MISSED OPPORTUNITY?

The Mormon missionaries materialized from the falling snow. I had been focused on my iPhone under an umbrella while posting a picture on Facebook. When I looked up to the riverside path, there one was, stopped on his bike, all natty and smiley in his missionary-for-Joseph Smith-and-Jesus outfit.

He made some neutral comment on the weather, and I noted how beautiful the scene. My first thought of his wholesome appearance had been gay?, but then his look-alike partner rode up. They appeared interchangeable, with identical blue bikes and helmets.

"We're Mormon missionaries," he said, superfluously.

"Oh my God, you're out in this weather?" I blurted, then caught myself and grinned, "Excuse my language."

"We love what we do," one of them explained.

"Do you have friends or family who are Mormons?" he asked pleasantly.

I took a long pause, staring at him, then at his other, thinking of my now-dead Mormon lunatic mother-in-law.

At her memorial service, Mormon Bishop Hickman had explained our place in the universe: We all come from a spirit world and chose to come to Earth solely to gain a body. (I guess we didn't get to pick which one, however, judging by the number of ugly ones around.) Anyway, our good works will determine where we end up. The ultimate goal is to be reunited with our families -- "one big happy family," as the Bishop put it.

Aargh. I sure hope not. But then, I suppose I'm not in much danger of going to the place the good Mormons go.

Snapping back to reality and the missionary twins, I asked myself, Is there enough entertainment here to justify engaging these boys?

There wasn't, I decided, so politely excused myself and went my way. Unfortunately, I think I missed an opportunity this morning.

I've been wanting to ask a real, live Mormon if they truly believe that Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden in Missouri, 6,000 years ago. Or that the Angel Moroni in the 1820s told Joseph Smith where to find these golden plates buried in upstate New York. Or that Smith translated the plates' secrets from a mysterious Egyptian language and wrote it all down in the Book of Mormon, revealing the otherwise-unknown history in America of pre-Columbian civilizations of Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites. And what about Jesus' one-time visit to America after he was resurrected following his crucifixion and trip back to Heaven? I wish I had asked the missionary-twins about these mysteries.

The Mormon guy-who-wanted-to-be-President believed this same nonsense, apparently. You can't know for sure, though, since none of the "lame-stream" news reporters -- reputed, ironically, to be in the pocket of God-hating, socialist liberals -- ever asked him. So we'll never know what Romney really thought about that nutty stuff.

Not that it's all that much crazier than mainstream religious dogma -- seas parting, immaculate conception, water to wine, that kind of stuff -- but then, that's just me. Lots of people find a way to believe it all as bona-fide true facts.

Including one of the other white guys-who-wanted-to-be-President, Mike Huckabee. Just hours after the Connecticut school massacre, he was bloviating in his cranky, Well, what did you expect? tone of voice on Fox. Spouting simplistic aphorisms about the tragedy being linked to society taking God out of classrooms. Of course, he didn't actually say that the shooting was directly caused by this sinful drift, but that certainly was how most anyone would take it.

Which many did, giving him an earful. Then what did this potential-President do in the face of completely predictable public outrage? He doubled down on his arrogant godliness, attacking his "amateur and professional critics" as ignorant, left-wing bigots.

Huckabee had to know that the timing and the harshness of his words -- linking the profound tragedy on Sandy Hook to his shame-on-you,-America moralizing -- would enflame people, still in grief over recent events. Yet, he did it anyway. What a smug, self-centered huckster!

I'm sure there are diehard Huckabee fans willing to forgive his blather -- after all, isn't that the Christian thing to do? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?

Besides, many of the anyone-but-Obama fans will whine, we tried to tell you that Obama was going to take away our guns.

Obama didn't plan to do that, I'm sure. No one had the stomach for that political rumble. But that was then; this is now. Things changed.

I shot an assault rifle the other day. It's a thing of seductive beauty, the AR-15. It's as much like an ordinary rifle as an iPhone is like Sonny Crockett's shoe-sized car phone on Miami Vice reruns. It's sleek. Cool. Deadly accurate. No kick. What's not to love?

The answer, of course, is obvious, even though making up rules for gun ownership that can prevent Sandy Hook tragedies is a will-o'-the-wisp. Still, you gotta try, don't you?

I think that will happen now, and the paranoid Obama haters can cry all they want with their I told you so's. It's time to toughen up gun laws, even though to think in any way of this moment of community mourning as an opportunity is obscene. But there you have it. I hope it's an opportunity not missed.

JIFFY LUBE BLUES

"Refund this man his money for the power steering flush," barked the Jiffy Lube manager to his underling, snapping his head in my direction.

I think the guy -- let's call him "Jake" -- was so snippy this morning because he was trying to quit smoking after fifteen years. Jake said he was "doing it for my daughter," though he confessed it was "really tough." I learned all this later while immersed in the confounding mysteries of the proper power steering fluid for my wife's Nissan.

I had pulled into the Coburg Road Jiffy Lube early. The station's two open bays were mostly empty, but I stopped the car next to the station, got out, and walked over to the guy who was obviously the manager. I told him I usually came here and asked if he would honor my Googled $19.99 oil change coupon, which clearly stated it was good only at a competing Jiffy Lube downtown.

"Sure," Jake said. "The only difference from our usual service is we don't vacuum out your car, blah, blah, blah…" I tuned out, but nodded ok. "Pull on in," he grinned.

A few minutes later Jake came into the waiting room, which was tiny and spartan with a big window looking into the open-air service area. He had that look on his face that mechanics have when they bring you bad news -- read that, expensive news. I see that look and I figure they gotta be doing high-fives in their heads.

"Have you had your power steering serviced lately?" he asked. This can't be good. Jake quickly got to the point and rattled off a bunch of mechanic talk about "universal" fluid, which I apparently had, instead of "ATF" fluid, which is pink and is what I was supposed to have. He dabbed a finger-full of my offending amber-colored power steering fluid on something that looked like a paint chip sample sheet. I wasn't sure what the point was.

I caught, "I've been doing this for fifteen years…," but all the rest was a jumble. I made Jake slow down and repeat it all to me, but it still took three times (maybe it was four), before I understood that the wrong power steering fluid had been used the last time it had been changed and that was bad.

"We can flush and replace the fluid for $44.95," Jake told me.

The last place to work on the engine had been a garage in Springfield. They must have made the mistake. Every other major service had been at the Lithia Nissan dealer in Eugene, and I couldn't imagine them putting in a wrong fluid.

                                              
I silently cursed the Springfield mechanic and told Jake, no, I was going to take the car back there and make them fix it right.

As I drove away, heading for Springfield four miles away, a few blocks down the road I made a neck-snapping u-turn. "Screw that," I said to myself. "I'll pay the money at Jiffy Lube and be done with it. I could see myself getting stuck at the Springfield garage for hours.

As Jake sucked out the old amber-colored fluid and pumped in from a reservoir hanging from the ceiling the new pink fluid, I asked him, "So if it was the right fluid, it would have been pink, is that right?"

"Yes," he said quite clearly.

I paid my bill and made chit-chat with the kid at the register, and mentioned that this was one of the chores I did for my wife.

"Yeh, me too," he said, then caught himself and stammered, "no, no, I didn't mean for your wife. I mean mine."

* * *

"Jiffy Lubes are the bane of my existence," snorted the Nissan dealer's service manager.

Freshly flushed with proper pink power steering fluid, my wife's car had seemed to steer just fine as I drove it back to her office to swap for my own car. But then, it had steered just fine before the Jiffy Lube fix, too.

