Helpful Bob

This is my son Bob and his girlfriend Anna. I got to go to dinner with them last night. We went to a local restaurant that has recently reopened after being closed for quite a while. All of us in the neighborhood are pulling for it to succeed.

You may recall that Bob worked in restaurants for a couple of years. It was a love/hate relationship, I think. He loves to cook, but he doesn't miss the chaos and bad hours. It's interesting eating in a restaurant with Bob. Almost as much as flying in a commercial plane with my brother, who is a master airplane mechanic. He points out all the mechanisms and tells you a dozen ways they can fail.

It took quite a while for us to be served, the restaurant was full of customers, and is still getting its act together. Bob entertained Anna and I with tales of restaurant life. At one point in our wait he speculated, "There are only two people in the kitchen and right now they're screaming at each other."

When my steak salad came it was disappointing. Bob said, "The Cisco truck only comes once a week. It must come tomorrow, because the prepak salad is just about dead."

We'll go back in a month or so and see how they've improved.

Bob had lots of ideas about great things a chef could prepare at a local restaurant that has such easy access to lots of fresh produce. He wished the restaurant had been open when he needed a job, but said he's glad he got out of that business and into the mechanical electrical technician program instead.

Me too. He hasn't been in the program long, but he can already fix a lot of things. When we had trouble with the little wood stove in the dining room, he climbed up on the roof, cleaned the screen on the chimney, and ran the chimney brush down it.

I told you I was looking at pellet stoves, but that it was really expensive to get one installed? A pellet stove at Lowe's is not that expensive by itself, though. I wondered if Bob might be able to install one, to save some money. So I told him the problems I'm having keeping the wood fire going, and asked him to think about a solution.

This week he came home with a Grainger's catalog.

"You want me to find a stove in this?" I asked.

"No," he said. "It's old. I thought you could tear the pages out and use them to start your wood fire."

Meanwhile, Back at the Show...

I really didn't want to be lost on the coast after dark, so I headed back to town fairly early. When I returned to the show I discovered that one of my birds had won Best of Breed in the Bantam Dominique (BD) class.

This is #7. One reason I like BDs is they are easy to get along with. This is my least favorite bird because he's not like that. He's a mean little bugger. I have several bruises on my right arm, from the elbow to the wrist, because #7 attacks at every opportunity. Some roosters will come after you, especially to protect their hens during breeding season. They calm down as soon as you pick them up. When I catch #7, after he's put 3 or 4 new bruises on my arm, he doesn't chill, he just starts looking for skin to grab. I only took him to the show because I don't have many show birds left and I wanted to be sure the classes were full.

Oh well. I just made the best of it and pretended that the little asshole is my pride and joy.

And wore a shirt with long sleeves.

One of the fun things at this show was watching Dr. Bradley judge showmanship and getting to visit with her at the banquet. It reminded me what a great influence she has had on California poultry kids for at least two generations. She pushes and encourages the kids to do their best. She is a stickler for good manners. It's always interesting to watch her "remind" gentlemen of all ages to take their hats off when they're indoors. And they do.

The official show hotel this year was a few miles away from the fairgrounds. That's it - the orange building up on the hill.

It's the Bear River Indian Casino. For those of you who live in other countries, here in the U.S.A. Indians are allowed to put gambling businesses on property that their tribe owns. They can do this even in states that don't otherwise allow gambling. If the tribe only owns property back in the forest somewhere, that's no problem, they can buy some right next to a freeway and use it. I have mixed feelings about this. Mostly I don't care for gambling and don't see how it can do anyone any good in the long run. Emily, you know more about this than I do, correct me if I babble unfairly. In some places you hear of tribes that have benefitted from casinos. In other places the business is turned over to outside managers and I've heard the tribe doesn't benefit much. We passed 4 Indian casinos on this trip north.

Judging by the landscaping, Bear River casino and hotel are pretty new.

This was my view from my room on the third floor, the view looking straight down. The view from the window was actually very pretty, of the Eel River valley going out to the sea.

It did occur to me that a tsunami would follow the same route coming back up the valley, and I was happy to be safely above it all.

