25.5.39.

Yesterday & the day before very warm. Today overcast, chilly enough to have a fire, & a few drops of rain.
Got back[1] yesterday after nearly 3 weeks’ absence. Soil is very dry, weeds terrible except in kitchen garden. The field is now almost completely ruined with nettles & hemlock, but there is a small patch or two, about 200 sq. yards, which may yield a little hay. Grass everywhere is lush & very green. Plenty of fruit forming on the apples. Practically no currants or gooseberries in the kitchen garden, but plenty on the odd bushes in the flower garden. First (dwarf) peas about 4” high, the second (taller) about 2”, first broad beans 6” or 8” high, a few early potatoes showing (all these planted very late). Radishes showing. A lot of blossom on the strawberries, even on some of the last year’s runners. Tulips & wallflowers coming to an end. Flowers in full bloom: aubretia, yellow alyssum (very good), forget-me-nots, saxifrage, pansies. Budding: cheddar pinks, peonies, sweet williams, bush roses (not ramblers). Plenty of blossom on the loganberries.
From 9.5.39-23.5.39 inclusive there were 200 eggs. On 24.5.39 there were 14. Today 17. Shall start account afresh this Sunday, but I think there are none we have not recorded. Six chicks, now 10-12 days old, healthy but seem backward as to size. It appears the losses from this clutch (11 eggs) at the beginning were due to a mole which burrowed under the coop & buried some of the chicks. Eggs now are very good, much larger than a month back. Yesterday a tiny egg, about the size of a water-hen’s (said locally, like a double egg, to be “always the first or the last” of a clutch). Three hens broody.
M. seems well, rather thin, appetite good. Still giving over 1 1/2 pints (close on a year in milk now.)
Yesterday planted a dozen carnations.

[1] To The Stores, Wallington. Peter Davison