Working on the second book of the Out of Gas series: The Farm and thought I would share one of the scenes from the rough draft of the first chapter. I’m hoping to get this edited and online before the end of the month as I finish up the first half of the book and start on the second half.

Hope you enjoy and leave comments please.

Mark heard the screen door slam shut on his new porch as he finished taking care of the livestock before heading into the house for breakfast. The grunts and squeals of the pigs accompanied him as he stopped and listened to the sounds of his new life. The sounds of the country he told himself as he poured the last of the slop into the pig’s trough. Even after two months being on the farm part-time, Mark still marveled at the silence as compared to the city. Yes, there were noises from the animals and the sound of an occasional jet as it lined up for landing at the DFW airport all those miles away, but overall there was only a fraction of the noise one would face living in a town like Dallas or even Fort Worth. Mark smiled to himself as he heard the birds signing and noticed the source of the slamming screen door he heard earlier. “Morning sweetie,” he said to his oldest daughter Cheyenne. “What are you doing out here this time of morning?”

“Mama asked me to get some eggs for breakfast,” the sleepy-eyed girl answered him.

“Why don’t I get the eggs for you and you go back in and watch cartoons before breakfast,” Mark told Cheyenne.

“No thanks daddy. I’ll do it. I like seeing the chickens in the morning right after you let them out of their house,“ Cheyenne replied. “They are so funny running around trying to eat all the bugs up before the other chickens can get them.”

Mark just chuckled and thought to himself, “Six months ago I would have never thought she would even come close to turning down cartoons for anything else. All she did in the mornings was slink down the stairs, glue her eyes on the TV and demand that breakfast be brought to her so she wouldn’t miss a minute of whatever the latest and greatest cartoon was. Our lives have already started changing and we really haven’t even moved out here full-time yet.”

Mark walked over to the hen house with her and leaned against the door as she started to gather the eggs. She went to each hen that was still laying on the nests and talked to them for a few minutes before reaching under them to remove any eggs she could find. Slowly Cheyenne made her way around the various nests and then went out into the small yard that surrounded the hen house. She greeted the chickens she hadn’t already talked to and watched them for a few moments as each chicken raced around the yard looking for various bugs they could eat.

“You like the chickens, don’t you,” Mark asked Cheyenne?

“I sure do,” Cheyenne replied. “They are so funny to watch run around. Are we going to let them have babies one day?”

“Yes, all we have to do is not take their eggs and they will sit on them and hatch them for babies.”

Cheyenne’s eyes grew wide as she glanced from the chickens to the basket of eggs she was carrying. “You mean the eggs that we eat are baby chickens,” Cheyenne asked?

Mark wondered what he stepped into as he said, “Yes and no. The eggs are what come before the baby chickens. You don’t see a chicken in the egg when you break it open, do you?”

“I guess not. How does the baby come from the egg then?”

“The yellow stuff you see in the egg grows into a baby chicken if the mother sits on the egg. It takes about three weeks and then the baby grows inside of the egg and then hatches one day.”

“How does the baby breathe if it is inside of the egg?”

“I tell you what. Why don’t we talk about this during breakfast and I will explain everything and if you want, you can pick one or two of your favorite chickens and we can let them hatch a bunch of babies. You’ll have to watch over them after they are born to make sure the mother is taking care of them and nothing is trying to eat them. Baby chickens are considered food by a lot of the wild animals around here.”

Mark could see the smile grow across her face as they thought about helping to raise the babies. “OK, daddy. That sounds great.”

“Finish up here and then let’s go inside and get something to eat. I’m starving,” Mark replied with a smile on his face. Every night, Mark would move the entire hen house and yard to a new spot in the pasture so each morning the hens were greeted by fresh grass and bugs. This not only helped reduce the feed bill of the chickens as they supplemented their grain with grass and insects, it helped increase the health of the chickens and the quality of eggs they got from them.

Mark was thinking about how he could improve the hen house to the point that Cheyenne could help move it each night when he heard, “You coming in for breakfast daddy,” Cheyenne asked as she walked past him with an armful of eggs? “I thought you were starving?”

“Right behind you pumpkin,” Mark replied as he followed his daughter into the porch to clean up after feeding all the animals. At least he had the forethought to install a laundry sink on the porch when he built it, as most mornings he was filthy after completing his morning chores. At least he could get the first layer of gross off of himself so he would track it into his new home.

After removing the outer layers of his work clothes and cleaning up, Mark walked into the house. “Hi sweetie,” Kelly said as she gave him a little peck on the cheek. “Breakfast will be ready in a few.”

“OK, let me write up my daily notes and I’ll be right in. We need to talk about Cheyenne’s new chicken adventure while we eat.”