Happiness is a journey, not a destintation...

for a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. but there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. at last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. this perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. happiness is the way. so treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one.

~ souza

Partial Victory

I don't want to go so far as to declare victory on the War on Birds, but there was no hosing down needed today. So maybe I'll just say that I'm in the lead of this little battle.

The goop was gross. And extremely sticky. Not super glue, just really gooey sticky. Imagine a gooey sticky vaseline - that's what I was dealing with. There are warning labels all over the tube about it being hazardous, so I wore gloves. I tried to spread the goop out, but it immediately stuck to the gloves and then the fingers of the gloves immediately stuck to each other. I got some on the top of the light but had to wait until later to apply it to the top of the door because it was supposed to be dried. I went to check several hours later, and looking out the window and the light, I could see feathers stuck on the light. The feathers were at such an angle and were multiple colors that I thought it was an entire leg. The goop warns of this and it would be just my luck to have amputated a bird. I finally dared myself to take a closer look (I'm a wimp. Ask me about my mice story sometime.) and discovered that it was only a few feathers. Of course, in the process of taking a closer look, I actually had to go out on the porch and when I peeked out of the front door, sure enough, birds on top of the doorway. I had to shoo them away (with a broom of course with me standing inside the house - I wasn't about to get that close). It was finally time to goop up the door. It didn't stick very well, but I managed to get a bunch on. I did the glove thing again thinking that the fingers might not stick together this time. Not sure why it would be different the second time. Anyhow, I went back in and then re-read for the 20th time the instructions. There were a lot of details regarding the thickness of the bead to lay down, which varied by bird. Swallows were 1/8 inch. And the instructions specifically yelled DO NOT apply more than the specified width (birds could get stuck). The problem was that the opening of the tube was at least 1/2 inch thick. So I got all panicky that I was going to have stuck birds so I went out with a popsicle stick and spread it out, which by the way, worked so much better than the gloves. And then off to bed.

I was more than a little nervous waking up this morning. I had managed to convince myself that I had applied way too much goop and that my doorway would be covered with dead birds, now stuck in the goop. I was very relieved to discover this was not the case when I took the dogs out. However, the true test lay ahead and what would happen throughout the day since the birds don't actually do anything at night.

Big sigh of relief when I got home to discover that there was nothing above the door except the sparkly ribbon and the goop. No nest materials. No feathers. Nothing. Current score: me 1, birds 0.

Goddamn Birds!

I hate birds!  They're after me for some unknown reason. I'm a vegetarian so that's not it. No seriously, they really are out to get me (see supporting evidence below).

They are back with a vengeance. And I'm determined to win this battle. Last spring, I didn't really use my front door much as I went in and out through the garage. So I never really noticed that swallows were attempting to build a nest over my front door. And then I left for Idaho and when I came back, there were several eggs and I knew they were going to be there for a while. This made it so that I really couldn't use my front door, even if I had wanted to (see Exhibit E). Finally the birds hatched and learned how to fly and I promptly destroyed the nest. They're ba-ack. I noticed them last week and saw to my surprise that they were starting to drag nest stuff back. So I hosed it down. Next day, more nest stuff stuff. I hosed it down. They liked to sleep on the lamp so I'd go out at night with a broom and scare them off. Only I never really scared them because they'd be back the next day. Well, the ante was upped this weekend. I woke up on Saturday and they had started bringing over the mud to hold everything together. I hosed it down. I then went for a 2 hour run and when I came back, they had rebuilt. I hosed it down. Again they rebuilt. Again I hosed it down. By Sunday they were really picking up the pace and managed to get quite a lot built during my ride. Hosed down before and after ride. I went to McGuckins and begged for help. I can't do the spikes. As much as I hate birds, I can't deal with the pain and suffering. I once saw a bird stuck in the spikes. It wasn't pleasant. Anyhow, they suggested this holographic ribbon. Apparently birds don't like sparkly things. So we went out and hung sparkly ribbons and they stayed away for the rest of the day. But by nighttime, they were back on the light. I turned on the light thinking it would make the ribbon sparkle, but I guess they close their eyes because it didn't do anything. For good luck, I put a few more strips of sparkles up before I left for work. You can imagine my complete surprise to come home and find a half-built nest (the horror!). Fortunately I went back to McGuckins at lunch. It's not that I don't trust the sparkles but I wanted to be prepared. So I bought this goop that you spread on whatever it is that they're trying to land on. It's sticky so they don't like to land on it. However, it's only called a deterrent, so I was hoping that maybe it would go great with sparkles. Hosed off the nest and started to apply the goop. It is really sticky. This better work! Otherwise I think I'm going to have to stake out on the porch all day with the hose, which I don't think work would really go for.

