January 15, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 15, 2019, Petunia never showed.
Five years ago today: January 15, 2015, my GPS metal detector idea.
Nine years ago today: January 15, 2011, e-books, what a fiasco.
Random years ago today: January 15, xxxx, WIP

           What have we here? It’s the January chickens, healthy and happy. The neighbor had to hide them from the landlord (actually the landlady) for the past couple of weeks. He’s kept them in the pen shown to accustom them to it as home, but they will still have to be confined to barracks when I build the new elevated chicken coop. I had other plans for today, but these ladies need accommodations and that takes priority. Both good layers, he says, and the Reb has already called me to see if they were okay. She cannot bear the thought of them in the stew pot.

           So we begin the iffy procedure of getting them to accept the new premises. They are used to outdoors and it may become a ritual of confining them inside for as long as it takes them to return on their own. The plan is the neighbor will keep an eye on them. They still scamper over there for food but now he can say they are not his chickens. That is the plan, but that leaves one cranky landlady to complain to the city—she likely does not know in a rare bow to public pressure, the law against chickens was revoked a couple years ago.

           I may have to wait a few days to get that bathroom floor finished. The chicken coop and a few other overdue items will keep me out of trouble. I wrote several letters until late last night and seems I’m looking for excuses to delay crawling under the house. In defense, I declare it is super hot for this season and sweating in the shade wasn’t part of my plan. But that’s the best I can come up with. If you see photos of the chicken coop soon, it means I was out in the yard—but in the shadiest, coolest part way in the back. And that shed lean-to is also becoming a priority. No place to work in total shade and dry is hindering other projects. I’ve done all the little stuff I can indoors.
           The plan is ultimately to replace the siding, or in the alternative, salvage all the good siding. That would also mean shrink-wrapping the house at that opportunity. Most of the siding is fairly good, I think it may have already been replaced once quite some years ago. The rough look had me fooled before it became evident somebody had tried to apply an incompatible layer of paint. That’s what is peeling, not the lumber itself. I may opt for a partial stone effect if I can find something that looks decent. Once again, we have the money but not the time.

           Another few thousand millennials out of work as Bose, the speaker company, closes all its stores. Keep shopping on-line, Generation X, and soon there will be no malls to hang around in. Nor any way to buy things anonymously, which should start becoming rather important as governments demand an increasing say on how the Internet does business. Scarier and scarier, every passing day. Or how about that kid from California who was arrested and held for six days based on “evidence” supplied by Google. He is suing the police, but shouldn’t he also be suing Google. It’s not like he gave them permission to track him and hand the records to the police. That’s against the Constitution.

Picture of the day.
Frrankenstein light switch.
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           By mid-afternoon I have the frame basically slapped together, but this is not junkyard chicken coop. The exterior joints are half-lapped and the ventilation system is expanded to Florida size. The tiny gable vents on-line are not adequate for the sub-topical Florida summers. The specs say no drafts should enter the coop or the chickens may get frostbite. Not bloody likely here, so I am considering making the sides of the roosting area out of hurricane shutter material, of which I have a pile I’m not using at the moment. I’ve been out in the hot sun quite a while, but again, working on your own stuff isn’t the same as work. If there’s a picture here, I got ambitious and took the camera to the back yard. It’s pushing 90°F, enough to give the climate changers a conniption fit.

           This is turning into one chicken coop and then some. It is already one of the few with solid oak flooring in the nesting boxes and shutters on the walls. But dark comes early, around 6:00PM, so just the basic framing got done. Is an incorporation of many sets of plans designed for two hens only, but their floor space is a generous 7-1/2 square feet each, more than double that recommended by the humane societies. The roost 15” off the floor, anything more risks harming the chicken’s legs if they hop off, and the roost is flat, not round. Research says chickens sleep and roost flat-footed. I’ve designed in a sliding bottom that fits a surplus baking tray, always in plentiful supply at the local thrifts. This is for mucking the coop, just pull out the tray, insert a clean one, and that chore is minimized.

