Where in the World Are Oreo and Blondie?

This blog is feeling a lot more like TheCityChicken.com or Backyardchicken.com
both good sites, mind you, that I do visit on a regular basis, but this blog is supposed to be Where in the World is Jon not Where in the Suburb are the Hens, but where I have been has been dealing with the chicks and hens at Milagro Vertical Farms.

So here is a cute clip of the older girls taking a dust bath, something they do to actually clean themselves and get rid of bugs, don't know how that works exactly but that is what the experts say.





Also check out this almost ostrich-size egg that one of the girls laid, usually they are the size of the one next to it.

More Chicken News

Last time around the fertile eggs that I tried to incubate was an absolute failure. This time we had 5 out of 20 hatch. No where close to the ratio I was hoping for, but better than last time and...

So with last little fellow, I did what you totally are not supposed to do. I gave her a little nudge. I cracked the shell a little, I coaxed her out. She really looked a mess. Shell stuck to her, her feathers were unformed and matted. I didn't think she was going to live.




But she was loud and active and had tons of spunk.

After a couple of days in the incubator, she still didn't look fit to put in with the bigger and older chicks, but at some point they have to leave the nest as it were. She is doing well and holding her own thus far.









Look at the size difference between these two chicks. The bigger one is around a week older and a different breed. Still she looks to be 2 to 3 times as big. And she's got some weight to her. Seeing the transformation of all these little chicks has been amazing and provided Skye and friends hours and hours of amusement.

Our Disposable World

Cheaper to Trash and Buy

Way too many times I have been told or simply realized that it is simpler, cheaper, more expedient, etc. to buy a new item and throw out the slightly damaged old version, than to try to get it fixed.

This was horribly apparent when I took my Cannondale mountain bike years ago because a small part was damaged. This small part was no longer made and in fact they resized the part it fit into that suddenly this $10 part rendered a $800 bike practically unfixable or rather unpracticle to fix.

That bike still hangs in my garage waiting for me to find the part on e-bay or repurpose it or something. I just can't bring myself to part with this almost perfectly good machine.

I have several laptops and CPU's and various drives waiting to be worked on and "fixed" litering hallways and our office. Cindy's been begging me to just get rid of them, but I keep telling her that they're not ready for the landfill or E-wastefield.

My latest adventure into "fixing" an almost ok product is my 2cnd Generation Shuffle which had a failed battery. I went online, found that I could purchase a replacement battery and replace it, saving probably like $50 not factoring in my time of course.

So I ordered the battery.



I needed some special tools to get into my Shuffle, so the $50 saving would be closer to $40, but I would have some new tools which is always a good thing.

It turns out the battery I had was for the older Shuffle. I didn't realize this of course until I had taken apart the devise and could compare the two batteries. Now at this point I could try and find the right battery and hope that I could successfully install it, which after taking apart looked doubtful. I could try to return the battery, which would mean postage both directions. And more of my time.

I slid the battery and parts into a rubbish bin. At least it wasn't as big and expensive as a bike or computer.

Lost time, money, effort, shuffles, which were already broken, but mostly proved the point that it is more often than not more sensible to toss than fix, which is completely non-sensible.

Crackin' Up

Success in the Hot Box

The 26 day old chicks that are now around a week old were a back up to the 20 fertile eggs. Now as you may recall the last batch was a bust, with absolutely no survivors.

This time however some chicks have actually busted out of their shelves and survived.



She doesn't look like much here but she has since stood up, fluffed out and has made the jump into the big chick arena.

Quick side note: I was looking through my poultry identification book, which already is wierd enough, but as I was flipping through I came across this one chicken, the Naked Neck chicken. It was in my humble opinion a very ugly bird. Who would ever want a chicken like that? That said guess who came out next.



A face only a mother could love.





Maybe she's not so bad after all.




This is a one-day old chick. Cute, eh?



This is the last of four successful hatchlings, all have been introduced to the big chick arena.




