Forty yards behind my house sits a little 12-foot-by-12-foot semi-dilapidated old outbuilding that has served as my chicken house for about 20 years. Its origin story is a mystery, and its existence predates my arrival by at least a couple of decades, if a day. So by simple deduction, I can easily assume that the venerable little shack is at least 80 years old.
There used to be a little lean-to shed cobbled to the north wall, but over the years the horses and heifers and elements wore it down enough that I finally took enough initiative to remove it completely. Several years ago, my dad and my two youngest sons combined forces to refurbish the roof with some corrugated aluminum they’d salvaged from the demolition of another old building.
The dirty, crusty little old building is as familiar to me as the ticking of the old clock on the wall that methodically keeps time and watches over my shoulder in my converted bedroom office or the gentle, high-pitched sound of my dogs yawning when they greet me each morning as I walk the 51 steps from the back door of my house to the front door of the henhouse.
I’m not really a big fan of birds, but the routine I’ve developed over the years with the chickens somehow seems to charge me for the day. Some folks need a cup of freshly brewed Folgers to start the day. I apparently need the crow of an arrogant rooster and a dozen freshly fed fowl to properly grease my gears in the morning.
In the summertime, when the daylight is aplenty and the egg production is commensurate with the sunlight hours, my little flock of 12 to 15 hens may produce a dozen or more eggs. On these days, I meticulously place each piece of my bounty in the 5-gallon bucket that doubles as a feed bucket and egg basket. Unless I’m cussing and chasing the occasional egg-thieving cat out of the henhouse, I’m usually pretty careful and attentive. Even with this less-than-ideal egg hauling method, the eggs I’ve broken over the past two decades could barely provide breakfast for a small team of vegetarian bird watchers.
In the winter, the story is a little different. I sometimes find myself feeding the cluckers before daylight or shortly after the first light of day, but almost always before the sun shows itself over the mountains to the east. At any rate, the egg count is pretty low in the cold, short daylight months. On a good day, I might find two eggs, but on most days the count is one or less. On those mornings, if I locate an egg or two, I find it handy to place the eggs in the pocket of my vest or hoodie, always telling myself to be sure to remember to take the eggs to the house before I continue on with the rest of the morning chores. My remembering rate and subsequent safe egg delivery rate hovers right around Shaquille O’Neal’s lifetime free throw percentage, which in case you’re a less than casual sports fan and are unaware, is not a spectacularly high number. (Hint: It’s 52.7%.)
Now, you’d think in times of scarcity that my propensity toward caution would be on high alert, that I’d place a greater value on the precious commodity and thus save a larger percentage of eggs than I do in times of plenty, that I’d be more Rick Barry or Steph Curryesque than Shaq-like in my egg-saving percentage. And sometimes one of two miracles may occur. Either 1) I remember to deliver the eggs to the house before I continue on with the day or 2) I find a completely intact egg in my pocket at the end of the day when I hang up my coats in the back closet. On the remaining days, I probably didn’t find any eggs at all.
They say that the first step toward real change is recognition and acceptance of your mistakes. So consider my first step taken. But as you might have already guessed, I’ve walked several miles of first steps. The path behind me is littered with broken eggshells. I suppose the real discouragement I find in this story is that I’m afraid there are a few parallels in my life with potentially more lasting and disheartening effects than a few broken eggs and missed breakfast opportunities.
But even in the darkest moments of despair, the light of hope will always shine through the heaviest gloom. I believe it can apply to any of us who may face a mountain of discouragement, whose steep face continually sends us sliding, again and again back to the bottom. If it seems for a time that the harder you try, the harder it gets, you can still take heart – because, as I once read, “So it has been with the best people who ever lived.”
We, and I mean all of us, are never alone, neither are we the first nor the last who will try and fail and try and fail again. Though your past may be strewn with broken eggs and broken dreams, if you keep pressing on, the light will eventually lift you to where you want to be.
