So once again I feel very fortunate to have gotten the mowing done Sunday as Monday was almost an all day rain event, once again submerging large areas of our property. When I got home I wasted little time before reconnecting the sump pump I have in the back yard of the chicken area. It does a decent job of pumping the water to the big drainage canal on our property line. That area that I elevated with top soil and sod is still well above the water level, I guess I need to expand that area as time, motivation and money allows.
I got the newest book in the World of Warcraft series, Before the Storm. It is timed with the release of a new expansion to the game I have loved for over a dozen years, which happens August 14th. I am trying to finish it before the game is released as it gives the back story to the game. At this point I am around halfway done so I should be able to accomplish that goal.
Last night I was reading on the loveseat. It was storming outside so Elsa came running to me for protection. We have developed a technique for sharing the small piece of furniture, even when I’m laying on it where I prop my feet on the back so Elsa can jam herself in between my rear end and the arm rest. After finishing a chapter my eyes were heavy. Cindy snapped this cute picture during that time period.
I just felt really wiped out. Maybe it’s from the emotional weekend with all of the Lucy problems. I haven’t been sleeping all that great either. My latest trend is waking up 60-90 minutes before the alarm and just rolling around in anticipation of it going off. Anticipation may be the wrong word as I am certainly not excited once Alexa starts playing the wake up tone.
So after Lucy’s miraculous recovery from being on her back with feet in the air Thursday and a night in our tub she seemed pretty alert on Friday morning. She seemed to actually be pretty normal. As a precaution we put her back in the chicken area but into the chicken tractor so she would be isolated from the other hens, just in case. We put a few big chunks of watermelon in there with her, she wasted no time going to town on it. It seemed amazing that this was the same chicken that was on her back the day before.
So when I got home from work Friday I looked out the window and was glad to see Lucy standing in the tractor and not on her back. I walked out there to let her out. Although she was standing she seemed off and her face looked very pale. She continued to stand there as I tended to the other chickens. As I was moving stuff out of the tractor I noticed a few drops of blood on the frame. I quickly looked at Lucy and did not see any blood on her feet so I wasn’t sure what was up.
When Cindy got home I told her how Lucy was acting odd. Cindy looked at her and noticed some blood on her beak. She looked at her bad wing and found something horrible. Evidently Lucy spent a good portion of the day pecking herself, right around the swollen area. There was an ugly bloody wound as a result. I could only imagine why she did this, perhaps the swollen area was hurting her and she was trying to do whatever she could to relieve the pain. Whatever the reason, we now had another problem to deal with. We had to try to bandage the area in a way that she would not be able to peck herself.
I held Lucy as Cindy did the best she could with the bandages we had. I felt terrible. After covering the area we again set her up in our bathroom where we could keep an eye on her. She was acting very lethargic and I thought we may lose her Friday night. Low and behold we woke up Saturday morning and she seemed alert, her resiliency was pretty amazing.
So I figured we will put her out in the open with the other chickens, perhaps being isolated and bored lead to her pecking herself. We immediately threw more melon in the yard which Lucy and the other chickens started working on immediately. Once again, besides a swollen, bandaged wing, she seemed pretty normal. I left the hens be as I worked on some other stuff in the yard. Later in the morning I glanced out there and saw a chicken on her back, feet in the air, by the melons, it was Lucy.
I ran out there and she was looking at me so I at least knew she was alive. She was flat one her back with her wing bandages laying on the ground next to her, wtf? I scooped her up and took her inside the coop to one of the nesting boxes. She sat there with her mouth open like she was hot but otherwise seemed pretty ok, this was almost a carbon copy of what happened on Thursday. So once Lucy calmed down we again wrapped her up using better bandage supplies we bought from CVS that morning. We put her back out in the yard and this time threw corn on the cob in there. Once again all of the birds, including Lucy, went nuts for it.
So late afternoon Cindy said she saw a chicken in an odd position in front of the run. I went out and once again Lucy was on her back, looking at me, with her bandages by her side. I then started to realize what was happening. She wanted the bandages off so badly that she dropped to her back and used her feet to grab them and pull them off. However she was physically not able to flip herself back upright after doing so. I felt terrible that the bandages were bothering her that much but I felt we had to prevent her from being able to peck the open wound.