The casino is fairly small. I walked all the way through it and think I saw most of the employees. I don't believe any of them were Indian. They were, however, the friendliest, most helpful hotel people I have ever run across; from the lady at the desk to the fellow mopping the floor early Sunday morning. My room was big, comfortable, and spotless. We were served a very good dinner at the poultry club banquet (tri tip, fresh steamed veggies and a spinach salad to die for), and I had a nice breakfast on Sunday morning, plus scrambled eggs to go for my chickens. Outside of the gambling room where smoking is allowed, there was no stench of tobacco in the hotel, like there is in Reno or Las Vegas. I didn't expect to like this place, but I did.

Sunday morning I fed the birds their scrambled eggs and packed them in their carriers (getting pecked again by #7). A poultry show can be stressful for birds, they are in small cages surrounded on 3 sides usually by birds they don't know. It's noisy and strange. The birds really enjoy being put in their carriers, you can hear them sigh as they nestle down for the trip home.

I picked up Bonnie at her mom's house, and we made it home in record time. At least it seemed that way, it always does when you have good company.

Early Monday morning I loaded two of my mutt pullets (the big grey one and the big brown one in front in the picture below) into the car and was back on the road, headed down I-5 to Hollister. A new online friend needed some hens, and I needed some space in the mutt pen.

Of course I had to stop at Casa de Fruta to buy Valentine chocolate for my favorite people. On the way back I decided to take Hwy. 152 across the valley to Chowchilla, and then north to home on Hwy. 99. I thought it might be a more interesting trip than I-5, which is the dullest route in the entire state. Hwy. 152 was more scenic, but it took 40 minutes longer. I doubt I'll go that way again.

There were two more short poultry trips later in the week. I took 11 birds to the Roseville auction and drove to Vacaville with a rooster someone needed to borrow for their breeding program.

Now I'm home to stay for a while. I think. Unless I decide to go to Bakersfield.

Lost Coast

It can't be very lost if I can find it, but the name is catchy, isn't it?

I didn't drive very far on Centerville Road, it kept getting smaller and spookier, and on my GPS all of the roads in the area appeared to dead end. Plus, everyone in California knows not to stray too far from the beaten path in marijuana country.

I got some nice pictures for you, anyway.

This used to be the route taken by horse-drawn wagons taking butter from the creameries in Ferndale to San Francisco.

The ocean in this area has been pretty wild recently, with tourists washed out to sea. These folks picked a pretty place far enough from the waves, and out of the cool breeze, to have their picnic.

An old barn. I bet this makes a nice picture in the fall, when the leaves on the tree growing through the roof are yellow and orange.

An old farm. Lots of these sit at the base of the hills. Their pastures are small green valleys that disappear uphill, into the fog.

An old farmhouse. It took a lot of help to run a dairy, so many old houses in dairy areas are two stories, with a lot of bedrooms. One of my schoolmates when I was young lived in a huge Victorian house near mine. It had 6 bedrooms upstairs and a full screened porch on two sides where the workers slept in the summer. There were lots of rooms downstairs, too, and the house had the biggest dining room and farm kitchen I've ever seen.

I call this "California Absurd." Why palm trees in the midst of a redwood forest? The house had an old dairy behind it, but it seemed to be brand new, not refurbished. And what's with the toy tractor? I should have stopped and asked, but it's more fun to imagine my own story.

I was thrilled to get a wildlife picture for you:

Yes, that's a pissing deer.

More tomorrow. And don't forget, tomorrow is 24 hours long Ken.

Finally - a Rainy Day!

Finally I can sit here at my computer with the space heater warming my legs and butt, and take some time to get caught up. We have had gloriously beautiful, warm days here in Central California. There's a law, you know, that makes it illegal to sit inside on those days. You must be outside catching up on chores or driving around enjoying the green while it lasts. The green grass on the hills, brought on by early fall rains and then abandoned to cold, dry, sunny days, is already starting to wilt. The cows are trying their best to eat it, tourists are trying to enjoy it. This might be one of those years when the grass goes to seed and starts to turn yellow before the oak trees leaf out.

If I didn't carry my little Wonder Woman notebook everywhere I go, and keep notes, I'd be sitting here unable to tell you what I did last week. It's not that I forget. It's that my enthusiasm stays in front of me, leading me on. It's not pushing me from behind. My brain is occupied with the present. But...I have notes! 

This is a map of Northern California. It shows where I drove in the past two weeks. Red dots are the route to Ferndale and back. Green dots are to Casa de Fruta, then across the valley to Chowchilla and back.

