Chickens in the Road Page 5

  In recent years, ramps have become a trendy gourmet item and in some places can be quite expensive, but in the country, they are simply tradition. In West Virginia, springtime is the time of community ramp festivals and ramp dinners, roadside ramp stands, and, for the intrepid, ramp hunting in the wild. My cousin didn’t have any ramps on his farm, but he always brought me a paper sack filled with ramps from a roadside stand. Now that I had my own farm, I was eager to discover if I had my own ramps.

  I found plenty of trilliums in bloom, but no ramps despite hours of combing the farm in likely places. I was walking along the creek in the meadow bottom with my empty sack when a man came by on a four-wheeler.

  He stopped to ask what I was doing.

  I’d met him a few times before, enough to know his name and know he lived across the river and a few miles away. Not quite a neighbor, but close enough.

  “I’m looking for ramps.”

  Larry said, “I’ll show you ramps.”

  I was excited.

  The situation was akin to a serial killer asking a child if she wants to get in the guy’s car and come see his puppy. After the child hops in, they end up on the evening news. But this was rural Roane County, West Virginia—and ramps—and my citified fear of strangers was slipping away. I climbed on the back of Larry’s four-wheeler and we took off. We splashed through the river and headed out the hard road on the other side, spring green whipping past in the woods. Larry’s black dog rode shotgun.

  The hillsides of his farm lived up to his promise—they were covered in huge, gorgeous patches of ramps, ready for the harvesting.

  Larry told me that there weren’t a lot of ramps in Roane County, so he’d started his ramps by planting them. I’d never known anyone who’d planted ramps. I was fascinated. While I sat on the ground digging ramps, Larry explained how he’d done it, and when I got home, I cut off the root end of every ramp in the sack. I chose several shady areas on the farm that looked ramp-friendly. 52 helped dig holes and I planted my bounty.

  Meanwhile, Morgan got in the car from the bus one afternoon at my cousin’s house with a brown paper sack.

  “This is from Mark,” she said. “Guess what it is!”

  Even if the knockout odor emanating from the bag in her hand hadn’t already told me, it was April, what else would it be? “Ramps!”

  And in the future, I’d have my own on my farm.

  My new homestead was off and running, and I was quickly overwhelmed, knee-deep in a farm and in the middle of a career change. I loved writing and I loved country life. Before we’d even moved to the farm, I’d decided to align my life and passions by writing about country living, so I’d relaunched my old romance writer’s website as a blog under the name Chickens in the Road even while the house was still under construction. I joined an advertising network that placed ads on my website. It was a “novel” approach for a writer. Give the writing away to readers for free, and make the income from advertising. It was my New Age way to earn a living from a farm.

  I posted my writing and photography every day on my blog, without fail, and had already attracted a growing audience and media attention with feature stories in the local county paper and the Charleston Daily Mail. I posted my favorite recipes and crafts, with step-by-step directions and photos. I wrote stories about country life, the people, the places, and most often, the farm. I wrote about the chickens and my fantasies about dotting sheep.

  Writing about the farm helped me focus on the positives, the pleasure in each new day of more leaves greening the woods around me. Flowers blooming. Calves in the neighbor’s meadow. Walking in the creek and clambering up the hillsides. Chicks hatching in my incubator. Bulbs planted to begin a garden that would last the rest of my life. Cats in my bed, dogs on my porch. Living in the most perfect place in the world even though most of the rest of that world wouldn’t even venture down our country road.

  Bread in my oven and pies on my counter. Children laughing. Candles on my tables, butterflies in my yard. Open windows and the sound of the river far below. Looking forward, never back.

  Joy in the present and taking the time to just breathe and know it for what it was, a gift—in spite of the fear and worries that plagued me in that same present.

  The house had cost more than we’d anticipated. We were in debt up to our eyeballs, and hard work looked like the solution. 52 was employed by the state government on a set salary. Even if he worked harder, he couldn’t make more money. I concluded that it was up to me to improve our financial situation. I was determined to make my website a success.

  I was making sausage gravy and biscuits one Saturday morning when 52 walked into the kitchen and said, “You’re making too much noise.”

  I said, “I’m just trying to break up the sausage in the pan.” I was slightly baffled.

  “You’re too loud.”

  He had been awake already, checking his e-mail on the computer in the back room.

  I said, “I’ll try to cook more quietly.”

  By the time breakfast was ready, Morgan was awake, pounding up and down the stairs to her room.

  He said, “Morgan’s being too loud.”

  We were sitting on the porch, drinking coffee, by this time. I said, “I’ll ask her to be more quiet.”

  He said, “You say that, but you won’t.”

  “I will, too!” It wasn’t the first time since he’d moved in that he’d complained about the kids making too much noise. “I always talk to them if they’re doing something that bothers you.”

  “Always? You don’t always talk to them if I tell you something bothers me.”

  “Well, okay, not every single time, but I do talk to them about each issue that you tell me bothers you.” I did, even though sometimes I resented it. He had been divorced before his kids were teens, and he wasn’t used to living in a house with three teenagers. Maybe he hadn’t really known what to expect. I tried to split the middle between sympathizing with his nerves and letting the kids be kids. I didn’t want to ignore his feelings, but I didn’t want to smother the kids either. It was a difficult balance.

