Forgive? I think not.

It was with an air of contrition that I let the chickens out this morning.
Yesterday family was here all day with a very enthusiastic german shepherd puppy.  A 70 lb. puppy.  The cats go to ground and the chickens scatter away from the exuberant dancing dog.
Around 6pm, dark out, I go out to the coop to close the door.  Door has been pushed shut by wind or by dog or by careless chicken.  This happens sometimes.  Everyone heads for the plan B roosting location, but I had closed that door earlier to keep raccoons out.  No chickens, no chicken noises, no replies to my chicken noises and no indignant low cackling at the sight of a flashlight.  No eyes to register it.
I felt guilty.
Bad Steward.
Came back in to the house and had a piece of cake to fortify me in the next level of after dark chicken stalking.
When they roost on the ground they resemble a pile of leaves instead of a pile of poultry so it's easy to miss them.
Their Plan B location is under the coop, but even that was too exposed in the presence of a dog.  They had burrowed under the shed, it is probably about 4" off the ground, but that's where they had gone, and they were far under there -well out of reach.
I had an 8' length of plastic gutter which I managed to scoop them out with one at a time while lying fully extended on frozen chicken shit.
I collected all but one; Pearl, of course had found some other place to hide where she could not be found.  I went in hoping that she would do what she has done in the past when this happens, and come around to the door asking for advance rations in the morning.  That is what happened, and I still have 8 chickens.  I'm facing up to the fact that my lax attention to the behavior of winds and doors may lose me a chicken or 2.  I'd better get it together before the fisher cats do.
This morning I was eyed with more than a little suspicion.  Everyone also kept their distance and made warning noises to each other if I got too close. Of course, the instant I turned my back, and Buck thought he saw an opportunity to hamstring me he'd take it.  It's going to be another week of walking backwards.

Even Chickens are afraid of Ghosts

As I tried to get the last of the lettuce recently liberated from a local stores' dumpster out of the bag by shaking the bag, Buck decided with alacrity, that something was not right.  The balance of power had shifted and the world looked like it needed to be dealt with, and he did not mean maybe.
He acted as though some being from the beyond had left his spiritual throne to test Buck's mettle and manliness.
I often have found that testosterone does this.  Threats appear where no threats exist, enemies where there once were allies and the need to handle discomfort with a great show of feathers.
In the background, the hens mill around being as careful of their toes as if they had just spent money on them saying things like  "Ohhhhhh.... "  and "Weeeeellllll..."  They remind me of a pack of Olive Oyl's watching Popeye and Bluto get ready for a scuffle.
Bluto though, is just Plastico in this case, and shifting shapes in the breeze as he disgorges lovely big leaves of Romaine.
Buck is not apppeased.
If he doesn't pick up the pace, the girls will have eaten the best leafy bits leaving him to toss the spines up in the air, catch them and then prowl in a circle, looking pleased with himself.
Maybe that's the point.
Sometimes the Avian American posturing is more than this nascent observer of T-Rex Grandchildren can fathom.

Even Chickens Have Personal Space

The flock mentality seems to be somewhere between the rogue and the hive.
Chickens will stand on each others feet, under each others tails and will crowd each other without mercy on the ground on the perch.
Much like middle school girls, they like the same spot night after night.  I hear them arguing about it before they go to sleep. Buck always roosts in the same place, farthest from the chicken door but closest to the human door because that way he doesn't have to reach over anyone to let me know what he thinks of whatever it is I'm trying to do to make life better for him while he's roosting. Next over is the Alpha Hen, who used to be Bette but has been supplanted by one of the newer girls.  The rest clump together rather further away from Buck, who takes liberties whenever possible so that there are a few hens who are going to be candidates for the chicken spa isolation and therapy treatment soon.
Sometimes I just don't get to maintaining things while they are out turning over every leaf on the property looking for, I hope, ticks.  It is a continual project to see that there is clean water for them.  The way they treat the water, you would think they like water with shit and feathers in it.  Same with food.  First thing Buck does when I drop treats is to go stand in the middle of them and then dance a bit.  Then he tries them out, lets the ladies know that there's something wonderful near his feet, and then jumps them while they are snacking.
In my own life, I find that crackers in the bed discourages this.

