Crazy hot today

It was 81 degrees, in early May. Nuts!

So on the hottest day of the year (so far), we finished planting our cool weather crop, peas. Also nuts. We are very late getting them in the ground, but should still get a decent amount for the freezer if the weather doesn't immediately go all August on us.

And apparently May 1 is Mosquito Day. We saw the first ones of the year that day, C. got her first bite the next day, me the day after, and today they were all over us. I smacked my arm once and killed three. We'll be hitting the store for a supply of DEET – nothing else seems to work, though the lemon-scented geranium is pretty good. You just take a leaf, bruise it and rub it on your skin. I should buy one.

C. transplanted some of the onions from the greenhouse.

Earl went after a gopher (he says) in the middle of a patch of multiplier onions, and left a crater and a bunch of broken onions. I brought the fragments in to dry. And he's banned from the garden for a while.

There are too many delicate little seedlings in the garden to let the chickens have access, so we're keeping them penned up. The broody hens are still broody – I've given up fighting it. Reader Vera suggested dunking them in cold water for a minute or two, but that seems so rude. I kicked them out of the nest boxes during the day, and at night, and lectured them ("Eggs, yes; chicks, no!") but that's it. I'm a wuss. I do take any eggs I find under them, though.

On the schedule for tomorrow and the next day and the next day... is repotting tomatoes and moving them to the greenhouse. I've not gotten around to adding on to the greenhouse, so it's going to be crowded in there. I'll try to take some to town next week when I have lunch with my work buddies. (Hey, work buddies – get ready for tomatoes!)

We're getting a little asparagus – keeping the chickens out of the garden should help with that since  the damn birds scratch through the deep mulch and break the stalks off.

Four eggs today; I dropped them once and broke one, then dropped them again and broke another.