CHICKEN RUN

Besides bailing wire, duct tape and chewing gum, one of the main things that holds a guy like me together is a strong cuppa Joe.

Java. Buzz Bean. The Caffeinated Bev-er-ahge…

And as you have gathered from the previous posts from my former home in Bakersfield, I am the sort of coffee snob who frequently insists on roasting his own from the raw bean, in pursuit of percolated perfection.

(Well, pour-over, actually, but it was a toss-up as to which sounded more fun in alliteration…!)

I live in the jungle now, however, and electricity for the hot air popcorn popper I normally work wizardry with is often nonexistent, because none of us on the Organic Chicken Ranch and Animal Rescue Farm are ever mindful enough to fill up the damn gas can for the generator when we go into town, a good 40 minutes away.

We have other things on our minds, like, will the volcano erupt before we get back home, ‘cuz we live awful close to the main hole…

But come to think of it, I could roast up some pretty sweet joe over a lava stream, I betcha…

Be that as it may, only one of us (who just happens to be Crusoe, my Hawaiian Alcoholic friend) has tthe presence of mind to actually bring along the little red can, and glory be, there it sat full by the generator on the same day I ran out of Great Value Breakfast Blend, which I have been settling for lately because it actually tastes good and is just $3.88 for a full 12 Oh Zees at the Hilo Walmart..

The gennie sits on a pallet with a scrap of roof tin over it to keep the rain out of its innards, and when you crank and run it, it vibrates enough to start an earthquake from outside the volcano.

However, it’s single 120AC plug is my only option for the hot air popcorn popper, so I plops it on the tin roof cover, fires gennie up, plugs in the popper, and dumps a load of excellent raw Columbian beans into the maw of the machine.

Oooh, this is gonna be good!

The beans swirl in the hot air, emitting that familiar aroma I have often pined for since having my hobby curtailed by the lack of current on the homestead here.

I suddenly realize that I am missing the other important tool needed – a cooling colander!

Surely there is something lying around the chicken ranch that will suffice; and I am frantic in my pursuit because it doesn’t take long to turn a coffee bean into charcoal if you’re not there to shut things down.

Then CRASH!!!!!!!

I turn, my dreams of caffeine glory evaporating into the reality before me – the tin roof had vibrated the entire assembly onto the lava floor, and my precious beans were spread in a ten-foot diameter around the gennie!

I uttered curses so loathsome that I don’t even know how to spell them.

And worse, as though it COULD be more of a disaster, from out of the jungle brush at least fifty chickens charged me trying to reach what they considered a feast.

Chickens, as it turns out, are not particularly afraid of Jungle Dave.

They ignored my desperate pleadings, my bad language, my swipes at them with the palm broom, and soon every single bean was down a chicken gullet. And those damn roosters ate their share as well…

So! No coffee for Jungle Dave, who sat on the homespun bench by the generator in a state of island dejection, which fortunately never is fatal.

But I could feel the caffeine withdrawal headache coming on and knew my usefulness for the day would swiftly ebb; so I shut gennie down, picked up the newly-cracked hot air popcorn popper, and trudged back up to my pallet bed in Hoop House to consider my options.

The only saving grace was watching those coffee’d-up chickens race around the ranch like the Roadrunner on meth, laying and pooping at record pace until they dropped from exhaustion on the jungle floor, the little bastards.

And I caught a bus later that day to the Walmart, an all-day journey, as the bus system here sucks even worse than caffeine withdrawal.

But dangit, a boy needs his beans!

I bought a two-week supply, and a chicken sandwich, which I stabbed repeatedly with a little plastic knife.

Alo-HA! 
And we all know what THAT means in this context.

(pics are Frickin’ Chicken the day after her binge; me in our fly-speckled mirror; and tonight’s tri-colored glorious sky…)