I had a fishing date planned out one evening this past week that wound up not happening. Life has a tendency to derail good plans and it was able to end my date night. We could have caught a prize-winning, record-setting bass or we could have been bored to tears while turtles, the bane of fishermen, ate our bait off the hooks. I really enjoy fishing - and doing it for date credit is awesome.
The date that spawned from my foiled plans though was much better than any outcome that could have come from a fishing trip.
I went to pick my girlfriend, Morgan, up. She was very excited to use her new rod and reel and kayak. I was ready to use them too because shopping with her for those things was very stressful and I needed a release. Before we left she asked me if we could go buy a bird feeder for her new garden. I, wanting to please her, agreed (I am a great boyfriend).
We went to a feed store on Grapevine Main Street. It is a steel building with exposed rafters and particle board floors. It smelled like a petting zoo on the inside and had a bunch of tacky lawn decorations on the outside.
This is where the date took a turn.
As we were walking through searching for the feeders and seed my girlfriend stumbled across three metal horse troughs. She bumped one. The uproar of little chirps she got in response made her jump. Inside each trough was chicks or ducklings.
They were cute, I guess. I noticed the unpleasant smell more than how they looked. But Morgan is obsessed with ducks and chickens. She often talks about how she wants some of each when she has a family and house of her own. I asked a worker the price of the chicks out of curiosity.
“The ducks are $10, the turkeys and those chicks are $6.50, and the ones in that bin are free, but you have a one in ten chance of them being a rooster.”
It didn’t matter what the man said after free. I knew we were going to get one. Morgan looked at me like I was going to talk her down from the dangerous ledge she was on, but I just pushed her off (again, I am a great boyfriend).
“You should get one”
“Really?”
“They’re free. Go ahead and get three.”
She got them, but we had nowhere to put them, no food, and no parental approval. We solved two of those issues that night and the parents still don’t know to my knowledge.
At this point, I realized we wouldn't be fishing. We brought the chicks back to my house for my sisters to see at which point it was brought up that they needed a pin.
A chicken coop is fairly simple by design. Most don’t even have floors. Four posts, chicken wire, and maybe a door or gate typically do the trick. Mine rests off the ground, has an open roof, no door, and a small birdhouse looking shelter along one of the walls. The only wood available was leftover or discarded from some of my dad’s old projects. Two by fours from repairing the fence, plywood from the bookshelf he made mom, and chicken wire from the dog pen he made.
It was a quick project. My cuts were poor, and the wood was warped, but it satisfied the need. The coop was two feet wide by two feet deep and about as tall. It is currently in Morgan’s backyard under her parents’ window, but they are oblivious to it.
So why the heck did I get the chickens?
Well, people have a tendency to make a lot of plans for the summer and set really high expectations for those 104 days. Many also look back at their summer once they go back to school and downplay it. They'll say stuff like, "oh my friends were always out of town so I didn't do much", "I had to cancel my plans due to... so it would have been better", or "activities are expensive" (Yes, get a job. You're an adult now).
If you really want your summer to be great, be okay with your plans getting canceled. Do something that could be a big mistake.
Go out and buy some chickens! (Plus, we only spent eight dollars on the chickens, coop, and feed).
