The days are long gone, when neighbors wander by and stop in for a cup of coffee or just to chew the fat. "Chew the fat" what an odd saying.

Well, I thought those days were gone, until Des Moines resident Dick Anderson stopped by my micro-chicken farm to admire "the girls." He had read about my chickens in a past issue.

What would a Des Moines city boy know about chickens? Well, he's knows plenty! You see, Dick and his wife, Phyllis (who he affectionately calls, "Phyl"), came from Framingham, Massachusetts, where they ran a 16-acre egg fom. Well, he calls it a "fom," but I know that he means "farm." It's that Massachusetts accent that drops all of the Rs.

They had 900 laying hens and, at times, 7000 baby chicks! Now, that's a chicken farm, to be sure!
However, they didn't start out like that. They were both born in 1927, 18 miles out of Boston, where his parents had about 50 chickens, even though his father's real occupation was a police officer.

"Everyone had a garden, back then, and there were a few folks on the block that also had chickens. Some folks up the hill had Jersey Giants. They were as big as a tom turkey and would chase us kids down the streets", he laughed.

After he told me how he and the other boys would make their cowboy guns out of carved wood and strips of old tire inner tubes, I think I figured out why those Jersey Giants might have been chasing them!

While boys were being boys, Phyllis and her friends were catching the 5 a.m. milk train into Boston to see Frank Sinatra sing. I noticed that they had a Sinatra album on the shelf, even today.

It wasn't until Dick and Phyllis were in the 7th grade that they met up, again. However, their romance and marriage didn't take place, until after he went off into the Navy and returned five years later in 1948. Dick was stationed somewhere in the middle of Texas and served as a cook.

They bought their chicken farm in Princeton for only $16,000 ($1000 an acre.) But the 600 eggs a day, at 30 cents a dozen, just wasn't paying the bills. So, Phyllis took on a job, then another, then another - 30 years of supporting Dick, while he went to school. She also continued to run the chicken/egg farm, while he was getting educated. She pretty much wrinkles her nose, if you mention chickens and eggs. Gee, I wonder why?

By the way, I'm humming "Stand By Your Man" right now.

I've learned some fascinating things about chickens that you urban chickeneers will appreciate. Did you know that it takes 25 hours for a hen to form a new egg? So, if she lays at 8a.m. on Monday, she'll lay around 9 a.m. on Tuesday, and so on. And you can expect about five to six eggs a week, per hen.

Did you also know that you can tell if a chicken is a good laying hen by using your fingers to measure the distance between their pelvic bones? One finger - they're not laying. Two fingers - a good layer. Three fingers - Yee Haw! Also, if their combs, the skin around the face and legs get yellowed, they're not going to be laying.

Okay, enough of the fascinating fowl facts.

After his schooling, Dick landed a job at Weyerhaeuser and in 1973 they ended up getting transferred, with thirteen other families, out to Seattle. After 63 years of marriage, they're content to stay in Washington with their three girls, who also live in the state.

In June, Dick and Phyllis will have been married for 63 years. How did they do it? Dick piped up with a smile, "My wife's encouragement, hard work, traveling and having fun together."

The two of them live in the downtown Des Moines area, where they enjoy Dick's cooking (he still likes to cook) and the view of the Sound from their window.

These are just two of the real people who stand in the grocery line behind us, pull up in the parking lot beside us and just very well may be the type to stop and have a chat over your fence one day.