This morning when I opened up the coop door I saw the stiff body of Popcorn on the floor. Unlike certain chicken deaths, this one was not all that surprising. For months and months the hen was on a rollercoaster of health. For weeks at a time she would seem pretty normal and then for several days she would be very lethargic, often throwing up liquid from her mouth, however she always bounced back.
Up until early this week she was acting normal, aggressively contending for food like she normally would, despite being low bird on the pecking order. She got picked on by all of the other birds. One thing that had changed in the last couple weeks was she lacked the strength to jump from the coop floor straight onto the perch as she did her entire life. Either I would help her or she would use the ladder to get up there a rung at a time.
Since she had recovered from similar symptoms so many times before it was my expectation she would do it again, I was wrong. I got a trash bag to wrap her body in while I cleaned the coop. Once I was done I had another cold, tearful, and solemn burial in the back of the property, beyond the fence line, where all of the other hens have been buried in recent years.
Popcorn was never a real affectionate bird although she was always front and center when food or treats were involved. I remember just last week laughing as I gave the girls blueberries. If the other hens were not quick enough, Popcorn would steal the berry right from their beaks. She also was probably the most athletic chicken we ever had. She could jump very high and routinely would snag flowers mid-air as I tossed them her direction. You may recall she was also the bird that I probed with my finger, checking to see if she was egg bound, the only time that ever happened.
Even though she wasn’t friendly, we sort of bonded over the various times I would try to soak her and clean her vent, another side effect of her health issues. Last night she was too weak to get up on the perch herself. She stood there and looked at me, waiting for help. When I placed her up top Fiona tried to be her normal bitchy self and stop Popcorn from getting to her normal spot. I took my hand and blocked Fiona, Popcorn seemed to understand what I was doing and slowly moved to her spot for the night. As I do every night when I close their door, I told the chickens I loved them, as if they understand.
In the big picture I know Popcorn was sick for awhile and I knew this was coming sooner rather than later. Still there is no avoiding the emotion that is triggered for me when a bird dies. I only have three hens left. Kathy and Cutie are the older hens, two years older than Fiona. Fiona is the healthiest of the bunch. Kathy has been at death’s door once before and recovered but has been losing some weight. Cutie Pie is one of my all time favorites but has had leg/mobility issues for at least a year. I carry her around the yard when possible to make it easier on her. With only three chickens remaining I see my days as a chicken farmer winding down, never to be repeated again.
This weekend is a long one for me thanks to MLK day. There is a major project going on at our main office where the building UPS is being replaced. If things go as I hope my involvement should be minimal but there are always risks with powering down a data center that is typically up and running 24/7 for years at a time.
I do look forward to seeing if the Eagles can shock the world and beat the Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs on Sunday.
I have had a number of things that have been less than great the last several months, one of those has been sleep. I have this thing that happens semi-regularly where if I wake up in the middle of the night to pee I often have a very difficult time falling back asleep. For instance last night I was up at 3AM and I bet I was lucky to have fallen back asleep by 5, only to be rudely awakened by the alarm clock 35 minutes later. It makes for feeling pretty lethargic throughout the day.
It seems like when this happens my brain goes into connect the dots mode, with thoughts rolling through my head where one thing leads to another to another and another. I need to find a way to cut those lines and just go the F back to sleep. I have had other physical signs like the weird nausea I still get often when preparing breakfast. It can get to the point where I am doing slow, deep breaths to suppress the urge to throw up. Some mornings I skip the eggs altogether and just double up on the toast. I also have lost 7-8 pounds since September, something I actually am ok with as I have said for several years I would prefer to keep my weight closer to 180.
Who knows if this is just more wonderful side effects of aging, stress, or something else. Whatever the source the treatment plan is the same, just keep trudging forward, like a tugboat pulling an oversized load.
Yesterday afternoon I headed home to meet installers. I was finally getting a new garage door opener installed. The opener I had came with the house, making it roughly 21 years old at this point. It still worked but was a noisy chain drive and it lacked some of the features of modern “smart” openers like wifi connectivity and remote access. The LiftMaster unit I bought is quiet belt drive and has full internet connectivity. The install was done in a little more than a half hour.