I checked the Nissan's owner's manual to see what it had to say about pink versus amber power steering fluid. Its chart of fluid specifications recommended genuine Nissan fluids. Microscopic footnotes, however, listed acceptable generic fluids, but I couldn't make sense of them. It seemed like they were saying that a certain kind of automatic transmission fluid was ok to use, and it didn't seem right. That's when I decided to go straight to the Nissan dealer, just a mile down the road, to get a straight answer.

The service manager -- let's call him "Mark" -- gave me that "well, what can you expect" expression when I mentioned Jiffy Lube. "They make their money by up-charging you for other services like that," he said.

I had to smile. One the one hand, I'm sure he was right; no way Jiffy Lube made any money on my $19.99 oil change. On the other hand, a guy like Mark who wears a nice suit in a greasy auto repair shop -- you know he's learned all the angles; I'm sure Mark, himself, is a master at the game of the up-charge.

When I mentioned (with an apologetic look) having gotten our last dealer-scheduled service at the Springfield garage, that "my wife had wanted to go to there," and they were the likely culprit, Mark nodded understandingly. He pulled out a board, however, displaying a variety of auto fluids in clear tubes that demonstrated new power steering fluid and dirty power steering fluid -- of the kind used in Nissans. The new fluid was colorless; the used fluid was amber-colored. None of it was pink.

It appeared, then, that the right fluid in my wife's car had been replaced with the wrong fluid by Jiffy Lube. I asked Mark how long I had before the wrong, pink fluid caused a problem. Would it make it until the next scheduled dealer service? After a fashion, Mark conceded that it would be ok to wait. After a further fashion, I got the impression that Mark wasn't really claiming that the pink stuff was all that bad. I walked back to my car, shaking my head.

Only one thing was now clear: whether or not the Springfield garage had changed out the power steering fluid some 25,000 miles earlier (and I later found that it had done that, and charged me $41), the Nissan's old fluid had been just fine, though a flush certainly couldn't have hurt, assuming the fluid was a safe kind.

* * *

Back a third time to Jiffy Lube. Jake didn't seem to recognize me since I got out of a different car than the Nissan. "Remember? Power steering fluid?" I hinted, and he immediately straightened. "You were wrong," I pointed at his chest but kept smiling. "The power steering fluid that Nissan uses is not pink; it's clear." I related my recent show-and-tell with Mark.

That's when Jake snapped about giving me a refund. When I didn't jump at his offer, however, he reconsidered. "Wait on that refund," he said to his underling. "I'm going to call Nissan."

A sharp-looking kid -- let's call him "Tom" -- joined us, holding out two fat car spec books opened to pages clearly spelling out non-dealer brand fluid requirements for my wife's Nissan, exactly the kind of power steering fluid that Jiffy Lube had used.

Jake left a message for Nissan's Mark to call him back. "Let's give him five minutes to call back and see what they say."

While I waited, I chatted with Tom out in the empty service bays. I was impressed with the neatness of his uniform. I learned he was leaving Jiffy Lube for a job at the Kendall Toyota dealer.

"Better pay?" I asked.

"Definitely," he said. "I've hit the ceiling here. There's nowhere else to go up in my job here. Jake's sure not going anywhere."

We both shivered in Oregon's cold morning fog. Tom mimed typing on a keyboard at his new job: "And warm," he added. "An inside job."

Jake had retreated to his closet-sized office and closed the door to meet with a woman from "Food for Lane County." In the cramped hallway were two huge empty barrels labeled for food donations. A few minutes later, he came out of his meeting and both were smiling. He told me he had signed a contract to help the food charity. "Good advertising. Give back to the community, and all that," he said, sincere but a bit sheepish, it seemed to me. Some "bane," I thought.

"Call Nissan back again," he ordered Tom, who finally connected with Mark, but then mid-conversation handed the phone to his boss with a look that said, "I can't deal with this asshole."

Jake was polite enough in his questions of Mark, but nothing sounded like it was getting settled. Then I heard Jake mention some federal law -- which I later learned requires dealers to provide auto fluids free for the life of the car to owners, if dealer fluids are mandated under warrantee and no generic fluids are acceptable -- and that's when Nissan's Mark hung up, leaving Jake talking a few seconds to a dead line.

At that point, I concluded that everyone had been partly right and everyone had been partly wrong, but that the pink power steering fluid was perfectly safe, and that it probably could have used changing anyway.

"Listen," I said, shaking Jake's hand. "I didn't come back here for a refund. I just wanted to tell you what I learned and see what you thought was going on. I got no hard feelings to you."

My wife claims that I'm easily entertained. That's apparently so, because when I pulled away from Jiffy Lube and into Coburg Road's traffic, I was still laughing out loud. You know what the blues anthem says: "Take your pleasure where you find it."

 

# # #

 

 

CHICKA-DEE-BOOM!

Standing in my underwear looking out our fifth floor window of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, I stumbled off our ice chest when the first lightning and thunder struck, so close it scared me witless.

As the evening storm raced toward the city, however, most of the lightning exploded at a safe distance over the Juan de Fuca Strait. But you know how unpredictable lightning can be out front of an approaching thunderstorm.

Or maybe you don’t. The crowd gathered under an immense red maple leaf flag pole in front of the provincial Parliament Buildings across the street sure didn’t seem to know. A uniformed military band on the lawn was playing a march. Maybe their last one, I thought, as they blew their lovely brass horns (perfect lightning attractors?) to the sky.

These folks definitely were not Midwesterners, where lightning is commonplace and therefore respected for its capricious lethality. The band’s music finally stopped only when rain reached soaking level and by then, most of the tourists had scurried away leaving only the band’s loyal family members (I surmised) listening in misery.

They say that God looks out for children and fools, and these people standing in the open in a thunderstorm under a giant flag pole must have qualified; no damage done that I could tell. The brunt of the storm was unleashed across the strait on western Washington, which got 700 lightning strikes per hour.

A mile away on the waterfront, a cruise ship in port loomed on the darkening horizon like an ominous, lightning-lit mountain from Middle-earth, ready at any moment to unleash legions of orcs to swarm Victoria. In fact, this is just about what happens when hordes of tourists are disgorged from the ship, first, into a fleet of monster “Cruise Victoria” buses, and then, onto the city streets. They attack with cameras and iPhones and clumsy iPads held high – click, click, click, click – often not even pausing in their rush to digitally capture every moment. Pity future audiences of their blurry keepsakes.

Our extraordinary hotel room view was a fluke. Bad luck turned good. We checked in late and, despite a reservation made three months in advance, nothing was yet available in the entire 477-room hotel. But they were all very nice about it and, while a room was being made ready, sent us to the veranda restaurant for free drinks with our dinner. Soon, an effervescent front desk manager, Nathan, found us to apologize and make sure we were happy. How could you not be, dining on wonderful local fare and watching the sun drop over Victoria’s Inner Harbour on a lovely summer evening?

That’s what I wanted to ask the guy at the next table, who groused loudly at the waiter about one thing or another, embarrassing his blond wife with the gigantic fake boobs, trophies paid for, I’m sure, by the complainer. Apparently, big tits won’t necessarily buy you happiness.

I happily gave Nathan our bag check and a generous tip for our “mountain of luggage” that we needed transported to our room.

Once there, though, we found it hard to maneuver the cramped space furnished with a small queen bed. Before we could decide whether or not to complain about it, the phone rang and it was Nathan: “I just feel like that room is too small for you and all your belongings. But we’re completely sold out tonight so we couldn’t move you until tomorrow.”