So once again we wrapped her up. When I took her back out to the run I stood there to observe. She stumbled backwards as she tried to pull the same trick, making noise like she was in pain which broke my heart. As she fell to the sand, one of the other hens, Pumpkin made an aggressive move towards Lucy which I immediately shut down. I scooped Lucy up and took her back in the house, it was our third night of having an indoor chicken. Before bed you could see she was still trying to get the bandage off but too tired to do so. I totally expected to wake up Sunday morning to have her be alert and fine, again.
Well instead shortly before 4 AM Cindy awoke when she heard a noise in the bathroom. We got up and went inside just as Lucy moved her legs for the last time. We literally watched her stop breathing as her eyes were closed and her head was tucked down. It instantly brought tears to my eyes but in reality I was relieved she finally passed. She was suffering and was not going to recover. I was glad her suffering was at it’s end but sad and somewhat guilty that we were not able to save her. Later Sunday morning we buried Lucy in the back of the property, next to Peaches. It was a solemn and sad event. Lucy, despite being the most skittish and scared around us was amazingly tough and sweet in the end.
There were non-chicken related things during the weekend as well. I installed a new 12V battery into the Prius since the installed battery was starting to read low which can cause of myriad of issues with the car. The battery is located in the trunk and is not convenient to replace but not all that tough either as illustrated in the video.
On Sunday morning I was feeling very sad about Lucy’s passing. I tried to temper that sadness by taking the OneWheel down to the Greenway to ride. It was my best ride yet with the board. The varied terrain and twisting pathways made for a very enjoyable riding experience, more fun than any prior ride I had there on EUC’s. I took the board all the way to the gulf and back. You can get a good sense of how much fun it was from the video.
The hybrid battery installer was supposed to arrive early afternoon to replace the Prius pack for the third time. of course that ETA was missed. While I was waiting I decided to get out and mow despite very threatening skies. I mowed through several rain outbreaks, luckily none of them were deluge intensity. As always, it felt great to have the task completed.
The installer said he was delayed in Miami and showed up somewhere around 6PM. I asked him if normally they have to come back multiple times to replace packs. He said out of the 100 or so repairs he has done I am only the second customer that had two failures, lucky me. Once again Jonathan and his dad worked quickly, getting a new pack installed in roughly an hour. He said I should be good to go but once again, if I have any problems to let them know. I assured him I would do exactly that.
It was an emotional, rough weekend. I look forward to smoother waters ahead.
So late yesterday afternoon I got a message from Cindy to call her ASAP which is never a good thing. When I called her she was crying, she told me that Lucy was gone. She said she didn’t see her come out when treats were put down. She was looking on the cameras to see her but couldn’t see anything other than Lucy coming out for some food and water around 11. She got on her knees and finally saw Lucy laying under the coop by one side. She was laying in an awkward position, motionless and Cindy said she did not respond in any way. Hearing this news immediately sent a wave of emotion over me. I told her I would try to get out early to take care of it. Cindy had to go teach a spin class.
So the entire drive home I was alternating between sadness and dread of the task of extracting Lucy from under the coop. I knew it would be emotionally crushing for me. We had tried so hard to nurse her back to health. When I thought back to the way Lucy grabbed Cindy’s finger the night before it made me tear up to think that was maybe her way of saying goodbye.
After changing I headed outside with the pool brush in hand for the gruesome task. I figured the long extendable handle would allow me to reach Lucy regardless of how far under the deck she was. After laying down some plastic I layed on my side and saw Lucy’s body laying there. The visual burst open the emotional floodgates, I broke down crying for a minute or so.
I calmed down and focused on getting her body out. I fished the pole past Lucy and then started bringing it in. As it touched her body her one leg shot up in the air. I stopped in horror, I thought it was some sort of post death muscle reaction. When I tried to resume pulling her towards me, I heard it, she was making noise….. oh my God, she isn’t dead. I was horrified and hopeful at the same time.
