This story could also be subtitled: “Why is that chicken on fire?”

You may or may not know it but my brother could never be described as the sharpest tack in the shed.

I mean, you expect a teenager to have the occasional accident…

Or, get caught experimenting with marijuana…

Maybe even piss off the sheriff’s deputy down the street…

But you don’t expect him to do them all on the same night.

Where to begin?

Well, when we moved out to the farm when I was 9, my mother decided that she wanted to keep chickens. Needless to say (but I am going to do so, anyway), my mother had no experience raising poultry.

Barb’s experiment with poultry consisted of having my brother rake out the chicken coop and put down new straw. Afterwords, she had new chicken wire put up and a portion of the yard was fenced in.

Seems like a perfect plan, eh?

Hah!

My mother’s first mistake was that she bought fifty hens and three roosters. Yup – three!

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to three screaming roosters each trying to kill each other. Loudly trying to kill each other…night after night. Along with my mother screaming to wake up my brother (with whom I shared a room) to go out and “Shut up those fucking chickens!”.

Mother Nature actually solved this issue for us. The roosters insisted on escaping from the coop and fighting in the yard virtually every day but the loud adventures attracted others to listen.

No, I am not referring to our neighbors.

I am referring to the foxes that lived in the orchard.

Yep, you got it. Two of those little rooster bastards started to loudly fight each other in the middle of the yard when suddenly two foxes appeared out of the darkness and ran off with the combatants.

Problem solved!

After that, my mother’s complete lack of farm experience began to take its toll. You see, my mother failed to notice that the chickens did not seem to be eating well and most certainly did not like to enter the chicken coop.

She sent us kids to find out what was wrong while she sat in a lounge chair smoking and swilling bourbon.

I and my brother went into the coop to try to see what was the matter. The coop was extremely hot and full of chicken poop so it stank to high heaven. Nothing seemed out of place and the only thing I discovered was my brother’s stash of pot and his weed pipe hidden behind the coop.

“Give me that!” he whispered. “And, you better not mention this to Mom.”

Bzzzzzzzzzzz!

What was that?

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

It seemed to be coming from the walls.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

We leaned in to listen…

And the air was suddenly full of hornets!

Screaming, we ran out of the coop chased by a cloud of yellow jackets and scattering the few remaining chickens.

My mother and I ran into the house while my brother ran to the garage to see what the could find to deal with the insect menace.

Unfortunately, he found something.

So, there goes my brother with a pump sprayer into the chicken coop. He walks in and starts aspraying away. It doesn’t matter what he douses with the sprayer – walls, hay, ceiling – even the occasional chicken- as long as the yellow jackets DIE! DIE! DIE!

Finally, the ruckus ends and the buzzing stops as my brother emerges from the coop smiling but coated in dying insects, hay, and whatever it was he sprayed them with.

Oh, and he smelled to high heaven.

“What did you use?” asked my mother.

“The vo-ag teacher told us that gasoline kills just about anything and we had about five gallons for the mower, so I used it.” my brother said with a smile.

“Well, go wash it off because you smell awful.” my mother ordered him.

That is when my brother got a craving and wandered off behind the chicken coop to find his stash. We should have known something was wrong when the chickens starting running out of the coop and smoke started to appear.

This is where the sheriff’s deputy comes into play. You see our neighbor, the deputy, was driving home when a flaming chicken suddenly ran across the road and was hit head on by his cruiser. Looking around, he saw that our coop was on fire and pulled in.

Clearly, there was nothing that could be done by that point but he spent a good half hour lecturing my brother on the evils of the demon weed marijuana as the shed burned to the ground.

After that, my mother stuck to growing tomatoes.

NOW LET’S DO IT RIGHT!!!

Grandma’s Fried Chicken

Ingredients:

10 lbs. Chicken, cleaned and cut up

1 lb. vegetable oil or lard

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 dozen eggs

Salt

Pepper