Chicken

Beaulah closed down the farm and went out West to a working ranch she and her husband had talked about visiting. There, she rode horses again. Played tourist and went sightseeing. The strangeness of the landscape soothed her barrenness. Cactus and rocks. Sunsets the color of pain. She met a retired military man whose own wife had died. Took friendly walks and hikes.

When she returned home, she called her favorite dealers and began to sell off the contents of the warehouse. Without her husband, there was no point keeping the business going. It was no longer fun. Or easy.

Instead, she reinvented the farm. Returned to its roots. Put in her order for a variety of chicks at the feed elevator and reconnected with old friends. She needed company and chickens would be it. Built new state-of-the-art coops with newly-poured concrete floors. Drilled a new well to make for easy cleaning. Electrified the whole thing.

She bought an heirloom milking cow and a horse. Cleaned out stalls that hadn’t been used in decades. Mended fences. And herself. She made homemade cheeses with fresh herbs and real butter the way she remembered her ancestors had done. Only now they were called "artisan."

She tapped into the organic craze. Farmers' markets and local restaurants. She was all the rage. And it made her richer.

“Chickens have been my friends and companions all my life,” she told people. “With a flock of chickens you’ll never go hungry. Don’t take up much space and don’t eat much food.

“Did you know the word ‘chicken’ ain't even mentioned in the whole Bible? Not once. And I mean it. We’d all of been a sight better off if it were the blood of the chicken and not of a lamb. A whole lot less fighting.

“It’s chickens and cows that settled this country, ya know. There’s no arguing against that. Now you take that Middle East, that’s the whole problem. It was always goats and sheep in those Bible times. Always slaughtering and sacrificing. All blood and sloshing around in it and painting it over doors, just like it still is. Had to keep moving and living in tents and caves to keep them fed on good grazing land. No one ever settled down there. Didn’t put down no roots. No crops. No one ever claimed their little piece of land to call home like they did here. No little houses on the prairie or in the woods. There was never time to get civ'lized. It was all nomads. A flock of chickens will teach you how to be civ'lized. To stay put.”

Sometimes one never knew if Beaulah was serious or pulling one’s leg. Either way, one always felt a sense of satisfaction after one of her sermons.

“Oh, cattle ain’t got nothing over chickens. Cattle fart Methane. That’s why the North Pole is melting. And then all those manure piles. It’s that gas that destroys the ozone that protects our planet. Chicken shit is only a fraction of what cows and pigs put out and it’s one of the best organic fertilizers you can use.

“And then you have to grow all that corn and soybeans to feed cattle. Chemical fertilizers and insecticides and pumping water out of the ground unnaturally to water all those fields. Herds have always destroyed the earth and been a nuisance for farmer and non-farmer alike. It's why we killed all the Indians.

“Pound for pound, chicken is the way to go. It only takes two pounds of grain to get one pound of chicken. Guess how many pounds to get one measly pound of steak? Six! For a pig, it’s three.

“Let ‘em free range and they’re eating seeds and bugs already put there by God Almighty Himself. And the eggs are better, too, that way. Less cholest'rol and more of what they call Omega that’s good for your heart. 'I am the Alpha and the Omega.' You can read that right in the Bible.

“Why, just eight laying hens will give you well over one-thousand eggs in a year! Without eggs there ain't no such thing as baking, like cakes. Or breakfast. No French toast or Eggs Benedict. No fancy French sauces.

"I love my girls. It’s the hens that're important. Not the roosters. And that’s why 'chicken' ain’t in the Bible. The only thing close is that rooster that crowed when Judas turned on Jesus to betray Him. Ain't that interestin'? Males killing males like most of history. That book was written by old men with gray beards. If a woman wrote it, there’d be chickens and civ'lization. Jesus would have lived a whole lot longer. And happier. You can have all the religion you want. But without civ'lization, it don’t mean shit. And you don’t need no COCK for that.”