Cold Chicken

It is too much to hope for a mild winter after the last few days, and counting our blessings here that we are not in Buffalo [ just a little schadenfreude going on…] with a 5' snow fall and more to come.  Here it has just been damned cold, too damned cold for just before Thanksgiving, and the hens' first winter.  Maeve, Magda, Martha, Minerva, Morgan & Mary don't know what any of this means yet, having only hatched out of a nice warm nest 6 months ago, but Mista Woosta is coming up on his 3rd round, so his behavior might be understandable.
A cold, grey and nasty morning, frozen everything and the girls are still motivated to turn over any leaf possible to see if there's something they missed yesterday, he comes out briefly has a look around, nails a hen or two and goes back to the perch until the sun has thawed the air out a little more.
By noon, the girls are racing around, being followed at a stately pace by their not very motivated caretaker.
 If there's enough sun, they will clump together under a tree, being indistinguishable from the leaves and rouse themselves only if they see me, whom they have come to associate with the kinds of food they can't find on their own.
Candy bars, ice cream, cake and other specialties.
The heater in the coop has died, and I'm hoping the new one gets here soon.  Though I am told that chickens can take it, I can't sit here in a warm house knowing I have birds who are re-enacting Jane Eyre only a few feet away.

egg revolt

Last week, I found 3 eggs in the coop, the chickens didn't seem to know what they were, or how they got there and they stood around pointing at each other.  Since then, nothing, I had nearly come to the point of deciding to get some additional older chickens and go through the troublesome adjustment period so I'm wondering if it was ruse on the part of whomever is the mindreader in the flock.
They are a little past the time by which they ought to be producing.  I would not care for myself, but there are people in my house now that eat eggs on a regular basis.
These poor girls are having to put up with my reduced circumstances.  I can't afford to replace the coop heater that died last spring, so they are going to have to rely on their reputation of being winter hardy for a while.  I could maybe scare up some bales of straw and stack them around the coop for extra insulation, I know that if it were me, I'd be appreciative, I'm not very winter hardy myself.
This morning, The hens emerged into the sun followed closely by Mr. W, and Millie crouched to the ground.  He stepped over her to get to a hen who was less willing, and I thought to myself, I know relationships like that.

Progress not Perfection

The hens have begun to show a sign or two of avian intelligence, and it's a relief.  When they first came here, they acted like a group of abused girls, keeping quiet whenever I came on the scene and muttering behind their feathers when they thought no one was listening.
After being without chicken conversation for a couple of months it was disappointing.  I thought longingly of previous chickens who displayed invention, creativity and moxie.  Pearl, in particular, my lovely undersized iconoclast who I like to think gave the bobcat's kittens indigestion.
I hoped that putting an experienced rooster into the mix would liven things up a bit, but Mista Woosta seemed to believe that standing around looking insouciant in a beret was enough effort to justify the quantities of hens he'd been given charge of.
He doesn't take things seriously at all, and this from a chicken who grew up down a dirt road where there are plenty of coyotes and other rough trade.
I had to insist that everyone waste the last of the beautiful warm days staying confined to their adjacent yard, because when let to scratch about on their own, they wandered off and stood around gazing at objects I could not see.
I realize that as a human, my priorities are not in order, but when night fell, they were still standing around, staring off into space.
Mista, meanwhile, had said the hell with it, and gone to roost, leaving the hens to figure it out.
This would never have happened on Buck's watch.
At the end of the first day of freedom, there were 3 hens and a rooster in the house, making it necessary to hunt down the sillier ones who were nestled under trees.
I can report that they are beginning to get the idea, they are traveling in clumps, sticking close to the guy, talking a little more, I think I have even heard them singing once or twice - and today I found 2 eggs!
Sometimes inadequate parents produce successful kids, maybe the kids looked around early on and thought they'd better get their act together if they wanted to escape a repeat of the parental trajectory.  Maybe Mista Woosta subscribes to a similar laissez faire approach.  Still, the same number of chickens are here that came over a month ago.  I'm experiencing a dangerous optimism.