Crossroads with Chickens: A “What If It Works?” Adventure in Off-Grid Living & Quest for Home - Softcover

McCagg, Tory

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872333175 ISBN 13: 9780872333178

Publisher: Bauhan Publishing, 2021

Synopsis

In 2012, McCagg and her husband, Carl built an off-grid, solar-powered house in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. It was to be a weekend getaway for the writer (“what’s this pitchfork for?”) and trombonist (a wannabe farmer). In December, with two cats and six newly adopted chicks, they drove up to Jaffrey from their home in Providence, Rhode Island, ostensibly just for the winter so their new pipes wouldn’t freeze… But their hen “Rhoda Red” turned out to be “Big Red.” Roosters are outlawed by Providence city regulations, so Big Red couldn’t go back. Thus, writes McCagg, “neither did we. Survival of the fittest. Natural selection. Soul evolution. We named our 193-acre home “Darwin’s View” for a reason.” Chicken kerfuffles lighten the mood, but this story is born of heartbreak, of yearning for the great beauty of the world as it used to be. As she moves from full-time weekender to organic gardener, McCagg interlaces her tale with her mother’s battle with Parkinson’s, braiding both Mother and Mother Nature. Add the sun, the wind, and a cock-a-doodle-do, and you have the recipe for a perfect storm of personal growth rippling out to effect a larger transformation.

About this title

About the Author

Tory McCagg holds an MFA from Emerson College; her thesis/novel, Shards, won the Graduate Dean’s Award. Her short story “Earthquake Weather” was a semifinalist in the 1997 Tara Fellowships/Heekin Foundation. She has won two honorable mentions: one for “Enology” (1998 A. E. Coppard Prize for Fiction); the other for “Chain Material” (2001 Lorien Hemenway Short Story Competition). Her novel Bittersweet Manor won a silver medal for Contemporary Fiction from Independent Publishers in 2015. An accomplished flutist, McCagg lives with her husband, two cats, and myriad chickens at Darwin’s View where they practice an experimental life off-grid, on the land.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bauhan Publishing
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0872333175
• ISBN 13: 9780872333178
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 172