by Staff Writer Ashley Attanucci

It seems the age-old joke has finally been legitimately answered. Why did the chicken cross the road? To join the scene in English teacher Michael Vergien’s backyard, of course. Vergien has a track record at the high school for loving the planet (he used to trek one hour on his bike to commute to work daily), and raising chickens at his home is his new take on being green.

“I think there’s a lack of appreciation for the food we eat,” Vergien said. “We don’t mind letting food spoil in the fridge, but when you raise the animal, you have a greater appreciation for what that animal’s doing for you.”

And thus, inspiration for homesteading was hatched and nurtured into an investment in livestock, bringing him to the chickens he has today.

The process of acquiring chickens was not a long one. He first purchased a book about homesteading that taught him which livestock would best fit his lifestyle: easy to care for without lots of TLC. Chickens fit that description perfectly, but there are many varieties of chickens -some that offer good meat, others that offer good eggs. Vergien wisely settled in between, anticipating to eat and sell eggs as well as slaughter the chickens for meat when they become of age.

The next step was to convince his wife to join the bandwagon.

“It was just never a thought that had crossed my mind before,” Wendy Vergien said. “We do live in a neighborhood where it’s questionable if chickens would be the best thing to have. I guess I was afraid they would take over because we don’t have that much land.”

And so while Mrs. Vergien contemplated sharing a beautiful backyard with feathery, smelly, noisy chickens and the bugs that accompany them, Vergien sought the help of Craigslist.

“You can find anything on Craigslist,” Vergien said. “I found a guy selling chicks of the breed I wanted. I had to drive to Queensland and bought them from people who raised, bred and sold chickens and turkeys.”

From the initial plan to raise 2 chicks, Vergien purchased 6 chicks in total. They are now boarded off in his backyard scavenging and doing what chickens do. This plan worked out nicely, Vergien explains, with plenty of scrap food to feed the new animals.

“The girls don’t eat the crust on their bread, so it gets fed to the chickens,” Vergien said.

Vergien awaits the maturity of the chickens while hoping that none turn out to be roosters, an inevitable insult to neighbors, and aspires to one day raise a goat for great goat milk and cheese.

“I like the idea that I can take care of myself and [by producing my own food, they]…don’t have to be transported,” Vergien said. “Although it may not be more efficient, it’s greener.”

In his home, Vergien has kept a garden for now 2 years, growing tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, corn, beans, beets, jalapeños, pumpkins and sweet sugar pumpkins. With his vegetable garden, Vergien is able to provide his wife and two young daughters with the freshest of produce which he says tastes better than what you can buy at the stores.

“My daughters are more likely to eat a vegetable that they planted rather than one bought at the store,” Vergien said.

From the fruits of his labor, Vergien cans tomatoes and so far has 6 big quart jars of homemade pickles, which his friends and family go crazy for.

“I think it’s really cool; it’s something he has a passion for through Walden, and he chooses to live it out,” IB student Sarah Hillier said. “He talks a lot about [the importance of self-sufficiency] in class and ties it in with what he teaches.”

In addition, Vergien chopped down a tree and used it to make a chair and also some wooden tools like a hatchet and a saw horse.

His self-sufficient trend started as a childhood tradition, working in a garden with his grandfather as a pastime. When Vergien was eight years old, his grandfather passed away, leaving him with the responsibility of maintaining the garden.

“It was a big deal for me to keep the garden going,” Vergien said. “For each one of us kids that were born, he dug up a small little pine tree. When my little brother was born, I dug a tree and planted it. The things that he did for me and my family were important, and I wanted to live up to what he did.”