The Funniest Chickens You Ever Did Meet

So I may have mentioned at some point in this blog that chickens have far more personality then I think I would have ever guessed. They are actually quite humorous and can get as excited as a dog when they see you coming.
<--This happens to be Salt, she is the one year old Plymouth Rock Hen who is settling in so well here at Farm Webster you would think we hatched her ourselves. (we didn't!)
Salt is particularly excitable when she sees any of us coming near
in fact it makes cooping her up at night difficult.
We wait for the chickens to head for their run at night before shutting the door...but what is happening is they hear our feet steps coming and they come running back out! I am trying to offer them as much freedom as possible so, when I go out to coop them I will retreat back to the house and wait for them to head back in. At this point I often send one of the kids because my patient is fleeting the older I get.
So recently the chickens have taken to coming on the deck,
more often when we are present. They come up, cluck around and
then usually fly back off. Initially I was shooshing them back off as there are a couple pots of veggies growing and I was fearful the chickens would make a quick snack of them.
After a few days of this game I decide to let them be, they didn't seem all that interested in the veggies anyway (odd considering they have all but destroyed everything below the deck).
What is interesting...I believe they are there to visit, not eat. As we sit around the table on the deck the chickens move in close and lay down. Usually Salt leads the pack and Pepper and Little Red

are quick to follow. Laying out their wings and closing their eyes. They are completely comfortable with us, with the dogs, and the cats! It's a site I could not have imagined in a thousand years!
I told John "i think we have the strangest chickens in the world" to which he refuted "how many chickens do you know?". He's right, I don't know alot of chickens....but I know us. I know we have a tendency toward the strange and unusual in our house and I find
it incredibly entertaining to know that our chickens would rather

spend their free time sitting with us at the table then eating bugs in the yard. To the left you can see the dogs and chickens enjoying a snack of stale potato chips together. Everyone gets along well. Even Milly our "goat chasing dog" has no interest in catching a chicken and maneuvers around the chickens without so much as a blink of the eye in their direction.
Yesterday I noted Remi playing with Bella, jumping off the deck and realizing mid-air that he was about 2 seconds from landing on one of the chickens. How he managed to spring his body forward and miss landing on them I will never know...but I could tell by his movement that he was looking out for his chicken friends. He seems to love them as much as he loves Stanley his cat. He is careful to not step on them, he watches them in the yard and when they get away from each other he rounds them back up.
I often sit on the deck and watch everyone "grazing" in the yard together...wishing....if only everything in life was this simple!