When we were building our house, the stairs were some of the last things to be built, and it’s hard to jump up a three foot wall when you’re carrying things. So Lucky built us what was affectionately called, “the chicken board”.

First it was on the side of the house, when they were framing the walls. There was an opening where there were going to be windows, and it made a nice doorway. When we were commuting and had to bring the dogs with us, we would take them up the chicken board after the workers had gone and play in the living room and dining room with them.

When they started putting plywood on the outside, they moved the chicken board to the garage, surrounded by the insulation*. You had to be careful that it didn’t slide on the gravel, and that you didn’t twist your ankle when you got off!

Eventually we got stairs in the garage, but we didn’t have stairs to the front porch. So the chicken board was moved once again, this time to the front porch.  It stayed for several months, until we poured the concrete ledge outside the garage and the concrete stairs to the front porch.

I don’t know where the chicken board ended up, but I do know that I’ll never see a board like that without thinking of Mom, standing at the bottom of the chicken board, waiting for one of the boys to hold her hand.  The board wobbled a lot as you walked up it, and Mom thought it was a great way to teach the boys manners.  They couldn’t just run up the board and disappear.  They had to stand there and make sure all the females in the family didn’t fall off!

*affiliate link