The girls are doing fine, although much smaller than the rest of them.




It's amazing, they are already getting full of their own personalities.

All Tangled Up In My Safety Nets

Several factors, not necessarily all planned or too smart but all good intentioned have gotten us to a very interesting dilemma or potential dilemma. Oh no where does that path lead again?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Well, that is sort of what started it all, isn't it?

We had a beautiful Americana hen which laid blue-green eggs, but whose time with us was cut short by the feral neighborhood dogs. I was missing those eggs and started doing the math of when would be the earliest we would have those again based on the chicks and/or the fertile eggs that were on the way. That's when I remembered that there were some young Americana hens at Malibu Feed. What a great post-Easter surprise that would make for Skye on her return. Except that there were no Americana hens left, but there were some really, really other beautiful girls there and I still wanted to have an Easter surprise for Skye.



Hanging out with the new chicks on the block.

These two little ones were too cute too pass up, although I probably should have in retrospect. Upon introducing them to the old hens, I quickly was reminded of the term "hen pecked" as they immediately jumped all over the newbies. Well for the time being they could stay in the trough that was sitting empty but already prepped for chicks.

All was well and fine and Skye loved them and was bubbling with surprise when they were there to greet her.




The newbies since named Milky Way and Coal checking out Daisy and actually co-existing with Oreo and Blondie.

What was the question/dilemma again?

As part of the Ecology class I'm teaching we tried incubating some fertile eggs and had disastrous results. Now being of the mindset of, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again, I got a new batch of fertile eggs. And to cover myself so as to not have so many disappointed kids, in case we had a repeat performance, I also ordered 25 day old chicks to be shipped close to the time the eggs were due to hatch.

The day Skye returned I got an e-mail saying the chicks were shipped and would be there Sunday-Tuesday. No mail agencies deal with mail on Sunday, so the earliest they'd get there would be what, Tuesday. Yeah Tuesday sounds right.

So as I was racing to get the Ecology class ready, (it was going to be a final review) and to lay out a Science Fair, I recieved the call. "Jon you've got a box of live chicks here....."



The back up plan/safety net arrive.



Too cute... and the cute montage follows.....















Warning, way too cute photos....





Definitely go the cute going on ...



We dipped their beaks into the water to get things going in the right direction. Of the 27 chicks that were sent, only two died and all are eating and I have seen no pecking or cannibalism was going on.

So what's the problem?

Needless to say the Ecology class was thrown off. And what about Milky Way and Coal. And there is the incubator, a damned if you do, damned if you don't return.


Things will sort out

Until then let cuteness reign.

Warrior Dash 2010-So Cal

Warrior Dash 2010, A 3-Mile Obstacle Course, A Great Post-Race Party...Another Wake-Up Call

It was around an 1 1/2 hour drive to the race which was enough time to start getting cold feet. I hadn't been training, and again too much caffeine, too much beer, not eating right and not enough sleep. I was feeling like I was going to have similar results to the L.A. Marathon, except a lot faster as in a shorter race.



I knew I was in the right place, but was I ready?

In a word, no.

Skye who was visiting Cindy in Atlanta, reminded me to have fun not to worry about how fast I ran it. Simple stuff, the kind of stuff I would say to her were the roles reversed. I was very, very proud of her for her wisdom and with that I got ready to be a warrior.



Game On



It looked a lot like other races I'd run.



With a mud pit at the finish.



And a check-in tent in the shape of a Viking Helmet.

The Race That Is A Photo-OP




If you ignore the fence and then the houses in the background, you might think these Valkyries had just come down from Valhalla.



Although looked at from another angle, a little less idyllic.



That is one tough warrior chick.




"You really should rethink, the Rehab thing. Amy Winehouse is not the best of roll models"



Celtic Warrior, although to be really authentic, he'd have to lose the kilt.




Don't really understand the concept here but "Bat-jama" seems to be doing something right.




The two buff book-ends to the nerdy girl warriors were in my heat. I beat them at least.







