Emma Strohmaier at the front desk, ready for a chick order!
I first met Emma many moons ago at a gymkhana at a saddle club in Cambridge, New York. It's a kind of western horse-riding show complete with such fun games as barrel racing, an egg and spoon race, and a keyhole race on horseback. Emma was always full of spunk and so eager to share quality advice. So after many years of thinking about raising a backyard chicken flock, I went to Emma for professional and friendly advice at her family farm and feed store. Who else better to purchase my first flock from than Emma?!
I started my poultry quest way too early for New Englanders: January! I remember calling Emma shortly after New Year’s Day in the middle of a nor’easter to “talk chicken.” (Spring fever came early that year!) Emma was kind to this newbie and chatted breeds, special order, and pickup dates. She was patient while I took notes and asked questions like a White House reporter. I bet I came off like some lunatic expectant mother! (Again, blame my behavior on a terminal case of spring fever!)
Peaceful Valley Farm & Home Supply has been in business
for 20 years. The sign says it all!
for 20 years. The sign says it all!
Emma recommended I call back in March to order my young chicks for a pickup in early May. I marked my calendar in red and drew childish pictures of a chicken on the calendar blocks; one chicken picture on the March 1 block to note my order date, and another picture for the beginning of May for my chick pickup date. I was as impatient as a 6-year-old waiting for Christmas morning. I had to pinch myself to remember it was still only January . . . snow, ice, the demons of winter were not a safe environment for baby chicks in my frozen tundra of Vermont.
On that January inquiry-day phone call, Emma told me to call anytime with questions. She apologized for rushing off the phone; she needed to close up shop early, get out the door, and feed her cattle in the nor’easter blizzard. Here was Emma heading out in tundralike elements, while I was in a delusional state thinking about an early January thaw, a brooder box, heat lamp, medicated feed, and, ultimately, my very own farm-fresh eggs frying in Mom’s old cast iron skillet.
January, February, the start of March finally passed as I studied my notes like a high school senior suffering from Senioritis, yet cramming for her final exam. I studied Emma’s breed recommendations for our local climate, egg production, shell color, personality traits, and housing requirements. Breeds to order were Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, Sex Links, Plymouth Rocks, Black Giants, Ancona, Australorp, and Dominique. Emma offered various breeds from Ideal Hatchery in Texas based on the breed suitability for our local region. I ordered one dozen chicks to arrive on May 5, with a pickup at the farm and feed store on May 6. This was it . . . with Emma’s guidance I was gonna be a chicken farmer!
An old wagon, a cow mailbox, and a seed sign are
a sure sign of a hardworking, true-grit, local farm store.
a sure sign of a hardworking, true-grit, local farm store.
I fantasized, seeing myself dressed in a gingham pinafore, with a red bandanna on my head and muck boots on my feet, wearing a red rickrack-trimmed apron — complete with cracked corn in my apron pockets, calling “Here chick, chick, chick”! I visualized how pretty all the plumage would look prancing, clucking, and flowing like liquid as my girls pecked at my tossed cracked corn about the barnyard. In May I would graduate into the backyard homestead league of farm animals! Emma became my guru, my guiding light to raising layers. Between Emma’s advice beyond her years and my studies of every Storey Publishing poultry book, I began to understand day-old chick care, roosting bars, cracked corn, hay, grit. All I had to do now was wait for Emma’s call to pick up my girls. Waiting is easier said than done for me . . . I’m not good at waiting.
Just as Emma had explained, her first special order of three hundred day-old chicks arrived in the wee morning hours at the Pownal, Vermont, post office in early May. Emma inspected her pullets-only order, then trucked the little fluff balls in her preheated 4x4 pickup truck to the store, where brooders, sugar water, feed, and security awaited the spring peeps. She inspected and dipped each chick’s beak to assure its health. After a 24-hour settling-in period for the chicks, local poultry homesteaders, both newbies and oldies, got the promised, ever-anticipated call from Emma to come pick up their girls.
Emma is ready for Chick Days with Chick Starter feed.
As Emma promised she called me at work to declare my girls were ready for a Saturday pickup. I remember her call distinctly. It was if the stork herself called me to tell me, “It’s a girl . . . I mean 12 baby chick girls!” I wanted to shout from my work desk, “Hey, everyone, My Girls are in at the farm store!!! I am picking them up the minute the store opens tomorrow!!! Who wants to join in the fun?!” But considering I am the only barn girl on my office floor, I decided it was in my best interest not to cluck a word about my baby chicks. I feared my office mates may have me committed, telling the mental health professional I had flown the coop! Let’s just say not everyone understands the level of my spring fever for baby chicks! Let’s also say in Vermont you get a little nuts: you get the worst case of wintertime cabin fever, with no cure until your baby chicks arrive. Picking up your spring chicks is a rite of passage, a sign you survived the harsh 10-foot snowdrifts. Picking up your baby chicks is thumbing your nose at Old Man Winter! After all, what says springtime more than little peeps?
— Maryellen Mahoney, Special Sales Account Manager
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