A few nights ago I woke up standing on my knees at the top of my bed,facing out the window above my pillows. I could tell I had just hit the window by some throbbing and stinging sensations coming into my very confused awareness. My wife had no answers as to how I arrived in my current situation, and seemed just as started as myself. I just kept asking her, "what just happened?", to her continued reply, "I don't know I was asleep". I had a strange feeling something was out there in the blackness of night that caused me to do this, but thought it better to crawl back into my warm bed instead of go investigate a potentially dangerous situation in the cold and dark outside, so I did just that. No sooner had my head hit the pillow that I heard something outside, I KNEW IT! Crazy, maybe, but usually only in my waking hours. I darted outside with sufficient protection in hand. I shined a flashlight towards the outside of my window, where I thought I had heard the noise. (WARNING GRAPHIC!) My light came to rest upon a dear friend, my hen, Whitney Houston, headless, laying next to our backyard chicken coop. Yes, HEAD-LESS, without head! The rest of my hens still in the coop, silent, jammed into a corner of the coop on top of one another, eyes wide with terror. Imagine my guilt as I realized that it was I who had forgotten to close the coop door that evening. This is an attempt at redemption and hopefully Miss Houston's forgiveness from the afterlife.
My dearest Whitney, I WILL ALWAYS love you! (AW c'mon! I HAD to! You guys knew that was coming.. Plus, I really DO love all our animal brothers and sisters, and if you don't, &^$# you too.
Arduino code to Automate a door for my chicken coop that will let the ladies out at dawnvand tuck them safely away every evening. A couple different designs are provided here, one with internet connectivity for keeping time, and another uses a RTC to keep time, code for both designs is given in C++ for arduino IDE (.ino), and micropython (.py) in addition to the C++ for one of the designs.