text:
Another 914 goes under the knife, UPDATE: IT'S ALIVE....FINALLY
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Another 914 goes under the knife, UPDATE: IT'S ALIVE....FINALLY
Dec 8 2013, 12:36 AM
Post #1
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From: Minneapolis, MN
Member No.: 1,473
Today was a chilling day, both figuratively and literally. You see, I dropped off my 1970 914-6 for some long overdue structural repairs in Northern Minnesota. It was both freakishly cold and a milestone in my 914 ownership.
A little backstory....
Since I was was a kid cars have been a part of my life, particularly 914s. In the early 1980's my father, who was in his early 30's, was diagnosed with cancer and endured months of experimental treatment at the U of M. Miraculously he overcame the odds and entered remission. Upon paying back his medical bills he celebrated by purchase a 1970 914-6.
This particular car brings back many fond memories from my childhood. I remember riding in between my parents in the front seat, urging my dad to go faster. I remember riding in the car as we drove up to Brainerd International Raceway to watch the IMSA Camel GT series run. I remember my school age friends looking at the speedometer in awe, simply blown away that it went up to 180mph. As a kid I affectionately referred to the car as "Speedy."
Long story short, the car fell into my possession many years later following my father's passing and would become a reminder of the great times I spent with him. The car spent the majority of the last 20-years languishing in our garage. It was brought back to life mechanically, but had a number of battle wounds that accumulated both by me as a lackadaisical kid and from corrosion on the non-galvanized body. Knowing that a car does not do wel sitting, I enthusiastically drove it whenever I could. In fact the last couple years I had it on the road I probably average 3k miles per year, which is a lot for a sports car in Minnesota where it snows 6 months out of the year...more on this later.
Deep down I knew that the car suffered from corrosion and I finally faced it head on when I removed the rocker covers just over a year ago. I soon discovered that the car suffered in the usual rust areas. So much that I was no longer comfortable driving it. The passenger side needed an inner and outer long. The drivers side needed an outer panel. I found that the rear half of the floorpan required replacement. Surprisingly, the hell hole was in pretty decent shape.
Despite having some little welding experience under my belt I knew the repairs weren't in my wheelhouse. After consulting the 914world brain trust I quickly learned that that the solution to my problems was just a couple hour drive away. Rick, aka Rick918S, has torn apart a number of 914s and after some back and forth he agreed to tackle the project.
Before hauling the car up north, I pulled the engine and interior. Upon pulling the engine I learned that the car no longer has it's original motor, rather is has one from a 68s. For the record the engine is stamped with 901/02 and serial number 4080519. Makes sense since the car seemed to have more zip than 110hp brings. Once stripped of the engine I loaded it up on my trailer in anticipation of the pilgrimage north.
So, this morning at the crack of dawn I hopped in my truck and made the 2.5 hour trip to Duluth, MN, with the car. Normally a trip to Duluth isn't a big deal, however the weather made it a bit more exciting. Earlier this week we got dumped on by snow. In the Minneapolis metro we got about 8-inches. Duluth got closer to 18-inches. If the snow along wasn't enough, the temperature brought things to a new level. When I left my house in Minneapolis the temperature read -7 degrees. As I got closer to Duluth the thermometer dropped to -19F. Soon thereafter it dropped to -26.
Part of me thought the car would break down and I would become a human popsicle. With inconsistently plowed roads part of me also thought I would careen off the road, but with a stroke of luck I made it to Duluth in one piece.
Rick and I unloaded the car quickly in an effort to escape the cold and rolled the car into his shop.
At present the car sits in good company next to a 1960s Mercedes roadster. Whereas the 914 normally hibernates during winters, this year it will partake in a makeover program. The aforementioned structural elements will get repaired. Concurrently I will be putting the engine on a stand to adjust the valves and replacing gaskets and seals as needed. I'll open the transmission to make sure everything looks good. I plan to replace the sail panel vinyl, carpet, shocks and rechrome the rear bumper. Inevitably, the slop will get more slippery. The goal is to have a stong structural and mechanical foundation come spring. Once complete, I'll drive the car for a few years before tackling the superficial cosmetic blemishes.
Stay tuned for a photo diary of the progress.
|speed metal army
Dec 8 2013, 12:46 AM
Post #2
Waiting for the rain to stop...
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|Jeff Bowlsby
Dec 8 2013, 12:49 AM
Post #3
914 Wiring Harnesses
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From: San Ramon CA
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Whats that white stuff? '
Rick is a master, you won't be disappointed.
Dec 8 2013, 12:55 AM
Post #4
Retired & living the dream. God help me if I wake up!
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From: So.Cal. & No.AZ (USA)
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Nice story. Nice photo too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumb3d.gif)
You're car is in good hands now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)
Dec 8 2013, 02:11 AM
Post #5
Senior Member
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From: SoCal
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Nice story. Nice photo too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumb3d.gif)
You're car is in good hands now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)
+1 .... That picture looks like it should be in some hard cover glossy page porsche book (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smilie_pokal.gif)
Dec 8 2013, 06:09 AM
Post #6
Racer from Birth
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It's in Good hands with Rick!
Dec 8 2013, 06:10 AM
Post #7
Car Hoarder!
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Beautiful car!
Dec 8 2013, 06:24 AM
Post #8
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From: Clayton, Georgia
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So great the 914 stays in the family. Keep us posted on the progress. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)
Dec 8 2013, 07:20 AM
Post #9
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thats a great story and thats one incredible car, your dad would be proud that your doing this!
Please keep us in the loop how it goes.
Dec 8 2013, 07:43 AM
Post #10
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-26 Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)
|rick 918-S
Dec 8 2013, 09:12 AM
Post #11
Hey nice rack! -Celette
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This is a great story. But not just a story. Once again our little cars are about more than shiny paint and gas and oil. Ben's car comes with a legacy and a connection to family. I am going to enjoy being involved with the start of a new chapter and future for the car and a continuation of the fond memories this car evokes.
Ben has be gracious enough to allow me to use his car in a video idea I have had for awhile. Many of you have asked about how to go about repairing the chassis of your 914. Or "What the heck did I do ?!?! My door won't shut and my top won't align!"
I'm going to start with evaluation and documentation. A step many never think of and move on from there.
Ben's car will be the first part of the video. I will also include the chassis repair on the 6 Ethan agreed to sell me. This will be a full on chassis repair with the Celette.
So because of the video I will have a slow start with photos of Ben's car but by the end of December and on into the beginning of the new year Ben and I should have some nice photo documentation. My goal is to have the chassis sewn up by the third week in January.
Dec 8 2013, 10:03 AM
Post #12
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I just love the story and the fact that Ben has entrusted with his family heirloom. He are the right choice having a professional tackle these issues so that once it is fixed he will never have to address those problems again. I have always believed that when building anything, even a car, you need a rock-solid foundation to begin with or you are just throwing money away.
I am really looking forward to seeing the progress this car makes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/popcorn[1].gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)
Dec 8 2013, 10:11 AM
Post #13
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From: Minneapolis, MN
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I am very thankful that Rick decided to take on this project and look forward to watching the progress unfold. It is a great car and I look forward to it being structurally sound enough to put back on the road for many more years to come. I now have a two year old, Benjie, and look forward to spending time with him in the car.
Since the car has been in the family for about 30 years we have a lot of the service history. More impressive though is the stack of repair and purchase orders from the previous two owners.
After looking through big stack of documents I can piece together the cars history, beginning in Louisville where it was sold new and then in the early 80's when it traveled north to Minnesota.
Ownership History:
1970: Purchased by a Mr. Mike Losey at Don Corlett Porsche/Audi
1982: Carousel Porsche/Audi in Minneapolis aquires the car
1982: Carousel sells the car to Kevin Kirby of Sioux Falls, SD
1984: The car returns to Carousel and my father purchases it shortly thereafter
I find the Carousel connection pretty neat. My dad initiated a relationship with this dealer upon buying the 914 and maintained a strong relationship with them for his years thereafter. It was through this connection that I got my first real job working there. Any high schoolers dream, they hired me on at the ripe age of 15 as a lot runner. I worked there through high school, college and a couple years out of college concurrently moving from lot runner to service advisor to sales associate. Bottom line, much like Carousel was an important part of the 914s life, it was also a big part of my life.
So, back to the service history... In the file I must have 15 odd repair orders from the cars first 15 years.
It's certainly fun looking back at was done and the incredibly low price charged to do some of the work. Digging through the documents I can see that the car had persistent carb problems. They were rebuilt a number of times and ultimately replaced. There was an engine fire that likely stemmed from fuel issues.
It's also interesting to look back and see problems that still persist. Here are just a few. There is a repair order for a rattle in the passenger door panel. That rattle is still there today. A new dash was added at one point, which explains why the dash looks so nice. The odometer was replaced at 53k miles in 1982. This explains why the current odometer reads in the 18k mile range.
All in all, the comprehensive packet of records really helps to reconstruct the car's history.
This thread will start the documentation of the cars future.
Attached image(s)
Dec 8 2013, 03:55 PM
Post #14
Retired & living the dream. God help me if I wake up!
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That's cool, having all the service records.
I purchased a '66 912 from a gal that owned the car from new. Her dad bought it for her when she started college. She finished her education and became a successful lawyer. When she became established, she bought a new 911SC, but kept the 912 for several years afterward.
I acquired it in 1988 and it came with a 3/4" thick envelope of service receipts. When I got home, I went though the receipts and found that some parts, like the heads and the carbs, were replaced 10k miles ago. I'm also happy to say, that it is the most rust free early 901 series body car I've ever owned (and still have it) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Looking forward to seeing the repair progress and completion of your car ... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/popcorn[1].gif)
Dec 8 2013, 07:02 PM
Post #15
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From: Santa Rosa CA
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Very nice story. I look forward to the video and hearing about the rest of the restoration.
Dec 8 2013, 07:45 PM
Post #16
Resident German
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Posts: 37,898
Joined: 21-January 03
From: Oakland, Kalifornia
Member No.: 179
Region Association: Northern California
Always loved that color, it just looks right on a 914 ...
Dec 9 2013, 12:49 AM
Post #17
Senior Member
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From: Vancouver, B.C.
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Nice car!
Great story!
Hope my son takes custody and care of mine, when I am "not".
Love the wheels on the car, with that color of paint, nice touch, and different. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/welcome.png)
Dec 10 2013, 12:53 AM
Post #18
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From: SoCal
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(IMG:style_emoticons/default/icon_bump.gif) for hopefully more pics of this -6 ... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Dec 10 2013, 05:57 PM
Post #19
"Dude, Steve from Berkeley."
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From: Berkeley, CA
Member No.: 4,691
Region Association: Northern California
I always thought cookie cutters would look good on teeners, and meant to hang on to the ones from my first P-car (early '85 944).
Great story, thanks for sharing it and looking forward to more!
Dec 10 2013, 09:10 PM
Post #20
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Joined: 28-December 03
From: Minneapolis, MN
Member No.: 1,473
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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52779375297028502582018-05-28T20:54:49.546-07:00On the table: one woman's love of food...or, how an urban brown thumb becomes an urban farmer. Chickens, veggies, and compost, Oh, My!Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-49472118861329458822010-04-28T19:00:00.000-07:002010-04-28T19:32:11.630-07:00Priorities

