into the woods

I currently live in suburbia right outside a huge metro city but I work about an hour north and one of my coworkers lives an hour further northwest on a farm; today, she told me she raises chickens, which makes me supremely nostalgic, remembering the time my family raised chickens. Why did we? Because beyond wanting fresh eggs, my father wanted us to know where our food came from and to appreciate the value of hard work. (Which is also why we grew most of our produce, as well, during the summer months and attempted almost everything under the sun at least once; I do NOT, however, recommend rendering your own lye; that is one task that I will gladly leave to the soap companies as it produces the most incredibly foul smell one can ever imagine.) And so, in the pursuit of education, we ordered baby chicks and set about learning everything we could about how to raise them (neither of my parents were raised on the farm) before their arrival.

We had about twenty-five incredibly majestic Buff Orpingtons (the biggest chicken, standing about two feet high). Seven of them were roosters (we had them sexed and ordered three but ended up with seven, whoops). Dad also had us learn how to design and then build a chicken coop. And this wasn’t just any chicken coop – oh no, our chickens lived in style. They had their chicken doors, a huge fenced-in pen area to run around and play in, and a skylight, yes a skylight, to provide them “natural light” when they were inside the coop.

We were intent upon having the most healthy chickens possible.

On top of that, we lived on wooded property nestled up to thirty acres of woods…so we’d let the chickens free-range all day, and they’d venture into the woods and be gone all day, but at night, like clockwork, they’d come home to roost, without fail. We never lost one.

Their freedom, however, was curtailed when a neighbor built a house across our lane (we had been the only house on the lane for years)…the chickens were great for the first few months, but one day, I looked out a second-story window and was dismayed to see a chicken proudly and boldly not only cross the dirt lane but march right into our neighbors’ new, open, attached garage. I sent out my younger brothers to retrieve the miscreant and from that time forth, we had to keep a close eye on them to make sure they did not pay our neighbors a social visit unannounced. ;)

All of this to say, Mary, my coworker, is bringing me in fresh farm eggs tomorrow, and I am sooo excited – it has been years since I’ve had fresh eggs – and the taste and quality of fresh eggs makes any other egg pale in comparison.