I celebrate Thanksgiving every evening when I put our chickens to bed. I thank them for all the wonderful eggs they have given me and I tell them how pleased I am with them.Our ten chickens are now laying between 5 and 8 eggs a day. The Ameraucanas started laying two days ago when they turned six months old. I recognize their eggs because they are green in color. Even one of the two Bobbsey Twins is laying eggs. The twins are a month younger than the rest of the chickens. They are finally acting more like they are part of the flock.Paula has been selling the eggs to her friends at church and in her book club group. These eggs are extra special because I feed the chickens organic chicken feed and supplement their diet daily with ground flax meal. For a while I was also feeding them 'dumpster' produce but I cut that out when I realized this was creating havoc with their reproductive system. A few chickens started laying rubbery eggs and in some cases they laid eggs with no egg shell at all. The birds were also suffering from diarrhea. So, despite the fact that chickens can and do eat pretty much everything, not every food is good for them.
Dave -
Do you prefer doing a process or a project? The difference is that a "process" doesn't have an end, while a "project" has a definite start and finish. Cleaning the house is a process; yes, you may think that the house is clean, but the fact is, within minutes of having everything spic and span, someone (usually me) is already creating a mess. Our jobs are also processes. While it may be Friday, you are not finished with work, but simply taking a two day respite before returning to the salt mine. Processes - only death will end them.
A project, on the other hand, has a definite start and finish. Today I will be writing about a tune-up "project". Rather than take the old BMW K100 RT motorcycle in for a tune-up, I decided that this would be a good DIY project. The service manual clearly states that anyone with a couple of simple tools and the willingness to follow directions can tune-up a bike. Shoot! I have some tools and I have always been good at following directions. As I read the chapter on tune-ups, I jotted down things I would need: oil, spark plugs, coolant...I am feeling comfortable at this point...brake fluid, transmission oil, gear grease, fork oil...okay, I have to admit I am getting a bit out of my comfort range. By the time I finished reading the chapter, I had added gaskets, sealers, special crush washers, O-rings, a couple of special tools, and three types of filters to my list. Now I am very much over my head.
Motorcycles are high performing, powerful machines and the oil and coolant that you use in your car will not work in a bike. I spent several hours surfing the web, learning about different kinds of oil and coolant, trying to differentiate between one company's marketing hype and another one's legitimate claim. Then, armed with a list of exactly the right oil and coolant that I would need, I headed to the store. The store didn't carry exactly what I was looking for so I headed to Store #2. Store #2 carried the same stuff as the Store #1. I realized at this point that unless I planned to special order these items, I was going to have to be satisfied with what was on the shelves. I continued on to Store #3 and Store #4 before I had everything on my list. When I got home, I was pretty much sick of this project and decided to spend the remainder of my day doing something else.
Day #2: When I ventured into the garage the next morning, the bike sat there surrounded by bottles of oil, coolant, gear grease, and a sundry of other life-giving fluids and two bags of parts and pieces that I had picked up the day before. Here is a bit of information that I found interesting: modern motorcycles have all the same pieces and parts and systems that your car has. 
Whoever designed this motorcyle crammed all this stuff in a very small package. Working on a motorbike is much like solving a Rubic's Cube - getting the pieces to line up is never as simple as it looks. In the case of the bike, changing something as simple as the air filter requires you to remove something call the “air box”. To remove the air box, you have to remove the gas tank from the bike. Stop! You can’t remove the gas tank until you remove the seat AND the left hand side upper and lower faring. So to change something as simple as the air filter, I had to virtually disassemble the bike. I am NOT making this up! To replace the coolant, the right hand side faring must be removed. The coup de grâce was the requirement to take off the oil pan to remove the oil filter. The day ended with the bike torn apart, but with the oil and coolant successfully changed.