Last Saturday the weather in Alameda was just glorious. The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun was hot, but the air in the shade still had an edge of crispness. It was perfect weather to dig, to amend, and to plant. Inside, I had an entire room of junk that needed to be sorted, and boxed, and stored to facilitate a renovation project. Inside, I had piles of laundry to be folded and put away. Inside, I had a sink full of dishes, catboxes in need of changing, and an assortment of other chores and responsibilities. With my daughter away for the day with our beloved Abuyens, it was an opportunity to GET THINGS DONE. I needed to get in and get started.

But the outside air was just too delicious to miss. I would, I thought, just work outside for a little while. Half an hour at most. Really. I'd just get my herbs into the rocky little area that I had prepared for them the previous weekend. In less than twenty minutes, it was done.

Oh well, time to go inside. On my way to the front door,  I paused to do a bit of involuntary weeding. (You know involuntary weeding, right? It's the kind of weeding you do in heals and a cocktail gown, when you're walking out on your way to the school gala, with your freshly painted nails… You really have no choice in the matter. You spy that nasty Oxalis peaking out from your strawberry patch, and its very existence enrages you. It becomes a moral imperative that it be immediately ripped out, which causes you to notice the crab grass growing between the edging and the stone, which cannot be allowed to sink further tendrils in, and those tendrils lead you to one of those damned prickly balls which is attempting to sprout a tree in your garden…you know, THAT kind of weeding, the end result of which is you arrive half an hour late to the formal event looking flushed and happy, but with a quarter inch of good black soil under your nails.)

Anyway, this particular involuntary weeding led me to another little area I'd prepared two weeks ago, and which I hadn't yet earmarked for a recipient. But in this gorgeous fresh air, the answer was right there, waiting for me. Hmmm…might be a good spot for red onions. Which I happen to have handy, right over there. I'll just pop those in, and then go inside.

Then, while collecting my onion starts, I notice that my lovely salad greens, particularly the delicate Amish deer tongue lettuces that I am so looking forward to trying, are wilting a bit in their little seed pots. I should get those in the ground, I muse.

Onions safely tucked in to their nice new home, I amend the green bed. And plant my greens. And water them, and take pleasure in watching the perk up before my eyes. And of course, next to the green bed is my now-browning snow pea trellis…definitely on its last legs. Can't have that eyesore in the middle of my beautiful garden, now, can I? Time to uproot those babies, and throw them to the tortoises.

Then, while carrying the last pea plants to the tortoise house I notice last year's tomato cages leaning against the wall. I know you're not supposed to plant tomatoes before May 1, but the weather is sooooo nice…surely I can get one in the ground?  Right? Right?

So I dig a nice deep hole in an already fertilized bed. Lacking a big fish-head to tuck in there, I improvise, raiding my husband's freezer for a hunk of silversides. Then I add some humic acid, a couple of crushed eggshells, some organic fertilizer, some compost. I fret a bit over the whole list of other things I don't have on-hand put in the hole (Cynthia from Love Apple Farm, my garden guru, keeps a whole laundry list of things that go in her tomato holes…resulting in 12 foot plants, and I'm not exaggerating.) But, considering that I've never added anything to a tomato hole before other than, well, a tomato plant, I figured "good enough." And in went the plant.  I buried her up a few inches above the previous soil line. Which brought the now empty trellis into my line of sight. So I amend that area, and plant three variety of cukes where they can happily climb. Then I sort of do a "random garden walk" tucking in a few extra seedlings here and there and everywhere.

Then, I looked at the unplanted greens that were leftover from the first greens patch. They are now looking even sadder than the original greens had. (Ok, I know I'm doing the plant-equivalent of anthropomorphism; all the greens needed was a bit of extra water. But my deeper plant sense said they wanted to go in the ground ASAP.) And one can never have too many salad greens when my daughter is around. So I prepare another bed. And plant it. And water deeply.

Phew! Time to go inside. Of course, on the walk in, my eye is drawn to the offensive prickly balls (seeds from the lovely liquid amber maple that grows from our median strip) that were literally littering my entire garden. And the grass that was springing up in and around my ornamentals. And the morning glory sprouts with whom I fight an ongoing, bitter, and unrelenting war.

After all my excellent efforts, I couldn't leave my garden looking so…untended. It just wasn't right! I'd spent so much energy and love upon it, it deserved to look spiffy! I'm pretty sure that at this point, I just surrendered to the inevitable. I spent the next two hours cleaning and tugging and pulling and raking and sweeping. And when it was all done, I looked at my garden. The last beets were waving their large, green leaves in the breeze. The tall prickly iris were making their annual obstreperous show. The diminutive Johnny jump-ups were lending late season color here and there. The new plantings were happily tucked into their enriched, organic soil. The remaining seedlings were consolidated into two neat flats. The soil bags and tools were tucked away. The sidewalk was swept clean of the evidence. All of it was resplendent in the late afternoon light. And I? I was happy down to my toes.

I never did get to that laundry.
Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-80075454186511870282010-03-26T21:27:00.000-07:002010-03-27T14:55:22.608-07:00Somebody...Save me from myself!
Well, it sure is Spring, isn't it?

Totoro, my sweet, silly, black silkie chicken, has gone broody. This is no surprise. Silkies are fantastic little mothers, and love nothing more than to raise chicks after chicks after chicks.

It all started early in the morning last weekend. Rich noticed Totoro wasn't in the yard with the other chickens. I thought at first she was just laying. But she was still in the nest around noon. And still there in the afternoon. And still there at night, even after the rest of the flock was roosting. You see, rather than abandoning the egg she'd just laid, like most modern hatchery birds do, Totoro had decided to become a mom. You can see her here, sitting on her egg, as well as everyone else's eggs, keeping them all nice and toasty warm.

Of course, since my chickens' closest experience with being serviced by a real rooster is having me grab their tails and ruff up their feathers a bit (What?! It makes them happy, okay!) Totoro can sit on that nest until my non-existent cows come home (I'm not that far gone yet, people!) and she won't get any chicks.

That is, unless I slip some fertile eggs under her. And I could. Yes, I could. And that would make her happy. Yes. Very Happy. I could use the interwebz, and contact a breeder. For about $25 that breeder could bubble-wrap and double-box and then overnight a handful of "hatching eggs." And then Totoro could hatch them.

And yes, I've already looked. And I've found several breeders with eggs I'd like to try. Breeds I've only ever dreamed of owning. Like little miniature chickens that look proud and aggressive, but are the size of a coke can at full growth. Or puffy lavender colored chickens with fuzzy feet. Or big giant chickens twice the size of my current largest. Or chickens who lay olive green, or chocolate-colored eggs.

But I'm only allowed 6 chickens in Alameda. And I already have 6 chickens. And I love them all. But I want to hatch some eggs. Somebody, stop me! Don't let me run afowl (!) of the law! I must resist the anthropomorphic bittersweetness of this bird vainly trying to hatch a wooden egg. Please! Talk me out of assisting this attempt at procreation.

Or... Better yet, become my accomplice! Who among you wants chickens? Some of you must! Cause if you'll let me, I'll help you order eggs, and we'll let Totoro hatch them out for you. And then I'll send the adorable little fuzzballs home with you, promise. Or I'll keep them until they are teenagers, and handraise them so they are tame and social when they move into their new home in your backyard coop.

