Actually, this should fit into the middle of my prior story about raising Richard. I had completely forgotten this phase. My friend, Judy sparked the recollection when she was talking about chicken farming.

One day when he was about 5 years old Richard called my wife, who was working at a nearby bank. They were giving away baby chicks at the feed store. His friend Jimmy Sather was getting some and if he got one and left it at Jimmy's could he have one. The wife couldn't seen anything objectionable about this arrangement so she said, "Yes". Both she and I thought we'd never see any chickens.

The next day when we came home Richard had expanded his herd. We found he had made a little pen in the middle of our hardwood living room floor. He had put down a single layer of newspaper and surrounded it with a low chicken wire fence. Of course the newspaper was wet. Fortunately it was prior to my having sanded the hardwood floor so no serious damage happened.

I don't remember anything about the chickens growing but eventually they were full size. I wasn't at all interested in them but eventually we found that they were laying eggs in the grass on the nearby hillside. Since we didn't know how old they were we threw all those eggs away.

Richard used to herd this flock all around the six acres we had. He used a stick to herd them much as a sheepherder.

Anyway, at this point, the head of the household convinced me I should build a chicken pen. I did, with a six foot high fence around it. I didn't think chickens could fly but these were very athletic beasts. Somehow they flew their coop and up on the roof of the basement entry cover. Doing what chickens do so profusely they made a mess on the shake roof.

The best way to get them down was to sprinkle them with the hose. I still remember my mother in law telling me I shouldn't do that as chickens were very delicate. Delicate, hah!

We gradually ate the chickens until we got down to the last two. My wife roasted the next to the last chicken. It was so tough we couldn't eat it. I then chopped the head off the last rooster and threw him in the garbage. I'm certain that if the wife had tried to cook him even his gravy would have been tough.