Carol the chicken rancher

Part 5

In the summer before I entered sixth grade we moved to Dayton, Oregon, in the heart of the Willamette Valley.  My sister, Merrie, recently told me that she had been back to Dayton a couple of years ago and it had not changed one bit in the over 50 years since we left there.  The bandstand is still in the middle of the town square.  The old log fort is still in the corner of the park.  Small stores still line the main street; no big mall has been added.  Not many new homes, either.

We lived in a big old yellow Victorian house on the edge of town–the edge of town being about 5 blocks from the central town square.  Actually, we lived on the first floor of this house.  There were three bedrooms upstairs, wallpapered with old newspapers from the late 1800s, but we never used them. 

The property had previously been a small farm.  Beside the house was a modest filbert (hazelnut) orchard, only about 8 or 10 trees.  Behind that a steeply sloping pasture ran down to a tiny stream which had crawdads in it.  To the north of the house was a barn and chicken coop. 

We began harvesting the hazelnuts shortly after we moved in.  It was a meager crop, but enough for cookies ‘year round.   A neighbor asked to use the pasture for his cows in exchange for big buckets of milk.  And I was put in charge of raising chickens and selling the eggs.  

This was not my first experience with chickens.  When I was about 4 years old my Mother and I traveled by train from Vancouver, Washington to Tacoma to visit Aunt Lucy and Uncle Harry Morris.  World War II was still going on.  I remember the train being packed with soldiers and sailors in uniform–many of them standing the whole way.  I also remember looking out of the train window and seeing flooded fields stretching away to the west, shimmering in the muted light.

At Aunt Lucy’s the next day I was told I could go out to the chicken coop and collect eggs for breakfast.  I was so proud that I was being allowed to do this.  I found three eggs and carefully walked back toward the house.  Then I tripped over a low-power smooth electric wire fence about 6 inches off the ground that encircled the chicken coop.  And I fell down.  I burst into tears and the adults came running.  They were terrified that I had been electocuted.  I was crying because I broke the eggs.

Years later in Dayton, came my second experience with chickens.

At first the 8 chickens ran free in the pen around the chicken coop.   Every day I gathered the eggs.  But because the hens began pecking each other mercilessly, my father put them into individual cages that measured about 18 inches by 18 inches.  Then they began to develop problems, diseases.  I had to go to the Feed and Seed store to get medicine to put on and force into them.  The medicine smelled awful.  And cleaning their cages weekly was totally repulsive!  But every week I took a dozen or so eggs to the local grocery store where the owner “candled” the eggs.  Candling is placing a light behind the egg to see if it is okay inside.  Usually, they were.   The rest of the eggs we ate at home.

After a year of the caged chickens getting sick and occasionally dying, the chicken raising effort ended.  It was becoming too costly to keep medicating and replacing them.    It was cheaper simply to buy eggs at the grocery store.   I was relieved.  To this day, however, I can spot a good egg from a not-so-good egg in the market.

Next…the land of beans and berries

(This post is part of an experimental memoir.  I teach memoir writing and will edit your memoir to make it better.  Learn more at www.onedaymemoir.com)