Demi dutifully spent the evening poring over books. She did her first long spate of reading in the cozy nook, but after a while she moved to the secretary desk that remained a part of her miraculous expanding library. It was much easier to lay the books out side by side for reference on the desk.
(Although nothing topped the floor when there were a lot of references to consider at once, no matter what the shrillest of her tutors had to say about it.)
Demi sat at the desk, her small feet tucked into rungs of the desk chair, and made notes for herself in a notebook that Seri, the dryad with the clipboard, had given her at the close of the canal planning meeting. With a collection of colored ink pens gifted by Eleonore, Demi was able to create pages and pages of color-coded notes.
The notes were admittedly somewhat inscrutable. Demi had fine penmanship and had been taught a number of ornate and calligraphic styles for the purpose of drawing up official documents. The Serraffields were Nobles of the Wand, scholar-bureaucrats who were expert scribes, so she could write quite beautifully.
But when she was producing notes for herself, Demi’s handwriting was much more wild and fluid. She formed the same letters in multiple ways, and while the words themselves were legible to her at a glance, they were not so easily deciphered by others. She wrote at the speed of her thoughts, the letters careening across the page in brilliant ink, as if they were racing. She did pay some attention to the lines ruled across the page, but was equally as likely to ignore them if they did not suit her purposes at any given time.
This meant that the notes she produced were a kind of organized chaos, something she found useful, but which would have probably looked like upside down gibberish to anyone else. But she didn’t really write notes so she could study them in the future. The act of writing the notes helped her to connect and solidify ideas in her mind, so she could come to a better understanding of whatever it was she was trying to understand. When she needed a reminder or refresher, all she had to do was leaf through the relevant pages of her notebook. Just seeing the notes scattered across each page was enough to put her back in the right frame of mind.
(And this uncommon way of taking notes also afforded her with plenty of blank spaces to include charming scribble drawings, some of which were—at least tangentially—related to the notes in their vicinity, but many of which existed purely for the pleasure of their existence: flowers, cute animals, and dresses always being in abundance.)
After quite a lot of reading and checking (and rechecking), Demi had amassed a few dozen pages of illustrated notes and her ideas about several particulars had solidified.
Most importantly, she felt more confident in her ability to properly care for Heidi and Harriet. She learned quite a lot of useful information for a young lady who was ultimately brand-new to sole proprietorship of a henhouse. She already knew that the hens would lay unfertilized eggs even without the presence of a rooster (Glimmer was not interested, thankyouverymuch), but she learned that laying hens could become broody regardless, even with no rooster around. A broody hen wanted to hatch a clutch of the eggs she had laid, which without a rooster would always be unfertilized, and therefore unable to hatch.
I know that would make me wildly frustrated, Demi sympathized.
Heidi and Harriet’s breed of chicken, the Black Copper Maran, were wonderful egg layers but known to become broody every so often. If a broody hen could not hatch a nest of little peeping chicks, she was likely to become depressed or even frustrated and aggressive. Her body would stop allowing her to lay eggs until she could raise some chicks of her own. A chicken-keeper could then introduce a rooster to encourage her to lay some eggs she could hatch or give her fertilized eggs from another hen that she could brood over and hatch herself.
I’ll need to keep a watch on that, Demi decided. And probably look into getting the ladies their own gentleman eventually. You can’t blame them for wanting to raise chicks. After all, we bred them specifically to lay lots and lots of eggs! It’s natural for them to want for at least some of those eggs to hatch into fluffy little chicks.
Maran chickens laid beautiful dark chocolatey brown eggs like the one Demi had put into the refrigerator earlier that day. The eggshells were a deep brown on the outside, but chalk white on the inside, and the shells themselves were sturdier than the average chicken eggshell. Each lady would lay three to four eggs a week if Demi was lucky and she cared for them well, and the color and taste of the yolk of each of those wonderful chocolate eggs would be dependent on the season and the bounty of food that they had access to.
A box without hinges, key, or a lid, yet deep inside, golden treasure is hid, Demi trilled to herself happily. As remarkable as it would be to have a chicken that laid actual solid-chocolate eggs, I can’t wait to enjoy the chocolate eggs my hens will lay. Just looking like eggs made of chocolate will definitely improve their taste psychologically. I need to take very good care of these wonderful birds.
Like any sensible person, Demi was quite ready for chocolate to be a foundational element of her diet, along with carbohydrates and protein.
After studying what was essential for a healthy chicken’s diet, Demi resolved to let the two chickens out to free range around the farm as often as was sensible. There would always be a trade-off between their safety and happiness when it came to the question of letting them range or keeping them penned. The chickens would always be safest in the lovely coop and protected chicken run, but they wouldn’t have as much space to run around and do chicken-y things in there, even though it was a very nice run and their coop was a splendid coop. Letting the hens free range would mean they would be able to find more varied things to forage: different bugs to eat and plants to nibble, and more things to do, so they were less likely to become bored or fussy with one another. But being free-range would expose them to predators: foxes (the ordinary quadrupedal variety) and hawks, and many others besides. Demi decided it was best for them to stay inside the run whenever she couldn’t be with them to watch over them, and to let them out to range whenever she was there and could keep an eye on them (or when there was someone else available to chicken-sit).