Saturday April 24th

I went down first thing this morning to stretch the barbed wire on my steel posts and clip it on and thought it would only take me a few minutes. I got the wire stretched across the flats with out much difficulty but when I went to put the clips on the posts I found it was no easy job as I couldn't spring the wire around the post far enough to get them on. I worked long enough to have dug two or three post holes and got four clips on and then the wire broke so I had to leave it. I couldn't understand it as I knew that it was not hard to do over home as I have helped do it. Marj. came down to help me but we couldn't manage it. I thought as everybody is out working on the land that I would be able to plough so harnessed the team and tried the corn stubble. I made one strike out and ploughed a couple of rounds on one of the strikes I made last fall but the ground was far too wet to work except on the clay knolls down near the road. I had to stop any way as it began to rain and poured down for an hour or more just at noon. The roof leaked and in spite of me going up into the attic and putting vessels under the leaks it came though on the new muresco in the front room & the new paper in the bedroom. It cleared up after dinner and I spent considerable time trying to coax one of the black cats out of a hole that is under the eave of the old part of the house just were the nursery roof joins it and that leads to the small space above the kitchen. It is just about large enough for a cat to crawl in and as we saw the black cat that is very obviously an expectant mother go up the roof and in there we feared that she contemplated that spot as a suitable place to rear a family, and while it wouldn't be so bad if she reared them all the consequence would be most unpleasant if any of them died in infancy and she failed to remove them, as there is no way of getting at them without tearing the ceiling off, so we thought it best to coax her out and plug up the hole. However she refused to be enticed in any way so I had to leave her there and do like Steve Brody. I then then hooked up and drove over home to see if I could find out what was the matter with the clips or the posts that I had such a time this morning. Dad. was alone and he got a post which was just the same