Day #3: Today I spent the day figuring out where all the little (and big) pieces of the faring, brackets, and fasteners were supposed to go. The manual was not overly helpful inasmuch as it simply stated something to the effect that reassembly is just a reversal of the disassembly process. Two things to remember in digesting this bit of information is that I took all of the crap apart yesterday and had not the foggiest idea of how I got to the point that I was at now. I started putting pieces together until I ran out of both pieces and fasteners. Actually, I did end up with a big piece of foam that certainly fits somewhere, but I will have to visit the local BMW dealer and ask a mechanic where it is supposed to go.
With the bike back together, I was ready to tackle the tasks that could be completed without reducing the bike to a million little pieces. Replacing the spark plugs, transmission fluid, the rear end oil, brake fluid, and suspension fork oil turned out to be fairly straightforward. I was making excellent progress and then Mike called to ask if I would like to help him tune-up his bike. It was like Dante’s three levels of hell…forever another level when you thought things couldn’t get worse.
Epilogue: The bike is back together and running better than ever. Mike (with very little help from me) changed the oil and coolant in his bike. My tune-up project is finished. I must say that at times during the last couple of days I thought that my "project" was going to morph into a "process".
Looking back, I think the project worked out pretty good. I enjoyed working on the bike and working alongside Mike. I did not have a hot rod to tinker with while growing up, so I guess the motorcycle is my hot rod.
Special thanks goes to my neighbor, Richard. He is a knowledgeable mechanic who has a ton of really cool tools – many of which I had to borrow over the course of the last couple of days. Without his help and his willingness to loan his tools, the bike would still be in a hundred pieces scattered about the garage.
I went to the produce store this morning and after buying some veggies for our meals this week, I went around back to the dumpster to see if there was anything good in there for my birds. About a month or so ago, I had asked one of the store people if I could take some of their leftover produce to feed to my chickens. He said sure but the dumpster would be open to the public only on Saturday when the local enforcement code people were not likely to be snooping around. To my dismay, there was nothing in the dumpster and a guy was moving crates of fresh produce with a forklift so I could barely reach the dumpster even if there had been anything in it.As I pedaled home, I figured my dear chickens would have to make do with scraps that I could scrounge up from my own veggie patch.Later in the day, I decided to give the dumpster another try. It was 103 degrees outside, but my chickens were worth the sacrifice. So I loaded my panniers down with plastic bags and returned to the produce store. The photo says it all.
As you can see, my fridge is pretty full now. Those bags are stuffed with romaine lettuce leaves, cherries, two whole heads of iceberg lettuce, 2 whole heads of cauliflower, several stalks of celery, tomatoes, spinach, beets, eggplant . . . If you come to my house, be careful what you grab from my fridge. If it looks like a tossed salad, you may want to pass on this as it is likely chicken food!
Back to the subject of chickens.
Since my last entry, we had to find a home for another chicken; the Rhode Island Red was also a rooster. We gave him to an acquaintance who lives on four acres in Martinez. Needless to say I cried over losing him too, although I hear that he is adjusting to his new yard and family.Our ten remaining chickens are definitely females. We are collecting three eggs a day - one from a Maran (a small, dark chocolate egg), one from a Production Red (a little larger, tan colored egg), and just yesterday our White Leghorn popped out her first white egg! In another month we should be collecting six to seven eggs a day. Since these first eggs are so small, Dave needs three of them for a decent scrambled egg.
Without Elvis in charge, the chickens no longer move about as a cohesive group. I guess it takes a rooster to keep them in line. I often wonder if they think I am the rooster. They do not seem to head to the hen house in the evening until I go outside to remind them that it is time to go to bed. Bedtime is now 8:30 PM. Without Elvis, the birds find their spot in the chicken coop and quietly go to sleep. Several birds crowd into the three nesting boxes.
Dave took several photos the other evening. As you can see, our birds are getting bigger and look like chickens. This is a Maran.
This is an Ameraucana. She will lay a greenish blue egg.
Here is Polly enjoying corn on the cob before calling it a day. Every Saturday morning I pedal to the produce store and fill several bags with 'old' produce to feed my birds. They really like pecking at the fresh kernels of corn.
And here is me securing the coop for the night.
