"Well, I was reading up, and you're supposed to have something like four square feet per chicken, at least," Adelaide frowned. "I don't want to take up all that much of Lilah Stone's roof space, so I'll probably base it on the three full grown ones I have now, plus a little, and kind of go on the fly after that." According to what everyone had been hinting at, she may or may not be here at the library for much longer, and she figured maybe she would have more space wherever these people were planning on moving to. At least she was hoping so. "Gotta have a little perchy spot to stuff hay in and they roost and lay there, and then the bottom where they scratch around or whatever chickens do," Adelaide laughed a little, shaking her head. "For a hick, I'm sure no Farmer Brown. But that's what it said in the Farmer's Almanac from 1954, so that's good enough for me."
She dragged the thick plywood they would use for the base into an open spot, brought the saw along and set it down beside her, and sat right down on the ground Indian-style to start marking out a plan with a pencil. She talked him through her general idea, asking him how on the vast majority of things, but she was a quick study and if he explained a doweled butt joint once, she'd have it in her vocabulary the next spot it was needed. She took his suggestions and made her own, and soon enough thought it was a pretty damn good plan.
If she got that old impatient urge to delegate the task within the first ten minutes, she at least didn't act on it, and that was something.
It was hours later, and there was sawdust in her hair and splinters in her soft-skinned fingers, when they finally had something that looked like a chicken coop. She grinned as she unlatched the door in the back that gave access to the perch where the chickens would lay their eggs, and then looked over at Cutter with satisfaction.
"I never want to build another thing in my life, but it sure is nice to know I probably could," Adelaide informed him. A thank you was on her lips, but instead she just grinned and shut the little trap door.