There were a lot of "Cross-Fit" types.




This tribe seemed to be in it for the long haul, like they were on tour or something.




A Boulder Heave, now that is something I should be good at.



That's me tied for first place, misspelling and all.



The "kids" posing with the cops were the only other people I saw try the boulder toss.

The Warrior Dash
The Race Part
Another Wake-Up Call

The race itself was hot and dusty. I was already dehydrated before the race began. So even though it was only a three mile run, I knew it wasn't going to be fun. Again, I was a victim of my own demons; Too much caffeine, too much beer, not enough sleep, and not eating well. It was a race that was practically designed for me; a slight down hill on trails with a couple of steep hills to climb thrown in. The obstacles were all much smaller and easier than what appears on the website. I opted not to wear the knee pads I'd gotten which was a good decision. The tunnel was just a ten foot sono-tube not the corrugated monster shown in web pics. The balance beams were twice as wide and half as far across as the ones I'd fallen off of and onto in a Muddy Buddy a couple years back that gave me the biggest bruise of my life, which is saying something. The mudpit was not that muddy not too wet or deep and the "barbed wire" was strung up pretty high which is fine cause I don't really like that part of the race anyway. All in all it was a lot of fun, but frustrating because of how easy it should have been had I been in decent shape.

So with new vigor, I resolve to get back in shape....again.

As I type this out at 1:47 am knowing full well I need to be at Universal Props at 6 am.

When will I learn?

Run Jon Run

Running on Empty

In the last several months, I've run a few marathons, but have not been running much besides that. Some how three weeks after running the Malibu Marathon I ran the Death Valley Marathon and had my best time.

The 2010 Los Angeles Marathon

These results buoyed me forth to continue my "low-run" training approach for the 2010 Marathon. That coupled with a ridiculously busy schedule, lack of sleep and rest led to more predictable results....a painful and sloth-like final 7 miles.


But the marathon process started hours earlier that morning. Cindy offered to drive.

We left 2 hours before the race, 5:30 am on a Sunday, that's 10.8 miles. I had planned to leave 30 minutes earlier, but didn't.

The traffic was crazy.

We didn't make it to the start on time. As we got closer, people were getting desperate and getting out of there cars and literally running along the highway. I had to pee way to badly to bounce down the road, plus a couple of friends who were already at the start informed me that they were delaying the start because of how many people were stuck in traffic. There were at least 6 shuttle buses of runners behind us so I pretty much expected that they would have to push the start time. But it didn't make it much less stressful. And it surely didn't make me have to pee less.

The lines for the porta-pots were absurd so I literally headed up the hill behind them and found a bush, one that was not already hiding another urinater.

After emerging from the brush, I headed toward the start, wherever that was and with over 25,000 other runners, spectators, family and friends bumped into my running partner, Theresa Haynes and her husband Kip and their son River, their daughter who is Skye's age and friend decided to sleep just like Skye did.



That's Theresa on the right, me almost out of frame and that women in between us, I don't have any idea who she is, but when you click and enlarge the photo it looks like she's saying, "Why are you taking a picture of me?"


This a a shot I took at the start of the race. We didn't really get moving for a few minutes.




Last year the start was much quicker, there were also around 7,000 fewer runners.




After 3 miles the crowd running was still, well a crowd running.



The weight of all those people bent trees and lamp post or I guess that's what happens when you try to take pictures on your Iphone while running.

At mile 14, I was feeling strong and wondering if I might indeed beat my personal record. So when we hit a down hill portion, I took off. And all was good for the next several miles.

Somewhere around mile 19-20, I hit the wall. And how...

So the next several miles hurt, a lot.

It was becoming apparent that I would not be having a personal record.

But I did finish. 4:35:37 behind 6189 other runners but ahead of 16,358. Not bad for almost no training.




One more marathon under my belt, that makes 7 total.



Ran alongside this guy for awhile two years ago, so it was pretty funny seeing him at the finish party.

Next Up: The Warrior Dash...