After the installers left I wasted little time downloading and setting up the app. It’s pretty cool and can be integrated with Amazon deliveries to allow them to place items in the garage if you want which would be helpful if you live in an area known for package theft. I do not so I didn’t turn that on. I like being able to control my garage door from anywhere as well as know if it is open or closed. The door also integrates with Ring which is sweet since I already have around a dozen of their devices around the house. I got the opener working with the Tesla in less than 60 seconds, the Tacoma is being a bit more problematic but I’ll try to figure it out this week.
I spent the last two days at the new building. Things are coming together. Most of our tech is up and talking. Next week the final puzzle pieces should be put into place.
Last night after I finished my Monday night whirlwind of tasks I sat down to call my dad, it was his 75th birthday. I talked to him for over a half an hour, reflecting on life after three quarters of a century, which seems hard to believe. I have very clear and not so distant seeming memories of when we traveled north for his surprise 70th birthday party in Marienville. It was really a memorable trip where we got to experience brutal NW PA winter conditions. Most days were single digits yet overall, it was sort of awesome. To imagine that another half decade has blinked by since that trip seems impossible, if it wasn’t true.
It was good to catch up with dad, he is one of the few people I have where open and honest discussions about life can take place. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all on the table.
Last night I finished off the relaunched Dexter series, a popular show from a decade ago where the main character is a serial killer, except he only kills bad guys. I thought overall they did a good job with the series reboot but it wasn’t up to the standards of the original which is almost always the case. The way the story ended up was not quite what I was expecting, but overall I would give the final, FINAL season of Dexter a B+.
I don’t have much time to expand on my past weekend and that’s a good thing because not a ton happened. I mowed the front property to knock the ragged edge off. Other than standard weekend chores the rest of the time was spent doing whatever came to mind, riding, gaming, watching the Eagles 2nd string get blown out by the Cowboys, watching 14 Peaks(B+) and whatever else got my attention.
Today I spent my entire day at the new building, making sure various tasks that need to be completed in order for a successful open of the place got done. It seems like when you check one thing off two more appear on the list. I will be quite glad when this place is open for business.
I did shoot two videos over the weekend if you care to watch them.
Last night was quiet night on the homestead that was the new normal in my weeknight routines, chicken chores, dinner prep, some dvr content, some 3D room work and some WoW. Of course hanging with Elsa is interwoven through out all of it. When I am eating dinner on the love seat she normally stretches out on the big sofa which she has all to herself. After I finish eating I usually will go over on the sofa with her. She instantly will come over to me and lay her head on my lap, it’s very sweet and endearing.
This is the first “standard” weekend I have had in awhile. I have some standard things to knock out in the process, including giving the grass a quick mow to even things out for the new year. I wish I could say I had something exciting planned as well but that would be a lie.
Yesterday I was again working at the new office. As I was waiting for something to finish loading I looked around at the vast, pristine space around me with only a handful of other human beings present. I thought about what a contrast that moment was to how this huge building will be when it opens later this month, filled with non-stop activity. I appreciate moments of contrast.
Last night after work I was in the bar park. After doing my set of pull ups I wanted to do a set of abs work. Normally that means hanging off the bar and knocking out 25 hanging knee raises. I thought I would try something a little different and do some static hanging L holds. I used to do these pretty regularly but since my back got wonky I have not done much straight legged work.
So I grabbed the bar and struggled to get into position. After holding the L for a few seconds I heard a very fast series of pops in my lower back, it sounded like muted fireworks. There wasn’t a lot of pain with the cracks but the noise was very disconcerting so I released the hold. Today the area the pops came from feels a little sore but not awful. I wondered if I inadvertently gave myself a chiropractic adjustment. If my back feels better the next few days perhaps I need to rotate the static L into my normal set of movements.
As I was walking out at 5:30 this morning to do the chicken chores I found myself letting out a prolonged sigh. For some reason at that moment I realized that over the last few months the amounts of sighing I do has increased dramatically. Sometimes it may be because of some sort of physical trigger or discomfort which is a normal occurrence present day. Maybe it’s because I am tasked with something I don’t really feel like doing but have no other recourse. Or perhaps it is due to something I see or hear that makes me exhale with frustration, disbelief or disgust. All of these situations have increased substantially recently. My hope is 2022 can have less sighs and more smiles/lol moments.
The weather yesterday was perfect after a brief band of rain blew through in the morning. The temps were in the low 70’s with bright blue skies. I continued my trend of taking care of small nagging to do’s during the day but by mid-afternoon I was caught up. I knew it was a perfect day to go out and ride but for some odd reason I found myself struggling to commit to do it.
