Have mercy.

It has been a largely uneventful week. Well, uneventful for chickens.

Big guy is maintaining this amazing balance between being my best bud, having a torrid affair with my shoes, and battling the bags that treats come in.

See, back when the hurricane came through, he was stuck on the porch while we cleared space for the crate inside. The winds got high enough to blow the door open, and almost off its hinges. This let the wind tear through things like a demented squirrel. If you don’t think a demented squirrel is capable of destruction on a massive scale, well, Ray Stevens can correct that.

Anyway, one of the food bags was plastic and got stuck to the crate, wedged between the bars. It was flapping and rattling.

So, now, plastic bags are his nemesis. Like most roosters, that which scares him must be annihilated. It’s both amazing and sad, but roosters in general, and our walking soup supply in particular, they don’t often get to “turn off”. They live in this state of readiness to fight, to maybe die for their flock. They’re dumb as bricks, but there’s still this single-minded ferocity that they’re capable of that’s impressive.

Which makes his conflict over treat bags interesting. Most of the time, I just put the treats in a container that isn’t a bag at all, but sometimes they’re dirty.

So, when I pull that bag out of the pocket, he’s torn, frozen between knowing that’s the pocket I carry treats in; and hearing the plastic. Which, wouldn’t be a thing, but I ain’t carrying dried bugs loose in my pockets.

Anyway, when it is necessary, he’ll stand there frozen, his wattles and comb turning redder and redder until his rage spills over into his might roar, which sounds roughly like an angry teakettle.

I’ll call his name in my sweet voice, and that just snaps him out of it. Sometimes, he’ll go apeshit instead and attack the bag. But that’s been getting rarer as time passes.

Which loops me back to all of them. I talk to my feathered friends. My normal speaking voice is baritone, and kinda rumbly. So, when I’m talking to them, I use my sweet voice. It’s basically just a falsetto, but I’ve developed a separate way of doing it for each one, and they all recognize who I’m talking to now, even the volunteer hen. I didn’t realize I was doing it until my wife and kid brought it to my attention.

With my marans girl, it’s something she almost demands. She’ll pace back and forth across my lap until I talk to her a little, and then she’ll settle down, swish her tail feathers and coo at me in return.

Latte, the volunteer hen, isn’t as sociable. However, when I start using the voice that’s hers, she’ll come strutting out of the brush, or flapping out of her tree and start scolding me for not having the treats in her belly by magic. She’s a gentle scolder though, very mild baaaawwwwks, coupled with a few buck-buck-bucks.

The rooster though? If he’s down, he freezes up and tilts his head to the side, and watches me while I’m talking. He then struts around, looking for things to pick up and put down. When he finds a choice stick or pebble, he presents it by picking it up and putting it down repeatedly while tuk-tuking. He’s like a popcorn maker if it was fluffy and majestic.

But I’ll praise him in my sweet voice, and he gets so damn happy. “Oh, I see that stick, that’s such a good stick.”, and he just bobs and struts around.

If I’m holding him, especially if I’m sitting and holding him, he’s started extending his neck and crooning, because he knows what’s coming. Neck scritches!

I dunno if I’ve mentioned it before, but I deal with some PTSD issues. Sometimes, this rooster, the way he’s always on alert, waiting for the next hawk or coyote or whatever, it hurts my heart a little. For the first year he was with us, that was his life. That’s all I ever saw him be. And then, just back in early winter, he stopped being like that when I’d bring him on the porch when it would be too cold. And he started relaxing, and when it happens, and all that tension flows out of him while I pet him, it’s a beautiful thing to me.

I know it’s projection, but seeing him able to set aside his instincts for a little bit and just take some love, it makes me feel closer to him. Just two assholes sitting there together and letting everything fall away.