So I ran to the outside of the coop to the side she was on. It seemed impossible that the bird was alive, her head and neck were twisted back in a very unnatural looking way but her eyes were half open. All of a sudden I was in emergency rescue mode. There was no way I was going to try to pull her out using the pool brush, I instead needed to get through the hardware cloth that the deck opening is covered with. I ran up to the garage and grabbed tools. I returned and feverishly started prying out staples and cutting the hardware cloth in two spots so I could fold it down like a flap. Once I got access I very carefully lifted Lucy out, her neck returned to normal position and she seemed to be very weak but holding on.
I carried her into the coop and set her into one of the nesting boxes. She was able to sit there while I went inside to get some water and yogurt, one of her favorite treats. It took some time and patience but I eventually got her to take some water and eat some of the yogurt. I stayed out there with her for over two hours until Cindy returned home. By that time she had definitely perked up as she ate quite a bit of yogurt off the spoon I was holding. She even stood up and walked unsteadily to another nesting box and plopped down there.
Cindy was amazed this is the same bird she had seen earlier laying motionless under the coop. We agreed that we should let Lucy stay in the house overnight to see how she is. There was no guarantee she would make it through the night so we would rather have her close to us. We set her up in the cat carrier with a bed of shavings, water and some scratch grains. Before bed I saw her eating some of the grains, another good sign.
So when trying to figure out what happened to put her in a near death state it was a crapshoot. She did lose a considerable amount of blood over the last couple of days before we could get it stopped. Maybe her blood pressure was really low as a result and she passed out. Maybe she had a stroke, maybe she had a mini-heart attack, we will never know. All I know is she is alive and kicking now.
This morning we took her back outside to the chicken area. We were cautious and separated her by setting her up in the portable chicken tractor. She appeared to be doing ok, hungrily chowing down on the piece of water melon we put in there. I will be closely monitoring her over the weekend of course. Who knows how much time she has left but I know I am thankful that she has more of it. Never in my lifetime did I have a pet that I thought was dead turn out not to be so. It was an emotional roller coaster that will not be soon forgotten.
So on Tuesday and once again yesterday the dreaded “red triangle of death” returned to the Prius. I am on my second replacement battery pack from battery4prius. This current pack has been absolutely fine since it was installed 2-3 weeks ago. I was getting great mileage and had more power. On Tuesday when the light came on I cleared it and the car was still running fine. Yesterday when the light came on I knew it was bad because the hybrid battery cooling fan was screaming at full blast.
My code reader not only gave the general bad hybrid battery code but also two additional codes that identify at least two battery banks that are bad in the pack. When the battery gets to this state the car is borderline undriveable. If the battery voltage drops below a certain point the Prius shuts it off and tries to run on it’s gas engine only. However it also affect the transmission, the car feels like it is constantly slipping. Despite high engine revs it’s tough to get the Prius to do over 45 mph in this state.
So I babied the car on the drive home, having to pull over a couple times to reset the battery system to get me out of turtle mode. I once again contacted the battery installers and told them my second replacement pack is bad as well. I knew getting a refurbished battery had the possibility of this scenario popping up although I certainly didn’t expect it to happen twice in the first two months.
On the way home I actually bought a replacement 12V battery for the car as well. The battery has never been replaced since we owned it and I was showing readings as low as 11.4 volts on the unit. A low 12V battery can cause all sorts of strange things to happen with a Prius so I figured I should replace it as well. Like most things on the Prius, the special trunk mounted battery needed is not cheap. I dropped over $250 for a replacement which I hope to install this evening.
The battery installers hopefully will be out this weekend to throw yet another hybrid pack into the car. I feel bad for them in a way but it’s not my fault that the packs they are installing just are not holding up. I am fortunate that we live in a three vehicle household where I can park the Prius and just use my Tacoma as my daily driver for now. I have to admit that I did submit a Costco pricing request on a Bolt yesterday, just for fun.
Tending to Lucy the chicken has been stressful. She has at times been uncooperative when we give her the meds by mouth. It takes a lot of patience. Last night we removed the bandages we put on Tuesday for her bleeding wound. Somehow during that removal process she started to bleed again. Cindy was able to get the bleeding stopped with a very generous application of the stypic powder. We have used so much of it at this point that I need to stop and grab some more today. We are trying to be optimistic and look at Lucy being more resistant to the meds as a sign that she is feeling better and more energetic. We still have over a week to go yet with the twice a day antibiotics.
