Saturday, December 24, 2011

Chickens for Christmas

Grandma and Grandad never had much money, even by rural Oklahoma standards, but they had enough.  Their bills were always paid and paid on time. Their tiny home was neat and clean.  I remember Grandad’s meticulous garden.  The rows were perfectly straight, with Grandma’s bright zinnias blooming across the front.  A cool, dark closet in the bedroom was stocked full of home canned corn, beans and other vegetables, and beneath the straw on the dirt floor in one of the outbuildings, potatoes would last through the winter. 

At Christmas the family would gather around the wood stove that practically filled their small living room, leaving no room for a Christmas tree.  Every year Grandad would cut a cedar from his 60-acre property and put it in the bedroom.

Gifts they gave were practical and appreciated.  One time my cousins and I each received a pint jar filled with wheat and lead pennies they had saved during the 1940s.   (I still have mine.) Another year they had a beef butchered, processed and frozen then divided it among their three children’s families (my mother, my aunt and my uncle).

During the gift exchange one year, Grandma and Grandad  slipped away from the festivities.  Strange rustling sounds came from the bedroom.  A cold draft whipped though the house.  What was going on?  Was something wrong?  In a few moments Grandma and Grandad emerged from the bedroom carrying chicken coops and gave them to me and my two cousins.  Inside each was a Bantam rooster and two hens!

They had hidden the coops behind the bed and Grandad had gone out to the henhouse, gathered the chickens and handed them in through an open window to Grandma, who put them in the coops Grandad had made.  They had purchased the colorful miniature fowl from a neighbor.

What fun I had for many, many years with those chickens and their descendants!  And what valuable lessons I learned from watching the roosters care for their hens and the hens care for their chicks.  Banties are such affectionate and smart creatures.  I trained some of the roosters to do tricks – one would even play dead.

You might call this the “gift that kept on giving.”  By the end of that next summer, we had over 30 chickens!  Without a doubt, this was one of the best Christmas presents ever! 

Janet's maternal grandparents, Claud and Minta Englert.
Just a couple notes:

“Grandad” is not a misspelling.  He simply never saw the need for an additional “d” like most “Granddads” use in their name.

The World War I ring pictured on the back cover of our book, The Battle for the Book of Good Deeds, belonged to Grandad.