Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the years the town of Palmerton changed its zoning, forbidding farm animals within city
limits.
I blame microwave ovens. Modernization and gadgetry made chickens seem either
lower class or too country, so the birds were turned into contraband in some sections of
Carbon County. After all, you don't move to cultural epicenters like Palmerton (popula-
tion 5,200) to see the likes of scrappy yard birds. (That said, New York City never felt
the need to change its pro-fowl laws in all five boroughs—including Manhattan. . . .)
So, chickens being outlawed in my hometown—and totally out of the question, anyway,
as far as my mother was concerned—they never entered my mind. I went off to college
(leaving home for good, it turns out), graduated, and was offered my first bona fide
design job down in Tennessee.
I lived the city life for a while, but I knew in my heart that lifestyle wasn't for me. Within
two years I was packing up my station wagon again, this time heading to a former cattle
farm in northern Idaho.
My new job and the farmhouse I rented were both pretty chicken friendly. That was all
the coaxing I needed. Somehow the stars aligned, and I discovered Diana, a coworker
who had a two-hundred-layer natural-egg business. With her kind help and some trial
and error in Backyard Flockmanship 101, I learned the ropes. It took all of four days to
realize I was hooked. I never once regretted the decision. I can't say that about many
things.
I started keeping chickens only four years ago. I've kept them in pens, hutches, “re-
cycled” coops (a fancy way of saying a compilation of stuff from the dump), and on both
coasts of this fine nation. In that short span of time, my life's orbit has changed, based
on keeping poultry, so any place I'll call home will need to be egg-production friendly.
The idea of a life without pullets in the spring seems depressing at best. Chickens have
a way of taking you to another place. Something about a red hen bobbing her head past
a kitchen window instills a familiar, if long-buried, comfort—a sense of home.
Chickens used to be common in backyards everywhere
.
