Conversation
I’ve created a new category for posts, called “Chickens“, and I’ve put all my pertinent chicken-raising posts in it, for those who’ve asked for information on raising their own chickens. You can use the link above to get to the chicken information entries, or there’s a permanent link to the right in the “Categories” window.
Warning: chickens are addictive, and when you get some, you start thinking about how you need more.
People have also asked for book recommendations. I recommend these two, because they were the most useful:
I know The Encyclopedia of Country Living isn’t a chicken book per se, but the chapter on raising poultry is chock full of good information. There’s also a web site devoted to Carla Emery’s book, Homesteading Today, and the poultry forums there are excellent. Lots of people with lots of good information to share.
You can also always email me and ask me anything about our experiences. I’ll answer if I’m able (I’m no expert on chickens by any stretch of the imagination, having only raised one batch for a few months), or tell you I don’t know if I don’t.
I’m glad to see so many people have decided to start buying eggs from humanely treated chickens, even though I really wasn’t trying to win any converts (there’s some humor in that, given the section I’m about to write). All I wanted to do is try and explain the reasoning behind the decision to raise our own.
I wheeled the riding lawnmower around and punched the accelerator to the floor. I’m sort of like a drag racer when I cut the grass, as much as that’s possible on a riding mower. Why spend an hour cutting what you can do in 50 minutes, right? This past weekend, I spent all day both days getting ten holes dug and ten posts set for the garden / tractor implement shed I’m building out by the back forty, and was itching to get to work on it yesterday afternoon, but parts of the lawn needed cutting first. It was getting shaggy in spots.
For the record, 12-foot long treated 4×6 posts are heavy as hell, maybe 150 pounds each. Once you get one onto your shoulder, it’s not so bad to walk with it, but taking it in and out of a 30-inch hole over and over while you try to get it to line up with your other posts is a nightmare. Add to that some 200 pounds of concrete around each post, all the digging to get the holes right (the tractor digs the main part, but all resizing to square things must be done with post-hole diggers by hand), and you have the makings for a stunningly tiring weekend.
Still, it’s a lot of fun watching something take shape when you’re doing all the work yourself. Not only is there great satisfaction in all the hard work, there’s the knowledge that you’re most likely providing endless entertainment for all the old men down at the corner store, who always seem to know what you’ve been doing.
But I digress.
As I rounded my turn on the mower, I noticed Mr. Cooper, the old man who owned the small house next door, slowly shambling across the grass toward me. He raised a hand in greeting. I returned the wave and shut the mower off. His house finally sold a couple of weeks ago to a single retired woman (whom Robyn has met, but I have not. I met her male friend one evening when he asked to borrow a sledgehammer, but that’s all), and he’s been at the house a lot, cleaning his things out. I had noticed his car parked out front earlier, when I was cutting with the tractor and the big mower.
“How are you?” I called as I climbed out of my seat.
“Been doin’ good.”
We shook hands. He crowded well into my 3-foot personal space ring before he stopped walking. His face was maybe a foot from mine, close enough to kiss should the urge strike me.
I did not expect it to.
His rheumy eyes were filled with sticky-looking greenish gunk, but they still twinkled with life. He ran his tongue over his blocky brown teeth, and I saw remnants of a past meal lodged in there. Something white crusted the corners of his mouth.
“I see you finally got your house sold,” I offered. We’d spoken a couple of times about the house, Mr. Cooper and I, because at one point we contemplated buying it so we could try to sell the house off the property and reclaim that half-acre. Ultimately, we decided we didn’t want to spend that much money just to get a little land.
In our conversations, Mr. Cooper always admonished me to pray for a good neighbor, particularly one that wasn’t black, though he was always quick to tell me that not all black people were bad. Heck, one of the best neighbors he ever had was a black man. Seriously.
“Sold it to a fine Christian woman,” he said. “I think she’ll make a right fine neighbor. There were a couple of people I was worried about there for a while.”
