thought would be useful way back when when I created the orchard area.  The reality was it was just another spot that I had to weed.  Plus, the chickens will appreciate one large unbroken area of play where they can dig and scratch as much as they want.

The mulch relocation is something I want to do around the entire border of the pool.  Betty, Wilma, and Pebbles were all quite fond of digging in that area and as they did they would constantly be throwing mulch up against the pool screen which in turn dumped mulch dirt onto the pool deck. I want to pull all of the organic mulch, putdown fresh weed block and then refill the area with the shredded tire mulch.  I have used the rubber “mulch” in a few other spots and it is nearly maintenance free and pretty much lasts forever.  There is a large up front cost to put down the synthetic stuff but when you factor in the time and cost of re-mulching an area a minimum of once a year, that cost can be quickly justified.

After we finished up we headed out to run some errands as I needed a few things that were quite different.  At Home Depot I picked up a couple 8 foot 2×4’s to rebuild the garden gate which is falling apart from rot.  At Costco I picked up a second, awesome 27″ Samsung monitor so I had a matching set, allowing me to use my old second monitor to provide Cindy her own two monitor set up.

When we got back I resumed work, including the gate tear down and rebuild as well as doing some server work for the office via remote control.   Pretty much all day Saturday was spent working on something for both of us.

We decided to do something slightly different on Saturday night.  Instead of going to the movies, we went to dinner and THEN a movie.  For dinner we went to a place I had not patronized in years and years, Olive Garden.  I never went to the location in Coconut Pointe.  The restaurant was really nice both inside and out.  We had a surprisingly enjoyable time, the food was good, the atmosphere was pleasant and really the only negative was the woman 20 feet from us that had a disgusting, persistent, hacking cough that made it seem like that the last place she needed to be was in a public dining establishment.  We will definitely add that Olive Garden to the rotation.  I was glad we showed up at 6PM to eat, we only waited 5 minutes.  When we left closer to 7 there were people stuffing the lobby and outdoor waiting areas.

The movie we saw was Jupiter Ascending.  From the previews it looked like a decent sci-fi action flick so we figured it would be fine.  When we got to the theater the 3D showing was the next showing so we handed over the premium to see the movie in 3D which added absolutely nothing to the experience.

We were paranoid about having a similar experience as the last time we were at the theater to see American Sniper, where our late arrival wound up depositing our rear ends in the very front row of the theater.  There was no such problem this time around, I doubt if there were 20 total people in the theater.  I guess they read the reviews of the movies ahead of time, something I hardly ever will do.

Well I could tell the movie was going to suck within the first 5 minutes, it just had that vibe.  The story made no sense and the acting was moronic. Both Cindy and I laughed out loud at the main bad guy who spoke the entire movie in a creepy whisper except for a couple outbursts where he went into Jacquin Phoenix in Gladiator, “AM I NOT MERCIFUL!” screaming mode.   He was simply a ridiculous character.

Thankfully the two 20 ounce Shocktop beers I downed at Olive Garden had made me sleepy. I slept through at least half of the movie.  Cindy dozed off as well.  Whomever fronted the 179 million dollar production budget for this big steaming turd is going to be writing out a lot of IOU’s.  The film grossed $19 million for it’s opening weekend and I am sure it will plummet from here as word spreads of its suckitude.  The only thing good I can say about the movie is it has top notch special effects, but that can’t come even close to saving the film.  I give it a D, don’t even watch it if it comes on free tv.

On Sunday morning we were supposed to pick up our new chickens but I wanted to get a bike ride in beforehand.  Cindy was not very enthusiastic about the idea.  The temps were in the upper 50’s and she had not ridden in awhile.  I assured her if we dressed in a manner similar to how Randall and I dressed last week it would be fine.  I told her she would be glad we did it once we do it.  She eventually agreed although she said I would probably have to be slowing down to accommodate her. I knew that would not be the case.

I lead the entire way to Dunking Donuts and just like last week, held good speed, 20-21 mph for a good portion of the 10 miles which Cindy was able to hang with just fine.  We did the first 10 miles in right around 30 minutes.  After refueling with small coffees we reversed direction which was into the wind to varying degrees.  Little Miss “I doubt I can do 16 mph”, was pulling for well over half of the return ride and did so maintaining 17-19 mph pretty much the entire time.  I only took over with a little more than 3 miles to go.

As we pulled back into the driveway I stopped my GPS and checked out the stats.  For the entire ride we averaged 18.6 mph, only a couple tenths slower than I did with Randall.  As predicted, Cindy was glad we got out there and she found out that despite a long cycling lay off she is still quite capable.

The chicken lady had called just before we got back at 10.  I called her back and made arrangements to pick up the 4 chickens at 10:30 at the same convenience store we used before.  After changing our biking clothes we grabbed the two cat carriers and were out the door in the party van.  We got there first and waited a few minutes for Anna and her husband to pull up.  The husband, who is very odd, did not leave the drivers seat, leaving Anna alone to handle the chicken transfer.  I opened up and sat our carriers by her small cage so the birds could be shuffled between them.

The chickens were scared as expected.  They also looked smaller than the three girls we adopted before which made sense since they are approximately a month younger.  Anna said she THINKS they were all hens but if one of them turned out to be a rooster we could swap it out.  A rooster just won’t work in our situation, I don’t need to annoy the neighbors.  Both Cindy and I are hoping they are all girls, it would sort of suck to have to get rid of one after we get attached to it.

The chickens were very, very quiet on the ride home and equally quiet as Cindy and I prepared the coop, filling it with wood shavings, food and water.  The chickens were hesitant to leave the confines of the cat carriers and into their new home.  It probably took five patient minutes and some cracked corn bribery to get all four of them out.

