1 We were stop #8 on Tour de Coop, which is in its 4th year. It's a benefit tour organized by JoAnn Trick to support Helpline House. There are others all over the country, including Seattle. People come by foot, car and bike. I wasn't prepared for literally hundreds of people to visit, nonstop, all day long from before the tour opened at 11, to after 4pm. We had to leave for a retirement ceremony so Mom and Richard and Nana regaled the late-comers.
2 I enjoyed myself immensely, showing chicken anatomy and all kinds of poultry science and husbandry. Whatever people expressed an interest in. I met all kinds of characters. I was pretty talked-out by 4pm though! See I have phones in both pockets? I am also coordinating a family reunion at Lake Crescent next weekend which has come into a little glitch - apparently they had our cabin double-booked. So the hilarity and machinations continue. I have no idea where our family is staying...could be rooftop? Yurt? Who knows!
3 Lots of characters came - such nice people, and all chicken-lovers.
4 The lady in green works at Bay Hay and sells chicken feed and all things chicken. She was spying on me :)
5 This is Heather and Andrew from Bay Hay - such nice people. Heather chicken-sits for those who go out of town.
6 Merlin greeting Heather. Merlin was REALLY nice all day long, perfoming his magnificent crow, wing flapping, door-roosting routine. He didn't attack me at all and I even went in without my Merlin pole!
7 Richard did a great job fillling in the blanks that I missed!
8 The tour organizer, JoAnn in black. I think she was a bit shocked at my refreshments - I had nice lemonade out, plus "chicken chips" - I made sugar cookies dipped in lumpy melted caramel to look like a nice cecal discharge (Google it - basically by the discharge from the cloaca you can tell that the chicken's digestive tract is in good working order). They disappeared FAST I tell you.
9 This is my friend Ben's wife and her mom - finally got to meet them! They adopted a couple of our hens including Oli Ednamode. And also hatched some fertilized eggs we donated when their hens went broody. I offered a cookie and lemonade to the mom and when she went to do hand sanitizer, my bottle went nuts on her and shot out a huge bolus right into the crotch area of her pants! She was such a trooper - just laughed and mopped it up. Poor thing! I was mortified!
10 Richard and a nice gentleman.
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12 These two were funny :) Look at her face looking at me! Just like in my Merck days, detailing...
13 Explaining how the chicken manages to lay a clean egg out the same opening as her digestive tract. Pretty interesting.
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15 Showing the picture of Ben with little Gordon on his day of hatching.
16 Crowds like this ALL day long!
17 I loved this sweet man - who is he? Anyone know? He told a story of trying to save a baby chick that his cat ran off with when he was 9 years old. He was so sad - the cat got away with his chick despite his best efforts. :(
18 Such a sweet man!
19 These two are shopping for a home...maybe they'll be neighbors!