There was a very cute and touching moment last night. After we got the bleeding stopped Cindy was cleaning off Lucy’s feet which had some dried blood on them. As she was doing so Lucy gently wrapped her toes around one of Cindy’s fingers. It was almost like she was doing a chicken equivalent of holding hands. In our minds it felt like she was maybe expressing thanks for our attempts to help her. Instead of placing her on the perch we let her stay in one of the nesting boxes overnight, figuring it would be a more comfortable spot for her to rest without putting pressure on the wing.
This morning, after giving her the morning dose of meds she immediately started on her chicken business, seeming normal outside of the drooping wing. Birds are very tough, usually they will do an amazing job of hiding ailments until the very end. Cindy and I are hoping for a miraculous recovery but even if it doesn’t happen we are both committed to doing whatever we can to help Lucy.
So I followed up my mower repair and normal mowing session on Sunday with mowing the back half of the yard yesterday. It was totally dry and if I have learned anything since living in Florida, you have brief windows of time during wet season where you can mow before the next deluge arrives. My steering repairs held up to the very bumpy terrain in the back yard. I also had the big generator running for a good portion of the day, powering the AC in Cindy’s RV, cooling it down and giving the unit some time to circulate.
I took advantage of the dry and now totally mowed fenced in yard with my One Wheel. I rode the board all over the back which was much more difficult than paved or concrete riding. Your lower body is just in constant motion adjusting to the shifts in terrain, it’s physically demanding. I fell off a couple times but didn’t hit the ground (that came later in the day) My body felt tense which was the opposite of what you want. It’s all a matter of practice and repetition. Just as I finished the ride a super storm blew in, dumping at least three inches of rain in a short period of time. The rain event turned the dry property back into a swamp in no time, making me feel all the better about getting all of the mowing done before it hit. You can actually see the first part of the storm at the end of the video.
We lost power later in the day, after the storms ironically. I suggested to Cindy that instead of listening to all the beeping UPS’s in the house we take Elsa over to the school so I could ride the One Wheel some more while they hung out. She was down with the plan. I had fun riding all around the school property. The only negative was a relatively hard fall I took when I tried to cross a small grassy spot between sidewalks. It had more of a gully in it than I realized which instantly stopped the board and sent me flying where my right hand and hip took the impact. My hand was fine thanks to the wrist guards I always wear. The hip hurt, leaving a second bruise next to the other One Wheel mark from a couple weeks prior. Even with incident I had a good time. Learning to ride EUC’s and the One Wheel at this stage of life has at least kept my motivation and determination levels actively engaged.
We have been giving Lucy her meds from the vet orally twice a day using a little syringe. Surprisingly she has been pretty agreeable to the process. Yesterday we got a scare. After giving her the meds we sprayed down the area on the mass that was cut by the vet to try to drain it with antiseptic. As Cindy wiped it down Lucy jerked violently, evidently the scab came off. She started to bleed badly from the area.
If you ever had birds, you know that when they bleed it can be a big problem as their blood does not clot well. We originally just tried applying pressure with a paper towel but it quickly became soaked in blood. Luckily I had just bought stypic powder, a substance used to stop bleeding on birds. Cindy ran inside and got some as well as additional bandages. I was really worried as there was a LOT of bleeding but eventually we got it stopped and got her wing wrapped up. I checked on her several times during the evening. She was fine and appeared normal this morning which is a relief.
So I started my four day weekend off with my run. I figured getting it out of the way on Friday would be a nice way to clear the weekend for two days of no alarm. I missed running the week prior due to my various One Wheel injuries. The week off did nothing to make the experience any easier. It was almost 80 degrees at 6:30 AM and the humidity was brutal. It was an uncomfortable run from the first stride to the last but I endured.
So the main reason I took Friday off was so I could take Lucy to the vet to see if they could drain the huge swollen area under her one wing. Catching her to put her in the cat carrier wasn’t easy but once we got her in there she was calm. It was Lucy’s first car ride. We had gone to this vet once before with Lola, one of our chickens that passed away a couple years ago. I remember that experience wasn’t spectacular.
