I just have to write and grade a final exam and grade a few projects and the summer semester is over! Then I have a few weeks "off" until August 14 where I teach algebra for a week and then start the fall semester. The chicken coop is nearly done; the oppressive heat has kept me from working on it as much as I'd like to. I think the plan is to put a small computer out there with a couple web cams so people can look at birds ~over the internet~. If any of y'all know anything about using the Raspberry Pi camera interface or streaming video on a low-bandwidth connection, I am all ears. Would there be any interest in a Shopski on shortening bar piercing jewelry? It's not terribly interesting but there have been a few twists involved because the work is so small. Here's Bertha napping under my leg: Lion, being handsome: Hank, being the sweetest lil bird:
Personal experience, my parents got four birds, named them Eggs, Bacon, Toast and Jam. Within the first six months a fox or racoon had taken Eggs, and my mom went out to the coop one day to find that a hawk had killed Toast and dragged the body into the coop to eat it, in front of her friends. We don't name chickens anymore.
Same deal first year we lost 3 chickens, 2 got taken out during the middle of the day by a racoon, one just up and died one morning and the chicken corpse got pecked a bunch. Never named them and glad I didnt, my wife would have been a lot more upset if they had names.