Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Since I have gotten chickens again, I feel invited to be out in the yard,  As I tear out a couple of years worth of black raspberries, horsetail, grapes, invasive roses, autumn olive and pretty much every other weed that is happy to choke out the things I selected to plant over the years, I think of the saying many hands make light work.  In this case, it is many beaks.  The chickens follow me around cheerfully, carefully examining everything I pull up and call to each other as they find things of interest; grapes, chickweed, fallen apples, peaches that are worthless to anyone but chickens and of course, bugs.
Chickens are carnivores, so getting "grain fed" chicken or chickens who are layers but don't ever get to forage means less healthy chickens.  The eggs my girls donate are the best I have ever known.  The shells are hard.  The inner membrane doesn't break easily.  The yolks are a rich yellow/orange, the whites hold together- the consistency of jellyfish.
It comforts me to have them follow me around, asking questions, offering opinions, gossiping about the cat, and probably me, but never by name, because they don't want to hurt my feelings.  
It is good to come home and have someone happy to see me, as the chickens always are.  If I'm not careful they will go for walks with me, which, considering the predator level around here might not be such a great idea.
When I go across the road to do anything, they look up from flipping leaves and offering opinions on the quality of caterpillar, and run over to where I am, surround me and look up expectantly.  "got any grapes?''
Sometimes, they consent to being picked up and put on my shoulder, where they can fly down to the ground again.  I know they consent because after they land they come back for a second time, like a child being asked to be tossed into the air again. And again....
It is an act of hope to have a garden in times as uncertain and perilous as these.  Ripping out the snarly invasion of plants that like the soil the way it is, I hold a vision of another year.  I expect the world to still be a place where a garden is a possibility, where the woods will be lively enough that I will be hanging old cd's on strings, scrounging materials for a greenhouse and selecting seeds over the winter.  It means I am seeing a life connected to life, honoring death, decay failure; blossoming, fruiting and maybe seeding if I can get seeds that Monsanto has not messed with.  It means I believe my chickens will make it through a winter here and not all get carried off by someone with hungry babies to feed.
The Buddhists say that hope is a trick like regret.
Though they dance together, only one of them can fly.

no men

Failing the presence of a rooster to lead them around the yard pointing out the dead mice, struggling insects and a patch of violets not yet ripped out by the roots the girls stay together, and stick close to the house.
This is the first batch of hens who are interested in spending the entire day either under the house or roosting on frames in the cellar.  They will ascend to their coop, but will not go down the stairs in the morning, so I guess I'd better come up with a more attractive ramp.   They look at me as though I had asked them to balance on a narrow ledge in stilettos, which is a fair assessment.  A set of steps I found at the dump is their ramp, and it is probably a little too much to deal with first thing in the morning.  Unlike hens of days passed, they have avoided the garden, which to be fair has been allowed to get overgrown with every weed in the Northeast except the edible ones, and looks like a place predators might be lying in wait.
My mother was a terrific gardener;  I tend to get rashes and lose interest, but some transit of the great celestial beings caught me in their vortex today and I thought if I can't have a garden this year, I can at least get it set up for the next.  After I had ripped out enough space to attract interest, the hens came and joined me, happily scratching around for snacks, and I remembered that being in the yard with chickens is a joy.
 I love having people around who are glad to see me, and chickens always are. They are easily bribed with grapes and whole wheat bread, and the alpha always runs over and asks to be picked up.  At least, I choose to interpret it that way, she runs over and crouches, seems to like being scratched under the wings, and I'm sorry if she is disappointed by being picked up to sit on my shoulder for a second before flying back to her kind, but it's the best I can do.
At night, I used to do a beak check when I had a big coop, but this one is tiny and even though there is enough room for them to spread out over the 2 perches, they clump together in a tight knot and I have to reach in and count bodies to make sure no independent thinker is sleeping in the hay bales under the house.
The girls sing to each other, it reminds me of middle school when the only good thing was singing and though I haven't learned the verses yet, I can join in on the chorus.

fourth day....

Last night I went out to check on the girls, to make sure they had gone to roost, and they had, but had decided that access to the perches in the wire dog crate were better than clumping together safely in the plastic one.
I decided to chance it, because in the past, it has taken the local street gangs about a week before they noticed that I had chickens in the yard, and they tend to hunt less in the pouring rain.
My irresponsibility worked out, there were still 6 girls this morning, and so I let them out to forage, but they immediately headed for the forsythia and went to sleep in it.
A friend of mine who was a middle school teacher told me once that every class had a completely different group personality, and I am finding it to be true of groups of chickens too.  This bunch of hens is more low key than I expected.  They landed in the yard and have accepted everything without protest and have exhibited a general lack of adventurous spirit.  In the past, I have had fliers, escape artists and explorers, but these are thoughtful, companionable and quiet.  There might be more conversation when I find a rooster.
They are convincing me that they are to be named after authors instead of goddesses.... Jane, Charlotte, Emily, Alice, Maya Margaret and Zadie.

Chickens, part 3

3 nights of new chickens, who are both smarter and more insistent than they looked when riding home in the box.
First night, they slept in a crate on the front porch,
but I had forgotten how messy and smelly chickens can be in a closed room.
Next day I moved them outside, hoping to get them used to where their coop will be when I put it together, added a plastic dog crate to the wire one so that they could have a safe place to sleep and more room to spread out.
Day 3 I let them out to wander the yard a bit, they headed directly for the porch and mooned about in a rhododendron bush in front of it all day.
Today it is raining, and they are under tarps and umbrellas in the makeshit coop, this is going to be the story for about another 10 days.
It hasn't taken long for them to associate me with food.  I am realizing how incompetent having animals that depend on regularity makes me feel.
and as for names, well, they are probably going to be named for goddesses.