I was considering throwing a wheel in the truck and driving down close to the beach to ride but for whatever reason that sounded like a pain in the ass at the time. I was almost going to shit can the entire idea of riding but then I came up with another option. I had been annoyed that I haven’t gotten out to ride my little Mten3 in months. It is the smallest but also the most agile wheel I own. I thought I would take it to the nearby school and have some fun.
That is what I did, except I decided to change the location to the new park instead which worked out well. I just went forward, backward and in circles for a good 45 minutes or so. The weather was so damn perfect, I wished I could bottle up that moment and open it back up in the future whenever I needed to feel good about the world.
Early in the evening Deb stopped by to pick up a couple things. She just turned 50 this past weekend. She celebrated by taking a trapeze class which I saw some video of. It sounded like she had a fantastic time.
I had a lot of late nights this past weekend so I was asleep pretty early last night. Around 3AM I looked to the side of the bed after being woken up and I see Elsa staring at me. Of course I thought this meant there was some urgent business she had to take care of. I take her outside in my underwear and a sweatshirt to see her just casually pee and then maybe does a deuce, it was hard to tell. Neither thing looked urgent so I wasn’t quite sure why she woke me up. Unfortunately I didn’t really fall back asleep afterward. As a result I am in zombie mode today.
Friday when I got home I wasted little time before hopping on the road bike to get a New Year’s Eve ride in. The 10 miles went pretty smoothly even with dealing with a decent headwind for a large segment. In those situations I just try to stay down on my aero bars and keep pedaling. I have not changed gears on a ride in several months now. It’s almost like a dumb badge of honor. If the wind gets stronger I just work harder, instead of dropping down gears.
Friday night I did my second marathon live stream for the second week week in a row. It followed much the same format as the Christmas Eve stream where I freely talked about whatever subject came up, EUC related or otherwise. I finished off the remaining Miller Lite’s I had in the fridge as well as the last cold, skanky Zima I had in there as well.
Of course there were people shooting fireworks off again, something I have come to despise since Elsa is normally so terrified. I gave her two hemp calming treats earlier in the night. They seem to have helped because she stayed by my feet under the desk for most of the night. Normally she would head to a tub once the noise starts, so she did seem better. It also helped that the neighbors directly next door were not shooting them off. I didn’t stop streaming until 12:30 and probably didn’t fall asleep until 1AM. I looked forward to getting normal sleep the following night, or so I thought.
New Year’s Day I did my normal Saturday morning tasks. I had a list of groceries to get which included stuff at Costco. For some reason I had it in my head they would be open New Year’s Day. The thought vanished when I saw an empty parking lot. Ok, I guess I’ll try to grab what I need at Sam’s. Nope, they were closed as well. Walmart however was open and surprisingly not full. I figured it would be slammed since other retailers were closed. I got most of what I needed there.
Saturday afternoon I took on putting away all of the Christmas decorations which is normally an unfun task and a much longer task when only one person is doing it instead of two. However unlike the vast majority of the years where I would feel accompanying sadness while taking everything down, I didn’t really feel anything. As I described before, this has been a very different Christmas season for me and in many ways I was relieved it was over. To put everything away, indoors and out took close to three hours.
I repurposed the new glow pucks I received a couple weeks ago, changing their alternating red and green holiday color scheme into a rainbow of slowly shifting colors. There are a number of color options with the lights so I plan to rotate them on a regular basis.
So I also had heard that season 4 of Cobra Kai was out on Netflix. I have always been a Karate Kid fan and have enjoyed the prior three seasons of the show. Well my enjoyment of the show resulted in a ridiculous binge watching session, most of which occurred in my bed. I finished the entire season, turning off the TV at an insane 1:45 AM. Yes despite looking forward to a good night’s sleep after NYE, I actually stayed up later the next night, unreal. A lot of the episodes of the show are shorter, in the 30-40 minute range so, just one more, is an easy thing to say. Well it added up to a crazy long TV session. Obviously I enjoyed season four.
On Sunday after paying my bills I had wanted to go back to Costco, for two reasons. I still needed a couple bulk items AND I wanted to get my tire on the Model Y patched. A couple days prior I noticed the passenger rear tire was a couple PSI low. I refilled it but then saw it had lost those PSI and a couple more the next day. An examination of the tire revealed a small screw embedded in it, damn it. I once had a hole in my Model 3 tire patched by Costco so I figured I would get it patched, grab the items I needed and we would be good to go.
