There I was. Standing all alone in the chicken house. Scoop shovel in hand. A hoe and scraper leaned against the wall and a manure spreader parked at the East door. And I had one HUGE decision to make.
Finding acceptance in a multi-generation farm family is not an easy accomplishment for a city boy dating a farm girl. But I had fallen head long for this Nebraska girl and was now visiting the family farm east of Petersburg and meeting her family for the first time.
I had done my best to prepare for this visit. My brain processing pathways are to 1) onboard as much as I can by reading, listening, and asking questions until 2) I can find what I deem a logical path forward, and then 3) process on that for a bit before I settle into it. To that end, I’d gone to the library and checked out and read a book on farming. From this, I concluded that I had a good grasp on the industry and was ready to meet my girlfriend's family (and her father in particular).
In fairness I wasn’t 100 percent a city boy and this wasn’t my first chicken encounter. My grandfather who died when my father was a child was a farmer (although my uncle described him as able to make any good crop fail). My maternal grandparents lived in a small, North Central Indiana town where my morning jogs took me through corn fields and past hog pens. Both parents had grown up in small rural farm communities on acreages with animals and both would call themselves “country kids.” It’s fair to argue there was at least a little “country” in my genes.
We also had chickens during my childhood. It was really quite by accident when our three brightly colored Easter chicks we had bought at the Damascus Farm and Feed store down the street somehow survived. A small chicken coop was soon added to our ½ acre lot on the outskirts of Portland and our two hens and one rooster became the latest family pets. A few months later they began to also supply our eggs. These chickens spent their days happily foraging through the large family garden and in the open field between our home and Oregon 212. Their life was a bit charmed and their care requirements were minimal. More specifically, there was no farm-sized chicken house to clean, no preparation for life’s big question to come.
Winter that year was a bit colder than usual and we determined our pets needed a warmer home. We gifted them to some church friends who had a large brood and a sizable chicken house. Naively, we presumed we would be able to visit our Easter pets from time to time. Instead, we received a thank you card that noted how tasty they were. That wasn’t the story ending us three city kids had even remotely considered.
My next chicken encounter was years later and what had landed me at my big decision point. A career opportunity had brought me to the Kansas City area and a friend had invited me and my two roommates over one fall day for lunch and to hang out at a nearby park. She had also invited over a couple of new employees at the hospital and health system where we all worked, individuals whom I hadn’t previously met. We were mid meal when a gentle rain started. Mind you this was all pre-internet and the ability to quickly look to see how long the rain would last. Our conversation quickly turned to whether our park plans were now toast when one of the newbies – a very attractive farm girl as it turned out to be – piped up, “If we had chickens, we would know.”
The city-kids-occupied table was quite unable to process how to react to that comment and quickly started to move on. But not me. “Why would having chickens tell us if we can go to the park or not?” My first farm life lesson followed. If it is going to be a short rain, they would run into the chicken house. If it is going to rain for a longer period of time, they’d just stay out in it. I was hooked and over the next weeks and months learned bits and pieces here and there about farm living. One encounter at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City is what convinced me that maybe I needed to read a book. I was questioning why the cow in the painting had both an udder and horns. She was questioning if there was any hope for me.
This chicken house cleaning project didn’t begin as a solo endeavor. We’d arrived at the farm the night before, had a nice farm breakfast, and had done the farm tour. I had dropped some of my nuggets of wisdom gleaned from my book reading to my girlfriend’s father during this tour. In return, I had received several silent stares back that seemed to scream, “Girl, what planet did you find this one on?”
The THEORY was that the family would then do a big project together, the cleaning of the chicken house (it wasn’t clear to me that morning that the house had ever been cleaned before given the volume of shoveling and scraping that awaited us). And it did START as a family event. We all were given our gloves and utensils, the manure spreader was pulled up to the East door and the work began. I noticed that my girlfriend’s dad seemed to need to go after tools … a lot. And then he apparently got stuck in one as he never returned. Next her mother had some “temporary” task that called her away … apparently for a week or two. Younger brother had a more legitimate excuse as his asthma started to kick in. He at least apologized. And then SHE left me. I don’t even remember the excuse, just the realization many, many, many minutes later that she – like everyone else – was not returning. The cleaning out the chicken house “family” project was now just mine.
And now I had to decide, “How much do I really like this girl?”
We had to tear the almost 100-year-old chicken house down five years ago. It wasn’t too long after my infamous decision day that chicken raising was stopped and the house became a storage shed. Over the past 30 years we’d re-roofed it and shored it up a time or two, but time was taking its toll.
Fortunately we were able to save, clean, and plane enough of the chicken house siding boards to create a beautiful shiplap wall in the kitchen of the 130-year-old farmhouse we are now remodeling. We’ve also turned the old milk barn into an outdoor living space, and changed the shelter belt into a grass filled park as we hope to enjoy many more years on the family farm.
I am also thinking about getting a brood of chickens again and building them a house I never intend to clean out. How else will we judge the commitment level of the next round of city guys our family girls bring home?