I should probably start at the beginning. The chicken coop was about 5 and a half years old at the point where it began sagging around the nesting box area and pieces of wood on the front of it as well as parts of the door began falling off. I knew the carpenter ants had been munching on it and the weather had been wearing it down for over five years and it was finally past the point of plaster repair to where enough things were falling off at once that i couldnt paste it back together fast enough and it probably just needed replaced. I knew it was now drafty enough that the chickens couldnt winter in it and so something would have to be done. My neighbor volunteered himself to help. I tried to say that was okay, i had it, but he insisted he could be of much needed help. Thinking that i could use a hand if i thought about it, i accepted his offer. Very quickly i began to regret doing so. He decided that we needed a metal roof. I said i didnt have any metal or know how to construct one, or what to even attach it to and with what method. He said he did and that i didnt need to. He had a vision and he knew how to make it come to fruition. Pretty soon i started hearing the plan was to drill holes in the metal structure of the pen i had, which i wasnt thrilled about because it was nice and study without holes drilled in the metal poles and panels and i wasnt sure it would be after we were done drilling holes. Then it was that i needed to get metal roofing from a lumber yard. Id never done business with a lumber yard, nor did i have a truck with which to transport the metal, but he did. This project was gradually becoming less and less my brain child and more and more his. I usually put the chickens inside a stock tank in the house so they could be climate controlled in the air conditioner while i worked on their pen, so i wouldnt be rushed and could take my time in making repairs or constructing things. He didnt like this idea. He didnt want the chickens inside my house because they’d make a mess so he brought over a large wire cage that was meant to go in the dog run under a tree until we were finished. This complicated things for me because now i’d forever be trying to keep the dogs from eating chicken poop and bird seed once they were removed from the dog run and i’d have less time to finish what i was doing as the birds would be stressed and hot in the confined cage as the sun got higher in the sky and the hours of the day wore on. He didnt think about the reasons behind the way i did things. He just thought his priorities and his reasons were smarter and better. He really didnt ask for the reasons behind the way i did things and he just repeated that his way would work better when i protested that i wanted it done my way because that was the way i had planned to do it. Sometimes in the country when you have men and women working on a project together the men assume the women have just been doing something a certain way because its all they could think to come up with and now that the big brains and real skills are on scene, things can get done in a better and more efficient way. However, the main reasons behind the way i do things are usually directly related to my priorities surrounding animals and safety and my ever present priority to construct something i can understand, build, and maintain myself without having to hire a professional or ask for help. Independence is important to me.
Next it was decided that instead of taking a sledgehammer to the rotting chicken coop in the pen, pulling the pieces out one by one, and building the new coop inside the pen so i wouldnt have to take the pen apart (with an elaborately created heavy duty tarp roof with thousands of zip ties and rope ties and an attached buried metal wire fencing around the whole thing) he’d take the roof off or take a couple panels off and use a tractor to chain and pull the old coop out and lower the new coop in. I didnt want this because i felt it would damage my fort Knox pen i’d created and i could already see where the chained new coop was a fragilely constructed thing from china that would probably shift in the process of lowering and then come apart in some way and require repairs. But, he had his mind made up that his way was best. Every once in a while he’d say, “i mean whatever way you want to do im fine with” and then when i’d say that in that case i wanted my way, he’d just insist his way was going to be better. I felt his statement was a false offering because when i tried to take him up on his expressed flexibility, it didnt seem to exist. This particular neighbor provided me with a lot of help over the past year and i cant say it wasnt helpful. It was and i appreciate him. However, it came at a cost. I lost my independence and i lost the spirit of why i moved out here in the first place; to have a piece of land where i could do things my way, whatever that may be, and foster a sense of independence and resilience. Its fine to have friends but you should make sure that good boundaries are in place and that one portion of your life doesnt bleed into many others and take over. I was used to an independent existence where no one checked up on me or really needed to know where i was and what i was doing throughout the day or night. I was used to a certain level of solitude and privacy. The more help i accepted the more i seemed to lose this right to privacy and alone time. Socialization became a daily requirement and i was feeling smothered. I felt i had lost ownership over my own land and life as the decisions were no longer being driven by me and i was not the entity guarding, protecting, or addressing intruders on my land. Someone else was. I knew my name was on the title to the land but i felt like i’d lost ownership and become a 2 acre portion of a larger lot down the street. It had begun innocently but i found myself losing more than i was willing to part with in order to keep the friendship. I felt obligated to be flexible because the person had done so much for me. I started to wonder if this was the design. My friend seemed to know where i was and what i was doing at all times and he kept saying he saw me when i didnt see any trace of him and it was freaking me out. I felt like i had no privacy. I felt like the woods were no longer secluded. The last straw for me was a morning in which i lost my last semblance of privacy, i ended up having to deal with the consequences of having an opinion that differed with his and that was that i slid down on the priority list and now i had to wait until he’d done two other jobs to even get started so the chickens would sit in the heat in that small pen without a coop for hours because i hadnt played nice. I went back and forth on what to do but ultimately all i could conclude was that i was stuck having to play nice and submissive because the project had now evolved into something that i couldnt do by myself. I didnt have a tractor, chain, or any idea how to put on and secure a metal roof. I was furious that i had lost the ability to control projects on my property as i was not married and i was the boss here, and i usually called the shots and things happened on my timeline, and that was how i designed it and wanted it to stay. The loss of privacy and need to know where i was and what i was doing all the time was a problem but the constant deference of power and waiting on another person’s timeline and priorities which seemed to be dictated by my own behavior…i was done. I was done having my behavior manipulated by a desire to get a project done. I had to be me and do me, regardless of the consequences. That fact i knew, but i could not figure out how to salvage this project for the chickens by the coming of winter. The chicken coop was already built, because he wanted to build it on the outside of the pen rather than inside like i had wanted. So now i really didnt have a way to get it in the pen without a tractor and taking apart some portion of the pen. I paced around the yard until it hit me. **** the pen. I would buy a new pen and construct it around the already built new chicken coop. I would dig a new trench, cut new fencing, bury it, make a new rock wall on top, and put a new roof on. It would be costly and a lot of work, but i’d regain my independence, not have to rely on someone else to do things for me, and have it exactly how i wanted for me and my priorities. I made a decision and that was that. That was the new plan. I politely notified the neighbor that i appreciated his help up until that point but i’d decided to go in a new direction and was going to leave the pen and just construct a second pen so i could have twice the chickens eventually and wouldnt have to worry about dealing with that rotting coop for now. I told him i no longer required his help and asked him not to come. Suddenly i shot to the top of the priority list and contrary to my request, he came straight to the property to get started. I had chained the gate because i did not want company. He unchained the gate and let himself in despite my request for him not to come to the property and the chained gate he was met with. He had become too comfortable overriding my wishes and i had to do something to reset my life the way i’d had it before he had entered it as a friend. Our friendship ended that day when it became apparent to me that he could not respect my boundaries or wishes. I hope he has a good life and great times with good friends and has all the success and happiness in the world. He’s done a lot of good for people and should have good things in life. I have no reason to wish anything ill towards him. I just cant be a part of that life. We want different things and i suspect some of our needs and ideas are in direct contradiction with each other.
