Hot & sunny most of the day. One duck had hatched this morning. Later moved the hen to a new coop & left the more backward eggs with another broody. By evening 7 ducks; the eigtth° shows no signs of hatching but have put it under the hen for the night. The first ducks are fluffed up but show no disposition to walk about. Apparently ducklings are much slower to walk than chickens, being ‘weak in the legs’ (Mrs R.)[1]. Made an awning with adjustable sacking cover & put flat dish of water in coop.
Rehoed onions which are growing at last. Marrows also growing, one strongly. White rose out. 15 eggs.
[1] Probably Mrs Ridley, a neighbour. Peter Davison
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
Back in April the New Yorker ran an essay by James Wood about Orwell. One of my favorite sentences:
“There is an undoubted comety in Orwell’s never having realized that what was obviously utopian to him might strike at least half the population as a chaste nightmare.”
That is, “There is an undoubted comedy….” I was so busy noticing that wordpress treats “utopian” as a misspelling that I didn’t notice the warning about “comety.”
There is an undoubted comedy in James Wood’s not realizing that what is obviously utopian to him might strike at least half the human race as a sick nightmare.
I don’t know Orwell’s utopian vision, though I do think his writings describe what it was not.
Moments ago, my relentless staff of researchers reached the consensus that Utopia is not necessarily utopian: