A new chicken and a flooded room

What a day.  First I dropped off the junk at oldest daughter's house then headed for Army daughter's house.  With the rain we've had lately they had a little bit of a flood in the house.  The baby's room had a soaking wet carpet in the closet and out into the room. 

Last night when Army daughter called to tell me the room was wet I told her to pull the carpet up in that corner and also put a fan on in the room.  When I got there the carpet was pretty dry but the padding was still soaked.  I pulled that up and laid it over the carpet for the fan to dry it.  I explained to her that the padding may not dry well and she may be better off just buying a 5X10 piece of padding and reinstalling the new stuff.  It's not expensive.  From the inside of the house it looked as if the water just seeped in from the ground.  That's not good. 

We went outside and I discovered the problem right away.  The house has some rain gutters and only three downspouts.  One, which empties at least 500 sq. feet of roof line, dropped the water right at the corner of the house.  The downspout didn't redirect the water away from the house.  There was a cement pad there but on the outside of the pad the soil level was higher than the cement.  The rain water had no place to go so it went inside.  Easy fix. 

I explained that with an inch of rain, 500 sq. feet of roof will dump 300 gallons of water into that corner.  With no place for the water to go it went in.  They need to buy some additional hose to attach to the bottom of the drainpipe which will direct the water away from the house.  They also need to take down that hump of dirt.  I told her it could wait for the weekend unless we got more rain. 

While I was there I got a phone call from the mother of one of boy's friends.  Last month she bought four chickens so they could get fresh eggs, have bug eaters, and just have something special for her son.  The pullets were four months old.  Unfortunately for this city family one of the of the pullets wasn't a pullet.  She realized this once it started crowing.  She wanted to know if we would take it and give it a loving home since roosters aren't allowed in the city.  Sure it will go into the coop unless it doesn't get along.  Then it will go into the freezer.  I got over to her house and took a look at her cute little "Nutmeg".  It's a boy all right.  So are two of the others.  "Are you sure?" Of course I am.  Since she didn't want to believe that the person who sold her the pretty little chickens that would all start laying eggs in two months were not going to be laying eggs after all she kept those two chickens.  I told her to let me know when she wanted me to pick them up!