My wife asked what time we could move.

“Check out is at eleven, but we have to live in reality, so we never can say for sure.”

Late the next day when we picked up our fresh keys for the room right next door, the chipper front desk clerk said, “I think you will quite like it.”

Quite so! Our old room might have served as a large closet for the suite that we now occupied. Nathan, you did good.

The elegant Empress, built in 1908, was named after Queen Victoria, who also was the “Empress of India.” The massive, stone, chateau-style hotel is surrounded by gardens and is now a National Historic Site of Canada. Once, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth stayed there, topping the hotel’s bragging list of rich and famous visitors.

Thousands of guests over the past century, maybe even celebrities, had stayed in our suite. I suspect that few enjoyed it more than us. The view to the south: Washington’s snow-capped Olympic Mountains distant; the Parliament Buildings and the Royal BC Museum and gardens close. To the west: mountains and sea afar, and Government Street below, filled with all manner of tourist conveyances – double-decker tour buses, antique cars, stretch limos, taxis, horse-drawn carriages, and sinewy-guy-pedaled tricycles – all pausing out front for pictures of our hotel – click, click, click, click.

 Across the street, a perpetual parade of humanity rushed along the waterfront of the Inner Harbour. Sidewalks were clogged with gawking tourists stopping abruptly for street performers, picture taking, or no apparent reason at all. Vendors hawked food, your portrait in fifteen minutes, and Indian carvings. Their art wasn’t very good, certainly compared to the First Peoples masterpieces of native carving in the museum across the street. Nevertheless, these young native men who were just trying to make a living shared an unbroken Northwestern cultural and artistic tradition that stretches back thousands of years.    

Among the fancy yachts docked across the street in the harbor, the Change Order stayed the week. I figured with a name like that, the red-skinned, porcine owner must be a retired contractor of some kind. We’d see him walking back from nearby shops sometimes, and once we saw a woman on his boat. Most of the time, however, he seemed to just sit alone in his lawn chair on his boat’s rear deck, drink, and watch the tourists. I wonder if his life of leisure was all he had dreamed.

For three days, we didn’t cross paths again with Nathan. On our last morning, however, as we savored our luxury suite right up to the 11:00 checkout, Nathan called our room: “Just wanted to make sure everything was chicka-dee-boom!”

Indeed.

Postscript: After posting this story, I got a nice email from Nathan that included the following:



“It’s funny, and I hardly have the heart to tell you, but what I actually said in checking on your room was ensuring that everything was ‘tickety-boo’ (it’s a famous English colloquialism that my dad uses often). However, I much prefer your interpretation of ‘chick-a-dee-boom’. It just has a better ring to it!”

Tickety-boo!



A BIG ONE

This is one of the greatest fish stories of my life. And that’s saying something since I’ve been fishing for sixty years and have some pretty good ones.

Yesterday, I was fishing for smallmouth bass. It was a good morning – calm, sunny, and warm. Not another boat on the water. Yellow warblers sang from riverside bushes, sweet sweet sweeter-than-sweet.

I had put a few nice bass in the cooler. But, as so often in fishing, “the bite” had ended as abruptly as it had started. Just a few more casts…

I was fishing with what’s called an “ultralight” rod and reel, designed to let you cast tiny lures with near-invisible fishing line. Six-pound test line, which is what I was using, means that if your line is in perfect condition – new, with no nicks – and if your knots are tied perfectly, the line could lift something close to six pounds without breaking.

My bass-catching Roostertail spinner – its half-inch body bright yellow with black polka dots, and sporting a wee gold spinner blade – stopped in the current, then moved away from my boat with authority. I caught a glimpse three feet into the crystalline, green-hued water of an immense hulk, silver with mottled spots on its back, suddenly irritated. The drag on my little reel, which now felt like a toy, squealed as line zipped away, tentatively at first, and then in a mad rush.

Oh, this should be good, I thought, certain that I was seconds away from losing a huge fish that, unintentionally, I had tricked into biting onto a treble hook the size of my pinkie’s fingernail. I figured the fish would go about fifteen pounds.

A fishing reel’s drag is designed to slow line being pulled out by a fish, without the line snapping. An ultralight reel, however, is built to brake the kind of small fish you fry in a pan, not fishy beasts that can tow your boat around the river.

I kept pace with my berserker fish only because of my foot-operated trolling motor. It runs off two big batteries and scoots along pretty good. Each time the fish rushed away, I would tear after it at top speed while trying to ease pressure on that damned, annoying thing in its jaw.

After some time, I was able to maneuver close enough to get a look at my mystery fish. When it materialized from the depths, I realized it wasn’t a steelhead trout, as I had guessed, but a chinook salmon, silver as a new dime and fresh from three years or so getting fat in the Pacific Ocean. I thought, hopefully, Shit, I might actually be able to land this fish.

And eat it. Nothing from Oregon waters tastes better than spring-run chinook salmon.

Bringing the fish close enough to grab with my long-handled net was the challenge now. Especially since it was longer than my net was wide. On my first try, the net’s rim bumped the salmon’s nose, and it responded with appropriate outrage, surging under the boat. I dropped the net and buried my bent-double, short little fishing rod into the river, trying to keep the line away from the boat’s motors.

I went through two more rounds of chasing the fish’s runs, pulling it close, then watching it swirl and streak away, little-by-little gaining confidence that I might against all odds beat this fish. Yet, I knew from experience that when fighting a big fish, anything can happen. Lines break, knots give way, hooks straighten… It’s a long list and sometimes you have no idea what happened and the fish is just gone.

Not this day. With my rod arm aching from the constant tension, on my fourth attempt, I nosed the semi-tired salmon into the net. As I hauled it in and laid the net on the boat floor, the salmon flopped once and the yellow Roostertail spinner fell away limply. Its little barbed treble hook hadn’t even broken skin; apparently, all that had kept me and my fish linked was the steady pressure I had maintained. Perseverance furthers. And a little luck helps. It’s why you say “good luck” to a fisherman and not “break a leg.”

I used to have a friend who would, at unpredictable times while we were bike riding, let out a whoop when the spirit moved him. It would scare hell out of me, and anyone else nearby. He didn’t care. Why not? I thought, and let fly my own celebratory exclamation.

After whacking the fish on its head with a club (called a “priest” – last rites and all), I weighed my springer (that’s what they call spring-run chinooks) – thirteen-and-a-half pounds, and filled in my license tag – thirty-two inches.

It wasn’t the biggest springer in the river – some grow to well-over fifty pounds. Or even the biggest or hardest-fighting salmon I’ve ever caught. Probably not my greatest fish story. (Catching and releasing a door-sized halibut with an underpowered spinning rod from a kayak in the Alaskan wilderness of Glacier Bay comes to mind.) No, what made this Oregon springer so remarkable was catching it on a miniature rod and reel. I wouldn’t have thought that possible.

The only thing better than catching a big fish is catching one with an audience – preferably other fishermen who have caught nothing. This day, however, I was alone on the river, which had been just as well. It let me maintain Zen-like focus on my fish battle when any distraction might have given the salmon its freedom.

By the end of my day’s fishing, another boat was on the river and as I was leaving, I pulled alongside to compare notes, as is customary. My chance to share a thrilling day’s fishing success.

However, the trouble with fish stories, even good ones, is that nobody really cares to hear them. If you’re not a fisherman, it’s hard to understand what the fuss is about, especially in context of all the fishless hours and days it takes. All the worse if you’ve ever been tortured with watching a TV fishing show.

