The following excerpt is courtesy of Michael Perry and Harper-Collins ...

At the earliest edges of my memory, my father is plowing, and I am running behind him. I see my feet, going pat-patpat over the soil, I see my father, left hand on the wheel, right forearm braced against the fender, head turning back to check the depth of the plow, then forward to gauge his progress.

    The soil is red and sandy in the high spots and dark and loamy in the low spots, where it curls from the plowshares like strips of licorice, leaving me this square, shin-deep trough in which to travel. I trail the sound of the little tractor, so close to ground I can hear the soft plop of the overturned clods.

Now and then the plow slices the soil so cleanly that a chubby white grub drops into the furrow, unscathed. The grubs are translucent white, their black guts dimly visible, as if through rice paper. Grackles and cowbirds flock the plow, pecking through the new-turned dirt. The grub will not last long. There is my father on his underpowered Ford Ferguson, and there is me trotting right behind him, and there is God above, looking down as I run the straight groove of the furrow, my life laid out on a line drawn in the earth.

In the company of our six-year-old daughter Amy, my wife Anneliese and I have recently moved to a farm. I would like to present some sort of grand agrarian charter, but the whole deal is predicated mainly on the idea of having chickens. We are not alone in this: These Troubled Times seem to have precipitated a fowl renaissance.

Mail carriers labor under a groaning load of multicolored hatchery catalogs, the latest issue of Backyard Poultry, and perforated containers that peep. Drop the term chicken tractor in mixed company and behold the knowing nods. The online world is alive with Subaru-driving National Public Radio supporters trading tips on eco-friendly coop construction and the pros and cons of laying mash; my NASCAR-loving brother-in-law tenderly minds a box of chicks beneath a heat lamp in his garage; my biker bar bouncer–turned–Zen Buddhist pal Billy and his wife the certified nursing assistant are building their second backyard coop with an eye toward expanding into “ornamentals.”

Anecdotal evidence to be sure, and a drop in the Colonel’s bucket, but something is afoot. The subject of chickens was raised between my wife and me fairly early in our courtship, and has sustained us.

We are enthused by the idea of fresh eggs, homegrown coq au vin, and (at least until butchering day) a twenty-four-hour turnaround on the compost. In addition, it is my long-standing opinion that entertainment-wise, chickens beat TV.