Come on. It's Spring! You know you want to...

Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-60200664148959245272010-03-01T06:44:00.000-08:002010-03-01T07:21:28.657-08:00Departure from Reasonableness
So, as I am bringing in the last of my winter crop, it's time to review what I learned in my first foray into food growing:
1. If your soil is good, your plants practically raise themselves. Seriously. Just stay on aphid patrol, and your winter veg will flourish.

2. In the winter garden, some things go dormant, (my beets, spinach) showing no growth during the dark months. Don't panic; you'll harvest in spring.

3. One flat of veggies, grown out well, provides a LOT of produce.

4. In the cool damp of a bay area winter, additional irrigation is not necessary.

5. And, finally, if you fall in love with how beautiful your garden looks, you won't harvest your crops at their peak. Remember that the beauty of a veggie garden is transitory, and don't be precious about it...GET YOUR CROPS IN AND HARVESTED.

So, winter over, it's time for the spring season. I'm trying to be reasonable about spring and not bite off more than I can chew. Hmmmm....So far, the whole reasonable thing? Epic Fail.

Operation "More than You can Chew" is already well underway. Seedlings? I have three flats currently sprouting like gangbusters. I have a further 20 packets of seeds or so that are direct sow. Obviously, if I filled my winter garden with 3 direct sows and 1 flat of seedlings, then this quantity of plant matter exceeds the capacity of my current garden space.

So this weekend, I began to prepare more space by digging up more ornamentals. Funny how much less I care about my flowers now than I did in Fall. I'm quickly coming to the opinion that if it doesn't feed me, or feed my animals, or do something beneficial for my garden, then it's a freeloader, and must be removed. Okay, not entirely. I'm still keeping the Irises that remind me of Mom. But everything else? It's either gone, or going, if not this season then next. A well tended veggie garden is easily as beautiful as a perennial flower bed.

I'm also converting Kalin's old sandbox into my lettuce/greens garden. Oh, and then I'm planting raspberries and blueberries in the backyard. And a loquat tree...But really, I'm being reasonable. Sort of...
Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-77848712838406331662010-02-15T08:29:00.000-08:002010-03-01T06:44:04.752-08:00Eggstacy!
It happened! It happened!

So the timing of initial egg laying is an individual thing. Some breeds mature earlier than others, but even within a single breed there is often a 6-8 week variation in the start of egg-laying. Two chicks can be from the same brood, the same breed, the same hatching day, and there can still be MONTHS between when each decides to start making eggs.

According to my calculations, my first chicken (Yubaba, the black star sex-link) could, optimistically have started egg laying as early as February 6. Or, it could be another month. But I AM an optimist. Thus, I've been on a frantic egg watch for the last week.

And I had reasons for optimism. Yubaba looked like she was ready to start popping out eggs at any moment. Her wattles and her comb were bright red. Her chicken butt was all fluffy. And she was squatting enticingly at me. The squat is the chicken equivalent of a come-on. Like "Hey, you big sexy rooster, come and geeeeettttt it!" So anyway, I knew the day would be soon. But when?

Then, on Friday afternoon, it finally happened. I was at home taking care of my sick daughter, who thankfully did NOT have appendicitis. I took a break to check on my chickens. And what did I find in the previously ignored egg box but a small, perfect brown egg? I could barely breathe I was so excited.

The best part of the whole thing was the next day. We couldn't reasonably expect another egg on Saturday. Chickens take a while to warm up to everyday laying. But Kalin was excited, so she checked anyway. And found a beautiful BLUE egg. So freaking pretty. Seriously. It was like a giant robin had snuck into the coop and left a little present.

So while all eyes were on Yubaba, with her wattles, and her fluffy butt and her shameless squatting, little Calcifer, the Easter Egger, was sneaking up behind her in the maturation process. And once Yubaba demonstrated the how, she decided to get in on the action herself.

Who will be next? Yakul, easter egger number 2? She's not hip to the squatting yet. But her butt is fluffing. Or maybe it will be everybody's favorite, Lady Yupa. Her wattles are nice and red. Or Kiki. She's tiny but she's got the red going on. Who knows. But in the meantime, it's an extravegganza in the backyard. Woo Hoo!

Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-49204858122422651442010-01-08T07:05:00.000-08:002010-01-08T22:05:09.068-08:00Chickens and the Giant Squid
Those of you who know me in real life know that in addition to my fetish for poultry, I'm also a devotee of bizarre housepets. Our most noteworthy pets at the current moment are a trio of hairless cats: Kemo, the old lady (14), Clarabelle, the petite pink beauty, and Architeuthis, the big black-and-white, overweight, loving bruiser of a male. He's a wrecking ball cat: always in your lap, purring like a frieght train, except of course, when he's knocking things over just to see them fall. (My husband named him after the scientific name for one of the giant squid species. It's a mouthful, but it fits.)

As you can imagine, this trio of predators have been, since day one, VERY interested in project chicken. For a good month they were banished from my office while my babies brooded inside. It was amusing to stand inside the office, and watch the little kittynoses attempt to squeeze under the door. No matter how long I stayed in chickenland, they would keep watch. I'd find all three of them sitting like feline statues waiting for me whenever I left the room.

Once the chickens moved out, the cats began to spend much of their day at the back windows, participating in my family's new favorite sport. We call it "Chicken TV." It involves sitting, sometimes for hours, watching the pecking, and fluffing, and flapping, and clucking, in short, the tiny dramas that make up a busy chicken's existence. All of us watch it, but none so much as Arkie. You can just see the kitty-thought-bubble forming over his head. "YUM!"

It's natural. I get it. My cats are, for all their highly bred, indoor cat hairlessnes, still predators. Those rubber snakes they drag around, and pounce on endlessly are an everpresent reminder of the call of the wild. And yet, despite this knowledge, and the obvious stalking behavior, I got complacent. Cats are inside. Chickens are out. That's that. I should have known that my cats, aesthetically challenged, but smart, would eventually figure out a way to meet the chickens "up close and personal."

And who was it that made the move? None other than our favorite squid boy, Architeuthis. It's obvious to me now that Arkie had been planning his move for some time. We'd been sitting in the living room on a Saturday, watching the chickens frolic in the yard, when, as I often do, I got up to feed them a treat. When I opened the door, Arkie appeared from out of nowhere, neatly slipped between my legs at a full gallop, and zoomed into the yard. It was an impressive display of stealth and cunning. I dropped both handfulls of broccoli, and raced after him, visions of bloody chickens in my head.

I needn't have worried. Chickens are simultaneously very stupid about some things (Just look at the face of a chicken who has accidentally flown up into a tree. Priceless!) and very smart about others. Apparently, Cat Management is one of the "smart areas."

When Arkie reached the yard, all the chickens immediately pivoted to face him. They looked at him with blank, baleful gazes. Arkie blinked nervously and took a tentative step forward. All the chickens, in unison, took a step forward too. Arkie then immediately took a step backwards, glancing at me with panicked eyes as if to say "Help, Mom, help!"

After another moment of mutual staring, Yubaba, the largest and most mature chicken, took another step forward towards the cat. It was just too much for the big predator...Arkie turned tail and ran back to the back door of the house. I let him in, and didn't see him again for several hours.

I think he was hiding.

Smart boy. As a witness, my money was on the Chickens.

Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-74323867590338725592009-12-13T07:52:00.000-08:002009-12-13T11:37:42.789-08:00Question Two: Any Crowing Yet?

It's very gratifying when my friends and associates get as "in" to my chickens as I do. My friend Kristin, in particular, has been a big chicken supporter. Her favorite question, one that she asks with regularity is, "Any crowing yet?"

For those of you who are new to the blog, I'll add some color to explain the urgency of that question. You see, crowing may indicate the presence of boys in my flock...and boys end up in the pot. If you've gotten attached to a particular bird, say, the one with the big white poof on her head, the prospect of beheading her, I mean, him, can be onerous, no matter how committed one might be to omnivory. (Which Kristin is not, by the way. An omnivore, I mean. Keep up, people!)

You see, chicken sexing is an imperfect science, and it's very breed-specific. Here's my flock's breakdown.

Yubaba is what's called a sex-link; females are one color, and males another. Yubaba's black and gold feathers make her not only a tidy, attractive chicken, but also undeniably female. So we are 100% sure, at this point that she'll be a layer, not a crower.

Yakul and Calcifer are Easter eggers. They were "sexed" by professional chicken sexers at the hatchery. When they were a day old, a probe was shoved into their vent to look for the bump that would indicate a male. (Fun job, eh?) Anyway, neither Yakul, nor Calci had the bump, so we're 95% sure that they are of the female persuasion.

So that leaves our smaller breeds: Kiki, the Mille Fleur (shown above), Lady Yupa, the Polish (shown below) and Totoro, the Silkie. In reality, for these three, the only way to really know if they are male or female is to wait for eggs. (Crowing isn't even foolproof, as occasionally a dominant female, in the absence of a roo, will take it upon herself to keep her flock in line...crowing all the way.) With that said, a couple of months before laying, males and females tend to feather in differently. Feather sexing is uncertain at best, but it does seem 80-95% accurate, depending on the breed.

