The Things I'll Do for $30

The anxiety about feeding the chickens began last night. The ground was already covered with well over a foot of snow, and it was meant to blizzard all night and throughout the day. 

I had made a commitment, a promise — yes I could feed the chickens — but had I answered too quickly? What did my commitment mean in the case of inclement weather?

It wasn’t so simple. We lived at 9,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, and the home of the chickens’ owner was another thousand feet higher. It was a 15-minute drive on a clear day, one when the plough and sand were not needed. But this morning I had no idea what to expect, would the plough and sand even be able to make it themselves?

Our Subaru would likely be fine, but the car wasn’t really mine to risk. It is my boyfriend’s, my own vehicle impulsively sold last August when given two options: put another $1,000 into it, or sell it for $1,000. Obviously now, sharing a car when living in a remote place seems rash. 

But so was saying yes to watching the chickens for my neighbor whose regular gig it was. I’d been around the birds before but didn’t like touching them. When she showed me last week how to pick them up and get them out of the doves’ area I nodded politely and exuded a confident assurance: I could pick up a chicken. Internally, of course, I acknowledged the truth: I never would. 

But the stress of touching a bird or making it to the barn to begin with was borrowing trouble. The work would start well beforehand, our few hundred feet of driveway needing to be cleared before I even turned the car on. I rolled out of the warm, sleepy bed and pulled on thick socks, a sweatshirt, and sweatpants. Downstairs I grabbed my “housecoat” as I liked to call it — years ago it was fabulous, but now it was ripped, torn, stained, covered in dog hair, and I wouldn’t want to necessarily be seen in it. Still, it never failed to warm me, and I was grateful for its resilience. Stepping into James’ boots (much quicker than lacing up my own), I braved the snow outside our front door. 

Squanto loves the snow. My sweet, 10-year old East African dingo has come into his own in the Rocky Mountains, his body enlivened by the cold, dry weather as he leaps and bounds through mountains of powder. We call it helping but really I do all the work: making tracks for the car to get to the street, Sq showing his approval as he takes liberties with the newly ploughed highway, perfect for a wild, large canine to observe the squirrels on branches and deer among the trees. 

45-minutes into my morning and I’m already sweating. The snow is coming down hard, and eventually I give up. The tracks I made at the top are barely visible. It’s time to face the task. Driving 10 miles per hour, I’m totally on edge. I know the feeling of tire meeting ice, I know that it’s nearly always invisible to the naked eye. It can hit at any moment, and always when you least expect it. The windshield wipers do a poor job of keeping the road visible, and the tires trudge forward through two feet of snow on the road. Obviously, the county ploughs have not yet been to our mountain. I may not be the first person on the road today, but I am most definitely the second. 

The stress is nearly too much — I miss the turn for their home twice and have to turn around, once on the edge of cliff-like road I’ve never been on before. “This is ridiculous,” I think, recalling the night before when my neighbor said she gave them plenty of water for a few days. “Maybe she gave them plenty of food, too.”

But now I am pissed and determined. I will feed the chickens. I find the right turn, I drive even slower as I climb higher into the mountains, higher onto roads where I am the one first to drive that morning. The chicken owner’s home is .6 miles from the street, but in my heart I know that there’s no way their driveway will be passable. Or if it is, there’s no guaranteeing I won’t get stuck. I imagine calling my sleeping boyfriend (if reception is viable), telling him I’m stuck in some rich person’s ditch at 8am in a blizzard. And could he come rescue me?

“How much are they paying you to do this?” He asked the week before, when my commitment to feeding the chickens prohibited us from taking our visiting friends to the hot springs overnight. When I told him, he shook his head. Last night he reiterated his feelings, “If the roads are really bad, remember that your life is worth a lot more than $30.”

I couldn’t argue that point but I am stubborn as hell, and I had gotten it in my mind that I was going to feed these birds. It wasn’t until I was pulling up to their driveway that I looked again at my neighbor’s notes. “If weather is really bad, birds will likely be fine for a day.” Where was that free-pass line last night? Or this morning before I went to shovel? Of course, I didn’t want to see it then. I must have subconsciously blurred it out. 

I turned off the car, and peered down the driveway. I guess I’d be walking, then. I pulled my gloves on, adjusted my beanie, tucked my hair in to line my neck. With the engine off the car was quickly cooling, and inside was no better than outside. 

I’m small, but the snow was legitimately up to the high point of my shins. I broke it, the owners safely at their main home in Phoenix, not needing to worry about the state of their long entryway. I trudged through the pine forest that lined the path, their house out of view, until I came to a crossroads. There were two other houses in this meadow, and with everything covered in snow I became disoriented. What way was it? I had no gut feeling. I couldn’t recall from the week before when I had come with my neighbor to meet the birds. 

As with any 50/50 chance presented to me in this life, I went with the wrong one. I realized this after another five minutes of breaking snow, ice slipping into my boots, my hands begging to be warmed in pockets. Ahead I saw a man in a truck with a plough on, clearing the driveway immediately in front of his home. “I am about to scare the shit out of him,” I realize, knowing full well that people up here don’t like strangers, least of all on their land. So I run to him. 

“What the hell are you doing?!” He says, rolling down his window. 

“Hi sir! My name is Caroline and I am here to feed the van Erp’s chickens! I think that’s their house over there, but I went the wrong way.” He was uneasy — he knew now I wasn’t a threat but he wasn’t planning on me in his morning, and he still didn’t like strangers. 

“You sure did go wrong. You don’t want to cut through though — that’s about four feet deep, hasn’t melted in weeks. I’ll drive you back to the split,” he said. “Get in.”

And so I climbed in, jazzed, invigorated, fully accepting of my adventure, and even laughing at this point. It had been nearly two hours since I had began and I hadn’t even greeted the chickens yet. I had now dragged another soul into my somewhat pathetic attempt at paying my bills, and he wouldn’t even take me to their house. There was still snow to break. 

From the split, it was another 10 minutes before I made it to the barn, glorious and welcoming as it seemed at that point. It wouldn’t be warm — in fact, it felt colder than outside, its concrete floors bone-chillingly frozen. But as I slid the barn door open, there were twenty little faces crowding the door, straining for a peek of this additional being in their space. 

“Good morning, ladies,” I said. I fed them, I checked their water, I collected their eggs. I did not touch them. They seemed ok with me. The pigeons and doves were more judgmental, questioning the way I poured the feed into their little trays, doing Tom Cruise like fly-bys of my face to show who ran the room, not eating until I left. I swept the barn quickly and sang them a song, hoping that would make up for the lack of touch. “Maybe next time!” I tell them cheerfully, asking them to remember me when I become their caretaker again in April. 

On the way back to the car, I step in my own steps from before, my toes virtually frozen with the snow that has filled the too-big boots of my boyfriend. “I should have switched my boots before leaving,” I reprimand myself, but it is no surprise that I didn’t. I move quickly, unafraid, rashly, and straight into the storm. If I need to learn something, I will learn it along the way. 

There is a moment of absolute silence in the pines, and I stop. I catch snowflakes on my tongue, and I look around in every direction. I love the feeling of being alone, I love when no one knows exactly where I am. I love the situations I find myself in, I love the things I’ll do for $30. 

A family of deer cross in front of me, and I am startled. The mother and I lock eyes for a long moment before she herds her babies through the trees. Back in the car, I swap my soaking socks for new dry ones which I (intelligently) brought, and head to the grocery store. Since I’m out, I might as well get some stuff done.