10th — I fixed chicken house.
The days of the week have been one day off starting in March on account of the February 29, 2020 leap year.
One of Jesse’s granddaughters submitted a description of the chicken house she remembers from the 1940s. It would have been similar to what Jesse and Mary had in 1902:
Our first chicken house was just a long shed. The front part was wood half way up then the the top half was open and covered with chicken wire, then there was the roof. The wall inside was lined with wooden sections and filled with hay to make a nice bed for the chickens to nest in and lay their eggs. If Jesse was going to fix the chicken house he probably had to replace boards or fix nests or put in chicken wire. In the back was an area that was open in the back and the floor was dirt as it was in the front, but this open room gave us kids a nice area to play cowboy (like riding into town and that would be a saloon etc) or just to play, as the dirt floor made it cool. This is probably how I got the scar on my lungs (histoplasmosis) caused by birds. The main chores were making sure that the chickens had water and feed. Mostly was shelled corn. We would shell the corn by hand some of the time. Then of course someone would have to take a basket or something to gather the eggs.