Bird's Brain.

OK, maybe I was wrong about Avian American intelligence.  I am still reluctant to see them as stupid, so don't get your hopes up, but it's clear that my evaluation of what is and isn't of interest to chickens needs tweaking.
Often when I watch them and think about how they were designed and what they were designed for, it strikes me that they are elegantly suited to eat continually, to rearrange the pieces of the landscape that weigh less than a pound and to distribute heat efficiently around their immediate personal space.  Sometimes that tiny little head on the big round body makes me think that they are mobile one-handed creatures.  If they need more than one hand, they engage their feet and don't feel as though they are in any way deficient.  Try fending off an enraged chicken with 2 hands.  Until you get the hang of it, they win.  Their wings create a distracting disturbance while they come down hard with their toes, following up with a beak that is attached to a telescope and has tracking devices on either side of it.
Aside from having a sticky memory for the important things, their vision is astonishingly good.  If I come out of the house with food in my hand they will all look up and run over from 50' away.  I wonder if they also have a fine sense of smell.  They know the difference [from a long way off] between romaine and cabbage.  They can be starving, having only eaten commercial chicken food and what they have scrounged but if I put down nice fresh big green cabbage leaves they regard them with question marks hovering over their heads.
"What are we supposed to do with these?"  They ask.
They will toss them in the air, they will trample them, they will nest on them but they will not eat them unless the leaves have first been run them through the cuisinart.
I could use the whole leaf to line the nesting boxes...... someone laid an egg on one this morning.
Except for the vinca, which I am told, has the same components as some chemotherapy meds, they have destroyed years of established perennials.  They have done in one season what it takes global warming many more seasons to accomplish.  The desertification of my yard ought to alter the tax base but that is a faint hope.
Trouble and expense has been gone to for their comfort and convenience, but they turn all efforts to their own ends.
I bought a heater that goes underneath the galvanized water feeder so that they would not have to be thirsty while waiting for me to get out of bed in the morning to let them out.
Now I have to change the water every day because Mae has decided that the waterer is the warmest place to roost.  Of course it is.  I'm sure that installing a designated place for her to poop instead of down the side of the water dispenser would be met with the usual suspiciousness.
Yesterday was warm enough for Buck to think that his ladies should go to the summer location under the house and chatter to each other.  I went out on the deck to drink tea and read, but as soon as they heard me, they all clustered enthusiastically around and went over the food that they had earlier decided was not worth finishing.  I have noticed that they like to come and do whatever poultry things they enjoy near my feet if I settle somewhere.  They aren't interested in being touched, but respond well to being talked to.  They even present me with facial expressions that are skillful enough to fool me into believing that not only are they listening but that they understand.

And I'm concerned about chicken intelligence?

preparation would be a good idea

In the most recent donation from the local store I was pleased to find about 3 lbs of grapes, I guess the green ones aren't fashionable this time of year. 
I didn't get around to handing some of them out in time, though, so I thought I'd slip them in to the coop as a morning surprise for everyone.
My experience so far has been that once the chickens have gone to roost, they draw a veil of lethargy over themselves and are very easy to catch and to handle.
This is not always the case.
Chickens can be surprising.
I could see that Buck was viewing me with a pointy eye, even though he stayed sitting down in complete roost mode on the perch, but  I didn't like the expression on his beak.  It suggested that he was affronted that I interrupted a private conversation.
They talk among themselves for about 10 minutes before really going to sleep; discuss plans for the next day, talk about their most recent experiences and possibly air old grievances.
 I still don't speak enough avian to know.
All the same, the look he gave me was unmistakeable, and unmitigated by the promise of grapes.
There are some things that one really does not do.
I decided that I'd better have a shield to hold between Buck, who sits closest to the human sized door of the coop, and my face, which I could only assume would be easy for him to reach and mark up.
I held a large dish that had been on the ground in one hand, and the grapes in the other.  Leaning in to the coop to place the grapes in their feeder, Buck, without even standing up, went about the business of slicing up any exposed flesh he could reach.  He did a good job on my fingers and knocked the dish out of my hand.  Not before I had let go of the grapes, though.
In future, I see that I will need to wear a hands free face shield to be at eye level with that chicken.