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“If you move me back to the South, I want chickens.” The words came like spitfire from my wife’s mouth. She held my gaze like a gunslinger. “Of course,” I said. She’d had chickens on her mind since Vermont. That was five years ago, when I’d uprooted her and our new baby. I’m an ordained minister, and we’d left North Carolina so that I could take my first call at a church tucked away in the Green Mountains. We loved the snow. We loved the cold. We loved Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Bernie Sanders, but we couldn’t adapt to the feeling of isolation. When the next baby came, we named her after a Gilmore girl. We moved to Connecticut, where there were more hospitals, amenities and a salary increase for our growing family. Advertisement Still, we struggled to adapt to our new surroundings. “What if we went back South?” I asked. A church had reached out with the invitation to bring us home. My wife, who is allergic to the sun and anything stenciled with a monogram, was less than enthusiastic. “It’s too hot. I’m done living in a place where I sweat standing still,” she said. “It would take a miracle to get me there.” Advertisement The miracle was chickens. The clock started ticking as soon as we hit the Old North State. I’d find her scrolling on her phone. I caught images of silkies, Rhode Island reds and Plymouth Rocks. A book came in the mail. I tore off the packaging and held up a copy of “The Backyard Chicken Keeper’s Bible: Discover Chicken Breeds, Behavior, Coops, Eggs, and More.” “What’s this?” I said. “Nothing you need to worry about,” she said. She snatched the book with a speed that would have impressed a kingfisher. Advertisement Things moved quickly after that. I was informed that a coop was being constructed off-site and would be delivered in mid-spring. “Well, that’s good,” I said. I had drawn a line in the sand, deciding not to be involved in the chicken business. I had enough things to do. Somehow, I ended up being the keeper of a cat I never wanted, not to mention the two children I did — the youngest of whom was refusing to use a potty. It would seem my lot in life was to chase her diaper-covered bottom around until she was ready to squat like a civilized human. Advertisement As a man built an addition to our backyard, packages arrived. A brooder pen, a large heating plate, sacks of food and shavings. “Where in the hell is this going?” I asked. “In the upstairs bedroom,” she said. The decision already made, I took my opinion and moved it into storage to sit and gather dust. The chickens came soon. Most inky black and looking as if they could hold their own at a Cure concert. She and the kids had picked them out. The sound of chirping came from behind a door I kept closed off in my heart. The girls named them. Held them. Fed them. I promised to cull them if need be. I came home one afternoon to find a stack of building materials in the driveway. I had concerns. My wife had the answers. “I thought you were having the coop built,” I said. My tone hovered over accusatory. “This isn’t for the coop. We have to build a run, dumbass,” she said I paid more attention to the “we” than I did to “dumbass.” And so we dug holes, poured concrete, erected uneven columns and beams. We used an unknown number of staples on wire. Advertisement Finally, the man called about the coop. He was going to deliver it that evening. He pulled up to our house with another miniature apartment complex in tow — a modular home wasted on fowls. Looking at the slope on our property, it might as well have been Mount Everest. “How are we going to get into the backyard?” I asked. “I got a plan. You need to make some calls,” I was told. The plan was to try to kill me in broad daylight in the presence of two church members. I had enlisted them to come, warning them as best I could. They came, their faces and spirits dropping simultaneously when they saw the Taj Mahal sitting in our driveway. And yet they stayed. We moved it on cardboard skis. Uphill, between garden beds, we squeezed through to the promised land. Each time I thought about throwing in the towel, I looked at my wife. Advertisement “Don’t test me,” her face said as she pushed from her side of the contraption. By a miracle direct from St. Francis, the coop was placed where it needed to be. The day came for the hens to enter their spa; they took to it naturally. I was skeptical they wouldn’t use the solar-powered door in the evening that promised to keep them safe from wily foxes and fierce birds of prey, but their survival instinct kicked in, and they marched like Girl Scouts into their crib. Months went by. Bags of food and scratch continued to come. They chattered when any of us approached. My daughters would slide on muck boots and cluck along beside them. They asked questions that my wife, with her new degree in poultry science, answered. “I’ve got a question,” I asked. “When do we get eggs?” It had been years since I’d been around the chickens on my grandparents’ farm, and I hadn’t thought to take notice in my adolescence. Advertisement “The mystic onyxs will start laying in August,” she said. “If they don’t, can we eat them instead?” I asked. The children cried and gathered around her like a mother hen. “They’re not those kinds of chickens,” she said back. I told her I was pretty sure they could be. She called me a few more four-letter terms of endearment and went about her business. The summer descended with full searing heat. We went on vacation up North to visit my mother-in-law. We had someone watch the chickens. When we returned, all of them were accounted for. I was relieved and disappointed. Advertisement And then it happened. While in the garden, I glanced over into the run, and there lay a wee brownish-pink oblong egg. Not in the McChicken mansion my wife fashioned for them, but on the ground. Proud and defiant for all to see. I called the girls. All three came and squealed with delight. We treated the egg like a treasure found in a field. More eggs came — this time inside the coop, but not in the roost. “Maybe they need privacy,” my wife said. “I can make them some curtains.” “Maybe they need to be submerged in a few inches of hot peanut oil,” I said. The bruise on my upper arm and ego are still visible. The eggs of our fortune now sit in one of those mesh metal baskets shaped like a chicken. The same kind my grandmother used to have on her countertop. This morning we found more eggs. The girls wanted to try them, so we cracked a few, scrambled them and placed them beside a couple of strips of bacon. Advertisement They ate them. We talked about how the yolk was the color of the finest gold and how you don’t see that in store-bought eggs. They smiled. My wife smiled. Everyone is happy. A global pandemic. A recession that feels like it never really went away. A growing division in these Divided States of America. Take your pick — all have sucked a level of joy out of my life. Advertisement We go through many, but there are always extras. My children take them to our neighbors. Their small hands knock on doors and pass them along to the couple who just relocated here from Mexico and to the silver-haired lady who lives alone a few houses down. “Oh, that’s sweet,” she said. “Thank you.” “We washed the poop off,” said my youngest. A grin builds in the crevice of her mouth. She thanks us again and closes the door with a dozen eggs and maybe a little bit of hope that the world will be all right after all. She seems happy. Advertisement So does my wife. So do my kids. So do the chickens. And isn’t that what it’s really all about? I know the answer is yes. Their happiness is tied to my own. I know I would do anything for my family — including walking through growing piles of chicken shit. That’s what love looks like. So, who knows? Maybe I’m coming around to the idea of being a chicken keeper. But still late at night, when I come downstairs for a drink of water and I look over at the cast-iron deep fryer sitting prominently on our stovetop, I wonder. BecauseTruthStill Matters Your SupportFuelsOur Mission Your SupportFuelsOur Mission Your Support Fuels Our Reporting In a time of misinformation and noise, HuffPost stays grounded in facts and empathy. Your membership fuels journalism that strengthens democracy. Join now and protect truth where it matters most. We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves. Thank you again for your support along the way. We’re truly grateful for readers like you! 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