The trouble with farmin’ is that folks think it is peaceful. They picture a rooster crowin’, a gentle sunrise stretchin’ over the hills, and animals cooperatin’ like a choir that actually rehearsed. Those people have never met the livestock that stalked my PawPaw’s property, and they surely never tried to get chores done before their second cup of coffee.

I woke that morning with a sense that the world was fixin’ to start actin’ up. The air felt too still. The sunrise glowed a shade too pretty. It was the sort of morning that whispered trouble beneath its sweetness, the same way a cat hums right before it pushes somethin’ fragile onto the floor.

I stepped out onto the packed dirt yard and immediately knew the chickens were up to somethin’. Chickens are not complicated creatures. They eat, squawk, and produce both eggs and opinions in equal measure. But my chickens had a look in their eyes that suggested excessive thinkin’ durin’ the night.

They stood in a circle, cluckin’ in low tones. They glanced at me the way schoolchildren glance at a substitute teacher they intend to overthrow by lunchtime. One of them, a wiry hen named Peaches, stepped forward and puffed her chest out like she had somethin’ to say.

Now, Peaches was smart. Not college smart, but Sunday School smart. She could find the one hole in the fence no matter how many times PawPaw patched it. She strutted right up, tilted her head, and gave a long, accusatory squawk that sounded for all the world like, “You again?”

I decided that whatever revolution they were plannin’, it could wait until after feedin’ time. Chickens, like people, tend to forget their principles when breakfast appears.

Except this time, they didn’t.

Instead of rushin’ the feed like respectable poultry, they refused to budge. Peaches clucked once, and the entire flock marched in perfect unison away from me. I was bein’ boycotted by chickens. A lesser man might have argued with them. I simply tipped my cap and said, “Ladies, you win this round.”

From the barn came a groan so dramatic it could have earned an Oscar nomination. That would have been the cow. A black-and-white Holstein named Mabel, who had the temperament of a disappointed preacher’s wife.

Mabel refused to look at me. She turned her head away and swished her tail with contempt. I spoke to her gently and asked what the trouble was. She mooed a single, mournful note that carried the energy of, “You know what you did.”

I did not know, of course. Cows operate on a moral system that only cows understand. Whether it was a slight from yesterday or the fact that I had not brushed her yet this morning, she had decided that forgiveness would not be offered for free.

I poured her feed anyway. She sniffed it, looked at me like I had personally insulted her heritage, and then ate it with the dramatic reluctance of a child takin’ bitter medicine.

Now, the hog? Now, he was a different story. He was excited.

Too excited.

Big Percy, the hog in question, was not known for ambition. But he’d caught sight of a truckload of pigs rumblin’ past the farm the afternoon before, and it had changed him. Those pigs had been on their way to the stockyard, but Percy didn’t know that. He believed he had just witnessed a parade of high society swine embarkin’ on a grand adventure.

That fool animal spent the entire morning struttin’ up and down the fence line, snortin’ the way a man snorts when he thinks he knows more than the preacher. He kept liftin’ his snout as if he was smellin’ the wind for the promise of freedom.

When I brought his slop bucket, Percy didn’t come trot-trottin’ like he always did. Instead, he paced, lookin’ toward the road with a distant gaze. I swear he sighed like a romantic hero in one of Aunt Grace’s paperback novels.

“Percy,” I said, “you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

He grunted in a tone that suggested I was holdin’ back his career.

The morning just kept unravelin’. The mule refused to move. The barn cats tried to unionize. And, that eejit dog kept barkin’ at a patch of grass as if it owed him money.

By midmorning, I felt like the only sane creature on the property, which is a terrible burden for a farm boy to bear.

Finally, I sat down on the old porch step, wiped sweat from my brow, and watched the animals continue their nonsense. The chickens held a second meeting. Mabel glared at me from beneath her lashes. Percy peered longingly at the road, no doubt dreamin’ of pig fame.

For a moment, I felt overwhelmed, but then something warm settled inside me.

This was a farm. A real one. Not the postcard version. Not the calendar picture.
This was the living, stubborn, noisy truth of it.

A place full of creatures who had their own opinions, passions, complaints, and hopes. Even if those hopes involved impossible things like freedom for hogs, civil rights for chickens, and justice for cows who felt emotionally slighted.

And somehow, I loved it all. Every little bit of it.

By evening, things had settled down. Percy accepted his slop. Mabel forgave me for reasons she’d never admit to. The chickens abandoned their coup when Peaches found a cricket big enough to distract her entire following.

Peace returned.

But I tell you true, Gentle Reader, as the sun settled behind the ridge and the smell of hay drifted soft through the air, I heard Percy sigh again, low and wistful.

And I reckon that fool hog was still dreamin’ of travel.

*****

New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.