Kicking It on the farm

With Easter just over, I am reminded of spring on the Kansas farm.

Each season brought a new job. For instance, springtime meant my folks would buy 500 baby chicks from the feed store. And because there was still snow on the ground, they had to live under a heat lamp in the corner of our kitchen.

Weeks later, when the air warmed, we would add inches of fresh straw to the hen house floor. Watering cans were scrubbed and feeding trays were filled in preparation for relocating 500 of the now much larger chicks. It took three of us a full morning to gently lower them into lid-covered cardboard box...