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This picture was taken in 1909,shortly after the death of Dad's father, William Phillips who had an estate in Algonquin Park, Norfolk. It shows Uncle Will visiting Dad in the chicken yard of his newly acquired farm on Shell Road in Princess Anne County. Uncle Will is the one dressed up with the black Derby. The chickens pictured are Plymouth Rocks, a favorite breed that we grew for years. The chicken house remained in constant use over many years until I left the farm in 1940. I have cleaned it, feed the chickens, and gathered the eggs countless times. The tenant house appearing in the background is across the marsh (King's Creek) and is on Nat Williams' Farm. There were many colored kids on the Williams farm about my age and I knew them quite well. The channel of King's Creek flowed by the sandy shore of the Williams farm, and the naked colored kids would often splash and swim in it when the tide came in. Also, it was the scene for colored Baptisms.
Dad had two brothers that I can remember. I only saw Uncle Will once or twice. He lived over on a branch of Tanner's Creek near Aunt Nora Edwards in Algonquin Park. There was no closeness there, and I think it was do to Will's wife. But with Uncle Eddy, that was a different matter. We frequently visited Uncle Eddy who had a small but choice acreage over on Kempsville Road near the City Waterworks. Uncle Eddy had a permanent job at the water treatment plant and it was within walking distance. A lane on the edge of his farm led back to a lake that bounded the back of his property. This lane now bears the Phillips name on city of Norfolk records. Uncle Eddy was a friendly man and I have spent the night with him and his wife, Aunt Edna. They had two children near my age, Billy, and Mary. They both attended Kempsville High School and Billy and I swung on grape vines and played Tarzan in the woods.
Aunt Nora, Dad's sister, and Uncle Payne Edwards, her husband, had a lovely house almost on Tanner's Creek (now Lafayette River.) It was set in a large yard with a Catalpa tree which hung with long pods that fascinated me. The house was large and well built and with two lovely porches. It contained sliding doors that separated the dining room from the living room, and a country kitchen which smelled of cake when we visited. Uncle Payne was good story teller a joy to me. He took me fishing in the Lafayette River and I can still see his strong arms as he rowed the boat out into the deep water beyond the Granby Street bridge. He was a carpenter and helped build the giant grain elevators near Sewell's Point. Later in life, he and Aunt Nora partnered with Dad to acquire the Briarwood Cottage on 37th Street in Virginia Beach. They tried to make it a fine Bed and Breakfast Inn, but it was a financial failure.
This is one story I find hard to believe, but to the best of memory it is true. Most every old time farmer knows that blacksnakes love chicken eggs. One section of our henhouse had a row of laying nests, just the size for the hen to nestle down in the straw and do what she was supposed to do. Between each nest was a pine board barrier, some with knot holes. The hens would lay one or more eggs in their nest of choice and depart happily, clucking away. One day I encountered a blacksnake in the henhouse in a compromised situation. It had swallowed whole an egg in one nest, crawled part way through a knot hole in the separating partition, and engorged another egg. The knot hole it had crawled through was smaller than the eggs, and there the snake lay pinned to the separating board with an egg on each side of the hole. What a sight! That is the way I remember it, or I would not tell it this day.
There were more tenant houses in the immediate area than there were chicken houses. And, there were hungry people in those tenant houses. We would give a hen to Aunt Mary or Hattie, but we could not extend such courtesy to the tribes on other farms. Occasionally we would suffer a raid on our henhouse, and smell feathers burning the next day. No big deal, but still annoying. It happened so randomly, that we could not catch the culprit in action. When we finally got electricity, Dad rigged up an electric bulb in front of the henhouse, and when the Guineas cackled at night, he would switch on the light and this discouraged the midnight raids. The Guineas roosted in the trees safe from thieves and predators and made excellent thief alarms in the night.
Hens have an instinct to brood, and they like to do it their way. Poor modern day hens do not have this freedom of expression. Our hens pretty much had the privilege of roaming the marsh and yards. Mom had a special knack of watching them steal off and make a nest in some secluded place. Then mother-to-be hen would lay an egg a day until she had a clutch of eggs, and then she would "set" on the eggs just the right amount to keep them warm and to encourage incubation. Sometime later she would then show up with a precious brood of precocious chicks to our delight. Dad had built little henhouses, we called the "coops" and with baby chick feed and encouragement, the mother hen would move into her very own house with her chicks. They would roost in the coops at night until they were big enough to transfer to the chicken yard and main chicken house. The chickens were always locked up at night as protection against predators. I can remember once when a brooding hen made her nest in a risky spot, that Mom went out at night, gathered up the nest eggs in her apron, together with the Mama hen, and transferred her to a waiting hen coop. It worked, and she soon had a clutch of little chicks flitting about.
Hen hawks were a continual worry when you had a yard full of young chickens. We were always on the alert for a hen hawk. Mom would rush out into the yard shouting and waving her apron to scare the hawk away. But hungry hawks are determined predators and Dad was sometimes forced to shoot them on the wing with his automatic 12 gage shotgun. And Dad was a good shot. Partridge and rabbit hunting were occasionally done to put a special meal on the table.
In this day and time, we buy our chicken without bone or skin in neat plastic packages. Not so on the farm, I can remember catching the live chicken around the foot, with a short pole with a bent wire hook on the end. It were as though I was playing God. Then taking the doomed chicken to a block of wood and chopping its head off with a hatchet. The headless chicken would flop around for a several seconds until it bled to death. Then it was sloshed with scalding water and its feathers plucked. After that it eviscerated by slits made in the breast and rear end. The heart, liver, and gizzard were saved. Finally it was cut into pieces for frying. The whole process I found most distasteful , but it had to be done to eat. That was the way it was on the farm. I have done the above, but when possible, the task was passed to Dad, or Aunt Mary. And, when hog killing time came, it to was a gruesome task that I viewed with a degree of fright. Today, nearly all of us are shielded from killing and the reality of the abattoir.
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