  “Don’t make excuses,” he said.

  “I’m not making excuses. I’m just trying to explain that I really do talk to them about issues that bother you.”

  “Now you’re arguing.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you. I just want you to know that I care. We all have to get used to living together, and we all have to give a little. Maybe you’re a little oversensitive to noise. Kids aren’t naturally quiet.”

  “So it’s all my fault.”

  “I’m not saying that! I’m saying that we’ll all have to compromise to learn to live together.”

  “No, you’re right, it’s all my fault.”

  “I don’t want to be right, and it’s nobody’s fault.”

  “You’re always right,” he said. “You have to always be right. That’s just the way you are. You’re right and I’m wrong. I know that’s what you think.”

  That one had come out of the blue. I needed a few seconds to even formulate a response, but I didn’t have that much time.

  “You think I’m stupid,” he went on. “I can tell by the look in your eyes.”

  The look in my eyes? I was pretty sure the look in my eyes was saying, Who are you? Because I’d never met this man before.

  “I’m going to see if the boys are up and want breakfast.” I left him on the porch and went inside.

  I called the boys to fix their plates and sat down at my computer. 52 was almost finished with the chicken house, and it was time to move the growing chicks to their new home. I read comments on my blog and answered e-mails, hoping 52 would be in a better mood by the time he got up to put the finishing touches on the chicken house and we were ready to move the chicks.

  When I heard hammering, I knew he was at work on the final touches and I hoped that meant, too, that his mood would be back to normal. I wanted to talk to him about what had happened, but I was uncomfortable
about bringing it up. Everybody had bad days sometimes. I decided to let it go.

  He was having a hard time adjusting to life in a house with three kids. Since I was the one with the kids, I felt as if the least I could do was be patient with him. He came in when the chicken house was done.

  “Are you ready to move the chicks?” he asked.

  “Yes!” I was excited, and he was smiling. I went outside with him to see the finishing touches on the house.

  We held hands as he walked me around the chicken house, showing me how everything worked. There were nesting boxes that opened from the back and a little door between the chicken house and yard that operated on a rope attached to the side of the house. He had a light set up on an automatic timer.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, giving his hand a light squeeze. “Thank you.” He kissed me softly and told me he was glad I was happy.

  I held his gaze. “I want us both to be happy.”

  “I’m happy,” he said.

  “Good.” I smiled, starting to get excited and dancing up on my toes a little bit. I was eager to move the chickens to their new quarters. “Now let’s go get the chickens and make them happy, too!”

  School was almost out for summer, and that meant the kids would be leaving to spend a couple of months with their dad. The time meant a chance for 52 and me to settle in to the house by ourselves. I thought the break would be good, giving 52, in particular, relief from the kids’ active spirits, and an opportunity for us to reconnect as a couple. Summer also meant a chance to get to know “the ’hood” around us, the neighbors in closest proximity. With sunshine and warm weather, everyone was working outside.

  Our farm was about a hundred yards from the ford, with our house up on the hill. A small community of a handful of homes circled around it. Frank, a retired, wiry, energetic man, lived directly across the ford. 52 and I jokingly called him the honorary mayor of Stringtown because he always seemed to be everywhere and always seemed to know what was going on—though more than half the town wouldn’t speak to him. That changed nothing. He was the mayor. (Politicians are notoriously unpopular.) He was a neatnik who mowed and trimmed constantly as if he was somehow lost from suburbia, except he would never have survived there because someone would have shot him.

  Next door to Frank was his son Denny. Denny lived in the old one-room schoolhouse (transitioned to a house) where my grandmother once taught. He had an on-and-off girlfriend who was a real estate agent. Denny mostly didn’t talk to Frank, then sometimes he did. We didn’t understand these things, but we didn’t have to. We tried to get along with everyone.

  Then there was Sonny, who lived to the left as we looked out at the ford from our house. We didn’t know much about Sonny. He was quiet and kept to himself. Sonny didn’t speak to Frank. (Are we seeing a pattern here?) To the right from the ford was Ed, who lived in my great-grandfather’s new house. (In other words, Ed built a house on the exact same spot as my great-grandfather’s house, which had been torn down.) Ed had a wife, but we’d never met her. Ed didn’t speak to Frank. (!) Ed owned several hundred acres of my great-grandfather’s old farm.

  Down the road a bit, Skip owned most of the rest of my great-grandfather’s old farm, and he lived in the house in which my father grew up. Skip didn’t have a wife. Or TV. Or Internet, and he was thinking about getting rid of his phone. But he did speak to Frank! Skip had a bunch of cows and was my favorite person, hands down, in Stringtown because he could do everything, knew everything, and was a bundle of amazing energy.

  The only other family living on our side of the ford was my abrasive neighbor and her family. She was part of the ’hood. In fact, she was arguably the most interesting member of the ’hood, though I was still a little bit afraid of her. She did, however, speak to Frank, so maybe there was hope.

