Plan of Escape.

I missed an opportunity this morning to get a photo of Buck peering around the corner of the house.  He was rubbernecking to see if anything was doing that was worth his energy.  I was trying to sneak out of the house to drive far enough to get cel service to make contact with another human being - the power is back on but I still don't have a working land line and as usual, I had to go back for something.  My wallet and cel phone.  I left the door open to the van and when I came back I saw a line of chickens, supervised by Buck making their way into the van, and clustering around the controls.  I was warned about this by my friend Jeff.  In response to a Facebook remark that Buck had been behaving like a 2 foot tall angel for a few days he suggested there was a fowl plot brewing and I should hide the car keys and credit cards.  I imagined Buck instructing the girls in working the pedals.
 "No, that one is the gas, the other one is the brake!"
 "Ooooh, Buck, you're  so wonderful !  The things you know!"  they would answer.  Such little suck-ups and flatterers, but I wonder who it is that has been biting off his tail feathers while he sleeps?
As I approached, they gave me guilty looks, stepping away from the van, pretending to be examining something very interesting on the ground, but I was not fooled.  

Fashion police.

One of the Facebook posts told of how Buck took a scunner to my orange handbag, and a response suggested that he was an informed fashion critic. This may be the case but why wait for the brightly colored bags?  It's not as though I dress well in the first place.
  First I learned that you don't go wandering around chicken areas in open-toed shoes with painted toenails.  Then I found out that red shoes are nearly as unwelcome.  The day I left the house carrying my orange bag made of recycled Vietnamese shipping bags that I'd better stock up on more conservative accessories as well.
At first, I thought Buck was just expressing his usual displeasure as something being different in the yard, in this case other life forms moving around in his field of vision, until I realized his focus was unusually intent, retributive and aimed at my bag.  I threw the bag into the bushes.  He went after it, pecked it a couple of times to make certain it was dead, shook himself, turned on a scaly heel and marched off grumbling 'Gahworrah, worrah, brrr!"  He turned to give me one last "So there!" crow.
After I retrieved my bag from the bushes and drove away, it occurred to me that Buck may have PTSD when it comes to hot colors.  When I got him as a rescue chicken, he was delivered to me trussed up and in a red net bag.  Long ago in California I jumped out of a moving car to get away from a creep, and then walked over the Oakland Bay Bridge.  I was nervous about bridges for years, even though the bridge had done nothing to me.  Maybe Buck needs to only have green towels thrown over him from now on.
It can sometimes require planning to leave the house.
I might have been gone for 40 minutes and I came home to no chickens.  Then I heard the sounds of people having a discussion in my dining room.  There they were, watching me with one eye, looking for nice places to roost with the other.  I did a quick scan of the floor for chicken turds, which are sticky.  Buck decided that close quarters were no trouble for him, puffed his hackles out and charged.  I'm a little slow, but after a couple of months I'm generally not far from a long handled object or a large floppy one, so I grabbed the tablecloth and threw it over him catching him in mid-air.  He was still pissed.  His mouth was open, tongue out and breathing like Darth Vader.  I tickled his neck, stroked his chest and waited.  He went limpish and calmish, so I let him loose, outside.  The girls ran after him calling "Buck?"

Free What?

When you hear the term "Free Range Chickens" you think of happy chickens.  Adventurous chickens.  Chickens who are free to follow their beaks from plant to bug  learning new things as they explore their world.  You don't feel as bad eating a chicken who you think has had all the advantages as you do one who has lived her whole life, and a short one at that, in a little box with her beak removed.
Still, Free Range is a marketing term, at least as far as the chickens that live in my yard are concerned.  They are more like Free Lounge Chickens.  The exercise they get is running like hell to the back door to peck at it until I give them cat food.  They have very nice expensive organic chicken food, free run of the compost pile, and a share of whatever fruit I'm having for breakfast but I guarantee you they will forsake all of it for some Seafood Sensation.  They might scratch around in a manner that is less than enthusiastic for awhile, but when they hear the front door plans change.
I did not let them out during the big rain storm we just had;  they roosted quietly for the whole day, Buck made a couple of hooting noises after I went down to check on them and make sure that they were still alive, that they hadn't committed chicken hara kiri or been eaten by weasels or intoxicated by fumes from the new coop.  I couldn't tell if they were sulking, but the hunched shoulders and blank stares made me think they might be.  This coop has 6 nice little nesting boxes, more than enough for 4 hens, but this morning when I checked for eggs, there were 8 eggs, all in one box.  Did they take turns?  Is it like the line to the Ladies Room?  Today they had their usual day in the yard, or actually, lying around by the door because I did not as I promised myself I would, get a fence up.  Come dusk, they went in by themselves, didn't even try to go to the old shed so I guess they're happy enough.

