Some rain last night & almost continuous light rain all today. Impossible to do much out of doors. Limed another strip (lime now running short), transplanted a couple of currant bushes. Most of the trees are now completely bare. A few leaves still on the elms. Of the deciduous trees the ashes seem the last to go.
4 eggs.
Last night a little rain, today fine, still & mild. Dug 2 more trenches. Cut down some of the herbaceous plants. Some of the phloxes will have to be split up. Another double egg. By the look of them all the double eggs I have seen recently come from the same bird, tho’ it is always said locally that a double egg means the beginning or ending of a clutch.
9 eggs. Sold 1 score @ 4/4.
Rather windy, looked like rain in the middle of the day but actually did not rain. Dug 2 more trenches in the new patch. Cannot get on faster than this owing to chalky stony streak in the middle which is hard to break into. Dug trench for remaining blackcurrants.
6 eggs.
Beautiful still, sunny day. Last night not at all cold. Cannot make sure whether when shallots spring out of the ground it is of their own accord or partly done by the pigeons. Sometimes they are about 1’ from where they were planted. Dug 2 rows of the new patch, turned the compost heap, limed another patch, added one more sackful of dead leaves. [Total on facing page: 7.]
One hen is definitely broody.
6 eggs.
Windless, misty, sun just visible, rather chilly. Many fungi in the woods, including one which at a certain stage gets a sort of white fluffy mildew on it & smells rather like bad meat. Immense quantities of wood pigeons & large flights of starlings. Came on a field of what appeared to be weeds but think it may possibly be buckwheat, which is sometimes grown about here for the sake of the partridges. Small black three-cornered seed like a miniature beech nut. Brought home a patch of a kind of rough moss & stuck it on the rockery, hoping it will grow. Today at 3pm. Hung out a lump of fat for the tits. They had found it before 5pm.
5 eggs.
Very fine weather, as yesterday. Birds all singing almost as though it were spring. Notice that horse dung of some mares & their foals out in the fields is extremely dark, almost black, presumably for being out at grass with no corn. Added another sackful of leaves. [Total on facing page: 6.]
5 eggs. Sold 1 score @ 4/4. Total this week 45.
Very fine, sunny, still weather. Dug the first trench of the new patch, planted shallots (not quite enough to make up the first 2 rows), transplanted 3 rambler rose cuttings, 1 albertine, 1 of the yellowy-white kind, the other I don’t know what kind. Made up path as far as trellis. Titley says in storing dahlia bulbs the important this is to suspend them for a while stalk downwards, as the reason they rot is that the moisture runs down the hole in the stalk into the roots. Bought some more apples (Blenheims) still 11/2lb. T. says he’s getting 4/6 score for eggs.
9 eggs.
Dry, windy, sunny, not cold. Many goldfinches about. Took the remaining nettles, or most of them, out of the new patch. Put in 2 more stakes for blackberries. Limed another patch. Added 1 sack dead leaves. [Total on facing page: 41/2.]
6 eggs. Sold 20 @ 4/4.
Rather wet, too much so to do much out of doors: considerable rain this evening. Planted first row of currants (ie. 6 red, 5 black). Have started using chaff instead of straw for nesting-boxes. Do not know whether it will prove to be too expensive, but should be easier to clean out & to rot down.
6 eggs.
There was a nest of field mice at the roots of one of the currant bushes, & they came running out, 5 in all, as I levered the plant up. Fatter & lighter coloured that the house-mouse, with a long tail (I had always had an idea they had short ones) & rather slow-moving, with a sort of hopping movement, though they all managed to get away from me.
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 