We done got chickens (Part 1)

Few weeks back my roommate, Adam, and myself ordered some chicks online. Careful now.  I'm talking baby chickens. And they are the cutest little buggers.




First website wanted to charge us something like $40 for shipping cuz we had too few creatures.  They huddle for warmth apparently and five is too few for adequate warmth generating.  Without the extra brothers and sisters the company inserts some fandangled heating contraption.  So we went shopping elsewhere.  Found a site that would ship for less but warned that they may pack in some extra chicks (most likely baby roosters) to supply that needed warmth.  Sounds good we thought.  Clearly we didn't think that one through.

A few days later the mailman rang the doorbell.  "Your chickens are here.  You need to pick them up at the post office."  Then he went into inquiry mode asking for details.  He was interested.  As everyone should be.

Well off to the post office we went.  At the counter we waited for an eternity.  Not sure where the little things were being kept but it sure was a long ways back.  We heard them before we saw them.  Chirp!  Chirp!  Awwww...  In the box they shuffled and chirped.  We carried them out and strapped them - oh yeah, we were on bikes - to the rack on the back of Adam's bike.  A few bungee cords later and we were off.



Fifteen minutes later we were home.  We open the box to check on our purchase.  I was sure it would be bedlam.  Poor chickens, two days in the mail, in the heat.  I was worried.  Those fears, thankfully, were for naught.  A new problem was quickly realized.  Remember those extra chickens for warmth?  Yeah, we got, um, an extra eleven.  Eleven extra chickens!  So there were sixteen cute, fuzzy, multicolored chirpers in the box.  So cute, but now a bigger problem.  See, thing is, Bloomington ordinance allows for four hens (i.e. females).  We'd ordered five hens and now we have, what we are assuming (as sexing chicks - careful typing - is much harder than it would seem), are an extra eleven roosters.  Oh dear.

Oh yeah.  And their food has not arrived yet.

Thankfully the book on raising chickens arrived.

It's never too late to learn.

This is what summer was made for.

I am loving summer.  This is my first summer since the summer after ninth grade where I haven't had a job.  I mean sure, I've been putting in random hours at the Y, but you can't really call bowling with first graders work.  Ahh the benefits of teaching.  So what have I been doing?

Well I arrived home in Minneapolis in late May.  I spent the next couple weeks on a spending binge - food, drinks, things, groceries.  Not sure what all I bought, but it had been months since the simple pleasure of immediate gratification could be fulfilled in the shopping world.  The instant return on my wants was, well, intoxicating.  Following that bender, I set off on another binge of sorts - biking.

I missed biking.  A lot.  And so I went on some bike rides.  I spent a weekend riding from Duluth to Minneapolis with the fund raising event known as the MS 150 (a charity ride for the muscular sclerosis society).  This was my second year completing the ride and, as before, it was nice.  Our team raised over $2300 (thanks to all who donated by the way) and rode about 100 out of the 150 miles in a light
drizzle.

Using the MS 150 as a warm up, I left a week later on the Amtrak with two friends, Aaron and Adam, headed for Portland.  Our bikes safely boxed were stowed aboard ready to carry us south down the Pacific Coast.  Unbelievable weather (a total of zero days of any form of precipitation and a considerable tailwind) followed our trek to San Francisco, approximately 850 miles up, down, and around the coastal mountains.  Elaborations on this ride will follow in future posts, for at the moment I am letting the experience ferment a while longer before getting into it.  Needless to say, bicycle touring is one of the most incredible ways to travel.  For anyone interested, Aaron, one of my riding partners has a nice little blog where you can read and see some nice bits of media from the ride here:  The Western Expanse.

Now I am down to about three and a half weeks left in Minnesota before I return to Alaska.  I have many things I still want to get done, but am actively looking for more things to add to that list.  If you have any ideas, want to hang out, or whatever, get ahold of me.  I am in.

Twenty-four hours, four planes, and two seasons later

I left Tununak yesterday with Ben and Sara about twenty-four hours ago. The temperature was near freezing, the clouds were about 300 feet off the ground and intermittent fog reduced visibility to under a mile at times. All three airlines were on weather hold. After two hours of stressing out, communications with the airline hinted that a plane would indeed be landing. We loaded up the trailer and instructed Brett to avoid the puddles. He failed. Not that anyone could have done any better. The house-high drifts recently had a path plowed through them resulting in a knee-deep puddle that
stretches from the BIA, through the village, almost all the way to the airport. Pretty great. Our flight was uneventful, and we caught our next flight to Anchorage without problems. After a quick meal at the Anchorage airport I said goodbye to Ben and Sara and rushed off to my gate. Ten minutes to spare - no big deal. Yeah, last to board is pretty awesome. Then Denver, now Minneapolis.


And now summer. Serious summer. The sweatshirt, coat, hat, gloves, and boots I wore out of Tununak were no longer needed. In fact, I'm pretty sure clothes in general are not needed. The thermometer states 100 degrees right now. I can't quite handle it. I am melting.

Took a journey down to the garden (about a mile downhill) on my bicycle. So good. Strawberries are raging. Tomatoes are trying to sort out the seasons, which is nice to see that I'm not the only one. Peppers are loving it. A few rogue bean stalks are erupting from the earth. Tomorrow the work begins. Trellises need to get back in, fence needs to be creature proofed, and obviously, the plants and seeds need to get in the ground. Exciting. Maybe it'll be 70 tomorrow. Probably not. Better get sunscreen.

Left the garden and thought I'd take the long way home. Here I realized some things.  Biking downhill with the wind is way easier than biking uphill into the wind after nine months of not biking. I seem to have misplaced my legs and lungs. Of course the heat didn't help. I have a bit of work to do to get back in bike shape. The five miles I rode today were annoyingly hard. Good thing I have the summer off to get some things done. Teaching is awesome.

Probably the coolest thing anybody on the planet is doing right now.

My two good friends left Minneapolis this morning atop their bicycles.  They are headed out to Portland via Yellowstone.  I plan to meet up with them there and then on to San Francisco via the redwoods.  Here is their blog if you want to keep tabs.

The Western Expanse

I am so jealous right now.

*Note - I stole these pics from their blog