Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
Michael Perry
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0061240443
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and a baby due any minute, the acclaimed author of Population: 485 gives us a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country.
Living in a ramshackle Wisconsin farmhouse—faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home—Michael Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father.
Whether he’s remembering his younger days—when his city-bred parents took in sixty or so foster children while running a sheep and dairy farm—or describing what it’s like to be bitten in the butt while wrestling a pig, Perry flourishes in his trademark humor. But he also writes from the quieter corners of his heart, chronicling experiences as joyful as the birth of his child and as devastating as the death of a dear friend.
action was steady, with the sifting sound of cereal sliding from the wax-paper lined boxes and the high-tension ping of spoons against the rim of Corelle Ware dishes. I loved to look at the pictures on the boxes while I ate, and dream of the day I would save enough box tops to get a real jet airplane. When at an early age I began to learn to sound out words, my Sunday morning cereal time was the source of great strides in reading comprehension. I’d read the boxes side upon side. By the time I was
lips and make a noise somewhere between snoring and drooling best described as snurgling. Not so long ago I stepped through the front door to find Amy in the middle of the kitchen unrolling a flag-sized poster of me. It was from a book tour stop somewhere back along the line. My visage was full-color and big as a cheese platter. Amy held the poster unfurled before her, and I admit I savored the moment right up until she turned and laid it faceup on the bottom of the guinea pig cage. I am well
reveling in the cool and snouting around in the drenched dirt. They show no ill effects, and before long I throw caution to the wind and train the water directly on the pigs. Wilbur grunts and just stands there, but Cocklebur actively seeks the stream and often blocks it from Wilbur as she lets it play over her nose and into her mouth. When I finally close the hose their undocked tails spin a happy whirligig as they nuzzle and roll in the fresh mud. During one of my fits of activity, I built a
The grasses part around the grille, rising as high as the engine shroud and sprinkling leafhoppers on your jeans. Rolling lobes of wind press across the meadow, made visible in shifting shades of silver as the seed heads dip and sway. Just inside the gate you pause for a moment like Columbus set to sail, discovery and depredation your call. And then you engage the power takeoff, roll the throttle back so the tach pegs around 1500 rpm, lower the haybine’s clattering maw, ease out the clutch, and
tears she said, “This is a really bad day!” When the vomiting stopped for good, I stood at the sink, running a cool rag over Amy’s face. By now Dan had come to help. When I looked up into the mirror I saw him reflected behind me, dipping the towel up and down in the toilet while simultaneously flushing away the throw-up. “Little trick my mother taught me,” he said when our eyes met, and I remember thinking, What are the odds of this moment? Yay, team. Amy is growing so fast. You think you