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New Day … Hooray!

After all of yesterday’s trials and tribulations … I got up this morning not defeated, but determined to enjoy this day … a new day … fresh, and with a positive attitude.

Obviously, I have my hands full managing this here farm thingy. I’ve only been at this for less than 2 years, so every day undoubtedly — and without fail — presents many new ‘lessons learned‘ and ‘teachable moments.’ Yesterday was rich with such experiences, but today may not. Even if it does … so be it. Onward. Upward.

This video covers my morning activities between first cup of coffee and breakfast (sweet Italian sausage, veggies, brown rice, eggs, feta cheese, basil). Got all the critters up, out, checked, fed and watered, and run threw a few ‘snake drills‘ because of all the snake activity this week. 😉

Enjoy.

P.S. OBVIOUSLY (and no surprise) … the 7 1/2 shot was way more effective vs. the snake (target) than was the 000 buck. Onboard my ranch gun (Taurus/Rossi Circuit Judge carbine) I carry 7 1/2 shot (snakes), 000 buck (coyotes, short range), .45 Colt (coyotes, long range), and PDX1 (biped trespassers). 😉

P.S.S. And NO, I didn’t shoot the two ‘chickens’ beneath the ‘snakes.’ They just did what I taught all my chickens to do when I engage predators in their vicinity … drop, cover and bug-the-f*ck-OUT (i.e. beat feet).

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Please let this day end soon …

First, I had the whole chicken nest relocation SNAFU with a side order of snake in my face this morning.

Then, I had a polite, but terse conversation with a Verizon Wireless CSR after driving about 15 miles to the nearest store to pay a bill for a service I haven’t used in probably 3 years.

Me: I’d like to pay my bill please.

Her: Do you have your account number?

Me: Sure, it’s [9 digit number on the email they sent me].

Her: That’s just the last 9 digits, I need the whole acct number.

Me: I haven’t memorized the account number of one of probably 5 wireless service accounts I have, and which I haven’t used in years. Can you look up my account with my name?

Her: So, sorry, you’ll have to use the web site.

Me: I tried, it didn’t work, that’s why I drove 15 miles to see you.

Her: Yeah … sorry.

I think you get the picture. They want their money, but neither their website nor their human CSR are able to take payment. Uuugghhh.

So, that’s the backstory to this video. After leaving the Verizon store, I jumped on the highway to run another errand (buy some ammo, but NOT because of the Verizon episode).

As you can see, I come upon a guy driving slower than the posted speed limit in the fast lane, who shows NO interest in yielding to me or all the other faster moving traffic approaching from behind us. I give the guy some time to get his head out of his rectum, then opt to just swing over to lane 3 (slow lane) to pass the two numb-nuts in lanes 1 and 2.

As it turns out, the grey Chevy in lane 2 was some sort of LEO, because he turned on his blue lights as soon as I pulled back in front of him in lane 2.

Eventually, he just passed me and gave me some stink eye as he did so. I smiled, waved, and lipped ‘thank you’ [prick].

Could have ended worse, but still, this has just been a day to be put behind me and forgotten. I wish they made a [safe] pill for that.

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Broody Hen #2 :: Nest Relocation :: Fiasco

GOOD LORD … what a nightmare!

With the best of intentions, Hooey and I set out to relocate the second broody hen’s elevated 5-gallon bucket-of-a-nest into the other coop with broody hen #1 and her recent hatchlings.

In hindsight (and 20/20 vision), I should have anticipated the hen would resist, and maybe put something beneath the nest in case something (dunno, maybe eggs or chicks?) would fall out, which is EXACTLY what happened.

Lost two chicks. One looks to have been expired before we started the relo activity. Probably died last night. The other had either just hatched, or may have been forcibly ejected from her egg when it hit the ground. Not sure. But what I AM SURE OF is the stupid hen pecked the crap out of it and killed it. Great mothering skills there.

The rest of the video speaks for itself.

FOURTH SNAKE in three days! This one scared the ba-Jeez-us out of me. I think I pulled a muscle in my right shoulder snatching my right hand away from that monster. Why did I react like that? Because in the heat of the battle, in the first few micro-seconds of recognizing there was a f*cking snake right in front of my face, I couldn’t tell whether it was a black snake or a copperhead. NOBODY wants to come literally face to face with a copperhead, because (a) they are extremely aggressive (i.e. bite first, ask questions later), and (b) poisonous.

I lost count of how many exasperated sighs I let out. Cursed a bit, but no F-bombs (surprisingly).

As a secondary revenue pipeline strategy, I’ve decided that I’m going to start a new micro-business selling black snakes on eBay. Might as well put a little coinage in my pocket, right?

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Fodder Eggs

So …. I ran around the property this AM scooping up all the eggs I could find in the various unauthorized, pirate nests the girls have secreted into various nooks and crannies. Not sure I know where ALL the nests are, but I found most of them (I think).

I call these “fodder eggs” because I’m not going to put them into circulation human-consumption-wise. Instead, I leverage the protein as animal feed, and process the shells into the various gardens.

Never let a good egg go to waste. He girls put a lot of work into creating each egg … EVEN if they endeavor to hide the damn things from me. 😉

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The relative nature of ‘dropping a deuce’

Saw this story (see photo below) in the news this morning.

Read the article.  So, the next time you reach for the toilet paper and find the roll empty, don’t freak out.  Imagine instead what it would be like if you were on the ISS and somebody used the last ‘plastic bag’ or ‘rubber glove’ and didn’t replenish the stock.   😉

NASA astronaut reveals how complicated it is to poop in space
NASA astronaut reveals how complicated it is to poop in space
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Broody Hen #2 Hatch

See! I knew this was going to happen. She’s hatching her eggs at altitude (as we would say in the pilot world).

I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope I wake up to about 8 new chicks, without any of them having taken a swan dive out of the nest.

Incubators are a LOT safer hatching environments. Just sayin’.

This is what I get for letting two broody birds to their thing a naturale. 😉

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Compost Bin to Coop Migration

When I checked on the newly hatched chicks in the compost pile nest this morning, they were all fine, but wet from all the rain (again!) last night.

So, I decided to just move mamma and the chicks into a vacant coop in the garden pasture. They settled right in. 😉

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Product Endorsement: Optigard ANT Gel Bait

For the last 6 to 9 months I’ve been using (selectively, periodically) the Optigard ANT product to beat down the ant population when they become overbearing in the kitchen.

I don’t find a few ants here and there … but when the SWARM the kitchen, usually after a few days of heavy rain, I’ll lay down a line of Optigard ANT gel and thin the ant herd back to acceptable levels.

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Heads UP re: Anti-SPAM

FCL is getting increasingly targeted with site registration bots that attempt to register as FCL users to enable the nefarious things spammers do.

As a countermeasure, I just installed and enabled the Google Invisible reCaptcha API that protects FCL user registration and other forms from automated spammer attacks.

If you complete the FCL user registration form (below, right) and experience any sort of problems with the registration process … and YOU are a HUMAN … then please send me an email outlining your registration attempt (e.g. name, user name, email address) and I’ll fix things on the back end.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

SPAMMERS SUCK!

-Damon