Home to Roost

"Home to Roost" follows Bob Sheasley through four seasons on a small farm, where he raises fifty hens in a coop the he handmade. Each day he travels from rural Pennsylvania into urban Philadelphia, where he works as an editor at the Inquirer, with a basket of fresh eggs at his side.Along the way, he shares an abundance of what he's learned and observed and uncovered about the history and behaviours of chickens, which humans have loved and exploited for 8,000 years. This is a story of agriculture and human migration; of folk medicine and technology; of how we dreamed of the good life, threw it away, and want it back. He delves into where chickens came from, what their DNA tells us about our kinship, how we've treated our feathered fellow traveller, and the roads we're crossing, together. Consider: When classical music plays in the coop-specifically, Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" - hens lay more eggs; researchers have proved it, even patented the process. Success and the good life-the American dream, and it was right there all along in the backyard coop.