smarty britches

after a nice chat on the porch with john, i finished my dinner, smoked a spliff and climbed up on the roof to watch the sun finish setting.  considered blogging about the sunset.  more considered writing a poem that i would post on the blog; don't know if you call that blogging or poetry.  but, i'd pretty much decided against blogging about sunsets by the time i climbed down off the roof.  

i walked around the back of the cottage by the chicken coop to see what was going on.  today we had talked about the need to find a new place for smarty britches to roost.  she is the only truly free ranger of the bunch and likes to sleep on the tool bench right out back.  unfortunately, chickens poop when they roost so every morning john has to spray the poop off his work bench.  the work bench is also right next to the freezers and the poop next to the food is bad joo-joo, especially when we're selling it to folks.

she was already on the bench and looking for a place to lay when i walked up.  

"sorry britches but you can't sleep here."

i walk up to her in give her a shoo, move along gesture.  she hops down and just kind of stands their next to me, looking up with her only eye.  

"come on, i'll help you find a place," i say and start herding her over towards a crook in the fabulous sprawling tree that sits in the yard behind the cottage.  

"look you can stay here," i say pointing at the tree.  she pays little attention to what i'm saying but stands and looks at me from a couple feet away.  at this point, i can move her kind of like we're magnets with our similar poles facing each other.  

"here.  you wait right here.  i'll show you."

i run inside the house to get a papaya.  food has always been the clearest language when it comes to chickens.  

she's back on the work bench in the 20 seconds it takes me to grab a papaya from the cottage.  i show it to her and give her a bite then get her to follow me to the tree. 

"you can sleep right here."

i place a piece of papaya in the crook of the tree.  she stares at me.  i give her a bite out of my hand then dangle the piece in slow swoops up the trunk and lay it next to the other piece.  britches just turns away and gives me the hollow socket of her bad eye.  i try the papaya lesson another time or two until we have eaten the whole thing. 

she trots towards the bench but i cut her off and our poles deflect each other.  but she doesn't stop, more like continually glances off at an angle.  as i keep side stepping in front of her we start to work semi-circles back and forth in front of the work bench.  this would be our dance for the next twenty minutes or so.  

she gets really fussy, like a tired child, walks over and tries out one of the back steps.  this consists of rubbing her beak back and forth a few times then plopping down.  she readjusts herself kind of like an old lady in a skirt sitting down in an easy chair.  much fluffing and such.  after giving it a minute or so she gets up and tries to hop up on the hand rail, except that it is on a slant and she can't stand so she slides off in a flapping mess.

we pick up our dance again.  her getting closer and closer to me every time until i have to start turning her away with my hand.  now this is the first time i've ever touched this chicken.  we've had countless conversations, shared countless papayas, but never once have we touched.  eventually i pick her up as she is no longer affected by the previously mentioned magnetism. 

i pet her and talk soft.

"look at this other bench over here.  this is perfect.  this is a chicken bench"

we sit down and try the bench together, holding her in my lap.  this is an incredibly intimate moment.  i've worked around chickens for the past eight months but never sat with one.  i put her on the bench and she flaps away back towards the bench.   we dance for a quick minute, then i say,

"fine hop up.  but you can't sleep here."

she hops up on the bench and topples awkwardly over plastic containers.  i pick her up and start to walk her towards the other bench.  she starts to flap, a tired kid throwing a fit.  i let her land awkwardly and then stand between her and her favorite roost.  we stare each other down.  

eventually she turns and starts looking for places to sleep.  the lychee tree.  the ladder leaning against a papaya tree.  then she walks back to the new bench and looks at it for a while.  then she jumps up on a bucket, acts like she wants to stay there if it weren't so hollow in the middle.  from the bucket she jumps to the bench.  

"good girl," i say and mean it.  

i walk inside, get my computer, sit down on the porch, glance up at britches on her new bench, then blog about it.  smarty britches is way more profound than sunsets.  but such is the nature of profundity and beauty.