I am not an expert. But I've been studying up. For example, I know that a female polish's poof will stay round, whereas a male will get "streamers", longer feathers that break the illusion of a powderpuff. The female silkie will have an upright pompadour, whereas the male will have a "blown back" look. Given these nuggets, as well as others, I had formed the unspoken assumption that my flock looked all-female. But as I indicated, I am in no way an expert.

Thanks to the internet, I do, however, have access to experts. 50,000 of them, to be exact. Backyardchickens.com is an online forum for chickenphiles around the world. They have an entire board dedicated exclusively to helping people feather sex their flocks. Post your pictures, and within minutes, dozens of opinions will be posted about whether you have cockerels or pullets. Two weeks ago, I finally got the gumption up to post photos of my "girls." The response of the experts? ALL GIRLS. And now, I'm sure, I have officially jinxed every single one of them!

It's too early to celebrate. I could still have a girly roo in the coop. (Particularly Totoro, as silkies are notoriously difficult to feather sex, and don't reach sexual maturity till 9 months of age anyway. All the others will be laying months before we know for sure on her.) So let's just say that I am "cautiously optimistic" at this point.
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-81134402652022092972009-11-30T07:04:00.000-08:002009-11-30T07:40:48.374-08:00Your questions...You've been asking...so I'll be answering. A different question every day until they are all done.

Question from Gary: How's the composting going?

(Asking about my rotting poop? Now that's above-and-beyond the normal bonds of friendship. Thank you Gary.)

Now that winter has arrived, my compost pile has slowed waaaaaay down. As in, stopped. Or at least stopped to the naked eye, which is what I'm using to make my inspection. And this is despite the fact that one can hardly call our Bay Area winters cold. We haven't even had an overnight frost yet. But still, a slowdown in rotting is normal. But it leaves me with a problem:Where do I put my scraps now? I've pretty much filled the bin, and since it will be a few more months until the compost inside it is ready for distribution, I have nowhere to put my daily non-chicken-friendly food scraps. So I'm back to throwing away food, which feels...terrible.

I could buy another composter, and fill it in anticipation of the spring rotting season. But that doesn't really feel all that productive to my instant gratification needs. So, I've decided to step up my composting profile by adding a wriggly wranch (sic) to the equation. Worms. Lots of them. Safe and snug in my laundry room, they will happily convert my organic materials into supersoil all winter long. I've done the research, of course. I can get a ranch at a discounted price through my county waste management authority. And I can get worms from the local vermiculture supply house. (Ya gotta love the Bay Area, folks!)

It's the obvious next step, but I'm a little reluctant. To the uninitiated, vermiculture sounds really complicated. There are worms, and there's bedding, and it all has to be damp but not wet, and then food and organics should cover the surface, and then there's a removal process that I still haven't gotten a handle upon. It sounds a lot like...work. Shudder.

An offset to this is the fact that worm castings (the polite term for worm poop) are considered even more beneficial to a garden than kitchen compost. Furthermore, generating castings is certainly a quicker process than composting. In all liklihood, my first batch of castings will be ready long before my first compost, despite the fact that my compost has a 2 month head start.

So, what's the delay? Why haven't I ordered my ranch and my wrigglers, and shredded up a mess of old newspapers so that my worms can get working? Well... personal revelation time. And don't hold it against me, but despite the fact that Christmas is still a month away I already have spender's fatigue. Yep, you guessed it, I just wrote my semi-annual property tax check. Festive! So little Libby is feeling like short-sightedly hoarding her diminishing pool of pennies rather than investing in long-term green solutions right now. How very... American of me. Sad, but true. But don't fret too much, dear reader. This fatigue happens every year at this time...and doesn't often slow me down for more than a week or two. Eventually, my guilt at throwing away food scraps will overcome my post-property -tax-pouting. And I'll be back to being as close to zero waste as I can be.

Next Post: You've asked. And I've been reluctant to answer lest I jinx it all. But you deserve to know. Next week, an update on the male/female ratio of my flock, complete with pictures of the mostest beautifulest of my girls. Stay tuned!
Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-28668888181883548252009-11-15T19:43:00.001-08:002009-11-16T19:24:16.503-08:00Using it ALL
I have no problem with meat. Really. I'm an omnivore through and through. But I'm starting to have a real problem with factory farming. Not that I won't, in a moment of weakness, scarf down an utterly-unsustainably-raised-but-delicious order of crispy deep-fried chicken strips from Jack In The Box. I am human after all.

But if I'm going to buy meat for my family, or prepare something for guests, I will go out of my way, and pay a premium, to get something that was sustainably raised. Call me an idealist, but I want to buy chickens that ran around, kept their beaks, and grazed on grass. I want to buy beef that didn't spend the last six weeks of its life hip-deep in its own excrement, trying to digest a grain for which its ruminant belly is clearly not evolved. When I eat meat, I want my dollars to create demand for smarter, earth-and-animal friendly farming practices. (And yes, I did read the Omnivore's Dilemma. And yes, it got to me. Which won't surprise anyone who reads this blog.)

So a couple of weeks ago I decided to roast a chicken. I researched recipes, sending out an appeal via facebook for my friends' favorite versions. Once the recipe was selected, I went to the Alameda Natural Grocery and bought a free-range, pasture raised, air-dried roaster. I rubbed her with salt and pepper and olive oil. I stuffed her with a steaming lemon and some fresh herbs. I roasted her and her potato friends gently (as the recipe commanded) and then when she wasn't crisping up, I broiled her skin into tasty yumminess. She wasn't the best roasted chicken I've ever had (there's no beating Zuni's wood-fired oven) but she was damned good.

At the table, our little family did homage to the lovely bird. Between the three of us, we ate almost all of the white meat (paired with a front-yard salad, naturally). Normally, I'm a dark meat girl, but the white meat on this thing was so moist and flavorful that there was no need to go for the higher-fat slices. I packed away much of the rest of the meat for Kalin's lunch the next day. All that was left was the meaty carcass, the wings, some funky gristly bits, the underdone skin from below the bird, and the raw chicken neck.

Given my recent reading, I was keenly aware of the fact that every animal that is slaughtered to provide a meal like this one has an environmental impact. Even organic, humanely raised chicken, the waste of whom is composted into fertilizer, has an environmental cost... particualry when it is shipped in trucks that burn fossil fuels. Given this, wasn't it my responsibility to get the absolute most from this animal? To use it ALL?

So instead of tossing them, I plopped those leftover parts into my stock pot. I tossed in a couple of bay leafs, a handful of garden cut rosemary, some pepper corns, some kosher salt, and some semi-fresh thyme that had been residing in my fridge for about two weeks too long. I cut a few limp carrots in half, quartered an onion, threw in the last rib of celery from the depths of the produce drawer, and covered it all with water. Total prep time? Maybe 2 minutes. Absolutely clean veggie drawer? A happy bonus.

I brought the whole mess to a boil, turned it down and let it simmer all evening. Watched bad TV. Watched Rich tickle Kalin. Nibbled dark chocolate. Read another food book that will undoubtedly lead me deeper into the slow-food wilderness. Never checked the stove. Just let the simmer do the work.

Just before bed, I turned off the burner and poured the contents through a colander into another clean pot. The disreputable-looking solids went in a bowl in the fridge. The next morning, they'd go to my backyard coop. My opportunistically omnivorous ladies would gleefuly devour every edible scrap, thus converting everything but the bones into future eggs.

But the main result of my endless simmer was a fragrant, rich, golden liquid. I poured most of it into empty yogurt containers (about six of them...I made a LOT of broth) and stored them in the freezer. The rest? Kalin slurped it down. My child, who has never enjoyed a soup in her life, not only drank a cup of broth fresh from the stove, but had me warm up more broth the next morning...for her breakfast. Apparently, she's a fan.

In the intervening weeks I've made several dishes with this stuff. It's a marvel. I needn't do anything fancy to make it tasty. Defrost, throw in some veg, and some noodles, and voila, something delicious that my daughter will actually eat.

All the years I've been using Swanson's broth seem laughable now. I'd always assumed that Swanson's was fine. Sure I wouldn't want to warm it up and drink it. Nasty! But it tasted fine cooked into food. Or so I thought. How was I to know that homemade broth, which tastes good on its own, would make exponentially tastier food? Now that I write these words, they feel obvious...but they weren't obvious to me. And just in case they weren't obvious to you either, I'm sharing.

So what are you waiting for? The holidays, with their stuffings, and gravies and casseroles are around the corner, crying out for good broth. Next time you serve a chicken, or T-Bones, or a bone-in fish, boil up your leftovers. Believe me, it's culinary gold. And you'll feel wonderfully virtuous when you use it all!

As for the small mumified child that started this particular diatribe, my apologies. You guys get mad at me when I don't include a photo, and I didn't take a photo of my roasted-chicken carcass. So I improvised.

Remember, Kalin Tut says "Throw that carcass in the pot!"
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-83315066588154391352009-11-14T14:36:00.000-08:002009-11-14T15:30:55.027-08:00Harvest

Look! We have Lettuce!

