According to the zeitgeist, the one thing my suburban plot of land needs is backyard chickens.
My father-in-law couldn’t agree more. He lives in Limon, a city I am quite sure has a border control to prevent entry of zeitgeist. He has been trying to make a “country girl” out of me for a decade now. Floyd wouldn’t stop at a handful of egg-laying hens, though; he has also generously offered to buy me a goat.
The neighbors would be thrilled.
It is bad enough that I have a backyard littered with toys and flower pots that look more like fire pits by August. Just wait until I have a pet goat sticking its head through the split-rail to mow down the neighbors’ petunias.
Then there is the bee colony – a gift he promised to leave me in his will.
In Limon, plots are measured in acres, with nearby neighbors a football field away. I could stand at my kitchen window and spit into my neighbor’s yard. But Floyd has made it clear that he needs to cure me of my suburban-ness. He often chides me with the ubiquitous “city folk need to learn where their food comes from” adage.
The people we visit there are kind, but they can’t hide the fact that they are a little appalled by my lack of ranching knowledge. Floyd is quite sure that my hands have never seen a hard day’s work. According to his standards, he is probably right.
His wife is taken aback to find out I have never cleaned a chicken. “I bet your mama did,” she said. Mom didn’t (I asked). She said her mom did, right up until the day they started selling packaged chicken at the grocery store — and then she never cleaned another one.
My husband once told me that growing up in the country produces “better people” than those raised in urban and suburban areas. I grew up in the suburbs. My family, my friends, my schoolmates — all suburbanites. I told him if he ever said that again he would find his superior backside sleeping on the couch. I even offered to move the couch onto the porch for that rural, down-home feel.
They speak a different language there, in the country. They say “ain’t” and “yup” and “rooster-spit” (which I was relieved to learn means meringue). Even words you think you know might have a different meaning. You’ll learn that lesson when you show up five hours late for “dinner.”
Still, I have to admit there is a lot of charm in this country life. The men and women here are close-knit, hard-working and self-sufficient. They are proud of it, as they should be, and my in-laws often take great effort to edify us in their country ways. Take, for example, the way they taught my son, Jake, about where his food comes from.
Jake was 5 when we went out to slaughter the cow. I shuffled Jake into the house when it came time to shoot the animal, but a very helpful older boy came and retrieved him, saying, “You don’t want to miss this part!”
I went out later when the cow was hanging from a tractor. “A front-end loader,” my superior husband corrected me. I don’t care what it’s called; there was a cow dangling from it, a pool of blood underneath. The hooves, severed from the body, were strewn about the ground. The head lay nearby, vacant eyes watching its own mutilation.
I watched as they eviscerated it. That was a mistake. The massive stomachs fell to the ground with a plop. I remember learning as a child that a cow has four stomachs. I thought that was cool. I don’t think so now. So many organs came spilling out I wondered how much meat could actually be left on that suddenly slender bovine.
I would find out later, and it was more than I could have imagined.
I went back into the house, having had enough country edification for one day. My son, Jake, though, took a lot more away from it than I did. On that day, four years ago now, he learned exactly where meat comes from — and he has been a vegetarian ever since.
Katherine Braun (kathi_braun@ ) of Littleton is a stay at home mom who is working on a book about the Deer Creek Middle School shooting in February 2010.
