Twelve by Twelve by Micahel Powers Read Free Book Online

other days, I’d notice a blend of introspection and unease on Mike’s face. He’d be putting up a hog pen or feeding the chickens, and he’d have another look, as if doubtful his organic dreams would actually flourish. But on this day he had a glow around him as if he’d found his place on the earth. In a huge splash of dry grains, he dumped out both pails of feed, emitting a little whoop as he did.
    Winged creatures rushed at Mike and me, aiming for the seed piled at our feet. The farm around us was a chaotic swirl of birds. Along with turkeys and several species of ducks, from Muscovy to Pekin, were several breeds of chickens — chaldrons and chanticleers, redcaps and rose combs. Local North Carolina finches, cardinals,and an array of sparrows mixed in with the others. The end result was a Beyond Thunderdome version of an aviary. And it descended upon us.
    On the periphery of this pleasant madness, there were the hogs (just two when I first moved in), goats, dogs, and cats. And kids. Two of Kyle’s younger brothers, Greg and Brett, tore out of the house like caged wildcats suddenly let loose. They dashed toward Mike and me, right through a swarm of fowl that were flying off the pond toward us and honking like mad over the expectation of food. The two giggling youngsters grabbed my hands to break their stride. More fowl accumulated around my feet, hundreds of them from elsewhere in the farm. Then came the boys’ brother, Zach, skidding into the fray on his BMX bike. Their guardian goat, a long-horned Billy who protected the chickens from foxes, leapt atop the roof of a small chicken house, posing proudly in regal profile. A fresh wave of ducks and geese, sensing the food, alit from the pond, soared in, and crash-landed in the grain.
    Out of this chaos, I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked down to see Kyle. “I found a chicken for you,” he said.
    For a moment I didn’t know what he was talking about. But then I recalled a conversation we’d had while I bought eggs from him the previous day, about getting some poultry as well. “Yes, the chicken meat. Do you have some ready?”
    “No, but I have a chicken,” he said, pointing into the swirl of chickens and ducks around us. “There it is. That’s yours: that white broiler.”
    I saw it, but only for a second. A nice five-pound chicken, strutting around in the free air, not squeezed into a chicken factory pen. It soon vanished in a swarm of color as other birds swooped in. “How much is it?” I asked, and immediately regretted the question. What did it matter? There was no doubt I would buy that chicken, and many more chickens from this family, even if it were twice theprice of a factory-farmed chicken. I looked around at all this genetic diversity, this happy dance of people and animals, and suddenly wanted to buy all of their chickens. I wanted to support this.
    Their endeavor was a tenuous one. The Thompsons, as was immediately apparent from the disorganization of their operation, didn’t know a whole lot about farming. They’d bought a bunch of animals and let them loose. Mike and Michele Thompson, now in their early thirties, started having kids in their teens, raising them in an urban trailer park in North Carolina’s Research Triangle area, and going on welfare. It was only when the drugs and knives, so common in the trailer park, directly threatened their kids that they decided to sink all of their money into a mortgage for this remote piece of land, put a simple prefab house on it, and improvise an organic farm. But the tough life Kyle had lived up until then was reflected in his eyes; he had that too-mature-for-his-age look even as we playfully skipped stones along No Name Creek.
    However, as I discovered from our early conversations, Mike and Michele weren’t just fleeing a dangerous urban life; they felt animated by a kind of Jeffersonian dream of becoming independent freeholders. They both wore big smiles and talked energetically about their