While the front part of our garden bed, the part that gets less light, is growing glacially, (I'm not sure we'll be eating beets until spring!) the full-sun part is in full swing. We have lettuce. We have arugula. We have broccoli raab. The English peas didn't make it, but the snow peas are climbing, and blooming. And we have the worlds smallest, cutest radishes. My daughter, who wouldn't eat a radish to save her life, is happily pulling them up, and crunching them up, claiming "Mmmm....good."

My broccoli hasn't flowered yet; Brassicas are notoriously slow in winter. But really, who cares?! The leaves are selectively making their way into our salad bowl, lending a lovely texture to what we eat. If we don't get flowers, we'll still have gotten our happy money's worth from them.

We are eating a salad from the garden practically every day now: our own mesclun made of lettuces, kholrabi leaves, even the tender greens from nasturtiums. We harvest every day with no appreciable dent being made in what is still out there. It's good, it's fresh. It's worth every effort that went into its growth.

The other day, I made a winter soup out of some homemade chicken stock, (more on that next post!) some mirepoix, some shiitake mushrooms and a handful of barley. I tasted it. The homemade stock was so good that it needed nothing else. Well, almost nothing else. It was brown. Very brown. Unappetizingly brown. So out to the garden I went, and came back with a big handful of broccolli raab. The soup was much improved. Not only did the greens improve the look of the soup, but they added a freshness to the rich, earthy mix.

And better still, using the greens made the soup mine. I planted the seeds. I transplanted the seedlings. I watered them. I worried over them. I threw them into my soup. And I ate them. I can't eat anything from my garden without feeling that blooming sense of prideful ownership. It's a strange, but a welcome feeling.

Next step? Sharing my bounty with other people.

Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-35424320477147025322009-10-23T20:25:00.000-07:002009-10-23T22:06:02.288-07:00Oh, the Rot!I'm sure all of you will be grateful for the lack of photo in this issue when you find that the topic of this treatise is compost.

You may know that chickens poop. Self-evident, right? But saying that chickens poop is a little like saying there's some water in Venice. My feathered friends poop constantly. It's like a performance art form. "Le Poop." The girls shake their booties, squawk, and create their "self expression" with startling regularity. And now that they are getting older we're not taking little runny bird droppings. We're talking stinky, significant, recognizably turd-shaped poop.

Gross? Hell yeah. But it's also garden gold. Or so I'm told. Chickenpoop is supposed to be one hell of an organic fertilizer. It's packed with goodness! But there is a catch. Unlike bunny bowel-nuts, chickenpoop is so nutrient rich that one can't use it directly on one's garden. The nitrogen will actually burn your plants.

And so, one must let chicken poop mature a bit, like a fine wine. In the right environment, one that is moist, dark and warm, the poo will mellow, it will morph, it will transform into wonderdirt.

And so it was, several weeks after my chickens arrived, that I joined the compost revolution.

My Envirocycle Composter with Collection Base (for catching nutrient-rich juices) is an engineering marvel. No need to pitchfork it, no need to stir it. Just give the barrel-shaped container an easy spin on its lovely casters once every couple of days. Periodically, you can harvest the "tea" from the base, which can be diluted for use as a liquid fertilizer, and once every two months, you get your wonderdirt payoff from the barrel.

Within a day of contributing the first load I could feel the increased warmth through the sides of the bin. Within a week, the changes were visible. Things had begun to break down with astounding rapidity. Opening the bin to add in the latest bowl of pizza crusts and apple cores became ever more exciting. What would I find inside this time?

A scant three weeks into the exercise, my used chicken bedding, with its glorious poop content, my table scraps, and my yard clippings are all beginning to look distinctly soil-like. It's a decompositional marvel. And I'm only halfway through the composting process. It's all criminally easy. No flies. No smell. No mess. Just unlatch the door, toss in the scraps, latch, and spin.

In case you can't tell, I'm starting to get emotional about it. I now think of all the food scraps I used to throw away and I feel mildly ill. What a lost opportunity! How many loads of compost could even now be at work in my yard? But yesterday is past. Today, I am on the right track. Today, I a more responsible citizen of our planet. Today, I am greener than yesterday. Today I am a composter. And I feel pretty damned good about it. All hail the rotting poo!

Who knew something so dirty could make me feel so virtuous?
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-29734194780853181652009-10-08T19:26:00.001-07:002009-10-12T07:04:24.426-07:00Phase Two
Okay, so I haven't gotten eggs yet, but I think we can safely say that phase one of project food, namely acquiring and establishing a flock of chickens, is complete. They are cute, and plumping up by the day...a fact that has not escaped the notice of the neighborhood predators. Thankfully, the flock is snug in Chicken-Itza, which, like its namesake, is very sturdily made. The big black stray cat found this out the hard way when she charged, head-first into the hardware cloth. She staggered around for a few seconds, but then reclaimed her dignity. You could almost see the word bubble form over her head: "I meant to do that."

I'm told that one of the three Grove Street Cooper's Hawks also tried the fortifications today, alighting on top of the run despite the fact that our neighbor was less than four feet away at the time. Adrian charged the bird, but not before the hungry hawk discovered that the tender, tasty morsels were beyond her raptor reach.

Haven't seen any raccoons yet, but they will come, I have no doubt.

So, while Wild Kingdom has been playing out in the back yard, phase two of project food has taken place in the front.

Let me back up. Remember when I hired and subsequently fired the backyardfood project to transform my ornamental yard into a food mecca? Well, in August I found another outfit that did backyard food consulting. But unlike the first outfit, they had a tangible web presence; you can check them out yourself on myurbanfarm.net.

Anyway, after my initial consult with Dana and Michael, I was optimistic. Dana is a chef-turned-farmer, and Michael is a general contractor-turned-farm-creator. Seems like a great marriage of skills to me. As they were booked solid, I reserved the first available slot, which was almost two months away. And why, you may ask, given my verbosity, is this the first you've heard about this? Well, to tell you the truth, I didn't tell you guys about Dana and Michael because I'm still chagrined by the backyard food project debacle. I hated the idea that the same thing might happen, with myurbanfarm and I might have to fire them too. Far better, I decided to tell you guys about the fait accompli!

And so now you know. While I've been toiling away, serving my community on a criminal jury, Dana and Michael have been toiling away in my yard. The first thing that they did, back at our initial consultation, was redirect my winter planting focus away from my backyard, to the front. This makes sense. Even in summer the backyard is part-to-full shade. The front yard, by contrast, is full-to-part sun. So if I have any hope of a winter crop, it has to be in front.

I was a little nervous, because the front yard is so public...but I took a chance anyway. And this time, the chance paid off.

I made a diagram of which plants I loved and had to keep, and which ones were eligible for removal. On Tuesday, while I listened to testimony, my two agents of transformation tore down part of my rotting redwood retaining wall, replacing it with beautiful stone drystack. They installed stair access, and stepping stones so that one could access all planting areas without needing to step on the soil for any reason. On Wednesday, they tilled my soil, amended it, and set up my irrigation so that every spot got adequate water, but nothing got drowned.

When I arrived home at 4 o'clock yesterday, they were just finishing the hard parts. The structure of the yard was beautiful, prepared, and ready to plant. Together, we planted the seedlings I'd been nurturing, and direct-sowed several new crops. So they did all the intensive labor, and I got to do the fun part. It was decadent, but so worth it!

In the spring, Dana and Michael will come back for phase 3. They'll help me prepare for, and plant my summer crops. They'll also plant the side of my house with easy producers, like raspberries, blackberries, and even blueberries, as well as build a couple of backyard raised beds for my summer greens.

Next post, I promise pictures. Until then, send your good seed-sprouting juju my way!

Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-11599561489546132472009-10-03T08:33:00.000-07:002009-10-03T09:19:39.094-07:00End of an era...A funny thing happened this week...I spent less time with my chickens. And the time I spent with them was less ecstatic. Yes, I still read up on them on backyardchickens.com...but I fretted far less. Caring for them became less pleasure, more responsibility. I found myself getting annoyed by how messy they were, frustrated by how much bedding they threw around in the process of eating, and unhappily amazed by how a single bird could produce SO MUCH POO.

It wasn't until Friday, when I glanced at the calendar on our fridge that I realized...my babies aren't babies anymore. They are past the one-month mark. Fully feathered. Fuzzless. Old enough, in fact, to move outside.

I think that, subconsciously, I've been preparing for the separation. Now, I don't want you to think I don't love the chickens anymore, because I do. They are still fascinating creatures. But the feeling is less intense, much more in line with how I feel about my cats. More like a normal human/pet interaction, rather than like a crazy chickenlady obsession interaction.

Last week, I was worried that I'd be too sad to move the chickens out. I went so far as to consider paying an exorbitant amount of money to get a couple of exotic Seramas, a miniature chicken breed that is a common house pet in Malaysia. The babies are roughly the size of a nine-volt battery; the adults only slightly larger than a can of coke. I reasoned that at that size, I could keep them in my office year-round so that I wouldn't have to surrender all chickenlove once I moved the egg flock to the backyard.

But this week, I have no such desire. Like a parent with a college-aged child, I'm now looking forward to reclaiming my office, getting my space back, not having to deal with the clutter and mess of my temporary adolescent residents.

Yes, the time has come to MOVE THE FLOCK OUT. Today Lady Yupa, Calcifer, Yakul, Totoro, and Kiki will relocate to Chicken Itza, the beautiful pastel-painted poultry palace in our backyard. There they will stay, locked up, for at least 48 hours, so that they can imprint upon their new digs as "home."