And, if you are a fisherman… Well, here’s the thing: Fishermen are a lot like teenagers in that they’re not very good listeners. They feign attention until your first pause, their cue to launch into their own fabulous fishing story, which always seems to involve a bigger fish or grander adventure than yours. Trying to tell your own tale tends to be a deflating exercise.

As it was this day with Glen, who introduced himself since he wanted to have coffee with me some day to pump me about my knowledge of the river, which he fished only occasionally. Not that it left him short of fishy blarney: Yeh, those springers will bite anything. I caught one on a worm one time. Once, I hooked one on an ultralight, four-pound test line. Fought him for twenty minutes before I lost him. The line just wore out and parted. And so on.

The exception is my wife, who will listen raptly to my fish stories and who embodies the wise woman described by Norman Maclean in his quintessential fishing story, A River Runs Through It”: “…she knew how to cook them, and, most important, she knew always to peer into the fisherman’s basket and exclaim, ‘My, my!’…”

Cook the salmon, my wife did last night, and we agreed it was a fine, fine fish.

By the way, our gastronomic pleasure was shared with a flock of a dozen vultures that had moved in quickly on the carcass I left riverside on a big flat rock. They squabbled and squawked and fought over the good parts. Except for the thick fillets, of course, I left them everything but the salmon’s eggs, which I hope to use to catch more fish. Wouldn’t that be fitting?

FLASHBACKS

When I returned to San Francisco for the first time since I lived there forty years ago, the flashbacks were inevitable, even though the acid had long since worn off.

As a lost-in-life, hippy mailman driving a delivery truck back then, I had known my way around the city pretty well. Poking around Chinatown this month, I couldn’t believe I once had navigated that confusing jangle of back alleys and labyrinth balconies, delivering packages to old Chinese who seldom spoke English.

I frequently worked in North Beach – birthplace of the beatniks and the neighborhood where author Richard Brautigan (A Confederate General from Big Sur and Trout Fishing in America) lived. I trucked packages to City Lights Bookstore, founded in the ‘50s by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (A Coney Island of the Mind), and to all the other famous tourist spots – Telegraph Hill, Lombard Street (“the crookedest street in the world”), and topless/bottomless joints on Broadway Street. My favorite delivery was to The Condor where Carol Doda and her “twin 44s” danced. If I was lucky, a bare-breasted dancer would answer the bell and sign for the package.

Some nights, I wandered along Broadway watching the strip club hawkers at work: Right a-bove your chair on a sol-id glass cage… My favorite I called “The Bullfrog”; his croaking voice, inviting sailors to “step right in,” was even lower than a bullfrog’s. He got upset if you giggled when you walked past.

On my recent return to San Francisco, I walked these same streets. The park where once I had seen Richard Brautigan sitting alone on a bench, was filled with flocks of t’ai chi-ing Chinese women. Broadway’s licentiousness had withered; a shabby Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club echoed by-gone color. Chinatown was vibrant as I remembered, clogged with locals shopping for food – colorful boxes of fresh produce and seafood stacked early-morning sidewalks, Chinese voices chattered like wind chimes in the cool breeze. A bent, toothless woman with a bag of fresh, silvery smelt haggled price with five customers surrounding her.

On Grant Street, a window display of ivory netsuke caught my eye. Netsuke – invented by Japanese more than 300 years ago – were used to cinch to sashes the cords that hung pouches (kimonos lacked pockets).

I first fell for the miniature carvings when I had lived in the city, often visiting the netsuke collection at the de Young art museum in Golden Gate Park. In fact, that moment in Chinatown, I was heading to the Asian Art Museum to see them once again. (The Asian museum was created from the old city library; it now displays the Asian art once held by the de Young.)

The netsuke in the Chinatown shop window, however, were not limited to traditional depictions of monks and animals. Many were X-rated, carved, oriental Kama Sutra – all acrobatic positions finely rendered in ivory. I needed a closer look.

The shop was empty of customers but jammed wall-to-wall with all manner of high-end Asian arts and crafts, including exquisite jade and wood carvings. The really good stuff was upstairs on a balcony, the steps blocked by a velvet cord.

I asked Carlos, the young salesman, the range of prices for the netsuke in his front window. He said one to several hundred dollars each, then escorted me upstairs to see more netsuke and other fine art.

I stopped cold at the head of the stairs. “This is incredible,” I mumbled. My delight at his sculptures inspired Carlos and he showed me his favorites – two-foot-long ivory tusks with dozens of tiny figures incised in their curves. “These are museum-quality,” I said, and told him how I was heading for the Asian museum that very morning.

“But you can’t touch them in a museum,” he smiled, and caressed the un-carved, ocher end of a tusk. “Here.”

The ivory felt alive, smooth and cool on my fingertips. It was like sneaking a touch in a museum, but without the guilt.

Carlos showed me a brilliantly-lit display case crammed with netsuke. “Any chickens?” I asked. He opened drawers and boxes, but found only one tiny rooster that didn’t impress me. Carlos wanted to sell me something and I wanted to buy something. He showed me ducks and other miniature creatures, but nothing I liked. I focused, one-by-one, on the hundred or so netsuke (the majority in frozen stages of fornication). I asked to see an R‑rated one, a naked geisha sitting on her haunches. Ivory, probably from an ice-age Russian mammoth tusk. She was the one. Sold, I thought. I threw out a number. “Would that do it?” I guessed. I was thirty dollars too low.

“But would you do it anyways? That’s my limit,” I replied in my sternest tone. Carlos finally agreed and we started downstairs.

“Just one last feel,” I said, and stroked again the carved tusk. That gave Carlos fresh salesman adrenalin, and he launched into a story about rare white jade, reaching for a delicate white sculpture in a display case to show me the jade’s inner glow under the spotlight. His sale pitch started at $4,000 and eventually got down to $1,500.

“Carlos, you’re killing me here,” I laughed, while thinking: My wife would kill me. “No, I just can’t,” I concluded. “I spent all my money on chickens, building them the Taj Mahal of chicken coops.”

Carlos laughed, but sounded deflated. I went on my way with my naked netsuke, an odd birthday present for my wife.

When I got to the new (to me) Asian Art Museum, the handsome, young, African-American security guard, all natty in his dark suit and tie, cooed, “I like your bag,” inspecting my birdwatching book-bag. “O-oh, purple on the inside!”

“Thank you,” was all I said. What I thought was, Maybe we’re all a little gay on the inside.

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Netsuke -- Asian Art Museum

After soaking up all the art culture I could manage, I returned to the sunshine. The broad plaza between the library-converted-to-museum and the city hall was quiet. But scenes of anti-Vietnam War violence and hatred flared in my memories.

* * *

The date was May 4, 1970.

My home apartment had been just up Market Street and then a couple blocks up the hill on Haight Street. Walking to the library that day, I had stumbled into an anti-war demonstration and joined several thousand people outside the nearby Federal Building. Lots of “right-on” and “power to the people” in the air. Country Joe McDonald sang the call-and-response Fuck Song (Gimme an F!, etc.) and my favorite, the Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag:

Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He’s got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.

…Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don’t hesitate,
Send ‘em off before it’s too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

After speeches, the demonstrators marched across the concrete mall to City Hall to present an anti-war resolution to the Board of Supervisors. Everyone tried to crowd inside; Viet Cong flags waved and chants of Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh echoed off the rotunda. Finally convinced to go back outside, the crowd clogged the sidewalks and street. That’s when dozens of “blue meanies” (city police) arrived and started sweeping up the area. I watched twenty kids get clubbed on the steps. From there, it turned into an off-and-on skirmish for the rest of the afternoon. The cops formed lines to keep the street and front of the building clear, so the jeering crowd gathered across the street in an open mall area. Rocks and bottles flew; one took out a window in a passing patrol wagon.