           The nesting boxes are also larger, at 15” rather than 12”, the latter listed as a minimum. The interior of the coop gets the bright red paint, and I’m looking closely at an automatic door. Here’s a model made in England. Note the “no fox” emblem in the lower right corner. This says battery operated, which is okay I suppose if the door opens by default on a dead cell. I have no doubt the IoT has some device for monitoring the interior. If not, invent one. It’s only a couple hundred lines of code in C+, and maybe half that in some efficient language.
           I’ve left the plan flexible and having the proper tool for every chore is more than I ever thought I’d get to. Except for a few items, I’ve got all the spare parts I’ll need to make the coop a super nice build. The south facing window gets full sun only in the afternoons and the 1/4” screen is to be covered with mesh to keep out mosquitoes and gnats. I’ve found an insecticide special for coops and recommended nesting materials up at Tractor Supply. I’ve hummed and hawed over building a chicken run, an enclosed outdoor area.
           Later, I have a picture of the coop lying on its side. I don’t have a table large enough to lay this out, so I’m squaring it after with the aid of a sledge hammer. Do I have any trivia for today? Yes. Did you know in the Netherlands, there are just over 1,000 windmills. But only 991 working units. That’s 397 for drainage and 594 for sawing wood, grinding grain, and fleecing tourists. A windmill can pump around 1500 gallons a day which doesn’t seem like much.


           The matter here is predators. At least one fox has been spotted. The hens have been roaming free for a year, so I think I’ll cover both bases. A coop with a door, if they are reasonably priced, and a large run, maybe up to half the fenced area in the back. It depends on the cost. While Tennessee has eased up my spending in a lot of areas, I don’t have the best prognosis over what I will find keeping track of inflation this upcoming year. One should remember that manufacturers play a role in this so keep an eye open. Those packs of pens at the Dollar Tree are now only 8 to the package, down from 10. Soap is 2 bars, down from 3. Same size package, less product. These examples of 20% and 33% far exceed the official government rate of 2.3%. That’s a misleading index that should be railroaded.

           On the bright side, the chickens are reported to be good layers, up to ten eggs per week between them. But eggs these days are one of the cheapest of foods. Wal*mart and Dollar tree regularly price them a dollar a dozen. On the other hand, organic eggs are closer to $5 per dozen. I like eggs, but not all the time. I doubt I eat ten eggs a month. It’s overdue that I learn to raise chickens, so throw that into the plan. I’m aware I have more than enough space for a garden big enough to supply two people year-round. And I think it is propitious that I’m learning all this just now. The country is bankrupt and has been for a long, long time.

           I miss not having that lean-to. It has to be done in one day since the drones look for progressive work, not finished work. Plus, I studied the camouflage used in the construction of the Atlantic Wall. I can make it very difficult to see that structure, even if I have to plant a garden on top of it. One big missing chapter in every history of D-Day is how the Allies found they had been shelling and bombing most of the wrong targets. The real German defenses didn’t face the sea, they faced across the flat landing beaches in heavy cross-fire patterns. Rommel and Kesselring had learned the Americans were averse to taking heavy casualties but used primitive battlefield tactics. Not usually a winning combination, but the US bombing raids by this time were killing 40,000 German civilians a month, using an Air Force entirely paid for by borrowed money. The taxes and war bonds you hear about were entirely used up funding the conventional military branches.
           If you read the accounts of D-Day, the mention of Rommel’s role is cursory, stating only that he made improvements. Yes, but he also wrote how the invasion had to be stopped on the beaches, and was well aware the armor would be held back by von Rundstedt. It’s foolish to think he did nothing but carry on the existing work on the defenses. He would certainly have emplaced his defenses to channel the landing forces into killing zones. To me, it is a deliberately concealed fact why the first waves across the sand were not mowed down to a man. Um, but it should be noted that another unexplained factor at work is the US Army intelligence teams that combed over the battlefields and captured areas. These are the people that wrote the reports that became the official history. And most of them belonged to a specific religious minority.

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