And I'm okay with that.

The season of obsessive chicken-love has come to an end. But I can't regret my month-long chickenmoon. I feel incredibly fortunate to have garnered so much satisfaction from my time with the six little balls of fluff. How often do we encounter something in life that gives us so much unexpected pleasure?

Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-31240949563510729492009-09-26T08:28:00.000-07:002009-09-26T08:57:57.047-07:00Crazy Chicken LadyOne might think from my lack of blogging, that I've lost interest in Project Food. The truth is, I've been having a chickenmoon. Why write about food, when I can be feeding chickens morsels of broccoli, and watching them attack the spears like the little velociraptors from which they are descended? Why scribe about chickens when I can be experiencing the brush of warm feathery bodies, or watching their pecking-order antics? Did you know that juvenile chickens do the chest bump? Did you know that when their feathers come in, it pushes out their fuzz, leaving them homely in the very cutest way? Did you know? Did you? Did you?

These moments of ecstatic discovery have been somewhat offset by moments of piercing anxiety. Like when, after 4 days of intense research, I decided my chicks needed a Marek's disease vaccine. And the window for getting said vaccine closes at the end of week three. And my chickens were 2 weeks and 3 days old. (Thankfully, Rich rode in on his white hypodermic charger, and gave my girls their shots so that they wouldn't hate me. BIG husband points there...) Or like yesterday, when a lengthy sojourn on backyarchickens.com engendered paranoia that maybe ALL my chickens are roos. Even my sexlink. Are those saddle feathers coming in pointed? Is that chicken taking a taller stance than the rest? Is that comb getting darker? The answer to all of those questions is thus far "No." But a chickenmom can worry, right?

One thread on backyardchickens.com that caught my eye last night was "You know you're a crazy chickenlady when..." My answer? When your own father calls to ask how the chickens are doing, and what he means is, when do I get my fresh eggs, and what you reply with is a detailed report on each bird's personality quirks. Or when your new friends at your daughter's school know to ask you about your chickens as soon as they see you, and then they follow up by sending you articles on other crazy chickenladies. Or when you begin to find the smell of the chicken brooder "soothing." Or when you invite your entire neighborhood over to watch you paint the trim on your coop. Or when your husband, to make you happy, offers to install a webcam inside the brooder so that you can watch your chickens from work. (I said no, so I'm not too far gone...yet.)

I am a crazy chicken lady. It's official. And I feel no shame.

Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-65223803916983607112009-09-07T13:58:00.000-07:002009-09-09T19:22:42.127-07:00The Sounds of the FlockRemember a couple of weeks ago when I was fretting that after all of this effort on the part of friends, family, and self that I might hate the chickens? I needn't have worried. I love them.

In particular, I love the sounds of my flock. The gentle, syncopated peeps that indicate chicken contentment. The peck peck peck of little beaks on the sides of the brooder. The pit-pat of chicken feet on hardwood, as the flock chases each other across my office. The rustle of wings as the little puffballs attempt to fly.

I'm told that these sounds will change within the next several weeks. Peeps will give way to clucks. Pitpats will give way to heavier feet. So for now, I lie on my floor, eyes closed, feeling the occaisional brush of fluff against my skin, and savor. I savor the peeps, and the pit-pats, and the rustles. I savor the sounds of my flock.
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-71404509493630398762009-09-05T21:32:00.000-07:002009-09-05T21:41:58.704-07:00Meet the Flock: Yubaba
I'm the only chicken named after a Miyazaki villain, Yubaba from the seminal work: Spirited Away. I'm a black sex link (aka, black star), and thus the only chicken who is certain to be a girl.

Thus far, my personality is a big question mark. I'm the most "conventional" of the breeds in this flock, developed to be a good egg layer. I probably won't be able to match the other breeds for looks, but I'll pay my way with large, pinkish brown eggs.
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-39421790851217873182009-09-05T21:23:00.000-07:002009-09-05T21:32:14.691-07:00Meet the Flock: Kiki
Hello. I'm Kiki, named after the itinerant adolescent witch from the Miyazaki movie. I'm a Mille Fleur, a breed that translates as "A thousand flowers." I may not look like much now, but I'll be a stunner as an adult, each feather edged in a contrasting color. I'll also be tiny, reaching only 2 pounds at adulthood, half the size of the next largest chicken in the flock.

Of course, I'm also a bantam, which means I'm not sexed...so hope that I'm a girl!
Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-80581960190532387452009-09-05T18:05:00.000-07:002009-09-05T18:19:46.463-07:00Meet the Flock: Calcifer
Hello. I'm Calcifer. I'm also an Easter Egger. I'm named after a fire demon...and I do have a firey nature with the flock. I'm currently top chicken, much to Lord Yupa's chagrin.

I'm also striking, with beautiful leopard spots on my back. I'm fearless, which makes me quite friendly with the humans. I'm officially Libby's favorite today, and I plan on keeping it that way!
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-37092721536423415882009-09-05T17:54:00.000-07:002009-09-05T18:05:09.152-07:00Meet the Flock: Yakul
Hello, I'm Yakul. I'm named after a smart, responsive red elk in a Miyazaki movie. I'm a full sized Easter Egger. Some day, I'll lay eggs that are blue, green or pink in color. (But I'll only lay one of those three colors...I haven't decided which yet.)

I'm not as bossy as my sister, Calcifer, (you'll meet her next), so I'm in the middle of the pecking order...so far.

There's no telling what I'll look like when I grow up, since Easter Eggers come in every color. But without a doubt, I'll be a looker!
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-38377527080750941742009-09-05T17:48:00.000-07:002009-09-05T17:54:33.471-07:00Meet the Flock: Totoro
Hi, I'm Totoro. Do you like my fuzzy legs? How about my extra toes? You can't see them in this picture, but I have two extras on each leg. This is normal for my breed. I'm a black silkie; even when I get my grown up feathers, I'll be fuzzy.

I was the most timid of the flock when I first arrived...but I've perked up, and am now in the mix with everyone else.

Like Lord Yupa, I'm also a bantam, so I have a 50/50 chance of ending up in the pot. I hope I'm a girl!

Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-54442100308226713192009-09-05T17:26:00.000-07:002009-09-05T17:46:25.360-07:00Meet the Flock: Lord Yupa
Hello, my name is Lord Yupa, and I am the cutest bird in the flock. I'm named after a famous swordsman from a Miyazaki movie (10 points if you can guess which one). I'm trying to live up to that name...in the early days I seem to be in the running for top bird in the pecking order.

I'm a Polish, which means that I'll have black feathers at maturity, with a white mop on my head.

I like to eat before bed. On my first day at my new home, I got so sleepy that I fell asleep with my head dangling inside my feeder. Today, I fell asleep in a plate of food.

Because I'm technically a bantam breed, I wasn't sexed at birth...so I have a 50/50 shot of being male, and thus ending up in the pot. My family is thus trying not to get too attached to me...good luck with that!
Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-36872970620811759842009-09-04T17:46:00.000-07:002009-09-05T14:55:56.095-07:00The chickens are here, the chickens are here!!!
I am deliriously happy. At this very moment, my office is home to six adorable, healthy, hoppy, beautiful baby chickens.

At this point, I'm going to have to admit that although I consider myself to be a thoroughly pragmatic person, I have succumbed to sentimentality about these animals. (Surprised?) I didn't want them to suffer a cold, thirsty 48 hours in the US Postal system, so I purposefully ordered my chicks from a hatchery within "driving distance." Fresno. In the central valley. According to Googlemaps, a 3 hour drive away from my house.

Vastly inconvenient for me, of course. But far preferable to subjecting the peeps to the indignities of packaged travel.

My reputation as a hardass will be further in tatters when I reveal the following. On the ride home, I noticed that my passengers (traveling in comfort in a vented box on the floor of my passenger side) would peep with distress if the temperature in the car crossed below 90 degrees. So I rode home, through the 105 degree central valley, without AC. Every now and then, when my face began to throb, I would allow myself a brief blast of 75 degree air. Then the peeping would start, and I would resignedly turn off the AC...and step on the gas.

Not surprisingly, I made it home in 2.5 hours. No incentive like imminent heatstroke to inspire one to travel beyond the speed of sound.

Anyway, chicks and I arrived home safely, despite my warp-speed travel. Thanks to my tech-savy husband, the babies were installed in a cozy, temperature-controlled brooder (set for 95 degrees, donchaknow). My daughter, rescued from bedtime by our arrival, was beside herself with joy. And I was filled with the satisfaction of having realized a dream that was months in the making.

Have I mentioned I'm happy?

Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-87424868997767525022009-08-14T19:40:00.000-07:002009-08-14T20:19:29.888-07:00Tale of Two Plants
At the beginning of summer, just as I was beginning this whole urban farming extravaganza, my daughter and I planted two heirloom tomato plants. One was "Mr. Stripey" and the other has since been named "Mrs. Peach."

From the moment these two plants touched their identical soil, Mrs. Peach has flourished, and Mr. Stripey has languished. Too much water? Tried fixing that to no result. Pests? Nope. Too little water? Uh uh. Too much light? Nein.

