Saturday, March 27, 2021

March 27, 2021 CHICKEN FRIED

 Back in the day--my grandparents bought a 350 acre farm and my grandfather became a chicken farmer. It was called SueDick Farm--after his children. The farm housed several coops that held approximately 25,000 hens each. Talk about a FULL TIME JOB--The average hen lays about 250 eggs per year and he probably had 100,000 chickens.  NOW THAT'S A LOT OF EGGS. The eggs had to be collected --BY HAND--twice a day. Dawn and Dusk. They were placed in big wire baskets and then cleaned in big machines --kind of like washing machines. THEN-- they were put on a grading machine--BY HAND--to be weighed and packed--BY HAND--to sell. Lets do the math. A dozen eggs in the 1950's sold for about 60 cents. My grandfather sold his eggs to restaurants and various places by the case. A case of eggs held 30 dozen eggs so he made about 18 dollars a case. WOW. I remember helping---once in a while--but  my brothers were the real "farmhands." It was back breaking work. I've been thinking about the farm a lot lately. A friend of mine has 6 VERY HANDSOME HENS--and she surprised me with some FARM FRESH EGGS a few weeks ago. They were AMAZING. I haven't had  eggs like that since the farm--when I took them for granted. Missing the farm but grateful to have a friend with hens. BUK-BUK. Nao Yasutani, one of the main characters in Ruth Ozeki's lovely novel A Tale For The Time Being, is also missing the the past. Nao is a sixteen year old girl who grew up in Sunnydale, California. She has recently returned to Tokyo with her family after her father's disgrace. She's being bulled at school and her family is a mess. She has decided to end it all, but not before she records the life of her Buddhist nun great-grandmother Old Jiko-- in her secret diary. Ruth, the other main character in the story, is a writer who lives on a remote island in Canada called Whalestown. One day she is walking the beach with her husband when she finds a Hello Kitty lunch box that has washed ashore. She suspects the lunch box is from the Tsunami of 2011. When she opens the lunchbox, she finds, wrapped in plastic for safekeeping, Nao's diary. As Ruth reads the diary, she becomes engrossed in the story and is determined to find out what happened to Nao. This is a wonderful novel for so many reasons. It was really  interesting to learn about Japanese culture, tradition and their understanding of history especially WWII. I also loved Nao, her family and especially her Old Jiko.  This novel was at times laugh-out-loud funny, but  it was also heartbreaking and tragic. It is everything a well-written book should be. At about 400 pages--I'd say it's a 6 mile  run that I was sad to finish. 

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