When you only have two chickens, it's easy to tell the difference in the eggs.
On the left is an egg from the Marans hen. They're supposed to be very dark eggs, but sometimes they turn out speckled. You don't find chickens advertised as laying spotted eggs, but most of our hatchery Marans did, from time to time.
On the right is an egg from the Easter Egger. They are usually green or blue. This one is such a pale green that it didn't come through well in the photo.
Common wisdom has it that chickens lay fewer, but larger, eggs as they age. I've found that to be true for all the types we've had except the Marans. Hers continue to be smallish, but she's laying more often now than ever. All our chickens' eggs have gotten lighter in color each successive season.
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1That seems to be the picture that people remember most from the blog. (Every time I look at it, it bothers me that I didn't get them lined up a little straighter.) It was from my first month of blogging, so I suppose you could say it's been all downhill from there. Click here for the larger, right-side-up original version.
The black areas on the underside of the rock were caused by smoke from the fires they used to cook with and keep warm.
Since the end of the summer, I've received a number of concerned inquiries about "Velouria," my vintage Raleigh DL-1 Tourist (and for those who have only begun reading this blog recently, I am named after this bicycle, not the other way around). Though admittedly I have not featured her for some time,I assure you that Velouria is alive and well. She resides in our photo studio just South of Boston, performing the under-documented but crucial role of "studio bike." And here are the pictures to prove it.
For those unfamiliar with Velouria's history, she is somewhat of a "frankenbike," albeit a darling one. I acquired the 1973 Raleigh DL-1 in the summer of and over time proceeded to subject her to a number of modifications. These have included: an aftermarket chaincase and dress guards, cream tires, a Brooks B18 saddle, a custom rear rack, and an updated rear wheel with a coaster brake hubto supplement the pitiful braking power of the rod brakes.
Why do I feel the need to mess with a vintage bicycle in this manner? To tell the truth, part of it is simply the compulsion to experiment, to customise, to turn objects that belong to me into "creatures." I am not saying it's a good habit necessarily; but it's how I like to do things. 
There was also a practical reason for all the modifications: I loved the ride quality of the DL-1 so much, that I was highly motivated to make it as functional as possible.
But ultimately, my love for this bicycle is also what made me move it to the photo studio after I (literally) found the vintage Gazelle in the end of last summer. At the risk of sounding cruel to the Gazelle, I am willing to run it into the ground. It is a great bike, it handles wonderfully, it is admirably designed, but my feeling toward is appreciation - not "love." The vintage Raleigh, on the other hand, feels almost like a pet. I just can't bring myself to ride its already battered and rusty frame on the salted roads in the winter, or even to leave it for hours in the rain in the summer. "Let the Gazelle take the abuse and spare the Raleigh," says my heart. And so Velouria became "studio bike" - ridden occasionally, but not too much. 
And if you've noticed that these pictures are a little different from my typical bike photos, that is because they were taken inside the studio itself. We will soon be doing a couple of photo shoots for a local framebuilder, so we're practicing. When it comes to product photography in a studio setting, every object requires a different approach to lighting - and I would say that bicycles are fairly complicated as far as these things go. They are enormous, they have both matte and reflective parts, and they cast a variety of unusual shadows. Oh, and don't get me started on the kickstand thing; we are still working that one out!
Of course, the trouble with this type of product photography is that it brings every single detail of the object into sharp focus - not exactly the most flattering approach when it comes to vintage bikes!
But after all, "Velouria" is not just any vintage bike. She is mine. The scraped paint, the rust, the solidified crust, the dented fenders and even the bent rodbrake levers are, oddly, all part of what makes me cherish her. She may no longer be the most frequently featured bicycle here, but she epitomises the theme of this blog perhaps more than any other bike I own.
Walking home yesterday afternoon, I was amused to notice how much I tend to do this even when it comes to bicycles.
Both Vienna and Boston are full of generic modern unremarkable bikes, yet the ones I pay attention to are the classic and vintage bikes.
And since I notice these more, in my subsequent memories they are the ones that play a starring role in the city's "velo life".
In a similar fashion, I tend to pay lots of attention to architecture I like and ignore all the "ugly" stuff right next to it. As a result, a city or a neighborhood might consist entirely of beautiful architecture in my memories.
There are countless examples of this of course, and unless we point and shoot in a random direction we cannot take a picture without revealing our subjective biases. Our pictures reflect how we want to see and remember things rather than how they actually are. For example, several readers have pointed out to me that my "street scenes" tend to be miraculously free of cars, and indeed I seem to frame photos so as to avoid them. There is just something about modern cars that is not photogenic: they detract from the feel of the city landscape.
Bicycles, on the other hand, seem to enrich it - especially when the bicycles are nice and the cyclists are well dressed. Yes, that is a Hassidic Jew cycling through Vienna - who clearly has no problem cycling in a suit.
And here is a couple, cycling into the sunset idyllically. While of course I did not stage these scenes, you could say that I chose to notice them out of the many alternative scenes I could have noticed instead.
