Big Plans! Homesteading Anyone?

Posted On May 17, 2020

I’m finally doing what I’ve been telling Mary that I would do for at least the last five years, probably more. Like a lot of people right now the food insecurity scares us a little. So we are going to take some of it into our own hands. We used to have a garden until the deer wiped it out for us, two years in a row. I’ve always wanted to raise chickens but the timing never seemed to be right. I was always traveling to do shows but since all of my shows that I was scheduled to do have been canceled, it seems like the right time. The song by Tracy Chapman comes to mind, If not now. A little different meaning but you get the idea. The first line is “If not now, then when”.

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I’m clearing a spot so that we can put in raised garden beds and a chicken coop. We have a big tick problem here in Maine and I’m hoping that chickens will help to eliminate our tick problem around here. A side benefit will be the eggs that the chickens produce. I’ve also heard that chickens have personalities all their own, so that should be fun to see and learn. I should also say that Mary and I have almost no experience raising chickens. My only experience comes from about 50 years ago. I have two memories and I’ll share the one that always comes to mind when I think of chickens.

If you think that chicken only comes from the supermarket then you probably don’t want to read any further. My experience comes from before I even entered school. Yup it was a while ago. My only memory was that we had chickens but I honestly don’t remember feeding them or gathering eggs. I only remember the day that my mother was supposed to kill the chickens that we had and that had to happen before my father got out of work and home from the mill. So out back we go to get the chickens. Picture a little knoll behind the barn that flattened out to the east where the back of the house was and ran out to the garden, chicken coop and back field. To the west the knoll led down to our lower lawn on the other side of the barn. To the south was the barn and our three hole outhouse, yup it was that long ago. And to the north was a drop off that led down to the brook that ran all along the side of our property and separated our property from the neighboring field. I believe that we only had five or six chickens left at the time so we gathered them up around the chopping block and put some feed down to keep them near us. She laid the first chicken down over the chopping block and lopped off its head with an axe and put the body of the chicken behind her. To my surprise that headless chicken got up and started running around the little area that we were in. My mother hadn’t seen this yet because she’s busy with the other chickens. I remember just being stunned and standing there. After each chicken has had its turn with the axe, they each got up and ran around for a little while. A couple of the last chickens went around in front of my mother and plunged down through the alders toward the brook. I remember my mother yelling that we had to get the chickens before they got to the brook. Picture a five year old sliding down the steep bank, through the alder brush trying to catch headless chickens before they got to the brook. We did manage to catch up to them before they got to the water and I didn’t even get wet.

I’m hoping that our new adventure with chickens is a little less exciting than the only memory that I have of raising chickens as a child.

However you will want to keep checking back to see how the build of the coop goes and see how our chicken adventures also go. Homesteading adventures anyone?