The cops carried three-foot clubs scarred with cuts and nicks. If they thought they saw someone throw anything, a squad would give chase, and people would scatter. Guys got hauled down and beaten. One was caught and clubbed by a cop, who found himself alone and surrounded by a lot of pissed off people; he pulled his gun and started waving it at our faces.

Personally, I never saw the point in throwing things or being ugly about it all. Nonetheless, I was there because I wanted the war to end, which was the real point.

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San Francisco City Hall in quieter times (2012)

Everyone knew by then that there were demonstrations going on that same day across the country. In Lansing, more than 25,000 people marched on the state capitol building, and twenty-five were hurt when a pro-war supporter drove a car into the march. Eastern Michigan University was under a state of emergency and dawn-to-dusk curfew. That day at Kent State University in Ohio, four students were shot dead and nine injured by National Guard troops.

In San Francisco after things had petered out at the anti-war demonstration, I walked home and ate some supper and later walked back to the library again. It was all so peaceful. Nothing left but discarded pickets and broken glass. The rhododendrons were in full bloom. I picked a big pink blossom and took it home to fill my apartment with sweetness.

Being a hippy mailman was easy, but it sucked. I drove my truck every day in traffic jams and smog and hauled heavy packages up hills and stairs, dodging dog shit that seemed everywhere.

When not working, I bought fresh squid for bait in Chinatown and fished off the rocks at the entrance to San Francisco Bay, using a cheap saltwater fishing rod I bought through the mail from L.L. Bean. Rarely, I caught rock fish and tiger sharks. The sharks seemed more like dogs than fish; their malevolent eyes would follow my hand, and they would snap at me when I took out the hook. One time, something enormous took my bait and headed into the setting sun. It easily stripped all my line and vanished, leaving me shaking and in awe. And once, I caught a 19-pound striped bass off the sand at Baker Beach in Marin County. I rode my Harley home across the Golden Gate Bridge with the great fish’s tail sticking out of my backpack. Jaws dropped as cars passed me. It was a proud moment.

After my girlfriend from Michigan moved in with me, we spent my free days in Golden Gate Park, along Bodega Bay, and on Mt. Tamalpais hiking and bird watching. She cooked and made our tiny apartment homey. She wore spring-flower perfume. We drank jasmine tea and ate Chinese food with chop sticks.

She enrolled in classes at San Francisco State, and I rode the bus with her to cinema classes to watch avant garde films. In Golden Gate Park, we watched old Italians play bocce ball and dreamed of learning the language and traveling to Italy. We were enchanted by an outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the park’s open-air amphitheater.

* * *

Four decades later, I sat on the same green park bench, stared at the empty stage, and the moment was so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. Here was where last I sat a lifetime ago, watching Shakespeare with the then-love-of-my-life. Puck and love’s foibles had made us laugh. Little did we know that it all was a will-o’-the-wisp.

On this day in 2012, the true-love-of-my-life, my wife, was 500 miles away. She would enjoy this park, I thought, with its gardens, ocean air infused with eucalyptus, lovely Asian-Americans everywhere, including a young man in a white sweater, black pants and a sword-shape of white down each leg, floating on the Earth through his t’ai chi.

The Vietnam War and its protests were long silent. Had all that really happened? The only protest I had seen on this visit was a small group of striking janitors noisily picketing in front of their parking lot employer on Market Street.

I had forgotten the anonymity conveyed on you in the big city. Despite the loneliness, there is a freedom that comes with knowing you have virtually no chance of seeing anyone you know. Of course, “virtually none” is not zero.

* * *

Back in 1970, on a Sunday morning in an early December rain, I had dropped half a hit of acid and headed for Golden Gate Park. From the foggy bus window, I spotted a bum on Haight Street who looked familiar – tall and lanky, scruffy beard, dark eyes. I jumped off and found an old friend from Michigan, Tom, selling the Berkeley Barb alternative newspaper. He was dirty, ragged, and looked like he had been standing out in the rain too long. He told me he was living on the street, selling papers, and sleeping in crash pads, the park, or, once in a while, hotels.

I gave him my other half-hit of acid, and we walked around the park, sat and talked, and went to the de Young art museum, where I showed him my favorite netsuke. Tom stayed with me a while and then moved on with life back in Michigan.

A decade later, when I also was back living in Michigan, Tom and I ran a half-marathon together on a gorgeous late-fall day in rural mid-Michigan that was the best run of my life. We averaged 7:30 minutes per mile and finished together with energy to spare. Today, running one mile at that pace would do me in.

Back then, Tom was looking for love and used a dating service where, after many false starts, he found a wife. They moved to a farm in Minnesota. Tom developed a difficult disease, but he seems to have had a happy life with his family and farm animals, judging from the annual Christmas cards I still get from him. As I struggle these days through my solo runs in rainy Oregon, I often marvel at our long-ago friendship and those two strangers whom I barely recognize, running like gazelles in the Michigan sunshine.

* * *

As for my hippy, trippy self of so many yesteryears ago, that lonely guy wandering the city, lost in life – well, it turns out that I still have an eye for netsuke. I still hate war and warmongers. I still like birds and fishing and flowers and jasmine tea and bare breasts.

Wandering the city this month, I stood on the traffic island outside the Broadway Street tunnel and stared into its dark opening, peering into my past. I once had loved going fast on my Harley. I would ride to this spot late at night, idle until traffic had cleared ahead, and then fly as fast as possible through the half-mile-long tunnel – 85 mph was my tops. The Harley’s roar in that narrow, one-way tunnel was some kind of thrill, especially when a little drunk. Far out.

That had been my life for a few long years living in San Francisco in the ‘70s – a mostly unhappy time filled with weed, acid and ennui. Yet, it was where finally, at age 25, I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up (that’s another story). Starting in San Francisco, I spent a lifetime becoming the person and creating the life I wanted for myself. My return to the city of my spiritual birth confirmed how much I like how that all turned out.

CITY CHICKENS – HOW I BUILT OUR BACKYARD COOP

Suddenly, we’re chicken farmers. Just like that, living with us are five hens, soon to be a-laying.

We got the idea for chickens at the spring Home & Garden show in nearby Eugene. We checked out homemade coops for sale by young Mennonite farmers from north of here. Why couldn’t we raise chickens in our own backyard? my wife wondered. I could build that, I thought.

This is the story of what happened next. It’s about how I built a Backyard Chicken Palace for our five new girls. I’m putting it online in order to forward the favor that others did for me in posting how they built their urban chicken coops. Maybe someone else will get ideas here for their own creation.

Building a chicken coop and run can be anything you want it to be. I wanted ours to be a functional thing of beauty; after all, we will be looking at it and living with it every day for maybe the rest of our lives. Why not do it right? It’s not just about the eggs. It’s about the chicken experience. What can I say? We got the bug for chickens. But I’ll tell you one thing up front about my approach: we’re going to be eating some very expensive eggs.

Getting started:

The first thing I did was read a bunch of chicken books. (The best: A Chicken in Every Yard, by Robert & Hannah Litt.) We decided we would get five peeps: an Ameraucana (for green and blue eggs), a Black Australorp (just because they’re pretty), and two Cuckoo Marans (for chocolate-brown eggs).

