Wiped out, Hawk buddy?
Last night was the annual fantasy football draft party. I got home a little before 4PM and got to work rearranging the house. Cindy had picked up various items for the party during the day and had started getting stuff ready. There is a pretty extensive furniture shuffle that goes on for the event. The sofa and love seat go against the wall and the big dining room table gets moved in front of the tv along with some other smaller stuff getting relocated. I also had to get the computer set up for the remote owners to connect in via Skype.
The draft was supposed to start at 7. Of course it didn’t start on time, it rarely does. Most of the guys showed up around 6:45 but Taylor, the guy that was bringing the draft board didn’t get there until 7:15 or so. A lot of the guys commented on the new faux wood ceramic tile floor, complimenting the way it looked. It certainly holds up better to 15 sets of feet than the old carpet did.
Cindy did a great job of having a nice food spread out. We had three coolers with ice in them available to keep beer cold and all three went completely unused. All the people that brought beer did so in their own personal coolers so there was no need for our auxiliary storage. My personal stash of Miller Lites was in the fridge.
Every year, the draft party seems to be my most gluttonous eating experience and once again that was the case. The combination of alcohol and a room full of fantasy football owners seems to bring out my inner pig. I was eating almost non-stop the entire 3 hours the party was going on, it was like I was a tractor trailer going down a steep appetite hill with no brakes. I dined on the veggie platter, spanikopita, pizza bites, chips, brownies, cookies, and more in a steady rotation. The six or seven Miller Lites I drank made me just not care.
I was not very happy with the team I drafted. I made some mistakes and drafted a number of players whose name I never heard of before, putting them on my roster just based on their placement on my player rankings list. I was quite surprised when at the end of the night the draft rating tool said I had the 4th or 5th best draft of 12 teams. It sure didn’t feel that way.
The draft didn’t finish up until almost 11, about a half hour later than normal. Cindy and I still did our best to get 90% of the house back in order before retiring to bed. I was utterly exhausted from drinking combined with the food coma. That feeling persisted through till today. I awoke feeling pretty miserable and wishing I could just blow off work. I just feel toxic. My body is not accustomed to taking in that much fat, sugar, salt and alcohol in such a short period of time. I am hoping to beat it out of me with a good cardio session at lunch.
Cindy said this morning the hawk, presumably the same one that we have chased away before multiple times was back. It was on the ground near the pond literally a couple feet away from Katie, one of the barred rock chickens. Katie was actually curious about the hawk and not scared. The hawk seemed equally curious and not aggressive. This hawk also is not very concerned with human beings, not flying off until Cindy got pretty close to it.
We really don’t know what to make of this bird. Of course hawks are natural predators of chickens however they don’t attack chickens by chasing them around on the ground. Typically a hawk will dive bomb it’s prey at high speed with the resulting impact either stunning or killing the animal it is attacking. Cindy and I don’t want to lose a chicken to any predator so we will keep chasing this bird away although I have a distant hope that maybe this is one of those weird things in nature where natural enemies become friends.
The yard around the chicken coop has at least a half dozen different spots the chickens can use for cover if need be. Hopefully they are smart enough to utilize them.
If you are curious what my FF draft looked like here it is:
