It's about 3 pastures down...

I had the privilege of visiting Mary Lou's chicken farm for New Years eve. Chicken farms are really country. So is MLT's dad. Fortunately, I am accustomed to the rural Texas prose and learned a bunch about raising chickens. Here's the highlights:

1. The chickens arrive at the farm as babies (the buildings hold 25,000 (yes, each A.C.) and there are 6(ish) of them).
"You see, they start out about the size of a mouthful" -Mr. Thompson

2. The chickens are nurtured by machines and criminals. Additionally, their home smells like Amanda's chemistry lab.
"Those fellas are pretty rough, most of them don't speak English" -Mr. Thompson

3. The wet poop that forms a 3 inch thick crust near the water troughs is called "cake". They scoop this out for sanitation and use it for fertilizer in the pastures. The pastures are very, very green.
"Take care of your animals and they'll take care of you" -Mr. Thompson

4. It costs only 20 cents to raise a chicken per pound because they gain a pound for every one and a third pound they eat.
"Which means they don't poop a lot" Mr. Thompson (he meant by percentage)

5. The chickens live 42 days, which is high rollin for a chicken, and then they...well...
"You never get attached to a chicken" -Mr. Thompson

Trip Shout outz: Stephaniey Lowe for humoring me in conversation, providing wise/intelligent feedback, and dealing with the incessant mispelligns of her name so good. Meredith for her humor too, albeit untintentional (unless you were trying to snore). MLT for hospitality and a fun party to start off the year!

Quick story: I got lost and went down 12th street in Austin trying to find my way. It happens that this street is the location of Mission Possible (where we did 2nd semester Big Project freshman year). I saw the coffee shop we did demolition/cleanup on. It was painted and looked nice. I hope they're giving people what they need. Anyway, the right way back was on 7th street, and that took me by the Church Under the Bridge location. I'm realizing as I type that there's more to say from being reminded of those places than would be appropriate to add to this post, but I'll finish by saying that the reflections that came in the 2 hours I had alone to think afterward were on the same scale of value to me as the friendships this trip allowed me to enjoy.