Propped up in bed, we howled. My graduate-student-daughter ran in to see what was wrong.Â
“We hee hee hee.” Much belly-shaking and eye-tearing. “We’ve been reading about how to kill chickens!” Boisterous, gut-wrenching laughter spilling uncontrollably from our mouths. Â
I wiped my mouth and sat up straighter. “We’ve been reading about killing chickens and there is a way where you turn them upside down in a cone and, and” giggling erupts again. Tom finished the sentence.Â
“You chop their heads off!”Â
We are doubled over by that time. Our daughter looks concerned. “And you think that’s funny?” Â
“Why yes!” Â
What she didn’t understand was us. Both raised in the city, we wondered how we’d managed to eat chicken all these years, believing them to be skinless, beakless, mounds of flesh instead of actual birds.Â
Plus, we didn’t quite know if we’d be able to do the deed. Sure, raising chickens was on our farm plan. But that was imaginary. The article in the magazine contained real pictures.Â
Soon after we contracted the farm bug, we ordered the magazine deluge. Tom began to hang pin-ups of chickens. We oohed and aahed at wood chip machines, and drooled over barns. Â
Who knew there existed a group of magazines that regularly used the words green manure, and harry vetch, and hoop houses?Â
Good-bye Good Housekeeping, hello Grit.Â
What books and magazines do you find most helpful? (Besides Grit, of course.)