None of the usual fixes seemed to address whatever was bugging Mr. Stripey. And while, inches away, Mrs. Peach grew, and flowered and set out dozens of fruit, Mr. Stripey made a single fruit, and then sat there, bad tempered, for the rest of the summer. Fed up with nursing him, I let Mr. Stripey stew in his own juices. If he wanted to be a bad plant, nothing I was going to do was going to change that.

Then, two days ago, out of the blue, my daughter rushed in to the living room, bouncing with uncontainable joy. "The 'mato on Mr. Stripey changed color! Can we harvest it, Mama?"

I had no idea. What constitutes ripe on a "Mr. Stripey" tomato? I consulted the oracle named google. My five minutes of research revealed that there are two cultivars that carry that name, one of which was ripe when orange, the other when red. So...did I have the orange version? Or was my fruit orange only as a way station on the road to red ripeness?

I couldn't figure out a way to tell, but with KK buzzing around like an Africanized honeybee I decided to take a chance. With great ceremony, we harvested our first Mato of the season. Would it be a brilliant success? Or a dismal, unripe failure?

I sliced it, cutting away the little black area where some bird or bug had made a little hole. I put one pretty pink and orange slice on each plate, sprinkled it with salt, and, in unison, we each took a bite. We broke into identical grins. It was firm, but juicy, full of tomato flavor but with a faint citrus tang. Deeelishus.

I felt almost guilty for how badly I had treated Mr. Stripey. Sure he had a bad attitude. Sure he refused to grow, and produced yellow, diseased looking leaves. But boy, could he make a tomato! One tomato. Just one. But it was a doozy.

I went outside to apologize to him. He squatted there, ugly as ever. But as I looked at him with new affection, what should I discover but two more baby stripeys, plum size, hiding among the unattractive greenery. How I'd misjudged him!

Next door, Mrs. Peach preened, covered in flowers and small, unripe fruit. I looked at her, and shrugged my shoulders. As far as I'm concerned, the score is now Mr. Stripey one, Mrs. Peach, zero.
Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-62542386068541290942009-08-09T09:42:00.000-07:002009-08-09T19:57:47.561-07:00We have a coop!

The eagle has landed! Or rather, the eagle's nest has landed.

Last night, Dru and Rich, with the help of our much-beloved next door neighbors, the Abuyen family, maneuvered my 1000 pound poultry palace into its picturesque place in my yard. (I'm not sure what the actual weight of the coop is, beyond the fact that it is heavy. Very Heavy. We'll use our artistic license and call it 1000 lbs.)

This was not as easy as it might seem. I mentioned that it's heavy, right? And it's also 4ft by 4ft...if you don't count the nest box, which juts out and extra 18 inches from the side, making the actual width closer to six feet. This made it way too wide to fit through any of our gates. So some intense preparation was involved.

First, my husband, in a display of marital devotion, spent much of the day preparing the coop site. He cut down a tree, moved rocks, and ripped up bushes. I provided cold beverages, and ripped up weeds, but the major manliness was all Rich.

Then, Rich and the Abuyens cleared a path for the coop through THEIR yard. This involved moving furniture and boxes, and planters, and even using a saws-all to cut through the remnants of an ancient dog run.

As all of these people labored to make my dream come true, I was hit by a wave of anxiety. What if I don't even like the chickens? What if I've made all these people go out of their way for my crazy pipe-dream and then I just want the chickens dead in a few months. I confessed this to Rich and he laughed. "Well," he said, chuckling to himself, "If you don't end up liking them, at least it won't be because you didn't do your research!"

Preparations reached crescendo at 7:45 at night, when Dru arrived with my coop in the back of his rented trailer.  (Small Photo One) Dru expertly backed the trailer down the Abuyen's narrow driveway. Rich tossed back a red bull. The Abuyens poured from their house, work gloves donned, to help out. I stood there like a movie heroine, nervously wringing my hands.

Dru, Rich, Hector, Ryan and Adrien set the legs of the house onto twin dollies, and rolled it down two planks from the trailer onto the driveway. Then, they rolled it all the way through the Abuyen's back yard. (Small Photo Two) While the menfolk toiled, I offered moral support, devotion, and photo documentation.

Then, using the saws-all once again, Rich cut through the fence separating our two properties. (Did I mention we have the best neighbors in the freaking world?) The men then lifted the coop up on a set of long bamboo polls, and carefully, steadily, gently, walked it into its position in the yard.

Look at it. (Large Photo) Doesn't it look like it was meant? Tucked into its little pocket of greenery, I almost expect to find fairies hovering around it.

I...am...so....happy.

As this stage of project chicken comes to a close, I wish to offer some thanks to the Abuyens: Stephanie, Hector, Ryan, Adrien, Gabriel and Isaac, for always going above and beyond the call of neighborliness. To my husband, for supporting in me in this, just as he does in every other crazy endeavor in my life. And to every single one of you who has had to listen to me blather about chickens for the past four months...Many thanks to you all. In a few more months, there will be fresh eggs for everyone!!!
Libbyhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-79815846808811042722009-07-30T22:07:00.000-07:002009-07-30T22:32:17.769-07:00Even odds...I placed my chicken order yesterday. For realz! Project chicken makes progress!

I placed my order with a feed store down in Fresno. They, in turn, will order my chicks from the Belt Hatchery down the street from them. I will collect the fuzzballs on the glorious day of September 3rd. By driving the two hours down there I will not only satisfy my craving for instant gratification, but I will also save my pullets the trauma of being boxed up and spending 2-3 days at the whim of the US postal service.

The good news is, the ordering went off without a hitch. The feed store was happy to take my credit card in exchange for the future delivery of 2 Easter Eggers (also called Americaunas), a black silkie, a Polish, a black star (also called a black sex-link), and a Mille Fleur pullet.

(Let me pause here and point out that this simple list of 5 breeds, up from the original 3, was comprised after hours...yes, hours of research. I compared temperaments, egg-laying abilities, egg appearance, kid friendliness, and weirdness quotient on at least 20 breeds. Then I cross referenced this data on at least 3 sites each to get a consensus. Then I looked for availablity, which caused me to go back and redo the list because some breeds, like the dear Faverolle-of-the-fuzzy-feet are virtually impossible to get this time of year. In total, I would guess at least a dozen hours went into designing my chicken dream team. Pathetic, maybe. But it kept me humming happily for weeks!)

The bad news is, while the first four breeds will be sexed, (an imperfect science, but I have a 95% chance of getting the females I want) the last breed, the beauteous Mille Fleur, is straight-run only. For those of you who don't speak chicken, that means that I have no way of knowing if I'm getting a boy or a girl. We have to love it, and keep it, and hope it doesn't start crowing 5 months down the line. It's a 50/50 shot on ending up with a rooster...anyone want to take bets?

My friend Jessica, who bravely sat through a good 20 minutes of chicken babble tonight, asked me what happens if the little Miss Mille turns out to be a Mr. Mille. I said, with bravado, "He goes in the pot!"

Brave words from someone who has never committed a food act more brutal than boiling crayfish. Brave words indeed...

Libbyhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-5277937529702850258.post-71814162213036099282009-07-19T18:48:00.000-07:002009-07-19T19:16:10.547-07:00Hunt for craftsmanshipAfter a few days of mourning the loss of planting justice, I returned to project chicken this week with renewed vigor. Item the first: a coop to keep my girls in.

After multiple journeys through google and craigslist for local coops and coopmakers, I determined that the coops at www.happycoops.com stood out as being particularly well made. To be certain, I wanted to see the goods before I bought in. And so I dragged my essentially disinterested-but-willing husband along on an hour-long drive to check out the coop's craftsmanship.

We arrived at Dru's house on a warm Friday morning. It was hilarious to watch Rich and Dru together. Their eyes met across the crowded work area. They stood for a second, frozen in platonic man love. Then they crossed the field of scrap wood and power tools and fell, laughing, into each other's arms.

Okay, it didn't go down exactly like that. But it was close. Dru's fine craftsmanship, his knowledge of chicken husbandry, and his slick solutions to a variety of chicken needs made Rich swoon, and Rich's job at the Academy made Dru's heart go pitter pat. It was very cute. I just sat by the chickens while Rich and his new buddy made up secret handshakes.

So, the coop is now on order. We're getting the 4x4 coup de grande. The coup de view is cuter, but the grand has more floor space, which our flock of 6 will need.

