THE CHICKEN STORY!
If we’d only known that Dad drew chickens and eggs in the margins of his elementary school books and heard the story of how he hatched some eggs in an incubator in the attic of his Bryant Street home in Buffalo, New York, without his mother’s knowledge,
we would have known that by living in the country he could finally realize his dream of actually owning chickens.
In the small coop Dad built behind our swing set was a hen setting on a clutch of eggs. One day while sitting on the swing I saw the hen off the nest cracking corn into a pile of soft flour. Shortly afterwards the eggs began to hatch. At my young age I knew I’d seen a miracle. For my Dad it was just the beginning.
Dad began construction on a new and much larger chicken house, first laying a concrete foundation. It had an entry door that we could use to replace food and water and two exits for the chickens leading into two separate fenced in yards. The nests were at one end, a work bench at the other where we sized, candled, and boxed eggs to sell. We were in business to supplement Dad’s income! And Dad had realized his dream of becoming a small chicken farmer.
There was a downside to all of this, however. The New York winters are long and cold, often with deep drifts of snow, and chickens need fresh water that isn’t frozen. Mom and kids were faced with the challenge of keeping the chickens watered while Dad was at work. Mom had a fear of mice and mice love chicken feed. But the chickens stayed for many years and were productive. Dad was a happy man!