Plus a Buff Orpington, partly because a good friend has a small flock of them in upstate New York. But mostly, as a small tribute to my Great-grandfather Andrew Jackson Vaught, who raised Buff Orpingtons on his farm in Illinois in the early 1900s. Here’s his letterhead, used by my Grandfather Walter Kelly Vaught when first courting my grandmother, Florena.

With so many feed stores in this part of Oregon (the southern Willamette Valley), we easily found just want we wanted (chicks: The Eugene Backyard Farmer and Farmhand Feed & Home Co. in Cottage Grove) and set up our tiny balls of fluff (supplies: Coastal Farm & Ranch) in the biggest plastic storage container we could find at the Wal-Mart.

COOP PLANNING:

Our hens will live in their new home 24-7. No free roaming for them. So I needed a space big enough and nice to use – for the chickens and for us. And completely safe. We’ve got cats, raccoons, opossum, and sharp-shinned hawks that patrol our yard.

The most helpful online site was BackYardChickens.com, where I found wonderful plans for a coop that was close to perfect for what I wanted (Wichita Cabin Coop). Imagine that: someone in Wichita, Kansas, whom I've never met built a chicken coop that was my model.

My other grandparents, Andrew and Emily Schmidt, raised chickens on their farm not far from Wichita. In fact, that’s where I met my first chicken up close and personal (1955).

 

I knew my chicken coop project was going to be expensive, but hoped to keep it under $1,000 (wishful thinking). I drew scaled drawings on 11” x 17” graph paper – of the foundation, each of the sides, and the roof. I’ve never built or framed anything like this, so making exact drawings ahead of time made it far easier to build. That way I knew, for example, how all the framing studs attached. And it made it easier to determine how much material to buy.

Here are some background basics. My main tools, aside from simple hand tools and a tape measure, were: Skill saw, cordless drill and power drill, light (brad) nail gun and compressor, 4-in power sander, router on small table, and saber saw. (My radial‑arm saw died ripping a green treated stud just as I started framing and didn’t get fixed until my coop was done.) I used exterior screws throughout, pre-drilling everything because of the brittle kiln-dried studs. (I didn’t want to have to wait for green lumber to dry before painting.) I used the nail gun to temporarily hold studs in place, and to install trim.

I built it solo, about half on-site (in the wet Oregon spring mud) and about half pre-cutting in my garage on the other side of the house.

I picked a spot for the coop and run along our backyard wood fence, protected and about half shade. The footprint is 9’ 6” x 5’ 2”.

Before starting work, I talked to Don, my neighbor. I assured him, no roosters. He was fine with it. It seems that most everyone around here either raises chickens, or used to raise chickens, or knows somebody who raises chickens. Who doesn’t like chickens?

Here’s a summary of materials, most everything from Eugene’s Home Depot. The only big item I bought from Jerry’s Home Improvement Center was bulk hardware cloth. All told, it meant about ten trips for materials (50 miles per trip). Start to finish, it took me one month to build, working pretty much full time on it. Ah, the luxury of retirement! 

•             2” x 4” kiln-dried studs – 40 (8’), 2 (10’)
•             2” x 4” treated studs – 6 (8’), 2 (12’)
•             2” x 6” treated boards – 2 (8’); 3 (10’)
•             4” x 6” treated lumber – 3 (10’)
•             1” x 6” cedar board – 1  (8’ - for ramp)
•             1” x 4” pine boards – 10 (8’)
•             4’ x 8’ sheathing plywood – 1 (5/8”)
•             4’ x 8’ siding plywood – 4 (½”)
•             ½” galvanized hardware cloth – 3’ x 60’
•             Joist hangers – 8
•             2’ x 10’ Suntop roofing panels (gray) – 6
•             Roofing screws – 1 lb.
•             2’ Suntuf roofing closures – 6 (5-pack)
•             Roofing silicone calk – 2 tubes
•             Vinyl gutter and downspout – various
•             60 lb. bags Quikrete – 4
•             8” – 4’ concrete tube – 1
•             Hardware – 6 door hinges, 2 handles, 2 latches, 6 angle braces, 4 window hinges, 2 latches, ramp door mat’l (4 eye bolts, 4 teflon furniture slides, teflon tube (for hole through studs), cleat, cord)
•             2½” ext. screws – 6 lb., plus smaller amounts of other size screws
•             Galvanized fence staples – 3 lb.
•             Landscape fabric
•             Vinyl floor tile squares – 18
•             Paint – Glidden Floor & Porch satin latex – 4 gallons
•             Misc – caulk, spackle, Gorilla wood glue, spray foam

FOUNDATION:

Although I was impressed with the various coop plans and pics I found online, as for their foundations, not so much. I improvised for my soggy spot. I dug out a flat rectangle using spade, shovel, wheelbarrow, and some 2x4’s and a level, and transplanted some sod, ferns, and shrubs. With a hand posthole digger, I sunk 8”-diameter cardboard concrete tubes at the four corners (12” to 18” deep, depending on soil hardness), filled them overflowing with concrete, and while still wet, laid on top 4x6 treated timbers. Making sure the tube tops first were level was critical. (I used 12’ studs and a level.) When exactly level and square, I covered the corners with trash bags and let it all cure for a rainy week.

FRAMING:

Facing the outside edge on top of the 4x6 treated timbers, I squared-off 2x4 treated boards on-side, using a few elbow anchors to help hold in place. It all gave a nice solid base to build up from.

While the pictures tell the story best, a few details here: The vertical length of the front 2x4’s is 7’ 3½”; the back is 1’ lower. The center width opening for the door is 36”. Typically, I attached studs with 3, 2½” screws (predrilled). In the handful of places where that wasn’t possible, I used joist hangers.

The overhang is 2' in front, 1’ on sides, and minimal on the back – just enough to accommodate the rain gutter.

ROOF:

At the earliest point possible, I put on the roof panels. After all, it was April in Oregon and working in rain and mud was no fun.

The opaque, gray roof panels are a step up from the cheapest fiberglass panels available. They will last longer and are easier to cut to size (used tin snips). They sell wood strips that affix to the roof joists and support the corregated roof sections, which are screwed down with special leak-proof screws.

I added a vinyl rain gutter and downspout on the back, with leaf guard. Just that little detail with hooks and joiners added about $70 to costs. But what ya gonna do?


SIDING & COOP FLOOR:

I chose plywood siding because it seemed the cheapest alternative that I could make look reasonably good. Still, it was $32 a sheet (4 sheets). Because the coop is built inches from the 6’ property fence, the back wall is plywood and had to be installed next. Before attaching, I used oil-based stain to treat the back side of the plywood that wouldn’t be visible.

Coop walls were added, with the ramp opening (10” x 13”) cut out. The inside dimensions of the elevated coop floor are approximately 34” x 4’ 8”. The 5/8” plywood floor, about 1½’ above the top of the foundation, slopes 1” back to front. Larger cracks at the top of the coop walls were filled with spray foam.

The galvanized hardware cloth (½” screen) was nailed to the framing openings, as shown. This was slow-going, carefully nailing (using galvanized fence staples) every 4” or so, in order to keep the screening flat, then facing with 2x4s (cheaper than 1x4s). The hardware cloth was expensive ($1.49/linear ft. – 3’ width), but essential. Chicken wire is too flimsy to last long or keep out determined raccoons.

DOORS:

The center screen door, 3’ x 6½’, was built from 2x4s, as shown, with 4 angle braces and 2 T-braces for stability. The screen (hardware cloth) was backed with routed 1x4s.

The coop door is approximately 2½’ x 5’, built from 2x4’s and plywood. The window (with hardware screen inside it) is built around a 11” x 14” glass pane, using double layers of 1x4s.

