Riding in cars with chickens

It's always entertaining to drive with a car full of chickens. For the most part they tend to be pretty quiet, but sometimes they all get to crowing and cackling and it's enough to make a person crazy... or at least give a person a headache! They make noise when the car is stopped or moving slowly, and are quieter the faster I go. They make more noise when I am near my destination, whether that's home or a show (I'm guessing because the car is moving slower and making more turns, versus just driving on the freeway). They have a knack for making lots of noise when going through a restaurant drive-thru, which always gets some interesting looks...

I went down to Monterey this weekend for a show... the last one of the season (I should say the last of the season that I will likely be attending...). I got Best of Breed but nothing more. We've been having some pretty foul weather lately and I was concerned about snow over the pass on highway 152 so I went a different route this time and went through San Jose. I wish I could have snapped a pic of all the windmills on 205, but there wasn't anywhere to pull over. They really are impressive... I can't help but think how badly they would freak out a horse seeing them for the first time. There was some very heavy rain on the way down and traffic was pretty bad in spots, but it was a fairly uneventful trip, and it was actually not raining in Monterey when I got there. I got the birds cooped in and chatted with people for a while, and then headed out to dinner with a couple of friends (WL, BJ, JR, LR). BJ knows the local hot spots, so we went to a teeny place called Turtle Bay Taqueria for dinner. I had a chicken wrap, which was excellent but a tad spicy!! Then we all headed down to Cannery Row, had ice cream sundaes at the Ghirardelli shop (YUM, but it was COLD outside!), perused some little shops and galleries, and I bought two pairs of chicken socks. They are in the washing machine at the moment, but I'm sure you'll all eager to see pics of my new socks, so I will photograph them some time later (I hope I don't have any foot fetish readers!) ;-)

There was a lot of rain Friday night, and the thunder was just amazingly loud. Saturday morning was clear and cold, and my car had a coating of hail. Hail! On the coast! Seems so strange to me, maybe it's not, I dunno. I wasn't expecting to have to use my ice-scraper this weekend! The birds had managed to get themselves pretty dirty overnight (how do they do that?!?!? I will never understand). I cleaned them up as best I could, but it's pretty tough to do a great job without warm water and soap. Diva won Best of Breed, but when it came time for the class judging she just wouldn't "show" at all. She looked pretty mopey. I guess she just wasn't feeling the winning spirit this weekend. There are a number of reasons why that happens to birds. Sometimes they are getting ready to lay an egg. Sometimes they get chilled from being near the door (it was very cold down there this weekend), sometimes the building heaters blow on the birds too much.. they're just tempermental, particularly the females. You can almost always count on a male bird to want to show off, but the females are never a sure thing. So, no big wins this weekend, and that's fine, I am thrilled with how I did at the previous shows, and I had a great time down there anyway. I did some more shopping on Saturday, went down to Cannery Row again with JJ, and took some pictures of the shore so you can all see where I was this weekend. That's one of the cool things about showing-- not only do I raise some cool birds and hang out with the nicest and most wonderful people in the world, but I get to travel around the state and see things I might not otherwise see. As JJ pointed out though, if you are living vicariously through MY blog, you really must lead a dull life!! :-)

Saturday night was the banquet. They have a wonderful catered banquet at that show and the most indescribably delicious bread pudding in the universe. It's like eating a bit of heaven. Truly. Wow. I sat with the fun crowd again at dinner time (same as Friday, plus JJ, CS, and K whose last name I don't know) and we had a great time, laughed a lot... We also all did very well in the wine raffle, like to the point where it gets embarrassing because the table of 8 people won something like 5 gift baskets and 5 or so individual bottles. Craziness. Lucky crowd I guess. ;-)

So despite not winning any major awards I had a great weekend. I only wish there were more shows to attend! It's time to start focusing on hatching now.

Here are a couple of pics taken at Cannery Row in Monterey. Apparently it is unusual to see snow on that mountain!





On the way back I decided to take my chances and hope for the best on Pacheco Pass, not really knowing what kind of weather or road conditions to expect. This is what I saw on approach (I pulled onto a side road to shoot this pic) and I was thinking "uh oh, what am I getting into?" It was fine though, some light rain in places but mostly pretty clear over the pass and along the San Luis Reservoir.



On a very sad note though, I did get some bad news upon arriving home. Our 18 year old cat Fuzzby died last night. It's been a long time coming, there were so many times before this where I didn't think she would make it, yet I'm surprised it happened now, and I'm sad that she's not here anymore. She's buried along the fenceline in the garden, where she used to love to roll in the dirt. Rest in peace Fuzzby.