Oh, and Rich has arranged for Dru to deliver the finished product to our house. This saves us the trouble of renting a trailer (it's too big and heavy for a truck), and it also ensures that the two of them will see each other again. Convenient!
Libbyhttp://email@example.com

subset: commoncrawl


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Social casino games are in the ascendancy across all territories, from Dublin to Dubai, from New Guinea to New York, and everywhere in between. Speaking from our own experience, we have over 90 million accounts at the moment, climbing at an average rate of over 1.2 million per month. And we're not the only multinational social casino providers in operation. We are just part of the story.
Despite the "casino" tag, players of these games don't gamble any real money. In fact, gambling is illegal in many of the territories where our biggest game, Pokerist, enjoys a huge audience. So why are they so popular?
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When playing a social, online poker game you only have a few seconds to decide what to do. This is a feature, not a bug: With other real-life players waiting their turn, it makes sense to speed things up. An added bonus is that it adds a sense of momentum and excitement to a traditionally sedate game!
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Poker without gambling is just poker. As any gamer will tell you, you don't need financial incentive for emotive, exciting competition. Winning a million dollars feels great, regardless of whether that money is virtual or real. Videogames have always been about approximating and recreating visceral feelings; the dangerous thrill of outrunning the cops in GTA, the excitement of running faster than the speediest hedgehog or the wonder of exploring alien and fantasy landscapes.
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The real deal: Has Paddy Power Betfair stolen a march on US sports betting rivals?
Kentucky panel to review sports betting
Michigan moves forward on online gaming


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Best of Last Week – Nobel Prize for gravity waves, trying to explain Tabby's Star and exercising to prevent depression
(ScienceX)—It was another good week for physics as three U.S.-based scientists won the Nobel Prize for physics. Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne won for their groundbreaking work in observing gravity waves for the first time. Also, a team from the University of Bristol announced that they had pinpointed the singularity for quantum computers and in so doing found that if such machines are ever to meet expectations, they will need to be more powerful than previously predicted. And a team with NIST's JILA project found that 3-D quantum gas atomic clocks could offer new dimensions in measurement, suggesting the possibility of a completely new design for the ultra-precise timing devices.
In news from space, a team with members from McMaster University and the Max Planck Institute found evidence that suggests life on Earth started after meteorites splashed into warm little ponds approximately 3.7 to 4.5 billion years ago. Also, a team with NASA offered an update on research surrounding "Tabby's Star" and the scientific quest to explain Kepler's most enigmatic find. To date, no one has been able to offer a convincing reason for its strange dimming behavior.
In other news a team at the University of Central Florida announced that they had developed a nanomaterial that can extract hydrogen fuel from seawater—perhaps offering a new source for powering fuel cells. Also, a team at the Georgetown Lombardi Cancer Center conducted a study and found that tobacco smokers could gain a collective 86 million years of life if they switched to vaping. And a team with members from Cambridge and Oxford Brookes universities traced back the evolution of HSV2, thus introducing the hominin species that gave us genital herpes. And a team with members from the U.S. and Germany announced a recently discovered phenomenon that could provide a way to bypass the limits of Moore's Law—one based on skyrmions.
And finally, if you are one of the millions of people around the world suffering from depression, you might want to take notice of work done by a team at the Black Dog Institute. They found that for many people, one hour of exercise a week can prevent depression.
Explore further: The Latest: Nobel-winning scientists laud each other, team
© 2017 ScienceX


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Dolli Einstein Haus in Pinneberg is run on a democratic basis, with votes on everything from food to nappy changes
At the Dolli Einstein Haus, constitutional crises are usually solved before breakfast. When one delegate's motion in favour of rice pudding with cherry compote was roundly defeated the delegates were left facing a hung vote over the choice of french toast or pancake with apple puree. Another council member then demanded sausages with spaghetti. But a second-round runoff broke the deadlock: 12:4 in favour of pancakes, an absolute majority that everyone could live with.
At most…
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Fishing Without Bait 110: Of Course I'm Right
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Jim Ellermeyer talks about those people who always think they are right. Why do we fear exposing ourselves as being uncertain? How do we manage our ego?
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The effects of Hurricane Harvey are being felt across the nation, as gas prices are climbing up.
AAA Kansas said Monday that gas prices have "shot up across the country."
On Monday, the national average for a gallon of unleaded gas was $2.37, which is four cents more expensive than a week ago. It marks the largest one-week national gas price increase of the summer.
In a news release, AAA Kansas said one-fourth of oil refining capacity in the Gulf Coast has been taken offline, according to Oil Price Information Service. That equates to about 2.5 million barrels a day.
Hurricane Harvey also has caused eight refineries in Texas to shut down, while several others are operating at reduced rates.
"No doubt, Harvey has impacted operations and access to refineries in the Gulf Coast," said AAA spokesman Shawn Steward said in the news release. "However, a clear understanding of overall damage at the refineries is unknown."
Steward said that despite the country's overall oil and gasoline inventories being at or above 5-year highs, "gas prices will continue to increase" until there is clear picture of damage and an idea of when refineries can return to full operational status.
On Sunday, Magellan Midstream Partners suspended all inbound and outbound refined products and crude oil transportation services on its pipeline systems in the Houston area, the release said. However, Colonial Pipeline said its Gulf Coast pipeline and terminals are continuing to operate normally.
Harvey is expected to continue to impact the region through the middle of the week with an additional 15 to 25 inches of rain expected over the middle- and upper-Texas coast through Friday.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced over the weekend that it will waive environmental standards on gasoline for select counties in Texas, to help alleviate the the potential for shortages and tight supplies.
The average price of gas in Kansas today is $2.21 per gallon, up three cents from a week ago. At 16 cents less than the national average, Kansas gas prices are 12th lowest in the country, said AAA Kansas' Steward.
This week's Kansas cities with the state's gas price extremes are:
High: Howard (Elk County) – $2.40
Low: Galena (Cherokee County) - $2.03
Despite the increase in average gas price across the state, not all locations saw a rise, AAA Kansas notes. Of the 10 regularly tracked Kansas cities, Emporia and Topeka experienced small price declines and Hays remained the same, while seven cities saw increases. The largest weekly gas price increases were in Kansas City, Kansas, Lawrence and Salina (7 cents), and Wichita (5 cents).


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The small black and red purse is another gift from my father in law. Because of its small size, I use this whenever I wanted to buy something after bringing the kids in kindergarten. It fits every pockets of every jackets and jeans I own. Convenient and not bulky.
The beige coin purse came with a shoulder bag. The bag is very much used but the coin purse ended up holding the kids' extra carnival tokens and some perfume samples and a tie pin of my husband. Something to hold small things that I would not end up searching for them for a long time in my big mommy bag.
The dark brown wallet from Esprit was brought in a whim. A wrong, impulsive buy because it is too bulky, too big, too uncomfortable to use. It holds the private health cards of the family, some photos and old receipts. The burgundy passport wallet was a gift from a friend during his visit in Thailand in the late 90s. It used to hold my passport, but is now used as a 'storeroom' for not regularly used membership cards, some photos, some papers for some buys which I still cant say goodbye to, and some important receipts.
Now let me tag Christianne, Cookie and Rach. Sorry moms, am curious, too :D


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Eagleswood Fire Hall
219 Railroad Avenue
West Creek, NJ 08092
Preview: 8:00 a.m. or by appointment Friday afternoon.
AUCTION WILL BE HELD AS SCHEDULED BEGINNING With Preview at 8:00 a.m.
Auction: 9:00 a.m. starting with Box Lots followed by Cataloged and Table Items
- View Photo Gallery
- View Listing
Sampling of Native American items shown above along with a short list of items:
NATIVE AMERICAN: Navajo Rugs/Blankets: Two Grey Hills, Teec Nos Pos, Ship Rock, Storm Pattern, Ganado, Western Reservation, Yei, Late Transitional with Water Bug design plus a Chief's Blanket & Saddle Blanket, Blanket used for Turtle & Deer Dances at Taos Pueblo. Clothing: American Indian Moccasins & Clothing ca 1970: Turquoise Beaded Purse (Crow), Ladies Buckskin Dress (Lakota), Shawls, Chimayo Vest, Navajo Red Velvet Dress, Beaded Belt. Jewelry: Bone & Abalone Choker, Sterling and Turquoise Jewelry made by Sonny Spruce of Taos Pueblo, NM. Pottery: Acoma, Hopi, Jemez, Zuni, Zia, Kachina Mudhead. Miscellaneous: Wood & Horn Rattle, Navajo & Ojibway, Apache Horse Hair Miniature Baskets, Zuni Fetishes, set of Frank Rinehart Sepia Prints.
German & Italian Dolls as well as Steiff and Lead Figures. The following is a short list of vintage Toys, Dolls and Trains on the auction block: Italy Lenci Dolls, German K*R Kammer Reinhardt, Simon Halbig with original Costume & Shoes, Schuetzmeister & Quendt, Heubach Koppelsdorf, Kestner Dolls, Handwerck 109 Bisque Doll wearing original dress, French DEP Doll Head, Dresses, Slips & Hats, Ideal Toni Doll with Clothing, Ginny/Ginger Doll with Clothing and Trunk, Set of 3 vintage Doll Wicker Furniture in original paint, early Wicker Doll Carriage in original paint, Effanbee LRRH, MARX Fighting Eagle w/accessories, German Schoenhut Humpty Dumpty Circus Figures, Flat Lead Figures, Steiff Dog (1928 Treff), Die cast Toys & Model Kits, Marionettes, Celluloid Dolls, Lionel Standard Gauge Switch Track, Lionel Santa Fe GP-9 Diesel, Box & Flat Cars, Life-Line Train Set, Bachmann & Tyko HO Trains & Accessories, Gund Zipper Pajama, Lamb & Poodle in original boxes, Bakelite Mah Jong Set, Tonka, Mattel Barbie Dolls in original/factory sealed boxes (1970's & 80's), Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989}, Table Croquet, Still Banks, Alabaster Chess Set, MAR Train Terminal, table Pin Ball/Arcade, Marbles, Board Games, XBOX 360 Arcade.