Exhibit A:
When I was 4 I got nipped on the butt by a turkey, who then proceeded to chase me while my dad watched and laughed. I'm an animal lover and when I was 4, turkeys apparently were no different than fluffy, furry animals like dogs and cats, or so I thought. My dad's friend was raising them (no, I don't know why), so I wandered to the backyard to check them out. One of the birds started to come towards me as I approached. It was roughly the same height as me from what I remember. It was a lot bigger than I had expected and a LOT uglier and definitely not fluffy. It started getting closer and closer and I decided that I really didn't like animals all that much and was starting to get a little scared, so I turned and headed back down the driveway to the front of the house. The turkey started to follow me. I picked up the pace. It picked up the pace. I started running. It started running. It caught up and pecked me on the butt. At this point, I'm pretty sure I screamed and started into a full on sprint. I ran around the porch and up the stairs and the turkey tried to cut me off by taking the shortcut - it bypassed the stairs and jumped directly onto the porch. (This is the part where my dad decided to "rescue" me by watching the episode from the window and laughing. But as you can see, I've gotten over it.)

Exhibit B:
My dad raised chickens, ducks, and geese which were allowed to wander free during the day (they lived up in the mountains where you pretty much had to drive to get to the nearest neighbor). I had the distinct privilege of herding said beasts into the chicken coop at night. It was a task that terrified me nightly. In fact, I finally wrote my dad at the beginning of one summer and told him that I would only come to visit him if I didn't have to deal with the poultry. I wouldn't say that this was exactly how things turned out. My other criteria that summer was that I didn't have to take naps and I didn't really win on this end either). Herding them into the enclosure wasn't such an issue, though I wouldn't go so far as to say that I had in entirely under control. The real problem lay in ushering them into their pens. The ducks and geese went into a small plywood box (there were "windows" so they had plenty of air) and the chickens went into an A-frame coop. Both were then closed up and bricks were piled along the outside board so unwanted visitors (fox, coyote, etc) couldn't get in. The geese and ducks didn't have a ton of room, and they probably didn't love the lack of freedom. They would often reach their skinny little necks out of the "window" and bite my wrists. This usually sent me running for the highest ground, which was atop the fence between the pen and the garden, which of course meant that I was now trapped atop of the fence and the geese and ducks could then run amok.

Exhibit C:
I once got yelled out because I was carrying a chicken (the way you carry chicken is upside down by their feet) and the stupid bird reached up and pecked my wrist, causing me to drop it and it then ran away. Guess who had to go catch it.

Exhibit D:
Many years ago I was driving on I-90 from Rochester to New Jersey. I had my cat Utah with me in the car and she was peacefully sleeping on the front seat (she was always a good traveler). We were cruising along at 70 mph minding our own business, singing out loud, whatever else one does when they are alone in the car with a cat on a long road trip. It was a divided highway with a big green strip in the middle. There were lots of flocks of birds out. You know that thing that flocks do where they all suddenly turn at the same time and somehow don't crash into each other. Well, there was a lot of that going on. At one point, they all swooped towards my side of the road and I remember thinking that they better get out of the way and as I thought it, they all swooped together back over the green strip. And suddenly they swooped towards my lane and being that I was still going 70, I was now upon them. Wump! Wump! Wump! Wump! What seemed like hundreds and hundreds of birds were now just flying into my front windshield. I screamed because what else could I do. I may have closed my eyes, which you are probably thinking is pretty dumb, but you try keeping your eyes open when hundreds of birds are flying straight at your face with nothing but a glass windshield (that you don't necessarily see when all you see are birds) between you. We finally drove out of the mayhem and I looked out my rearview mirror. There was a pile of dead birds lying on the road and my car was covered in feathers, and other parts. And Utah? She slept through the whole thing.