So I didn’t get to actually see the vet until a solid 20 minutes after my appointment time which was slightly annoying. When she did come in I quickly remembered what I didn’t enjoy about our last experience, the woman is sort of a bitch. Her attitude was off putting. She looked at Lucy for a minute or two, she was taken back by the size of swelling and commented on how it felt hot. I told her we noticed the same thing and thought the heat may mean infection. She said it could be infected or maybe some sort of tumor.
She then presented me three options, try to drain the mass and give antibiotics, take a biopsy and send it out, or do X-rays for more information. I told her I walked in there hoping for her to do the first option to see what sort of results we can get. She took Lucy to a back room and returned a few minutes later with a syringe with some bloody fluid in it. It wasn’t a huge amount. She said that was all she could get out. She said she even made a small incision but got very little out.
Ok well that was all I wanted her to do at this point. They gave us two weeks of antiobiotics and anti-inflammatory medicine to give Lucy by mouth, twice a day, that will be fun. The 15 minute visit cost $150, what a bargain. At least we had some meds to try to actively combat whatever is going on. Other than catching Lucy each time, giving her the meds hasn’t been that bad. It’s a two person operation but she is rather cooperative taking the liquid. Maybe she knows we are trying to help her. Her wing was bandaged up from the vet which she hated. We couldn’t take it off until the next morning.
Cindy was working most of the day which left me home to melt outside while doing chores. I first weeded and then followed up with weed whacking during the early afternoon, in the absolute hottest part of the day. We are now in the part of summer where the heat and humidity is merciless. By the time I was done I was depleted. I jumped in the pool to get my body temp down and still felt washed out, so much so that I actually laid in bed for an hour, something that is very, very rare during daytime hours.
On Saturday it was nice to not have to set an alarm. After tending to the chickens we headed out to run some errands. One of those included stopping at Ron Jon’s the place I got the One Wheel from. I just wanted to look at more of their skateboard gear. Cindy did a lot of skateboarding as a kid and was really interested in all the stuff they had. We talked a lot with a kid that worked there named Miguel. We wound up walking out of there with a cool board for Cindy. She was very excited by the prospect of reliving one of her childhood highlights.
Later in the afternoon when we got home she did her first riding in the driveway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TweySSQzfU
I neglected to mention I rode the One Wheel all the way to Dunkin Donuts and back on Saturday morning. The unit is rated for 12-18 miles of range. The ride was more than 20 miles. I made it home, just barely. The video is pretty entertaining.
Saturday night we met up with Cindy’s family to celebrate her neice’s 24th birthday. It was held at Iguana Mia, a place I used to like but have had several poor experiences at lately. My food was better this time around but Cindy’s mom was not as pleased, telling the waitress she was given the worst taco salad she has ever eaten. A lot of the lettuce was brown and nasty looking. They at least didn’t charge her for the food. Everyone seemed to have fun and I had a couple Shock Tops to take the edge off.
On Sunday morning Cindy and I took the Segway I2, the OneWheel and her new skateboard out for a ride. It was a fun little trip that surely had to look strange to oncoming traffic. Cindy made some real strong progress blowing the dust off her boarding skills. She was rolling around the school parking lot pretty confidently, it was impressive.
Shortly after we got back I had to dive into fixing the tractor steering arms, one of which fell apart last weekend mowing. I pulled the tractor into the garage to avoid the blazing sun. It quickly became obvious that this was going to be a much more involved job than I expected. I thought I could just pop off a couple nuts for each arm and swap in the new one. The problem is the rear nut is attached to the steering plate which is snugged up against the underside of the tractor. I had no access to turn off the nuts, the only way it could be done is by dropping the steering plate.
Doing this was a huge pain in the ass. I had to remove the mower deck and then use contortionist like skills to hold a socket on the nut up inside the body of the mower while turning out the 3/4″ bolt below. I was coated in oily, dirty, organic matter mixed with a constant stream of sweat. It was quite the ordeal but I finally was successful. I was very glad I decided to be proactive and ordered the arms for both sides even the one was still holding together. If I didn’t get both I would have been repeating this shit a few months later.
