a distant memory

This was my dad's fruit tree "experiment" that didn't work out. About 45 years ago now.

He was always doing something interesting on our country property when I was growing up. We had chickens for a while and he constructed a coop and fenced yard for them. In the daytime they'd often be let out to forage outside of the coop's boundary. These were very healthy chickens and the epitome of happy and cage free!

One night I was walking home up to the house from a neighbor's (I had been babysitting) and heard a baaaaukkkkk that scared the daylights out of me! I had just walked past one of these little fruit trees that had a chicken roosting in it. She had failed to get back into the coop with the others to roost inside and flew into the tree for the night. A memory that has stayed with me.....

I was brought home from the hospital after my birth to this house. This was the home I grew up in. The one my memory returns to again and again. Though it has been inhabited by another family now for about 25 years, it will always be .....

.... my New Jersey home.