First let me say that the chickens are fine, so for those of you only interested in the chickens, no need to read on...
1. Don't Blow a Head Gasket
Awhile back, I went through a period known as The Heat Gasket Calamity. Some of my followers will remember Ruby, my first "real" car. I loved that car. I would spend weekends vacuuming her, Armor-alling her dash until it shined. One evening, I decided to go to Detroit, the big city, to see some friends. Now, I am from a very, very small town so big city driving would make me nervous (aw, shucks y'all). On the drive, a huge van was following closely behind me and started flashing his lights at me. He rode my bumper for miles. I slowed to a reckless 65 mph to get him to pass but to no avail. After a few minutes of the light flashing, he rolled down his window and started waving his hand at me, indicating I should pull over. He pulled up next to me and gestured for me to roll my window down. I grabbed my cell phone and waved it out of the window, as if to say "look, I've called the cops, so go away you depraved murderer". Eventually he gave up and exited the highway. I was convinced that I narrowly escaped a gruesome fate, grateful for my reliable car in this land of psychos. I made it to Detroit with no other problems and headed home the next afternoon. I stopped once to add coolant to my car after the dashboard light came on, suspiciously eying all the people at the gas station, surreptitiously looking for the van that had been following me. By the time I got to Allendale, the coolant light was on again. I called the Ford dealer and they said I could bring her in any time. I made it about a mile down the road before the engine seized. I got the car towed to the dealer and they called me a few days later. The head gasket had cracked, and my engine was ruined...blah blah blah three thousand dollars. The dealer said he was surprised no one noticed the coolant spewing from the back of my car.
Let this be my official apology to the good Samaritan that I had pegged as an ax murderer.
My next car was also a Ford. My sister and I went on a road trip to North Carolina to go white water rafting with a group of friends from grad school. We were in the mountains, surrounded by confederate flags, when blue smoke started billowing from the back of the car. I figured, "we're almost to the camp ground, it'll be fine". No check engine light, no coolant light on the dash. But, the engine seized yet again. Are you kidding me? No. I hadn't even made half of the payments on the piece of junk. I don't remember exactly how we got home. I vaguely remember riding in a tow truck with a man with few teeth and a very thick southern accent, animal skins strewn about his truck. And, we somehow escaped ending up in someone's freezer yet again.
Nevertheless, my cars have all been Toyotas since The Head Gasket Calamity.
2. The Pipe Misfortune/Thermostat on the Roof
This is the year of The Pipe Misfortune. Many of you know that we had a slight problem with our pipes that ended up with us moving out of our house for a month while they fixed our ceiling. Now, my bad luck has infiltrated my work as Chicken Nanny. Yesterday, when Chicken Nanny Apprentice 2 (aka Will) went to check on the girls, he went in the house to fill the water jug. He noticed the house was colder than usual and called me to ask if Beth and Jose turned off the water. Uh oh. Apparently the thermostat had died, and the house got cold. It turns out that the batteries in the thermostat had died -- who knew that it would result in the furnace turning off?! So the water in the pipes in Jose and Beth's house had frozen. Major bummer. CNA2 turned off the main water supply and turned on all the faucets in the house to drain the water from the pipes, in case a pipe had broken when they froze. He got the heat working again, so disaster averted. Hopefully, nothing is broken, or at least it'll be easy (and cheap) to fix when they get back.
Public Service Announcement: Check the batteries in your programmable thermostat.
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