In the Record Eagle

Making oatmeal cookies with Anna. Photo by Tyler Sipe of the Record EagleI was interviewed a few weeks ago by a reporter for the Traverse City Record Eagle for an article about bake sales.

If you asked me to name my unique skills, running a bake sale would be far down on the list. It's something that I would think that anyone could do, or that a lot of people could do better than me. Like my kids, for instance. The reporter somehow got the impression that I had coordinated bake sales for NHS and the physics club, but of course I did nothing of the sort. All I did was teach my girls to cook when they were in grade school, and to handle money, so that by high school they were competent to run bake sales, and much more, with my contribution limited to flour, butter, sugar, cocoa, and eggs.

But I was glad to share tips for running a bake sale, especially a bake sale with kids, because I think it's such a good experience for kids. I hate the "Mom, I need ten dollars!" syndrome and kids love to make their own money.

Leelanau Feed and Seed

I was overjoyed to find out that we were getting a feed store in the village of Lake Leelanau. Over the years, the village has added businesses, useful businesses like the gas station, doctor's office, and insurance company. Eventually, as the price of gas has gone up, I did so many errands locally that I was driving the 22 miles to Traverse City solely to buy chicken food.

Leelanau Seed and Feed opened this week, as I gave the last of the layer mash to my chickens. I picked up a bag of a layer mash produced in Standish, Michigan and a bale of straw. Owner Rebecca Kalchik is still experimenting with her inventory, but she aims to provide for all animal needs, and even had a display of fish food behind the counter.

Leelanau Seed and Feed is open Monday through Friday, 9:30 to 5:00, and Saturday 8:00 to 2:00. Their phone number is 256-0093. They are on the main drag in Lake Leelanau, one block west of NJ's, with parking in the alley.

Cleaning the Virtual House

French Road Connections looks different today, or perhaps it looks "retro" today, if you've been reading long enough.

Somewhere along the way, when I switched to the new version of Blogger, I "broke" my template. The main page read fine, in Internet Explorer, but clicking on an individual post, or trying to read in Mozilla, seemed to knock everything awry.

The dead of winter is the time to fix this sort of problem. I started by reverting to an old winter template that worked. I will be adding and tweaking features again in the next few days. So far I've been unable to put that rolling comments feature back into the sidebar, but the is a place to click and see comments at the end of every post. If you folks could oblige me by commenting, even if it's just a "hi", it would help me to trouble shoot.

People, Chickens, and Videocameras

Since I posted my “Yardbirds 2007” video to YouTube, I have been checking out what sort of chicken videos other people post. I’m not surprised to find out that other people are fascinated enough by chickens to video them doing chicken things. Lots of people document their rooster’s first crow, much like the baby’s first steps. I was surprised, however, to look at the background in these clips and notice how many people keep chickens inside of otherwise normal American houses.

And then there’s this one. Why on earth would you paint your rooster’s toenails such a pretty shade of red? There were lots of comments on this one, ranging from “How cute!” to shrill lectures on the dangers of nail polish. I figure there are a lot of different people in the world, many more than even I could imagine….

Looking Up

At Millennium Park, Chicago, October 2007

H.O.P. wrote, while watching people at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art,

I was thinking I didn’t know people could absorb themselves like that. The window was like a mirror. I was leaning over it watching people colliding with their reflections and when they did they vacuumed up each other.

I knew I had to post this picture, taken by Anna, of me looking up and spitting out another self, at the Kapoor sculpture at Millennium Park. I reckon it is in many ways the experience opposite to H.O.P.'s

Misidentified Chickens

Silver Spangled Hamburg Rooster

A commenter on my YouTube chicken video told me that I had misidentified my rooster, that he is really a Silver Spangled Hamburg. I had never heard of a breed called Silver Spangled Hamburg, but a quick Google search brought me pictures of the breed and they looked a lot like my rooster. He had come to us as the "exotic chick" bonus in our shipment from Murray McMurray hatchery, and I had identified him as an Egyptian Fayoumis (below) based on the descriptions in the hatchery catalog.

The Fayoumis has a more upright carriage and an upright comb, while the Hamburg has a rose comb and is a little heftier.

I had another, more more embarrassing, chicken misidentification experience with Harry Houdini, a chicken that I agreed to adopt during an early morning phone call. I thought that Harry was a confused rooster; she turned out to be a very fancy and flighty hen. I was so surprised to find a page of Brown Leghorns and see that my "rooster" was a hen!

Now I have a Buttercup hen, another Mediterranean type breed. She is also fancy feathered, but flighty and she seems always on the run from the rest of the flock.