NEST BOXES:

 I cut an opening (16” x 27½”) and added two nest boxes, each approximately 13” wide x 13” deep x 16” high (sloping to 12½”on outside). The floor slopes slightly to the inside, with a gap below the 1x4 board on the inside, for ease of cleaning. A removable 1x4 board will hold in bedding. The outside lid has a strip of vinyl weather seal behind the hinges to help keep out water.

Using a glass door from an old entertainment center, I built a horizontal window above it, as shown.

FINISH WORK:

The pictures show the ramp door details. The cord to open it simply threads through eyebolts to an outside cleat. The angled hole to the front is lined with a nylon tube. The door has teflon furniture sliders added on the wall side.

The ramp is from a rough-finished cedar board (3/4” x 5’), with “steps” every 4”. Eyebolts hold it in place (2 cut open with hacksaw).

Two roost bars in the coop were fashioned from ripped 2x4’s, rounded on top, with no-slip strips added on top. Shelf brackets hold the top one, and also the fount and feeder in the run.

I added a removable plywood board at the coop opening (to keep the chickens inside when the door is open), as well as a removable 1x4 board just inside that to hold the bedding away from the door.

Painting was a big job, both picking the colors and applying. It took four coats to get really sold coverage that I wanted, especially the red (Glidden Deep Garnet).

I laid cheap vinyl self-stick tiles on the floor of the coop and nest boxes, just to help protect the plywood.

Lastly, a bit of caulking around seams and touch-up paint here and there, and the deed was almost done!

To protect against burrowing critters, I installed a layer of hardware cloth on the ground and up the inside foundation timbers, then added a layer of landscape cloth atop that. A cubic yard of river sand went inside the entire run, to a depth of about 5”.

The last step was relocating some landscape plants and low-voltage outdoor lighting.

None too soon. At just five weeks of age, the girls had outgrown their brooder and were looking for new digs.

WELCOME HOME, CHICKS:

Miss Buffy

Miss Coco

Miss Loco

Miss Aussie

Miss Connie

They are some happy girls, it would appear. I enticed them out of their coop into their run for the first time with chopped hard-boiled egg whites – their favorite treat. If the nights get too cool, I can turn on the 250 watt red brooder lamp temporarily hanging inside their coop (with an extension cord). I hope to add an electrical outlet in the coop for a light and timer before next winter. In case you're wondering about the total price tag: $1,300 for the coop, plus about $150 for the chicks and supplies.

QUESTION:

Was it worth it?

UPDATES

August 1, 2012:

It’s been a bit longer than three months since I finished the coop, and life with our chickens is becoming routine. So now the question you might have, if you’ve made it this far in my story, is “what would you do differently in building your coop, now that the chickens are part of your life?”

My answer: Really, not much of anything. The coop seems just the right size for five hens. They get plenty of shade (important), with enough sun to keep them happy, it appears. The coop has proven solid and functional.

The girls put themselves to roost every night, and I close up the hatch and windows, though I don’t think that’s necessary and probably makes me feel good more than the chickens.

There always are a few little things. The 2-gallon water font sets on bricks on the ground, instead of hanging like I planned. The big green plywood board inside the coop door proved unneeded. I just shut the girls out in the run when I’m cleaning the interior coop.

I added a roost bar across one corner of the run, which the girls fly up on to get fed yard grass clippings through the hardware cloth.  

Using sand in the run and in the coop works just fine. I use a kitty-litter scoop to clean the interior coop sand, and the worst of the run sand about every three days or so, although most of the chicken poop in the run just gets ground into the sand. The worst, of course, is directly under their roosts, so I put the plastic lid from a storage bin under the roosts, which is easy to scrape off and hose down.

I switched over to organic layer feed a week or so ago; yesterday, we got our first egg in the pine shavings-lined nest boxes (from Miss Buffy). Today, a pretty little blue egg from Miss Connie (Ameraucana). It’s a start.

I hope you get as much happiness from your chickens as we do. Cluck, cluck!

August 14, 2012:

Here's a minor change I've made to improve housekeeping inside the girls' sleeping quarters. I moved the top roost bar away from the wall by 4 inches (by blocking the angle braces out with a 2x4). That keeps their poop from hitting the back wall during the night, and better collects on the plastic collection tray underneath them. BYW, all five hens roost together on that top bar; it's just about the

right length for that many birds. It was hard to picture how big they really would get as mature hens.

Aug. 22, 2012

October 6, 2012:

I'm learning what "pecking order" really means. Miss Coco beats up on Miss Connie who really thrashes Miss Loco, who has lost all her butt feathers and looks as if she went through the washing machine and drier. (Miss Buffy and Miss Aussie watch with distant disdain their sisters' squabbles.) I've tried to enrich my chickens' lives with diversions of new perches, scratch blocks, veggies, and bright, shiny objects (kind of like if they were teenagers). I even gave them a Mexican rooster, as you see in the following pic, that I picked up last month in Tucson. That's also where I got the mesquite, from a scrap pile of Ben, my furniture-making friend there, which became the Mexican rooster's permanent perch.

The hens haven't commented on their new artwork, but they've been pretty distracted scratching since I added some temporary chicken-wire fencing to enclose their part of the back yard. I let them out when I'm about and able to keep the local cats at bay. The girls do appear happier and less focused on their goddamned egos and pecking order. In their spare time, they've been giving us three to five lovely brown, buff and blue eggs most every day.

The other upgrade to my chicken palace is underground wiring. They now have lights on a timer to wake them up early and, hopefully, keep their egg production up during the looming gloomy winter months. I also have an outlet for a heat lamp to keep them a tad warmer on rare times when it gets much below freezing here in this part of Oregon.

December 8, 2012:

Deck the coop . . .

January 18, 2013:

"The Death of Miss Buffy" -- http://wayneaschmidt.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-death-of-miss-buffy.html

April 28, 2013:

More than 600 people from all around the world have read this blog since I posted it one year ago, including 56 in just the last month. That's pretty amazing to me.

Here's an update, using questions I think readers might have:

Is it all worth it?

Yes. I'm now addicted to hardboiled eggs, and eat at least one every day. The quality and taste of our eggs is wonderful. Not priceless, however.

I noticed this morning that organic eggs at Walmart are over $5 per dozen. Figure that between my wife and I, we eat maybe three eggs a day. At that rate, we should break even with our backyard chickens in about three years.

That is beside the point, however. Chickens are just plain cool. There's a reason why so many people have them, and it's not only about the eggs. I wish we had room for a dozen more. You have to live with chickens to understand, I suspect.

After a year's use, anything about your coop's design that you would change?

Nothing major. I would enlarge clearance tolerances in the doors and windows to account for swelling wet wood and, more importantly, debris.

By the way, using sand in the coop's inside run works fine. The hens love their dust baths, and it supplies grit. From time to time I rake out the worst of the poop with a kitty-litter scoop. If it gets packed down, I break it up. That's about it. On the floor of the inside roost area, I have been using a combination of pine shavings and sand. In the nest boxes, just pine shavings.

What about your hens would you do differently?

Get rid of my bad girl sooner, even if it meant a chopping block. As noted earlier, our Americana hen, Miss Connie, was deranged. She wasn't worth her pretty, blue eggs. Her feather-plucking aggression was not normal and couldn't be fixed. As the urban chicken guy in Eugene told me recently, it's not the breed: "Like people, some chickens are just assholes."

What else have you learned about raising urban chickens?