A friend and former coworker living in san antonio was scheduled to come out to the property within the next month. She had wanted to help me dig some holes to plant the fruit trees i had sitting in pots on the porch. I now had a big ask. I asked her if she’d help me hold the fence panels to construct a new chicken pen around the already built new chicken coop. It would be an all day and labor intensive project…not much fun. It was a huge ask and i wasnt sure why anyone would say yes. But she did. Without hesitation she agreed to come help me erect a new chicken pen. Now i had a plan that was coming together. I just had to figure out logistically how to bring it to fruition by the time i had her scheduled to come out to the property. I made a run to the nearest town with a tractor supply in it and bought a pen and some supplies needed for the project. I bought a new pick axe at a hardware store. I paid for the pen but i didnt have a truck to pick it up and transport it in and enterprise couldnt rent me one for a month. I began calling everyone i knew who lived in that town with a truck. I did locate someone who had a truck and agreed to pick ip the pen the following day and deliver it to my property after work on monday because he worked in my town. Everything seemed to be set up pretty well until he called me after church to say that they had sold me the pen but didnt actually have one. They would have to get a nearby city to run one down from their store. I asked if they could just take apart the floor model in the parking lot and load it in their truck but they said no, they could not sell him the floor model. It had to be in the box, so we could take it out of the box and then erect it in the yard to withstand the weather. It made no sense to me. But they have their rules. I then became pretty perved that they’d taken my money and could not produce the thing i technically now owned. They said it would be one more day and they’d get one shipped from a nearby city. I stayed on them and they followed through. Ironically, it ended up being the nearby city’s floor model. Idiots.
So he delivered it to my property. He wouldnt take any gas money so he just has my gratitude and thanks. He’s happily married and has a gaggle of adorable and outgoing children and here’s where my new policy about friends was hatched. Happily married people make good friends for me with already established boundaries that have little long-term use for me in daily life. They’re busy and interaction is kept brief and infrequent. Works well for my lifestyle.
My friend came from san antonio one sunday and we literally worked from sun up to an hour past sundown. We worked well together and she had many ideas that i hadnt thought of and vice versa. We had slightly different ways of looking at things. I was grateful when her idea genuinely solved a problem i hadnt considered or when she had a more efficient way of going about something but when i didnt like one of her ideas, i had a right to say “no i want to do it the way i had originally planned” and we did. Most of the time i did choose her way of doing it over the eay i had planned because it was an idea that i genuinely liked more than my own but there were a few things i wanted the way i wanted them and she never tried to change my mind. It was enjoyable working with her and we made a good team. I was surprised by how much we got done in one day. She was a hard worker and sometimes gave me the motivation to continue when my focus was waning. She was also good conversation. I dont think there’s anyone else on earth who could have stuck in that with me and got as much done as we did in one day because she thinks very similarly to me and we have very similar focus styles and she really came through for me in a way i cant fully explain my gratitude for with words. I think of that day and those hours building with her every time i walk in and out of that chicken pen and i know she gave me a christmas gift like no other this year. The gift of her time, presence, and patience. I cannot explain the relief that flooded my body once i realized the project was done. It was done, really done. This giant thing that had been looming over me that needed to get done, this impossible thing was done, and it was done to my original design so that when something broke or needed maintained or replaced i could gain easy access and have an independent method to handle that on my own. I was so beyond happy. I bought the remaining pavers the following day and moved the chickens into the new pen the following night. The coop is smaller than the old one and fits the pen better so the chickens have more room to run around. It will keep them healthier and give me more access to clean and maintain the coop and catch the chickens if they are injured or need medicated. I just keep thinking i am blessed to have her as a friend because we talk to each other on an infrequent basis but there is a knowing that we still have mutual respect for each other and are friends and if either one of us needs the other, we come through in a crisis. The person who delivered the pen is just a solid good person and a good christian who did a nice thing for someone he barely knows and wanted nothing in return. Over the course of the next couple months i set about reconstructing both my privacy and my independence and i began to get back into the familiar and cherished feeling of being alone. I enjoy and always have enjoyed solitude. I see people at work. That is enough.
