Ross picked up the pail by its metal handle—it was heavier than it looked—and used both hands to push it to shoulder level, where Dave took it from him. “Thanks.”
Dave placed the pail on the roof next to the toolbox, then climbed down. “Follow me,” he said.
The chicken coop was much bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, and the adjoining yard, behind the building, was as big as a baseball diamond. Both were filled with pacing, clucking hens far too numerous to count.
“How many chickens do you have?” Ross asked.
“A hundred.”
“Wow.”
“It’s not as much as it sounds. We could really do with a hundred more, but we just can’t afford it. The guy I bought the animals from, he has a free-range farm out past Willcox, and he has over five thousand layers. We’d be making a very comfortable income if we had that many birds. I’d probably have to hire a man or two to help me out.” He shrugged. “But of course, we don’t.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Ross asked.
“Collect eggs.”
“Okay.”
“If they were caged, it would be a lot easier,” Dave admitted. “You’d just walk down the aisles and pick the eggs up from the grates. But we don’t believe in that. It’s cruel. Chickens raised that way have no life at all. They can’t even turn around. They’re stuck in the same position for their entire adult life. They’re just egg machines. But as you can see, our chickens have litter to scratch around in, and in the yard here they can get down in the dirt to fluff up dust around their feathers, which, believe it or not, helps control parasites. We also don’t cut off their beaks, although a lot of places do, even so-called ‘organic farms,’ because chickens like to fight. But, so far, we haven’t had any trouble.”
“So how exactly do I do this?”
Dave pointed to tubular structures lining the walls. “Those are nesting boxes. That’s where they lay the eggs—for the most part. There are also a couple of other places I’ll show you where you’re likely to find a few. Anyway, you pick up one of these baskets here, get a scoop of feed out of this barrel, throw the feed out, and when the birds go for it, pick up the eggs and put them in the basket. When the basket’s full, bring it over to the house, drop it off, then come back, get another basket and keep on going.
“We store the eggs in a root cellar next to the toolshed on the other side of the house. It’s kind of a natural refrigerator. Before we put them in there, we clean them, inspect them, carton them, then take them down.”
“Then you sell them?”
Dave nodded. “There are standing orders for big customers like the store in town, and they’ll come in throughout the week to pick up their eggs, but a lot of our sales are at the farmer’s market.” He held up his hands in a gesture of completion. “That’s about it.”
He walked with Ross through the filling of the first basket, but the process was pretty simple, the chickens cooperative, and Ross filled the second basket on his own while Dave worked on the roof of the coop. There was something oddly relaxing about egg collection. A Zen thing, he supposed. Presidents and people in power always made a big show about doing manual labor on their time off: clearing brush, chopping wood. He’d always assumed that was for effect, an effort to show the yokels that they weren’t just pointy-headed intellectuals but deep down were simple, honest hard-working folk like themselves. It had always seemed phony to him, contrived. But having been initiated into the rural experience himself now, he understood how simple, repetitive work could help clear the mind, could offer a welcome respite from the overthinking of modern life.
For lunch, Lita made them all a frittata with some of the eggs he’d collected and with vegetables from the garden that she’d canned at the end of last season. It was delicious, and he took a plate of leftovers back to his shack, intending to heat them up in the microwave for dinner.
“I’m glad you came,” Lita said before he left. “I’m glad you’re staying with us.”
Ross thought about his dwindling bank account, the final unemployment checks coming up, and his condo, which, hopefully, the realtor would be able to rent out or sell. “Me, too,” he said.
THREE
Over the next few days, Ross developed a kind of routine. He’d wake early, make himself breakfast, then go out and gather eggs. He was on his own schedule, didn’t need to wait for Dave to invite him or help him, and after one or two hours of collecting, he’d take all the eggs he’d amassed and bring them over to the house, where he’d help Lita clean them, sort them and place them in cartons.