Exhibit E:
About 10 years ago I was visiting Scotland and we took a boat ride over to Inchcolm - a historic island and abbey in the Firth of Forth. It was nesting season and the gulls were everywhere "trying to protect their young". Some of the pathways on the island were closer to nests than others. We started walking down one of the paths with the gulls swooping down at us and screaming and squawking. With each squawk, I started crouching lower until I could go no further as I had pretty much turned myself into a ball.

Training and Gardens

Garden beds are ready!!!


I tried to play catch up this weekend and was somewhat successful. I know I'm not supposed to do this, but it's not like I tried to get all the missed workouts in. I just traded some for others. So my easy run this weekend was traded for the not-so-easy long run I was supposed to do. Besides, I had to rearrange in order to ride on the better day.

Naturally it all kind of sucked. Another late start on Saturday and I didn't get out the door until around 1:00. I made it 3/4 through the long run and then suddenly felt like I just wanted to stop and go to sleep. Trying to make up for lost sleep last week? I muddled through it and followed it with a 30 minute recovery swim which felt great. Then dinner, a movie, and bed. Ahhh.

Today I did get things off to a much better start and was out the door on my bike shortly after 10:00. The ride was alright. My legs were screaming for most of it, but I pretended not to notice. However, I could no longer pretend once I got off the bike and started my run. It was a slow crawl if anything and there was nothing I could do about it. I may have been able to walk faster. But it was such a nice day so it helped keep me motived to finish the whole thing. Success!

Even more success was finishing up the raised garden beds. Now everything is ready for planting. I was a little hesitant to put things in the ground after last week's snow, but I think I can start this week and definitely next week. I'm so excited to have a garden of my own. Patio tomatoes have been okay but I've been waiting many years for this. I'm sure not everything will turn out, but the ground work is all in so it only gets easier from here. Veggies waiting to be planted: lots and lots of tomatoes, carrots, beets, peppers, lettuce, rapini, beans, and basil. I still need to get a zucchini and pumpkin plant. And the big experiment will be quinoa. A friend from work told me that Colorado is the ideal place for growing quinoa and he bought a bunch of seeds in anticipation of buying a new house. Unfortunately the house fell through so he has no garden this year and a ton of seeds. So he gave me some and I thought I'd give it a try. It turns out that it's quite an attractive plant and I found the perfect spot along side of the house by the front porch where there's full sun. Plus it adds some color to the front.

Weekly totals:
swim: 3900 meters
bike: 76 miles
run: 21.5 miles

Great Start, Poor Finish

I finally started getting on track last weekend and managed to follow my complete training schedule and then some (I know, overachiever). I stuck out a 60 mile ride in the cold, which I deserved because I started late. And of course the  sun came out again about 10 minutes after I finished, and again I deserved because I started late. I didn't skimp on the run off of the ride. It was such an accomplishment that we opened one of those Special Bottles of Wine that one saves for Special Occasions that when they come never seem to be Special Enough. Well, I deemed a successful ride as Special Enough. The wine agreed.

But things started severely lagging by mid week. I blame work, which seems to be getting in the way of training a lot lately. I lost yet another member of my team and one of my favorites. I spent a good deal of time trying to do damage control and it totally wiped me out. I went to be around 9:30 on Thursday and fell asleep immediately (which never happens) and didn't even wake up when Matt came to be roughly 30 minutes later (which also never happens as I am the worlds lightest sleeper). Needless to say, I still was not well rested the next day and the return of winter did not help matters. I've now done nothing for 2 solid days. Here it is Saturday afternoon and I'm still in my PJs trying to muster up the energy and motivation to do something.

It also hasn't helped that I managed to injure the ball of my right foot by siting at the table at book club. I have no idea what happened but it feels like I bruised the bottom of my foot. I did run once and it didn't bother me, but walking has been a little painful at times. Naturally it is not consistent. And on top of that, I walked into the plywood platform that sits underneath my trainer. I now suffer from Fat Purple Toe and of course it's the same foot. Let's just face it, I'm falling apart.

So, it's time to start over. Again.

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible ~ Arthur C. Clarke