He looked around, and in a lower voice he said, “Black people.”
I nodded, uncomfortable and unsure of what to say.
“Course they aren’t all bad. One of the best neighbors I ever had was a black feller.”
“Yessir. All we want is someone quiet. They could be green and we wouldn’t mind, as long as they were quiet about it.” I tried a smile.
“Those black people all had little kids,” he said. “But this lady is a good Christian woman. Worked over at the plant in Huntsville for thirty years and said she just wants a place to relax and live off her pension. I financed it for her.”
It’s a longstanding tradition in more rural areas for owners to finance small homes — particularly to minorities — so that if the buyer ever misses a payment the owner can foreclose and get the property back to sell again. Not that Mr. Cooper is doing that; it just struck me as odd that he mentioned that he financed it for her.
“We had a prayer together at the office where we did the closing, and the black woman who was the notary public got so excited she ’bout nearly started screaming in the Spirit.”
“Oh yeah?”
He laughed. “She really loved the Lord, that one. But you know how the blacks can be.”
He swiped at his damp brow with the handkerchief he clutched in one gnarled hand.
“You still like livin’ here?” he asked.
“Yessir, just love it.”
“I sure wish I coulda kept this place, but all the grass cutting here and at our other place was too much. I’ll be eighty-six next month.”
“It’s about time you took a little rest, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Sure did like comin’ out here.”
We stood there for a moment, uncomfortably close, while he visited a nostalgic place in his head.
“Woman who bought this place is a good Christian,” he finally said.
“Yessir, you mentioned that.”
“Guess all our praying helped get you a good neighbor. I was gonna come out here and vacuum the place for her, but she told me she had people coming to clean the carpets and I didn’t even need to do that, so I’m just c’llectin’ some odds and ends. Real fine lady, and an upstanding Christian.”
“Yessir.”
“Where do you and your wife go to church?”
And there it was, all out in the open. I felt something like a deer in the headlights. I know that people don’t mean to cause discomfort when they ask things like that, that they’re just trying to make conversation and assume you’re a church-going person same as them. Asking someone where they go to church down in the south is like asking about the weather somewhere else.
Now, it’s well-known here that I’m an atheist. Most atheists aren’t like the ones you see on TV or read online. You know, the militant atheists who make it their life’s goal to convert the world (much like the fundamentalists of Christianity) or die trying. Every bit as annoying as the vegans and gay people who can’t have a conversation without bringing up their veganity (!) or gayness, these atheists can’t speak a paragraph without reminding you that they’re atheists and anyone who believes in God is a fool.
That vegan and gay comment was referencing a specific subset of vegans and homosexuals, not a general statement about either group in general. Close your mail client.
I’m not that kind of atheist. I’m a don’t-give-a-shit atheist. That means I don’t give a shit what you believe as long as you don’t try to convert me or blow me up. You mind your business, I’ll mind mine. My atheism is not something that I wear on my sleeve, and it rarely comes up in conversation. I don’t feel the need to tell everyone I meet that I’m a heathen, because there’s no need to rub anyone’s face in it. I won’t lie about being one, but I won’t tell you I’m one unless directly asked.
“We haven’t picked anywhere to go to church since we moved,” I said, speaking slowly to make sure I chose exactly the right words. “I grew up in [redacted] church.”
He grinned, and pointed to the church next to our house.
“You could go right there,” he said. “That’s a [redacted] church.”
“Sure could,” I replied, returning his smile. Even if I did go to church, I wouldn’t go to one right next door to my house, because they’d be all up in my bidness if I ever missed a service. I know this from experience. “This place keeps us really busy right now.”
To my way of thinking, you choose your fights. Having grown up in the area, I know the reaction you get from most people—especially the fundamentalist evangelicals—when they find out you’re a non-believer:
So, to keep the peace, I tread delicately around religion talk.
“Yesterday was my forty-eighth anniversary from the first time I ever preached a sermon,” he said.
“Wow, congratulations!”
