A city boy learns to raise chickens

We now have chickens at the Parker household.

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It’s a project spearheaded by our two oldest nephews, with the help of Debbie.

Our nephews and my brother-in-law recently moved a portable shed into our yard and are busy converting it to a chicken house.

We currently have 15 chickens that will begin producing eggs in a month or so.

Plans are to install an automatic door on the chicken house so the chickens can access the homemade chicken run.

I admit, I haven’t been too involved in the chicken house project. It’s a work in progress, is my excuse.

Debbie told me that I can gather the eggs.

Having grown up in the big city, I’ve never had chickens.

When my folks moved to their farm in the early 1980s south of Tulsa and lived in a mobile home, they got some chickens. While they were building a homemade chicken house, they kept the baby chicks in the mobile home bathroom.

Thankfully my folks got the chicken house finished before the chicks started laying eggs. If not, there would have been chicken eggs rolling around the bathroom floor.

My folks raised chickens for a number of years, later converting the chicken shed to a storage shed.

It makes me chuckle when I look back on that time and think about the silliness of having chickens in the bathroom.

My folks came from poor backgrounds, and back in day, they did what they had to do to get through life.

My mom would use the eggs for breakfast or making a cake and she’d place the shells on the gas stove burner and cook or brown them. She would then feed the shells back to her chickens.

She burned them to keep the chickens from eating their own eggs.

Some years ago, Debbie and I and four family members went to a concert at Wells Fargo Arena. After the show, we stopped at McDonalds in Altoona and somehow got on the subject of chickens.

“My folks raised chickens in the bathroom,” I said, making everyone crackup and laugh.

Anyway, back in the day when I was in fourth grade, I went to stay with my Uncle Leon near Collinsville, Oklahoma. Collinsville is northeast of Tulsa about 25 miles.

Uncle Leon was a younger brother to my mom.

He was a veteran, and I only remember him being in a wheelchair. I don’t know what happened that led to him to spending his life in a wheelchair.

He and my Aunt Berenice raised three children — two girls and a boy.

He had quite a brew of egg-laying chickens out back of his house in a shed.

I followed Uncle Leon and his youngest boy, Eddie, to gather the eggs.

Eddie stuck his hand under a big hen and the old girl pecked at him. That caused Eddie to yell and jump a foot or two off the ground.

I then tried my hand at it, only to get the same treatment.

Uncle Leon could be a little gruff on occasion, and he didn’t say anything to me other than laugh, but he did get after his son.

In the fall of 1978, my uncle and aunt, Ron and Alice Deese, bought a chicken farm and a spot of land in Prairie Grove near Fayetteville, Arkansas. They lived in south Tulsa at the time and were looking for a change.

I helped them move, and my Uncle Ron’s sister lived next door to their house. On moving day, the ladies were cooking lunch and, of all things, fried chicken.

When the food was ready, I got in line and took two chicken breasts.

That didn’t set well with everyone else as there were only two left, so my Uncle Ron, who loved white chicken meat, drove to a nearby KFC and ordered his lunch.

My name was mud for a while, but everyone got over it, and life went forward.

In Arkansas, my uncle and aunt raised two large chicken houses of fryer chickens from that fall of 1978 until 1991 when my uncle Ron passed away in an farm accident.

The chicken houses stretched more than a football field in length and held 16,000 chickens each.

I spent many days at the Deese chicken farm, making the 100-mile trek from Tulsa about once a month.

I enjoyed eating fried chicken and my Aunt Alice’s famous shrimp pizza. My Uncle Ron loved to bowl, and we’d drive to Fayetteville for a few games.

And we’d spend hours playing cutthroat rummy, a game using three decks of cards.

I have lots of good memories that keep me moving forward in life.

As I have mentioned in the past regarding my colon cancer, your prayers, thoughts and concerns are much appreciated.

I’m winning this battle because of all my friends, family and God’s healing power.

Have a great week, and always remember that “Good Things are Happening” every day.