3-11-10...CHICKEN DAY
Now days I would probably be considered a delinquent or something when I was growing up. Times have changed so dramatically in my life it has been hard to keep up at times. It hasn't stopped either and sometimes I wish time would just freeze and stop going over the top with changes.
When things get too complicated or start getting tough the best thing I know to do is retreat back to my childhood and revel in the good memories. Today is one of those kinds of days.
Chicken day in March is one of my fondest. Daddy ordered 50 each time from a hatchery in another state. There would be catalogs sent in the mail. Daddy didn't need to look at the different kinds, he ordered White Rocks. They were big white chickens and Daddy said they were the 'best' layers ever. He ordered straight run meaning mixed sex made no difference. Most of the roosters were used for frying and the hens were for laying eggs. When the hens got through laying, 'layed out' Daddy called it, they were eaten too. Nothing wasted. Feathers made pillows. Not as soft as duck feathers but used.
The chickens came on the train. They were in crates with wire mesh and some kind of cardboard. We went to the train station in Ozark to pick them up. Had to be there or they sat on the dock and a lot of them died.
You could hear chicks peeping a long way off because there were many people there to pick up their chicks. I was always so excited to get to go with Daddy. I didn't always get to go but often I did. I can see it like it was yesterday everyone lined up to get their chicks. The dock was about head high and I had to stay back or I'd get run over by the people waiting. Of course I did usually get in some ones way and one day it was a big old man who Daddy said was acting rude. (Daddy said it another way but if I repeat that here he will probably thump me on the head ) The guy bumped in to me and threw his arms out and that dang crate of chickens sailed right over my head and busted to smithereens. The old guy looked at me like he would like to pinch my head off so I ran to get to my daddy and lo-and-behold ran into another man who dropped his crate of chicks. His didn't spill Thank God but he looked mad too so I found my Daddy fast.
Everyone set their crates down and went chicken catching. Now I was in my element then. I was smaller and more agile and was out doing all of the men. I caught a bunch of them that the men couldn't run down and ran back and put them in a cardboard box they had found. I fell a couple of times and I was filthy. Had chick poop all over me and had blood dripping from some scratches but boy howdy was I having fun. The men were all commenting on that scrappy little girl and Daddy was strutting like a Banny rooster in a coop full of hens. He was so proud of his little girl. Daddy was still telling that story when he was old and sick. Told everyone who would listen. If they didn't want to listen he told em' anyway. One good thing in all the confusion that man who I had caused to spill the chicks seemed to forget all about why they were spilled.
It was a job raising those chickens and I'll tell that later. It would make this too long. But I'll say this, When I go buy a chicken at the store and fry it up, or buy eggs and cook them, it sure makes me wish for eggs, and chicken the way it used to taste. No Comparison. NOPE!!!