I live in the middle of California's central valley. It's flat and there are two major freeways that will take you from one end of the valley to the other in good time. The valley, however, is surrounded by mountains. Traveling through the mountains (really high ones to the east, lower ones to the west, north, and south) is beautiful but time-consuming. The farther north you go, the more primitive the roads. One of the reasons the north coast area is still so beautiful, while much of California has been paved over? It's not easy to get there.

I have been on the drive north with company, without company, and without company but with an audiobook. While I don't usually mind driving by myself, I prefer this trip with company. There are so many things I want to point at and say, "Well, lookee there!"

Carlotta was going to make the trip with me. She cancelled at the last minute. Lucky for me, another friend, Bonnie, lives in Sloughhouse. She was raised in Fortuna and her mom, Toots, still lives there. I called her at the last minute and she said she really needed to go visit her mom. So that worked well.

The drive took us 6 hours. We blabbety-blabbed all the way and caught up on each others' lives. My favorite driving companions are people who like to talk, people who notice things along the road and point them out or want to explore, and people who know about the history or geology of the area we're driving through.

I dropped Bonnie off at her mom's house first. The scariest part of this drive is the first few feet of Toots' driveway.

You feel like Alice, falling down the rabbit's hole. The road seems to fall into nowhere, but just past the pyracantha bush, where drunk robins gorge on fermented berries, you wind past a couple of small farms then back up to a sunny spot on the hill above Fortuna where Toots lives.

Fortuna is more populated than nearby Ferndale, but a lot of the houses still have large lots where cattle, sheep, and other animals are kept. I like that. Fortuna is at a high enough elevation that it's not so susceptible to tsunami or earthquake damage.

Ferndale is less than 10 miles from Fortuna. You come down off the hill to an ancient bridge over the wide (and sometimes wild) Eel River, to a valley that was filled with giant ferns when the Indians lived here. It's still a beautiful valley, but it has been filled with green pastures and dairy cows for the past 150 years. It makes me sad to see dairy cows in dry lots in the Central Valley. They're well fed, but they rest on little mounds above the muck in the winter. There's something about a dairy cow on grass that just seems right.

There were Holsteins on one side of the road and Jerseys on the other. The second round of white immigrants to this area included dairy-farming Danes. To this day, there are a lot of creameries in the area. Local cheeses are popular with tourists.

At one time, every county in California had a fair. County fairs were a showcase for agriculture and gave folks a place to get together. I think all the counties still have fairgrounds, but the system has not been well kept in some places. In others there is less emphasis on agriculture and more on mass entertainment. The Humboldt poultry show used to be held in Eureka, at a small fairgrounds. They raised their rates so high, however, the show had to be moved. I heard that the Eureka fairgrounds was more interested in hosting roller derby than a poultry show. I hope that works for them.

The fairgrounds in Ferndale are well maintained and seem to still be an integral part of that community's activities. It was really refreshing to be at a fairgrounds that isn't surrounded by urban slums or decaying into uselessness. What an ideal place for a poultry show!

If you google Ferndale, and you should, you can learn a lot about this small community. It has  interesting Victorian architecture. Some of the newer buildings even feature shingle work and gingerbread.

Romantic? Dairy farmers and lumberjacks? Maybe not, but the town is cute.

On the main street.

These two houses appear to have been recently fixed up. I saw a couple of buildings that were unoccupied, but they weren't run down. The town is not like those in the Gold County near me, where outsiders come in and do a little repairing and open an antique store that's closed in a year or two, then the owners take a tax write-off and move back to the Bay Area. The houses in Ferndale seem to be inhabited by permanent residents.

On Saturday afternoon, while the birds were being judged, I drove around Ferndale and took a short drive out to the Lost Coast. I'll show you some of those pictures tomorrow.

A Thousand Miles

That's what I've put on my car since last Friday. I can report that the entire northern part of California is very dry and needs some rain for the grass that sprouted last November. The rivers are down, the reservoirs and dams are down. That could all end with one big storm and we'll be whining about floods, but right now it's dry.

I have photos, I have stories.

I also have my tax appointment in three days.

All my paper work is in a paper bag on the dining room table. I have a bad attitude. The last election, with candidates who keep their money in foreign countries and don't pay their fair share of taxes, is still too fresh in my mind.