“I had hoped to get to preach a sermon yesterday for my anniversary, but I got a call from my granddaughter inviting me up to Tennessee. Her three daughters all decided to get saved and she wanted me to come up and baptize them. I got into the baptistry with all three at once — one eleven, one twelve, and one fifteen. That’s about the best thing I could get for my anniversary.”
“I’ll bet you were really proud,” I said.
“Sure was.”
He reflected for a moment on the memory of baptizing his great-granddaughters.
“The Lord sure has been good to me,” he said.
“Sounds like things went really well for your anniversary.”
He nodded, and wiped at his brow again.
“Well, guess I’ll get back over here and finish pickin’ up my stuff,” he said. “Good seein’ you.”
We shook hands again, and as he ambled away I went back to finish cutting the side yard.
To end on a high note, this is the best video you will see today, if you’re old like me:
Whew! That was a close one, Fred!
Bet you start finding those “Chick Publications” tracts left in your mailbox now! Way to cover your a**, Fred. Proud of ya.
Loved the video..damn we’re getting old!!
Man, I hate when people come out and ask what church I go to, which I think is rude. It’s a loaded question, and I do believe they know it when they ask it. You’re probably giving them way more of a benefit of the doubt than they deserve. I’m positive that he already knew you didn’t go to church, because he doesn’t see you going (and neighbors notice these things) on Sunday mornings. And you (and myself) are too nice to just tell people to “bug off” or “it’s none of your business.” But it really isn’t anyone’s business except your own.
It also thrills me in a kind of scary way that you used a photo from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, because that’s the movie that I keep thinking of when someone I know all of a sudden “gets religion.” I had a friend–who always thought a lot like I did about organized religion (won’t get into that here) and we would have long discussions about it–decide to attend a church one Sunday, then started wearing a cross around her neck fulltime the next. Religious music in her office, religious books carried around, the works. It happened that quickly. And not just to her, but to several people I know.
I about ran into that on my site a couple of weeks ago. Now, County people aren’t supposed to talk religion at all, but this was a tenant’s maintenance guy who seemed to believe that the value of a person depended on whether or not they went to church. I extricated myself without rolling my eyes directly in his direction, but you can bet that I won’t be in a big hurry to go back to his site. I will if I have to, mind you, but I’m not going to look forward to it, especially when he spends half his time denigrating his company’s paying customers, who are mostly Chinese.
Well praise the Lawd he decided to move.
Megan - he never actually lived there; his son did. He just showed up from time to time. When Robyn met the new buyer, the woman told Robyn that Mr. Cooper had told her we were also “good Christian people.” Hopefully she won’t come give me the stinkeye when I’m out on the tractor overpowering the church bells on Sunday morning.
Jules - It’s everywhere. The guy who delivered shed wood for me on Saturday morning informed me that he was a preacher at a local church and invited me to come visit.
First of all, that video made my day!!! Damn I feel old.
This whole religion fixation was a weird thing for me to get used when we moved to the south. I’m a fellow don’t-give-a-shit atheist and I found it horribly offputting that more often than not, the question right after “What’s your name?” was “Where do you go to church?” I still struggle with a good answer.
Not to be a stickler or anything, but being a heathen and an atheist, isn’t really the same thing is it?
Because if you’re heathen, you totally belong to them:
http://www.asatru.org/
http://www.asatru.is/
And how much fun would that be, explaining to all the good christian people that you believe in a bunch of gods and goddesses
Hulda, below is my definition of heathen.
Noun
* S: (n) heathen, pagan, gentile, infidel (a person who does not acknowledge your god)
Adjective
* S: (adj) heathen, heathenish, pagan, ethnic (not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam)
(source)
That video made me smile big time! My favorite movie since I was in the 8th grade. Gosh I am old!
Thanks for putting a big ‘ole smile on my face with that video.
That was fun.
Fred, you setting posts reminded me of the film “The Ultimate Gift” I saw recently. Have you seen it?
