June 20

Posted by sydney on Jun 20th, 2009
  • 1791: June 20, 1791 – Went round by Petersfield. Foxgloves blow. By going round by Petersfield we make our journey to Bramshot 23 miles. After we had been driven 20 miles we found ourselves not a mile from Wever’s down, a vast hill in Wolmer forest, & in the parish of Selborne. Bramshot in a direct line is only seven miles from Selborne.
  • 1790: June 20, 1790 – Muck laid on a gardener’s field poisons my Brother’s outlet.  A martin at Stockwell chapel has built its nest against the window: it seems to stick firmly to the glass, and has no other support.  In former summers I remember similar instances.
  • 1784: June 20, 1784 – Narrow-leaved iris, cornflag, & purple martagons blow.  Butter-fly orchids in the hanger.
  • 1782: June 20, 1782 – The smoke from the lime-kilns hangs along the forest in level tracts for miles.
  • 1781: June 20, 1781 – Much thunder, & vast showers to the westward.  Vast storm & rain at Winton.  These storms were very terrible at Sarum, & in the vale of the white-horse, etc.
  • 1780: June 20, 1780 – Early pease abound.  Strawberries, & cherries ill-ripened, & very small.  Much wall-fruit.  Roses blow.
  • 1778: June 20, 1778 – The elders, water-elders, fox-gloves, & other soltitial plants begin to be in bloom. Blue dragon-flies appear. Cucumbers, which had stopped for a time, bear again.
    * My favorite old Galloway, who is touched in his wind, was allowed to taste no water for 21 days; by which means his infirmity grew much less troublesome. He was turned to grass every night, and becaome fat & hearty, and moved with ease. During this abstinence he staled less than usual, & his dung was harder & dryer than usually fall from grass-horses. After refraining from a while he shewed little propensity for drink. A good lesson this to people, who by perpetual guzzling create a perpetual thirst. When permitted to drink he shewed no eagerness for water.
  • 1777: June 20, 1777 – Tremella nostoc abounds in the field-walks; a sign that the earth is drenched with water.
  • 1776: June 20, 1776 – Cut my St foin; a large burden: rather over-blown: the nineth crop.  Libellula virgo, sive puella.  Dragon-fly with blue upright wings.
    * As the way-menders are digging for stone in a bank of the street, they found a large cavern running just under the cart-way.  This cavity was covered over by a thin stratum of rock:  so that if the arch had given way under a loaded waggon, considerable damage must have ensued.
  • 1775: June 20, 1775 – Meadow-grass very short indeed.
  • 1773: June 20, 1773 – Young wild-ducks, or flappers are taken at Oakhanger-pond; & a small Anas olive, which seemed to me to be a young teal: turned it into James Knight’s ponds.
  • 1772: June 20, 1772 – Ephemerae innumberable on the Alresford stream.  When the swifts play very low over the water they are feeding on emphemerae and phryganeae.
  • 1771: June 20, 1771 – Sheep are shorn.  St foin cut.