Once we had them in the coop you could tell they were disoriented.  Anna said they were in a crowded situation at her place so perhaps it felt weird to the 4 chickens to have some peace and quiet along with space to move.  We got them all situated and secure before we headed out to Rural King, we needed to get feed designed for younger chickens, the stuff we had is for chickens four months and older.

We took the SSR, as it was a beautiful sunny day with temps in the 70’s.  When we were in Rural King we got sidetracked by the live chicks they had for sale.  They literally had hundreds of baby chicks covering at least a half dozen varieties.  We were teetering on the edge of adopting a couple until a store employee said we would have to take at least 6 at a time, which would eventually put us over our current chicken housing capabilities.

During the day I developed an issue with my brand spanking new computer.  Earlier my Mcafee virus protection was complaining about some malware trying to load.  I found it odd since the only site I had open was Facebook.  After I clicked block 4 or 5 times I simply X’d out the notification box.  Well that apparently is the same as saying “load the shit”, my pc was now infected.

The malware would overlay incredibly annoying and disruptive ads on top of normal web pages.  It was something called TopDeal ads.  When I looked up removal recommendations for the malware the search results were filled with trap site links that actually will load more shit onto your computer instead of helping you remove it.

I did a full sweep in safe mode which supposedly found, identified, and removed the culprit.  However after a reboot the fcking shit was back, I was pissed.  At first I figured I would just load a system restore but was frustrated to see the feature was turned off.  I wasn’t sure if Windows 8.1 has it off by default or if the malware flipped it off to make it more difficult for me to dispose of it.

Ok well my next plan was to utilize the full system image back up I had that was roughly 10 days old.  Nothing major changed during that time period.  Well after completing the restore the system was not booting.  Windows would not load and kicked me to the recovery screen, nothing I did in there fixed the problem.  In total I went through three system restore cycles, only the third try was successful when I used slightly different recovery options.  When my desktop finally booted up clean I breathed a sigh of relief.  I had nightmare scenarios of a total reload dancing through my head.

So as dusk arrived Cindy and I were waiting for the chickens to head up the ramp to the their coop so we could close it up.  Well the four birds didn’t seem to understand the way this was supposed to work.  When I went outside in near darkness to check on them the four chickens were all piled on top of each other on the ground under the hanging feeder.  Of course this couldn’t be allowed as a racoon could easily grab one of them through the wire and cause all sorts of problems.

I called Cindy out so she could help me manually place the chickens up top after I raised the ramp to the closed position.  The chicks were not thrilled with being forcefully moved to the second floor and seemed a bit confused by the whole thing. This morning when I lowered the ramp they again were hesitant to change floors, they all stayed up top.  I’m sure they will figure it out quickly, I think they are just scared of everything being different.

Last night we watched Fury on Blu-ray.  It was a good war movie that depicted the horrors of war in an in your face manner.  I thought the acting in the film was very, very good.  Brad Pitt has kept his personal streak with me alive, never appearing in a movie that I disliked.  I’d give it an A-.

My replacement iPad Air arrived yesterday.  I was impressed how different the packaging was this time.  The smaller box I received the first time was now nestled inside of a much larger box stuffed with packing material.  I also received a brand new accessory pack with the cord and charger, something missing from the smashed iPad’s box.

The tablet itself looked to be in superior condition with not a mark on it.  I hit the power button and was treated to the retina display goodness the Air offers you.  During the night I did the initial configuration on it including loading the app that allows Cindy to access her trainer certification course ware on the iPad. Of course I also loaded Hearthstone which looks and plays fantastic on the device.

The one thing the iPad did not come with was a SIM card which I need in order to activate the LTE service for the device.  I am hoping to get that taken care of on my way home this evening.

As I was on the ATT site looking for info regarding tablet data plans they had information regarding their shared data plan, specifically the 10GB shared data plan.  I am one of those unlimited data customer holdouts that ATT has been trying to convert for several years.  I have clung onto my unlimited data status dearly, not wanting to have my data throttled or get dinged with overage penalties.  Seeing what I saw yesterday is softening that position.

First off it showed that I could slide into a 10gb shared data plan for $145, compared to the $159 I pay right now.  On top of that it seemed to indicate that $145 would be my cost BEFORE my 17% Florida state worker discount.   The shared plan also includes unlimited talk and texting as well as free hotspot service where your phone can serve as a Wi-fi hotspot.  They also now just started a data rollover plan where you can roll unused data from one month to the next which is awesome and makes sense.

When I looked at my data usage the last two months it topped out at between 4-5GB with well over 3GB of that being on Alison’s phone which is still on my plan.  I only had a little over 500 meg on my phone because I am hooked into wi-fi far more often than I’m not.   But even so, a 10GB plan should be more than sufficient when rollover data is factored in.  We will see what I come up with when I am in the store.

Last night I filled out my tax prep organizer for my accountant.  In the process I added up my Google AdSense dollars for the year, since Google is ridiculously slow in providing 1099’s.  I was surprised it added up to over $1000, a roughly %40 increase over the previous year.  I can only hope the acceleration continues this year.  I need to start cranking out some videos.

In addition to my taxes I fired up Turbo Tax online to do my mom’s final return.  As you can expect this was a rather sad process.  I recalled how each and every year mom would get excited when I would present her with her expected refund amount after I did her taxes. There was no excitement when I completed the process this year that showed a small refund as the last gasp of monetary activity tied to mom’s lifetime of work.

Filing a return for a deceased person requires an additional form to be filled out which I thought would preclude me from filing electronically.  TurboTax let me e-file still but I was rewarded with an error later saying the IRS did not accept the return.  I have to see if I can get that sorted out today.

This weekend will be Cindy and I doing what we want to do.  Part of that may include adopting some more chickens into the family.