  I came across my new abrasive neighbor on the road, stopped, during the final week of school. The last time I’d come upon her stopped, she’d been picking up a turtle to move it out of the road, which had given me the uncomfortable feeling that she was actually a nice person. I’d also come to the conclusion that she was smart, or at least country-wise, and I’d taken to watching her through the trees from my porch on rainy days to see whether or not she would cross the river. I’d already made one mistake crossing the river, and I trusted her to know whether it was safe or not.

  On this occasion, she didn’t appear to be picking up a turtle. She was just sitting in her car. She could be strange sometimes, so I went around her, then I thought better of it and stopped, too. I told Morgan to run back there and find out if she was just stopped for no reason (or, you know, actually moving and I couldn’t tell because she drove so slow the human eye could not detect the motion) or if she was broken down. Morgan ran down the road to her car and back. The woman’s car was, indeed, broken down.

  With great reluctance, I got out of my SUV, walked back to her car, and said, “You want a ride back to your house until you can get someone to help you with your car?” On that stretch of the road, far past the handful of houses at the head of the road, she was unlikely to find a ride from anyone else.

  I looked her in the eye and could see that I was the last person in the known universe from whom she wanted to accept help. But she took it. And I took her home. We drove a mile down the road (at fifteen miles an hour, about which she made nary a complaint) and chitchatted awkwardly about a wild storm we’d had a few days before. I was never so relieved as when we got to her house.

  Our phone was out that day, in the aftermath of the storm, and I said, “I hope your phone is working so you can call someone, because our phone has been out.”

  She said, “We don’t have a phone.”

  I felt a pang of guilt because I knew that but had temporarily forgotten. One of her daughters had told Morgan one day on the bus that they didn’t have a phone. Phone service is such a basic that it had slipped my mind.

  She said she would use her other car to go get someone to help her with her broken-down car, letting me off the hook for taking further action. Rid of her at last, I drove away and felt good about helping her in spite of the fact that I didn’t want to help her. I felt good about it partly because she didn’t want me to help her. I thought it annoyed her that I helped her. (Revenge!) And I knew that someday I might need help and she was one of the few people who lived out here. Now she had to help me whether she wanted to or not because I had helped her twice. (Self-serving!)

  What a crappy person I was! Then I couldn’t even feel good about helping her.

  When I told this whole story to 52 after he got home, he said, “Your trouble is that you are supposed to help her because she needs help and you should expect to gain nothing in return, neither revenge nor some reward in the future.”

  Sometimes he was really annoying. But then, she always moved over for him, so he didn’t understand my problem.

  I wondered if this woman would be broken down in the road ten more times and each time I would be tested to see what my motivation was for picking her up, and when I finally picked her up with no motivation other than seeking the goodness of humanity, her country-wise, good-hearted, and abrasive self would evaporate as if she had never existed because she was only put here on Earth as a mere figment, an ornery angel, to turn me into a better person.

  Which, apparently, I was yet light-years away from becoming as I imagined her entire existence revolving around the improvement of my character.

  Chapter 5

  It wasn’t long before I brought home a Nigerian Dwarf dairy goat named Clover, along with her two babies, a doeling and a buckling. A local reader named Missy had e-mailed me, telling me about their farm nearby and their goat babies. I couldn’t resist going to take a look. Their farm was beautiful, set on rolling land with a big red barn—everything our farm wasn’t even though the two properties were only about ten miles apart. It still hadn’t occurred to me yet that we’d set ourselves a mighty task with the steep terrain of our farm. I was eager for live
stock, and small goats seemed like a good follow-up to chickens. The goats were so light I could pick them up if need be, and they weren’t at all intimidating. They were as friendly as dogs, and about the same size.

  I had the buckling, Honey, wethered (neutered) to be a companion, and Clover and her doeling, Nutmeg, would be the start of my new little herd. Soon, my chickens would be laying. I would have my own eggs, and I wanted my own milk, too.

  Cheese, here I come!

  I bought a Great Pyrenees puppy to protect the goats. I named her Coco and she grew to be larger than they were. The goats were a delight, smart and full of personality and mischief. 52 fenced a goat yard in front of the house and built a miniature goat-sized milk stand. I had dreams of farmstead chevre dancing in my head. When the babies were old enough to be at least partially weaned, I tried milking Clover.

  I was excited.

  52 came down to the milk stand with me. I was afraid to milk alone. I’d never milked anything before, neither a cow nor a goat. I’d bought a two-quart stainless steel pail and milk filters. I was ready!

  I forgot the milk pail up at the house and had to go back for it.

  When I came back, Clover scampered right onto the stand and put her head through the opening of the headlock to eat the food in the tray. I locked her in and reached for the first tiny teat. I’d studied milking photos online. I learned to milk on the Internet.

  I reached my other hand for the second teat and started milking two-handed. Then Clover kicked me.

  And stomped on my hand.

  And sat on the pail.

  Then she kicked me some more.

  52 held on to both of her back legs and I tried to milk while Clover struggled wildly in his hands.