Chapter 26, Chickens

I'll tell you this story if you promise not to tell anyone and keep it a secret between us.

Meme Milli walked in one Friday afternoon, struggling through the door with her suitcase and a large, flat cardboard box resting on her hip, shaking from side to side as she was trying to hold it with one hand. Oddly, every time it moved it made a chirping noise, and it sounded like something was sliding inside.

"Let me help you, Meme," I said and rushed to the door.

"Take the suitcase, please," she answered and pushed it toward me with her foot. "Thanks." 

"You're welcome," I said, "what's in the box?"

"All in good time," she said with a smile. "It's a holiday gift for you and your brother."

Mom walked into the room looking at the odd box and said, "Now what is this? Welcome and happy Passover Ma"

Right behind her was Avi, my younger brother, yelling, " Meme, Meme, what did you get us?"

We took Meme's case to the bedroom, and she put the box on the floor. The noise in the box was getting louder, scratching, and chirping. When she finally opened it, I couldn't believe my eyes; neither could Mom or Avi.

   There were 40, maybe 50, little yellow fuzzy round chicks. They sounded much louder when the box was opened.

"Oh, how cute!" I said.

"Oh, my god! You're crazy," Mom said. Avi reached out his arm when Mom stopped him saying, "Don't, it's not a toy." She grabbed his hand just before he got to them. He probably would have squished some. Avi didn't understand his strength.

That night we kept the chicks in the bathtub with some wet slices of bread. Early the next morning Dad and I started to build a chicken coop. First, we dug holes to put the posts in. Next, dug a low trench and we stretched the chicken wire around the posts.

"You see," Dad explained," the net has to be fine and buried under the ground too so the chicks can't get out and the weasels can't get in."

"Dad,"

"What?"

"What is a weasel?"

"It's a skinny long animal that likes to eat chicks, or even big chickens. It catches them by the neck, sucks the blood out of them, and then it eats them."

"Wow!"

"And it's a very smart animal, too. It can go through very fine wire fence, or sneak under the fence. That is why we are putting this board on the ground inside the trench to hold the fence down."

When we finished the fence and put the gate up, we built a little house where the chicks could sleep at night. For that we also made a door and a lock. Only after we checked to see that there were no holes around the fence and that the little house was safely sealed, did we let the little chicks in.

We fed them bread soaked in water. Then we bought chicken feed and mixed it with the wet bread. 

"You should let them out once in a while," our next-door neighbor said one day to my dad. "They will eat the grass and some worms and that will balance their diet."

From that day on, we let the chicks out every day for an hour or so. I became their shepherd and Avi my brother, was my helper. We had to make sure that they didn't leave the property, and that they didn't eat what they weren't supposed to eat. Then, after the hour was over, we had to gather them into their coop. Let me tell you something, it wasn't easy. We had to scream, yell, wave our hands, kick, and what-not to get them in.

We did that for about a year. Every other day we let them out, watched them, and then gathered them in. Avi developed a game with the chickens. As a matter of fact, there were 39 roosters and one hen. They were like a small congregation. With a leader, a second-in-command, and the rest, with some strong roosters or some just followers. When we were gathering them into the coop, the leader always was the last to go in. Even after they were all in and the gate was shut, the leader would protest. He jumped up on the fence trying to open the gate. Avi loved it. He would stand there and kick the fence. The rooster jumped even higher. Sometimes the second-in-command would join in the fight and jump just as high. Sometimes, I also joined and kicked the fence. They jumped very high; they passed our height every time trying to hit our faces. For some odd reason, they never tried to jump at us when we let them out. Maybe because they relied on the protection of the fence. Maybe because they were happy out there and didn't have any reason to fight, or maybe because it was the two of us against them, and they knew they didn't have a chance.

   One day Avi got sick, he had the mumps, a weird condition when his face swelled up and he developed a high fever. He couldn't come to help me for two weeks. I was left alone with the chickens. No problems! Right? Sure, right. I opened the gate, and just as usual, the chickens stormed out and started wandering around looking for food. I sat down on a bench that Dad had made a long time ago and watched the chickens doing their thing. Suddenly I remembered that Dad wanted me to rearrange the back yard because of the mess we made when we played packaging oranges. You know, like in the big plant where they sort the oranges and package the best of them for shipment overseas.

I got up and started picking up the toys. They were scattered all over the back yard. I walked and picked up the toys, put them in their designated place, walked and picked up, again and again. When I got to the small and heavy table, the one Mom does the laundry on. I bent over to pick it up and felt something behind me. something was poking my behind. I turned around and that leader of the pack was right in front of my eyes jumping up and down trying to poke me in the face. I dropped the table and tried to scare him away but then came the second-in-command and he also tried to poke me.

"Maaaa! Maaaa!" I yelled and started running away from them. "Ma! Ma! Maaaa!"

 

Mom came out dressed in a bathrobe, wearing a towel around her head. She was still wet from the shower. "What? What happened?" she asked while tightening her shower robe. Then she started laughing, and she laughed out loud.

"Mom! Do something!" But she laughed again. The two roosters were right behind me jumping and poking my behind. I ran faster, but they were right behind me. 

  "Maaaa!”

Mom stepped out to the yard still laughing. She took the towel off her head and waved it at the wild roosters. The second-in-command turned around, and Mom chased it away, but the leader was still behind me. I ran out of our yard into the street with the rooster behind me. Mom realized that the rooster was still behind me, so she ran to the street, too. I could see all the neighbors looking out of their windows or walking to their gates. By now, I was all the way out at the end of our street at the main street next to the bus stop with the rooster behind me, and Mom, cracking up, waving the towel behind it. Everybody on the street stopped to look at that embarrassing situation. The moment I got to the station; the bus arrived. I jumped into the opened door and looked behind me while the bus started moving. Mom reached the rooster, threw the towel over it, caught it by its legs, and took it back home. At the next station I got off, thanking the bus driver for saving my life and walked out without looking back, but I could feel the stares penetrating my back.

Guess what we ate for Rosh Hashana's dinner?

 

 

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Lemon Chicken

A Greek dish served with rice. The way I prepare it will make it soft, juicy, and easy to pull. To make sure the chicken will have the flavors all the way through I like to add the spices after initial grilling.

Ingredients:

Whole Chicken Parts

½ Bottle Vinegar

½ Cup Rough Salt

2 Lemons

2 Potatoes

1 Onion 

1 tsp Turmeric

 

Preparation:

Marinate chicken in vinegar salt and water over night. Drain and place the chicken parts in a baking tray. Bake chicken at 500f for 20 minutes. Flip over and bake for 20 more minutes. Pull the chicken out and pour turmeric, with cuts of potato, onion, and squeezed lemon peals. Cover and put back in oven for 20 more minutes. Lower the heat to 300 and leave in oven for 3 hours. The chicken will come out soft and will fall of the bones.

 

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