I wasted no time putting my repair to the test, mowing the front half of the yard. Even with the canopy the heat radiating down made the task miserable. The good news is the steering is working well.
I spent close to two hours later trying to work out some bugs I have been having doing my EUC live streams. I finally got it sorted out with about 45 minutes to go before the broadcast. The stream went pretty well although it was a bit awkward for me. The show is all about electric unicycles and I haven’t ridden my EUC’s since I got the One Wheel. I still think we did a decent job. I want to work on coming up with a more structured format which should flow better.
Today is my last day of vaca. I have work planned, as always but hopefully an equal amount of fun.
So when I got home last night I noticed the wet spots in the yard had dried up so I wasted little time before getting on the mower to knock these spots down. I was on the last section, the bumpy ground behind the chicken coop when I suddenly had no more steering capability. I looked down and saw the two wheels facing in opposite directions, wtf. So I shut off the tractor and got down onto the mucky ground on my hands and knees to see what happened.
The ball joint that connected the steering linkage on the left side of the tractor had fallen apart. It looks like it was just from excessive wear, likely enhanced by the missing wheel bearing on that side. I tried pushing it back together but it just fell apart immediately. I then started thinking of a possible stop gap fix that would allow me to at least finish mowing. I only had about a 100 square foot section left.
So my first attempt was to go into the coop and grab some twine. I wrapped it around the joint, hoping it would keep things together. It failed 5 seconds into my first test. I was frustrated as I walked up to the garage looking for something else I could use. As I scanned my pegboard and drawers nothing jumped out as suitable. I then thought about these oversized reusuable wire ties that I have had for years. They had been hanging on the pegboard unused but we actually just utilized them last weekend to build supports around the patio tomato plant.
I went to the plant and stole one of the ties. I returned to the tractor and did my best to twist the two pieces together but having little hope of success. I was pleasantly surprised when I was actually able to steer again. I babied it the rest of the way but was able to finish the work. I later ordered a replacement part for both sides as the other one didn’t look to be in good shape either. I am hoping it shows up by the weekend as major mowing is on the to do list. The Craftsman is getting to the age where fixing shit like this is going to be a regular necessity.
I sort of mentioned how I have a long weekend out of the blue. I have vacation days that I need to use but I can’t afford to be out of the office for large chunks of time so I need to take a day or two here and there. In this case it is going to also serve the purpose of allowing me to take Lucy to the vet. I want to see if the vet can do a proper draining of the swollen area and perhaps give some antibiotics to knock out whatever is causing it. She is an avian vet but not a chicken vet. However I hope she can still help in this situation. It’s the same vet we took Lola to before she went downhill. Either way it should be a memorable experience for Lucy, her first road trip with dad.
I’ve already begun crafting my list of things I want to get done over the for days. You can rest assured I will be very diligent in my pursuit of crossing off each item.
So I was happy to see my replacement iPhone 6S show up at my house yesterday, a very speedy two day delivery. (ordered from ATT site) I haven’t done a phone migration in quite awhile so I was curious what had changed. One thing that I instantly noticed was the intelligence that is built in. After firing up the new phone it said if I was upgrading from another iPhone I should put them in close proximity to each other. After doing so an image appeared on the old phone which I captured on the new phone, initiating the transfer of my Apple account information. That was pretty slick.
ATT makes a transfer app but it seemed pretty lacking to me as it appears to only transfer stuff like pictures, videos, and contacts. I wanted my new phone to have EVERYTHING my old 6 has. So the way I know to accomplish this is with a local back up and restore. Before starting I backed up my old phone via Itunes. When I tried to restore that backup to the 6S I was unable to do so because it had an older version of iOS on it. After upgrading that I was then able to restore the back up of roughly 60 gigs of data which took around 45 minutes. After it was done the 6S had everything the 6 did, no reconfiguring mail, no reloading apps, no looking up account info.
Size wise the 6S is identical to the 6 so I was able to move it over to my sweet Mous phone case without issue. I did immediately notice the phone was much more responsive than the 6 which had been put into throttled performance mode due to the battery problem. I snapped around from screen to screen without the delay I had been accustomed to. Overall I am very happy with my upgrade process/experience, even if I am still three models behind Apple’s flagship iPhone. I expect this 6S to last me another 3 years plus, by then I may be half the number of whatever the latest and greatest iPhone model number is.
