Hold Onto Your Fork--- Something Good's Coming

     It happened when I stopped by Buzbee's Feed Store that morning to pick up some mulch for my  garden.  They had already put the mulch in my car when I crossed the heavy wooden floor to the cash register to pay my bill.
     A lot of commotion under the stairs to my right stopped me, and I turned to see. A hundred gallon watering trough, postioned in probably the warmest corner of the store out of the draft, held the answer. I peeked over the edge to see blond wood shavings, framed by a big warming light, with fifty or sixty baby chickens down inside peeping.
     I asked Ray, the man waiting at the regisster, "Are those all the same kind of chickens?" I had noticed some were more gold-colored than yellow, and one or two were almost brown.
     "All Araucanas," he said.
     "Those lay the blue-green eggs, don't they?"
     "Yes."
     "My son, his wife, and  their two boys are raising some of those up near Denton." I  remembered how much fun the kids had with their chickens---them, and the entire neighbothood. I was there when their first hen squawked over her newly laid egg. I paid my bill, thanked him, and left the store.

     When I drove in my driveway, clearly, nothing had changed since I left: the same cloud-covered sky, still the same wintry day with a slight wind pushing in from the east. And inside I listened to the same empty echoes from the same empty rooms, hushed by the same silent carpet.

     Yet somthing had changed!

                                                                                                ...to be continued next week...