I'll catch you next week. I won't be driving anymore this week, but I will be traveling to Hell and back.

Cat Update

Velcro and Gollie have been sleeping together more frequently. That's because some days I'm too lazy to even build a fire in the stove. I just put on my heavy down jacket, put the electric space heater on under my chair, and pretend the house is warm enough. I've had enough of winter, thank you, I've lost my enthusiasm for hauling wood and buckets of ashes and hacking up kindling.

I did go shopping for a pellet stove last week. It would be nice to be able to let it run all night so the house isn't so inhospitable in the morning. The day I decided I could afford the pellet stove, however, I got an estimate for the pump work that needs to be done. No pellet stove this year. I'm thankful I live in California, especially when I read everyone else's blog and you've all got snow in your pictures. I saw buds on one of the back yard trees this afternoon, so winter is on its way out.

Outside everything is better in the cat world now. I didn't see many of the kittens for a long time after their operations. Molly sticks closest to the wood shed. Even if I don't see her, I hear her squeak when I call "kitty." Slinker the orange tom is around quite a bit, too. Or maybe it's just that he's a bright color and easier to see.

For a while I was really worried about Carla, the mama cat. One of her back legs was quite swollen and she was limping and obviously not feeling very well. I tried several times to catch her and failed. Then I didn't see her for two weeks and was afraid she was gone. I'm happy to report that she's back, and well and doing just fine. Today for the first time I saw all the kittens, even Rosie.

Chester, by the way, still limps a little but gets around very well and very fast. He is by far the homeliest cat I've ever seen, very dorky, but I like him. I'd like to be able to sit outside with a different cat in my lap every day. No indication of that happening yet.

I have not seen a mouse, rat, or vole for several months. Those cats are doing their job.

I should do my job and go throw some wood on the fire and fix dinner. Or maybe I'll just grab my ski jacket and a cup of soup instead.

Grandpidge

This is the Old Owl that Katherine brought me from the Humboldt show. I think that was just last year (time flies).

And this is his grandpidge.

It looks like a seagull with a heart spot on its chest. Just in time for Valentine's Day.

Pigeons: you don't gotta love 'em, but if you do, you know how wonderful they are.

Kenny Kicks My Butt

KennyD said...

OK, it's been two weeks! Time to limber up the old keyboard and let us know how things are going in Sloughhouse. I know the water isn't rising, cause it has been dry for January, so that can't be it. There must be some cat or chicken news fit to print.

January 31, 2013 at 9:12 PM

..................

Thanks KennyD, I needed that.

The past two weeks were quite Dickensian: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

It has taken me this long to acknowledge that I'm still alive, that I'm the one who needs to be up and tackling the fresh new problems, because no one else is going to do it.

I entered 27 birds in the Stockton show. It was a very important show, the national meet for the American Bantam Association. It was also the national meet for Dominiques. As one of the few members of the Dom club who lives near Stockton, I decided to try to help make it the biggest show possible. Usually there are fewer than a dozen of our birds at a show. The judge tends to just zip right through them on his way to judging the Rosecombs. Usually there are scads of those and one of the elegant little things usually wins best RCCL (Rose Comb Clean Leg), which is the class that several breeds of rosecombed bantams are shown in.

I thought that if we had a big enough class of decent birds, the judge might take notice and one of our birds might get considered for best of class. So 20 of the 36 Dominique bantams at the show were mine.

Not all of them were great show quality, but my birds are always clean and well conditioned. I'm not ashamed to haul any of them to a show.

My plan was to start Monday, bring in each bird and wash it and groom it. Some of the Dom bantams didn't need a full bath. But I was also taking 6 white old English and they would definitely need some scrubbing.

I can dry 6 birds at a time in the house. It would take at least 4 days to do all the birds. I was eager to get started. When Monday came, though, everything ground to a screeching halt. I evidently had the flu. I've never had the flu before. I had a sore throat, when I wasn't lying flat on my back I'd get dizzy and throw up, and there was a pretty good case of diarrhea on top of everything. The worst thing was I couldn't get started on the birds, but I figured Tuesday would be a better day. It wasn't. That day was terrible until I discovered Imodium, but I still couldn't stand up and accomplish anything. I have always had a very strong immune system, so I decided to put it to work. I put on my sweat pants and shirt and rolled myself up in 3 blankets like a burrito. I slept all that day, thinking that if I died at least I wouldn't have to do all the work I had ahead of me.

