We had a quiet and beautiful day. I went out early in my nightshirt and brought hay and water to the animals, fed the dogs and cats, Maria and I slept in. We got up and raked out the flower gardens, green things are beginning to sprout, we cleaned out the garden boxes on the porch. We drove around some of the beautiful county roads. I took photographs, Maria sketched.

We took a long walk on the path, on crystal hill. We had to carry Frieda into the car but she handled the walk. We sat out in the yard by the pasture and read. I decided to take a photo of the hens. I learned early on in photography that you can’t just point the camera, you have to move, so I lay down for fifteen or twenty minutes until the hens settled down and I crawled closer and closer. They know the camera now, all our animals do, I am sure to show it whenever we feed them, they associate it only with good things.

I picked a good spot. First the leghorn settled, then the white hen, one in the light, one in the shadow, my favorite kind of shot. Tonight, I start the new biography of John Updike.