Quite a heavy frost in the night, everything white this morning & a little cat-ice on the pools. Curious sight of oranges & lemons on the trees frosted over, & lemon blossom frozen stiff. Do not know yet whether it has done any damage.
Bourgainvillea° blossoms look all right. Should not think frosts can be common here, but at the moment there is a wave of cold all over the world. The mountains have for sometime past been covered with snow even on the lower slopes.
Four eggs.
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
Well, in Louisiana, it is HOT once again. Short sleeves, ceiling fans and all.
Four eggs! A special Christmas gift from the chickens.
Up here in Michigan we’ve got cold, 20° as I speak.
When cars go down the road they make a racket crushing the slush that froze overnight.
All over the world,
Frost on lemons, frost on eggs:
Blossom hints at spring
Looks like the foul weather agrees with the chickens! ;)
On a different note – I have seen ‘cat-ice’ many times, but never knew it was called that. It’s rare on lakes, but very common on small ponds and puddles, where the water level varies much more. It’s also common on rivers, as flow levels decrease over the winter.
“…at the moment there is a wave of cold all over the world.”
This strikes me as one of the most revealing statements we have seen. He is in such a dark mood in spite of eight eggs in two days.
Four eggs! Did he get another chicken!?
*Does he even know it’s Christmas time at all*
Why put the egg tally last? Now I have to read the whole entry.
Since we all know that Orwell’s “world” had England at its center, this may explain this “all over the world” weather report.
In California these days when a freeze threatens, water is sprayed on the citrus fruit so it ices over and the fruit is protected from the damage of even lower temperatures. In the 1950s the growers used “smudge pots”; a kind of barrel with fuel in it that was set on fire and placed between rows of trees to warm the whole area to prevent fruit loss. It worked, but the environmental burden was very bad, causing lots of particulate matter in the air, this causing terrible “London” like fogs where you could literally not see your hand in front of your face.
Often growers pick the frozen fruit and squeeze it for juice and preserve the crop that way, so I’ll be interested in his report of fruit loss and how it’s handled there/then.
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