Last night I hit the driveway for another brief late night practice session. Roughly 10 days prior I did the same early on in my One Wheel ownership and had some issues, including chasing the board down a hill. Things went much better last night. I am looking forward to the long weekend I just provided myself to get a lot more riding time in.
I know a lot of people around my age that are always looking to upgrade. Upgrade their clothing, upgrade their vehicle, and upgrade their house. They have this drive to find something better, newer, bigger, and greater. Outside of tech related things, I find that interest is mostly missing from me. I have clothes dating back to 7th grade. Pretty much the only time I get new clothing is if Cindy buys it for me, otherwise I am content with my selection. Same with footwear, my sneakers I wear to the gym everyday were given to me by my buddy George in exchange for timing a race probably close to 10 years ago. I had my 99 Tacoma for around 17 years and I will likely have my 2016 truck for as long if not longer.
Our house which was built in 2001 is certainly not luxurious or extravagant. It is located far away from most things (less so now), and requires a LOT of effort on our part to maintain. However I have absolutely no desire to even think for a fleeting second about living anywhere else. The house at this point fits me like a well worn sneaker. We have invested so much time, energy, and effort into it, the idea of tossing it aside to look for something bigger/better just never even enters my mind.
To some this may seem like a flaw or a shortcoming. It’s just what I am. If something is working for me, I stick with it.
I hoped the rain would hold off for one more day so the wet spots would shrink enough that I could quickly mow them down. Instead the house got smashed with rain during the afternoon, putting those plans to rest. I did manage to go out on my One Wheel for a bit after dinner. I just went up and down a side street practicing carving, where you S back and forth while traversing a straight path.
I do a variation of this while riding EUCs but on a One Wheel you engage your lower body much more to accomplish the same thing. There is no doubt at this point that riding a One Wheel offers more of a workout than an EUC. I had a fun three or four mile ride which put me up to a grand total of 32 miles on the odometer.
I, like most of the free world had an open mouth as I reviewed the events that happened at Trump’s meeting with Putin. Using one of Donald’s favorite words, it was incredible. In a nutshell Trump dismissed the universally agreed upon conclusion by all divisions of US intelligence that Russia unlawfully tampered with the 2016 presidential election. He said the Vladimir said he didn’t do it so that was good enough for him, I guess. It was outrageous, embarrassing, insulting, and unfortunately par for the course for the man that has made a mockery of the US worldwide, repeatedly.
Will there be any significant repercussions for him after simply the latest of a countless string of ridiculous statements and actions that have been the keystone of his time in office? Probably not. The pattern is maddening. Trump does/says something that draws intense backlash and harsh words, often from both sides of party lines but the end result is NOTHING happens. It’s a great thing that our president is teaching the young people of today that there is truly no penalty for bad behavior. Grab vaginas, get standing ovations from bigots, have a vocabulary of 13 words, take from the poor to stuff the pockets of the rich, it doesn’t matter. If nobody is willing to take meaningful action, all the “stern criticism” means absolutely zero. I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime and hopefully I never will again.
If you were a Trump voter and still feel good about that decision you aren’t just drinking the Kool Aid, you have an IV drip inserted round the clock.
So I because of my stinging brush burns from One Wheeling and left over soreness from dead lifting during the week I allowed myself a one week respite from running. It was nice to not wake up with the 6AM alarm but I couldn’t help but feel guilty for not being out there and putting in my slow and miserable laps. It’s almost like a rite of passage.
I had hoped to get the mowing all knocked out in the morning but heavy rain the previous two days had left the property with massive standing water, delaying that task. I did get the weeding done and Cindy and I worked on Lucy, the hen with the bad wing. Cindy and I were not looking forward to trying to drain the huge swollen area under her wing. Out of all of our chickens Lucy is the most fearful of us, by far. She is also the only hen that we didn’t raise from baby chick age.