New Home

A couple of days ago in the grip of a fog, or a transit or karma, I watched my truck roll away into oblivion.  I was only part way through my chores at the time, so after finding my way home  to another vehicle I decided to go to Agway for bales of shavings for the chickens.
 It's often risky to go into a store after any kind of trauma.  I bought a chicken house.  It was not cheap, but I didn't have to build it and it's weasel proof without having to pile layers of heavy objects against a shed door that teams of raccoons have been working all night to destroy.
The store agreed to deliver it the following day giving me time to move bits and ends out of the way.  Buck was unusually aggressive that morning jumping at everything, hissing and leaping.  After a particularly disagreeable encounter, I backed him and his ladies into the garden and barricaded the opening.  Their attention was happily consumed for hours rolling in the dirt, lolling about under the jerusalem artichokes, crowding the dahlias and eating everything else.
Having no idea how to introduce them to their new home, placed to get solar gain in winter, shade in summer and ventilation all the time, I thought maybe it would be easy.
After the delivery I let them out to patrol as usual and left the door to the new coop open with grapes immediately visible, water, food and some greens.  Stella, the smartest hen and the most curious went in to have a look around.  She stood in the doorway, then carefully examined the amenities.  Buck soon marched over and went in to have a look.  This was promising, but about an hour before dark - it was getting plenty dark already from the coming storm,  they were standing underneath the house, or the car everywhere but the new dry shelter.  I chased them around the yard for about 40 minutes with a hose in one hand and an umbrella in the other chivvying them out from under cars, sheds and bushes.  One hen went in to the coop, so I closed the door and thought "Hell with it.  I'll just start over with a new flock", and went indoors.  At real dark, I went out with a headlamp and a towel to try to grab the chickens one at a time from the old shed where Buck had led them, beginning with Buck.  I thought he'd be the most difficult judging from how deftly he eluded my grasp earlier in the day.  I've watched Casey get Buck on the ground and then pick him up, he makes it look easy, but when I tried it, Buck twisted his head around in the direction of my thumb breaking the hold as though he'd had some Judo training.  Also, the roost is at eye height.  It felt hazardous to be grabbing a feral chicken in the dark where he could go for my head without having to have decent aim.  I have tried to grab him with a towel before, and he has just taken the towel away from me.  I decided to move slowly and point the headlamp in his face.  He offered no resistance whatsoever.  Was this because he was sleeping?  No idea.  The hens made more noise.  I had decided to leave them in the house for a day or so to ride out the storm but they were so quiet I had to go down and check on them.  Buck is generally noisy all day but particularly in the morning, and there was not a sound coming from the coop, I thought they might have died, or maybe I left a door open and they'd been eaten, but they were just standing around looking thoughtful. After the storm, and before they get their freedom again, a fenced in yard is next. 

mouse parade

In the brief time that chickens have been patrolling my yard, I've seen how much they like routine, and how little they like disruptions.  My attention was therefore called when I noticed they were moving around the yard in what looked like a Conga Line.  I saw that Pearl, usually the straggler and the non-conformist was leading the flock.  She had found a dead mouse left by one of the cats.  Every time she stopped to try to get a closer look at it, one of the other chickens threatened to steal it from her so her only recourse was to keep moving with the mouse hanging out of her beak.  This went on for some time.