Consider me corrected then, heathen Fred
I haven’t seen it, Emily. Does it involve being so tired you can’t move? If so, I can understand it.
I wonder if he financed it because the selling price was too low to get a first mortgage on it as a primary home? When my husband and I bought our old house ten years ago, we were pre-approved for a $100k loan, but we couldn’t get one for $30k for the house we bought. It was considered as high-risk a loan as one over $250k (I think fifty grand was the cut-off back then) and we ended up buying it on land contract from the seller.
I now have “Choctaw Bingo” stuck in my head after you talking about the whole financing/missing payments thing. There’s a lyric in it something like “He cut that corner pasture into acre lots / Sells ‘em owner financed strictly to to them / That’s got no kind of credit / Cause he knows they’re slackers / And they’ll miss that payment / And he takes it back”. Ray Wylie Hubbard version of that song totally kicks ass.
1. “I’m glad to see so many people have decided to start buying eggs from humanely treated chickens, even though I really wasn’t trying to win any converts (there’s some humor in that, given the section I’m about to write),” made me think there was a story of inadvertent bird death coming up, caused perhaps by a rogue mower/tractor type thing. I read on cringing, but I’m glad it wasn’t.
2. What is the picture from? It seems familiar, but I can’t place it.
Fred - Thanks so much for posting that video. I had a big goofy grin on my face watching it!
StephakneeSays: I haven’t killed any chickens yet…yet. The picture is from the 1970’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a cult classic from my misspent youth.
John Travolta’s still hot. That video sure does prove it.
Yes, he gets tired, but learns a lot.
You can read about it here:
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/70063587?trkid=73
Fred, as I remember back, didn’t you think of becoming a preacher at some point in your life? Quite a leap to from that to atheist. If you’d care to share how that came about, I’m sure there’s a great story in there and no one can tell a story quite like you! P.S. Donald Sutherland just cracked me the hell up. Right up there with Robyn’s picture of Mr. Boogers - which also cracks me up EVERY time I see it!
Hilarious non believer photo, made me lol.
Thanks for starting my day out with a smile!
Thanks so much for the video! John’s voice sounded a little rough. I’ll bet he doesn’t sing that song very often!
Well I’ve got a few years on you and that video made my day too!! Couldn’t believe that JT would walk out and help her out with that song.
hmmmm,, In my neck of thr woods, a heathen is simply someone who is uncultured, or uncivilized. i.e. “Those kids act like a bunch of heathens.”
OMG….Loved the video of Olivia and John!
Smiled like a geek thru the whole thing! Thank You for sharing.
You handled yourself quite nicely. But, there’s nothing wrong with people thinking you and Robyn are fine Christians, it means they think you’re nice and not too much on the weird side and that you would help them out if need be and not end up cutting them up into tiny pieces and storing them under your house. Thanks for the video as well…love that movie….
I love the Homesteading Today forums, mainly because they allow this suburb-dweller an opportunity to fantasize about stuff like having chickens or a big-ol’ garden.
Before her death, Carla Emery used to post on the forums a lot - she would have people test the recipes and techniques for upcoming editions of Encyclopedia of Country Living. She was such a nice person and I still miss reading posts from her.
I am enjoying reading about your move to the country and all of the adventures it entails. It takes a lot of courage to make such a drastic change. Keep up the good work, and keep posting chicken pictures. A girl’s gotta dream …
Look, it’s Sandy & Danny’s Mum and Dad!
I can say that because I went to the movie in its original year of release in Australia. We love our Livvie in Australia, we do.
I’m going to quote from a Paula Poundstone (There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say ) a snippet about her atheism, and mine.
Page 16, the chapter titled Joan of Arc: Called by God and Driven by Drink.
I’m an atheist. The good news about atheists is that we have no mandate to convert anyone. So you’ll never find me on your doorstep on a Saturday morning with a big smile, saying “Just stopped by to tell you there is no word. I brought along this little blank book I was hoping you could take a look at.”