By late Wednesday morning I was almost okay: sore, creaky, brain in a fog, but semi-functional.

For 2-1/2 days I pushed myself to get the birds ready. About halfway through I thought, "well, I'll just take the ones I have done and be happy with that." But of course I couldn't convince myself that wasn't just being a slacker. There was a lot of walking and standing on my feet, I'd go out and catch each bird individually, bring it in, and spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour getting it primped. Then I'd take it out to the car and put it in a carrier. It would be handier to keep the carriers in the house, but once they're full of birds I can't carry them. I can lift them, I just can't walk with them. (Life was certainly easier when Bob did all the catching and carrying. I need grandkids NOW…fully formed, 10 year olds.)

I had hoped to have the birds checked in at Stockton by noon on Friday. I didn't get there until almost dark. It took me quite a while to unload and cage all the birds, even though I had some unexpected help from two other Dom ladies, Heaven and Rhonda. I didn't get back to my car until 10:00. By the time I got home at 11:00 p.m., I hadn't eaten since breakfast and had eaten nothing for the 2 days before. This sounds worse than it is. I have enough fat in my butt alone to sustain me for a couple of weeks. And I don't get hungry, because I have neuropathy. But you know how it is, when you start thinking about how you've had no food it makes you whine and feel sorry for yourself.

At home, I got out of the car before my feet realized what I'd done, and fell flat on my back in the driveway. I couldn't even find the energy to cuss about that. I was wearing my huge old ski jacket that keeps me warm and toasty, and for a couple of minutes I thought, "I'm just going to stay here." But I didn't have a pillow.

The next morning I slapped myself out of bed at 6 and was back in Stockton by 7 to check all the birds before judging started at 9, and wipe any fresh poop off their feet (you do that so the judge isn't offended when his white coat gets dirty).

By the end of the day, my birds had won 3 firsts, a couple of thirds and fourths. Other people won best and reserve of breed. The best news was that the best of breed bird went on to win Best RCCL in the junior show. The junior show had 1000 birds, so that's a great honor. All of us Dom people were ecstatic.

On Sunday morning I ran into Rhonda and Heaven talking to the fellow who had judged our birds. He said he had never seen such a fine bunch of Dominique bantams. Evidently all the judges had been talking about it. That really made me feel good. Back at the show I was standing near the Dom bantams and Dr. Patterson, a very well-respected judge who raises Rosecombs, was talking to a friend. He said, "This is the best display of Dominique bantams I've ever seen anywhere in the United States."

Knock me over with a feather! I don't know if that's true. I don't care. It was like a message from the chicken show God, and just in time to start a new breeding season.

I only took half my birds home. The others I sold to people who want to breed and show them. This is a good thing. I was only going to use a few birds in my breeding program this year and needed to sell the others. Better they go to chicken show people than to the auction, where no one will appreciate them for the rare breed that they are.

As an extra bonus, a judge from Arizona who raises Dom bantams brought a few of his culls to share. A problem with my birds is size - almost all of them are way too big. The birds from Arizona are very small. I call them the McNuggets.

Finally at home on Sunday night, with my chores all done, I went to take a nice hot shower. No water. There was a dribble of water for the sink and a dribble of water for the toilet, but none for the shower. We only have one bathroom in this house.

For the past two days I've been working on the water problem. It's not a new one, it just got worse while I wasn't watching and now it's moved to the top of the list. Are you a homeowner? You know how much it costs to call a plumber, right? Multiply that by 15 or 20 and that's what it costs to have work done on a farm system. It will take a couple of years to pay for that and accumulate enough money to even think about the other projects I'd like to have done: the garage roof, the horse pasture fence, a small indoor area for my show birds. I spent a couple of days in a mild state of depression. Add to that, the stinking Sacramento County Board of Stupidvisors voted in my absence to approve a development near our area. It's miles outside the established urban area, the worst example of sprawl and deviousness by developers (I personally can't think of anyone I despise more.) you could imagine. It's mind numbing.

This morning, I crawled out of bed on a gloriously sunny, warm day and got myself back to water aerobics for the first time this year. My feet still hurt from all the walking at the show. I have a kink in my back. They're all legitimate results of being old and semi-decrepit. Then I read KennyD's message and realized I needed to get back to the "real" world.