We thought trying to hold her still to work on the problem would be near impossible. Well after some tag team effort we were able to get a hold of Lucy. As scared as she is of us, once you actually hold her she almost does a complete 180 and is very passive. Well to work on the area we really needed to have the hen belly up. I could hardly believe it when Cindy flipped Lucy on her back, handed her to me, and she stayed put. She looked incredibly comfortable in the position which I couldn’t believe.
What was more incredible was when Cindy started poking the blood/puss filled area with a needle Lucy didn’t flinch at all. At times she was half closing her eyes, she almost seemed to be enjoying the experience which was bizarre. Unfortunately the small gauge needle wasn’t able to make much progress in draining the area but Cindy was able to get some gunk out. When we did the same procedure on Sunday with a bigger gauge needle she was nearly as calm until we finally hit a spot that must have hurt that sent her flying. We hope to keep at it to at least get her some relief, there must be some sort of infection going on.
The intense sun during the day made a little progress on the standing water, enough that I decided to mow. I couldn’t get everything but I was able to knock down 90% using max deck height when cutting through areas that still had some low water on the ground. The tractor becomes an absolute mess when mowing in these conditions but it is the price you pay when living in a summertime bog.
On Saturday night Cindy and I got out to see Ant Man & The Wasp. The Ant Man series doesn’t generate nearly the same level of excitement for me as the top tier Marvel films do but I liked the original. I thought the sequel was equally good for a solid B+ rating. Be sure to stay for the bonus clips, it will answer a question that likely was on your mind the entire movie.
Sunday morning I was anxious to get out on my One Wheel. Cindy had her own stuff to do so I headed out solo, which I sometimes prefer since I can go wherever I want to go for as long as I care to. I did indeed go long, at least 11 miles on the board, almost double my longest ride to date. I did well on the ride with only one skin dissolving incident where I had a bad dismount. The only negative I have with the board is it isn’t the best device for open road cruising because of the speed cap. Despite having a posted 19mph top speed, it starts throttling you at 15 mph. The end result was I was riding the majority of the ride with “pushback” where the board raises it’s front nose to let you know to slow down.
During the afternoon I finally got around to installing “float plates” and a fender on my board. I realized that the fender would have prevented me a bunch of pain. All of my brush burns are the end result of my leg hitting the top half of the exposed huge rubber tire during falls. The fender totally eliminates that situation. I think the wheel looks cooler without it but I’ll take a less hip appearance over not ripping my skin off any day. It’s been a week now and the brush burns on my legs are still not close to healed.
During the video I admitted that I had not ridden any of my EUC’s since I got the One Wheel. I thought it funny when a commentor said that he thinks I am not a “core EUC” guy as a result. I asked him to review my channel. In the last two years I may have posted more EUC content than almost anyone on the internet. The One Wheel is a new challenge and that challenge just happens to be getting the most of my attention.
Later in the day I tried something really challenging, riding the One Wheel around our backyard, at least the areas that were dry enough to do so. Wow it was tough, requiring infinitely more effort than smooth open road riding. I had to run off the board a few times but I didn’t hit the ground. I think doing this sort of riding will be the way to build my skill level the quickest.
I finally pulled the trigger on ordering a new phone yesterday. The replacement battery I put in my iPhone 6 several months ago already is going south and my screen developed a bright white spot awhile ago that I have just been living with. I didn’t take the route I always have in the past, upgrading to whatever the latest version Apple had available. Instead I ordered a lowly iPhone 6S as my new phone, only an incremental upgrade over what I have. My reasoning was simple, I like having a headphone jack that doesn’t require a dongle, a home button and I don’t really need a bigger screen that does face recognition. I don’t care about turning myself into an animal emoji. A 6S will do everything I need and will allow me to reuse the awesome case that Cindy bought me for my iPhone 6 at the holidays. Having an iPhone X would do nothing to increase my quality of life except cost me double what the 6S will. I must be getting old.
Last night I was reading on the loveseat. It was storming outside so Elsa came running to me for protection. We have developed a technique for sharing the small piece of furniture, even when I’m laying on it where I prop my feet on the back so Elsa can jam herself in between my rear end and the arm rest. After finishing a chapter my eyes were heavy. Cindy snapped this cute picture during that time period.