So I expected Costco to be a madhouse, even with me getting there a few minutes after 10AM, when they opened. It was. As I approached the building there was a stream of human beings entering that would make you think this was a concert, not a grocery warehouse. I went into the tire center to get the ball rolling. I saw there were a handful of cars already there to be serviced but not a ton.
I tell the guy I was just looking to get my tire patched. My expectation was he would say something like an hour or so to do it. When he said our current wait time was three and a half to four hours, I told him that won’t work for me. I asked about making an appointment for Monday instead since I am off. He said ok but the first open appointment on Monday wasn’t until 5PM. WTF, um ok I guess I will make that work.
So he starts asking me my vehicle information. When I tell him it’s a Tesla he asked me if it still has it’s original tires. When I told him it does he apologized but said Costco no longer does work on original Tesla tires. New Tesla’s use these tires that have a layer of foam around the inside to supposedly cut down on road noise. Some tire shops have avoided working on them for that reason but I was still confident the guy was mistaken. I told him I had Costco patch a tire on my Model 3 a couple years ago and it wasn’t a big deal. They just pulled back the foam in the repair area, patched it and it was good to go. He said they used to do it but don’t anymore due to too many “problems”. I asked what sort of problems they had but he didn’t go into detail. I realized I was going to get nowhere so I headed out. I did still at least get my shopping done.
When I got back to the car I told my buddy Matt, who turned me onto Costco for tire patching in the past that they didn’t do it anymore. He threw out an idea I hadn’t really considered, plugging the tire. I have done a lot of automotive things in my life but never have I plugged a tire. I have always been of the mantra that a patch is the way to go as a plug, depending on circumstances is a less reliable tire repair. Well after some initial objection to the idea, I changed my mind when I considered the hassle of trying to identifying a garage that would actually work on these tires and then waiting who knows how long to do it. Instead I stopped at Autozone on the way home and bought a $7 tire plug kit.
Once back in the garage I jacked the car, pulled the tire and got busy. The screw that I removed was very small. The hole it made was smaller than the hole the rasp tool made when I was preparing for inserting the plug. The plug material seemed very pliable and sticky, two qualities that I guess are good for this application. I jammed the plug in, removed the tool and then cut off the excess material. Afterward I inflated the tire to 40PSI, sprayed the area with water to make sure no bubbles were there and then followed up with a 10 mile road test that showed no loss of pressure. Hopefully this repair is the last I have to bother with it but if the PSI starts to drop in that tire again I know I will need to track down someone to patch it.
Sunday I afternoon I spent time doing little tasks around the house as I watched the Eagles game. For the last quarter of the come behind win, I listened to it on the Alexa in my garage via Sirius. I realized at that point that maybe I don’t even need to spend money on the Sunday Ticket. I found listening to the play by play call by Merrill Reese enjoyable and it allows me to get stuff done at the same time instead of being captive to the sofa.
It’s amazing that the Eagles have now locked up a playoff berth as a wildcard, despite starting the season looking like a team that couldn’t get out of it’s own way. The two big differences have been the team discovering that they could run the ball well, really well and the defense playing significantly better in the second half of the season compared to the first. If you would have told me this team would have 9 wins in the beginning of November I would have had you take a drug test.
Late in the afternoon I shot my first video on my new Sony ZV-1 point and shoot camera. The image quality is definitely a step up from the GoPro footage I have become accustomed to. I talked about how my solar system has performed in it’s second year, something I have already written about here. The short version is I paid for much less grid power than I did in 2020, around 80% less. Hopefully that trend continues.
Last night I hooked up with my niece and nephew online to play some Super Mario Kart on the Switch. I did half decent for me at least. I actually finished slightly higher than Emily overall but Griffin kicked everyone’s ass. I think he has some modifications on his go kart that give him advantages that I don’t even know existed. Hopefully we get to play more often.
This morning we had a cold front blow through that has made the temps outside much more enjoyable. I am trying to decide if I want to go out on a ride to take advantage of it. I know I should but feel some hesitation, for some reason. Regardless it’s been what feels like a productive and fun long weekend, which I what I always aim for.
