The box was closed with a hallow click for the last time as I prepared to leave the only home I have known. My only possessions coming with me were a duffle bag of clothes that was putrid with the scent of smoke and my collection of cards, everything else was like the box to be closed and lost forever. Every day of my life until then was in risk of losing what I gave up that day, and there are many words of gratitude to give my aunt for taking me out of the situation that my younger self had been in. With my mom splitting from my dad and the land lord kicking them out, I had gotten the easy ticket out of being stuck in the box I had closed.
It was five years after the day I left Roslyn that my dad had brought me back to the town that I had lost so much in, but this time I was prepared for being stuck in a small house. There was also a new lid being opened as I came back as I pursued something that a friend had mentioned while I was at my Aunt’s house. The new box being opened for me with help from a new friend was beginning to open when I joined 4-H three years ago.
Three years ago, my friend’s aunt came to my door with a new box, a cardboard box that was smaller than the one that was closed so long ago. The grand feeling that filled my limbs as I held the box that had new memories within it. I pulled back at the packaging tape to meet them, my projects some may call them but they became part of me the moment I saw them. There was four of these little puff balls within the box that I at the time knew little about. They were chickens. Why should one get so excited about chickens one may ask?
The excitement of how important these birds were to me would revolve around the experience that they would bring for me. First there was the sad moment of the first of them dying, the devastation and failure I felt when my dad told me that one of them had been killed by something. The time that I spent working with chickens came to my first time showing at fair and it was greatly nerve racking at first.
The poultry judge seemed to be the most intimidating person, being able to keep a straight face as he asked each person at the table without even a sign of a twitch. I stood at the table with my final well summer hen who was keeping a close eye on something that I didn’t know at the time. The judge came to ask me another question when a small tapping sound came to my ears. I looked down to see my hen pecking at his belt buckle. Seeing her do this brought a huge weight off of me as even the judge finally cracked a smile.