That chickens don't replace feathers until their next molt, and that can take a long time. Two of my remaining original hens still have ugly bare patches on their butts, thanks to bad girl Miss Connie.

I've also learned a bit about what makes for happy chickens. I didn't appreciate the importance of an outside run area (which I added last summer), along with its chicken-luxuries of scratching, sun-bathing, and eating everything even remotely edible. As large as my coop and indoor run is, if my hens had to be confined 24/7, I wouldn't feel comfortable having more than three hens in that size space.

We've also learned that hens are noisy, once they are up and want to be let out of their coop. It's not an awful sound, but it means getting up and shutting the bedroom windows.

Have you replaced any chickens?

See my link, above, to "The Death of Miss Buffy."

We have three new girls now -- two Buff Orpingtons, Miss Kelly and Miss Jen, and one Lohman Brown, Miss Lola -- that are growing fast.

How are you introducing the new chicks to the one-year-old hens?

At the suggestion of my urban chicken store expert (The Eugene Backyard Farmer), I permanently fenced off and gated a portion of the chickens' backyard area. For now, I'm bringing out the three new chicks and letting them roam in that area for a good portion of the day, then returning them at night to their chick home inside the garage.

The idea is that the older hens have a chance to get acquainted before they are put in the same space. I plan to introduce the chicks at about eight weeks of age.

I'm skeptical of the "getting to know you" theory, however. One of the older hens with the apt name of Miss Loco has evil in her eyes. She's at the bottom of the current pecking order and appears anxious to beat hell out of the new kids.

I'll stick with the plan, but it's a pain. Their transport is a big plastic bin. Catching them in the open run is getting more and more comical, now that they have figured out what their wings are for. This morning, two chicks went airborne as soon as their lid opened, and catching them without the neighbor's gray cat discovering easy new sport was a bit of a challenge.

But it's all worthwhile. As I write this, Miss Coco is napping next to my chair, softly clucking at me from time to time, connected to me by her pure chicken-love -- love for snacks, that is, which can appear unpredictably from my hands -- a constant miracle to her pea-brain.

May 18, 2013:

August 19, 2013

I'm amazed that people still are finding this blog and, apparently, actually reading it, although that's just an assumption on my part. More than 800 "pageviews" so far. Good. That's why I wrote it.

As I've said, who doesn't like chickens? It's kind of like having an aquarium in your house. Mesmerizing. They scratch. They cluck. They shit. They lay eggs. And speaking of scratch, imagine if you could be made the happiest you've ever been in your life by just a handful of cracked corn? Every day for the rest of your life. That's the thrill of chickendom.

I've got to say, it remains for me very weird to think that readers in places such as Slovenia, China, Malaysia -- all manner of worlds away that I know nothing about, living in cultures that I can't even imagine (France! for the love of god) -- are sharing in my education about my little flock of backyard chickens in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon.

Our six hens, the three from last year and the three younger from this year, have adjusted to life together with few lost feathers. It's good they aren't coop-bound, however, as I added the outdoor run last winter. It gives the new chickies room to stay out of the way of the older girls. Despite the fact that our two Buff Orpingtons will soon outweigh their older sisters, I'm pretty sure that the pecking order is permanent.

Sleeping arrangements reflect that social ranking. The new girls aren't allowed into the sleeping quarters at night, and roost tightly together on a branch I installed inside the screened-in portion of the coop.

Egg-laying in the boxes has been mostly peaceful, with the new girls (now about 20 weeks old) laying daily. From the six hens, we're getting 4-6 eggs per day lately.

I've "paved" with large cobbles most of the sloping back side of the outdoor run. Had I left it bare, the hens were determined to flatten the hill, one millimeter at a time, through their perpetual scratching. The rocks appear to work. Incidentally, I brought the hundreds of cobbles home, one five-gallon bucket at a time, from the river where I fish frequently.

So, reader, if you have made it this far in the telling of my poultry tale, thank you. I'm (virtually) flattered. I only wish I could share with you the taste of one of these hardboiled with a little salt:



December 21, 2014

This blog has been more popular than I ever imagined. It’s been viewed well over 3,000 times since I first posted it in April 2012. Thank goodness for Google, eh?

Sometimes prospective chicken aficionados go on to read other things I’ve written on my blog – about Grand Canyon rafting, characters I’ve met while Oregon salmon fishing, and other encounters I’ve found memorable. More often, not.

But back to my chicken update. Most important: We’ve eaten a lot of fabulous eggs over these years. Every day. It never gets old.

Now that winter is here and the days are short, I keep the lights on in the coop so the girls get 12 hours of light. It seems to help because we still get 2-3 eggs, on average, every day. That’s from five hens now, since we lost one of our two Buff Orpingtons a few weeks back. I can speculate on why, but don’t really know. Chickens die sometimes. And based on my limited experience, Buffs are prone to problems.

At least it wasn’t like when my first chicken pet, Miss Buffy, died earlier. This last one, Miss Jen, was just a hen, not a pet. There’s a big difference, it seems.

Here’s a quick wrap up of my urban chicken raising experience. Our “Wichita Coop” is holding up and functioning perfectly. I have had to shave down the big door and the window over the egg laying box because I made the tolerances too tight. And I never really use the fancy trap door I built inside the coop. But everything else seems to work fine.

I’ve added a framed area inside in the corner filled with fine playground sand, which the girls love for dusting. I’m still using the original sand in the main coop, and pine shavings in the upper roost area and in the laying boxes. I clean the worst of the chicken shit every 3-4 days using a kitty litter strainer.

Outside, the mulch is long gone, leaving mud in the Oregon winter rain. The girls don’t really seem to mind. I learned the importance of having an outdoor area for chickens to spend their days. I know the coop should be big enough for a few hens to spend their lives; after all, look at how commercial laying hens live. All I know is that our hens are happy chickens and scratching outside in the dirt is important to them.

Aside from the routine of feeding, watering, and cleaning every few days, there’s not a lot of work. Keeping them safe means locking them in at night and letting them out in the morning. We’ve never had to leave them inside all day; they get real noisy once they’ve had their breakfast if they aren’t let out.

I can’t think of any more tips for prospective urban chicken farmers. Hopefully, some of this helps others take the plunge and get as much enjoyment from their chickens as we’ve found with ours. In fact, I’m planning on adding two more chicks next spring. You can never have too many. Can you?

March 23, 2015

Young Miss Rose

Here I thought I was done with my little story, but chicken life goes on. This spring, I decided to add two more hens.

Two weeks ago when our local Coastal Farm & Fleet got in its first shipment of chicks, there I was, hoping for Rhode Island Reds, and there they were. I told the checkout girl that the soon-to-be-named Miss Penny and Miss Rose had just hit the chicken jackpot.

I returned a few days later with my wife, Eva, for medicated chick feed (I mistakenly had bought non-medicated organic chick feed). The upshot: we came home with two more – a Wyandotte (Miss Wynona) and a Plymouth Rock (Miss Roxie). That will mean nine for our urban flock.

As it happens, we’re in the midst of a remodeling project so I’m home every day, giving me a chance to spend quality time with the new chicks. Their frequent handling has made all the difference; now they seem to enjoy the attention. Hopefully, that will carry through to their big-girl behavior later on.

Eva & Miss Roxie

Priceless

February 13, 2016

I continue to be amazed and a bit humbled by the number of people from all over the world who somehow find my little story. In the last month, for example, Russia, Mexico, Portugal, Canada, France, U.K, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and on it goes. Thank you.

If you enjoy my writing, I invite you to sample more at:

Blog: http://WayneASchmidt.blogspot.com

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