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I followed her up the hill to a wooden fence. The spring air smelled like tulips and strawberries. Next to a white farmhouse with a blue roof sat a field of pink and white tulips. On the other side, there were multiple strawberry fields. There was a tree line far away with a singular path through it. I’d never seen so much space before.
“Bennie!” Jackie called as she hopped the fence. “I brought him!”
An older man was bent down in the field. He slowly stood and stretched before walking over to us. He had weathered skin that pulled into a smile. “Well, well. Cain Smith. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
That wasn’t a very good sign.
“It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
“You’re, what, sixteen? That’s only a little older than my granddaughter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’ll do well. He listens to me. Most of the time.” Jackie laughed. “And I think he’ll listen to you too.”
“Do you like animals?” Bennie asked.
Who didn’t? “Yes.”
“Good. Come on. I’ll show you what you need to do.”
Jackie gave me a wave before I walked off with Bennie. I watched him warily, but followed. We walked along the path through the tree line. The sun gave way to shade for a few moments until we came to a clearing. There was a massive fenced-in area with multiple chicken coops. The large birds walked around, digging in the dirt as they looked for food.
There were white, black, and even red chickens. I had no idea so many different kinds existed.
“So, you have chickens?”
“Not just that.”
He pointed in the other direction where a wooden fence marked an expansive plot of land with a barn in the center. Cows were everywhere, eating the grass beneath them. Some lounged in a shallow pond not too far away.
“I need you to be able to hop these fences and feed all of the animals.”
“Is there a gate?”
“There was, but it got blocked up a long time ago. I thought hopping the fence would keep me young. Boy, was I wrong.”
I looked at both fences. The one for the cows was higher, but not too bad.
“I can do that easily.”
“Here,” Bennie said, throwing something into my hand.
“What are these?”
“Mealworms.” I was sure my face had turned a sickly shade of green because he laughed and added, “The chickens love them. They’ll run at you for them.”
I resisted the urge to throw them on the ground. I liked animals, but Ihatedbugs—worms included. We walked into the coop, and soon I was trying not to trip over the chickens rushing at my ankles for what I had in my hand.
“Ah! Okay, here!” I dropped the mealworms on the ground. “Please don’t trip me.”
“Oh, they will,” Bennie said. “Come on, let’s go check their regular food and water.”
I followed him to the back of the coops where we piled up more eggs into a basket than I’d seen in my life. By the time we were done filling their food bins with grain, they were already trying to trip me again, but I managed to get around them.
We walked outside, and I was still thinking about all of their little faces and how they ran. Chickens didn’t seem very bright, but they did seem kind of ... cute.
“The animals are hard to keep up on,” Bennie explained. “My passion is with the strawberries, but that’s not year-round, and these eggs sell very well around here. As does the cow milk.”