Fastest Cheese in the Wesht?

Our Arum has finally produced some clean spathes. Last year
they all seemed to get frosted, drowned or munched.

...in which we saw an end to the blue skies, for now at least, experienced a 'first' in the wildlife dept, had our shaggy dogs visited by our tame dog-groomer and played host to some rels.

Yes, the run of blue skies and heatwave temperatures came to an end but we quite welcomed it and saw it as a bit of a relief and the garden has definitely appreciated the refreshment. The 'wildlife' drama was our first sighting, in Ireland, of deer and much to our delight and surprise they were just a mile away, in our own home lane, not even as far as the local village.

Bog Asphodel in Kiltybranks.

These were 2 female fallow deer and we 'caught' them wandering on the lane as we headed off to Balla-D on a mission to retrieve (would you believe) our chemical toilet. The lane is straight so we could see the buff/white shapes  at a distance and first thought they might be dogs. According to the bio-diversity maps, we are 'meant' to have fallow deer all over Co Roscommon and I've been hunting around with my eyes open as this is a species I know well, love and 'follow' from the Kent days. In Kent, when I was involved in the Challock Forest 'friends'

First peas of 2016 - in the poly-tunnel, obviously.

I was the one doing the 'expert' (ha!) guided walks for the public during the rut, and it was fallow deer that we were looking at. I have not seen hide nor hair, not a whisper of a fallow deer in all the 4 and a half years we have been in Ireland. I have missed them. Then there they were, not a 5 minute drive from home, clearly visible and definitely fallow does till they saw us arriving and nipped off down the bank into the young forestry to the left of the lane. We have been back that way many times since but, of course, not a sign. There is one not-so-good possibility for this sighting before we all get too excited. We know that there is a deer farm locally though we have not, so far, found it and I have no idea whether it is fallow deer the man keeps, but these two might just be farm escapes. Never mind. I have added them to the bio-diversity database with that rider in the notes.

Towser gets it in the neck from Charlotte. Everywhere else, too!

The dogs were long overdue for a clip and I took it easy with them all through the hot spell. Regular readers will know that I clip them myself and would normally do them around about my birthday in mid April. This year though, they were booked in long ago for some more special, 'professional' treatment. Our friend Charlotte, trainee vet assistant, animal wrangler and also dog groomer had her eyes on them for some pictures before and after of the 'Westie Cut' (and other styles) for her curriculum vitae, so we were saving them up.

Come on you boys in green? Poppea is ready for the footie. 

She loves doing the westies and as they are white, she can also practise playing with her colours/dyes. These are only the cheap, last-a-few-days, water-based inks which wash off so the dogs do not have to worry long about their street cred. There would be no market round here (says Charlotte) for the proper, €6-a-bottle colours used by the "Creative Groomers" that you might get to use in a city 'salon'.

Towser loves C anyway, even though she
has really 'done' him this time!

So, Towser got a (golden) lion cut which, once photographed, got all cut off again so that his head and shoulders would be cool and he finished up with a 'Gay Pride' style rainbow and many coloured dots. Poppea got an Irish tricolour on one side and a goal net on the other so she'd be ready for the footie (Euros). Deefer got butterflies on 3 sides and a desert-island palm tree (green leaves, brown tree trunks, golden sand) on her rump.

3 flavours of goat cheese - plain, garlic and chives.

There was, too, a nice bonus to this day. Charlotte is now milking that guest-goat (Nanny Óg) on a 50/50 share basis with the kid and pulling off more milk than they have need for over there, so she offered some to us and we, of course, spotted the chance to make some more cheese - we love a feta in particular but also all the younger, softer goat cheeses. I collected Charlotte and all the grooming gear plus the milk at about midday. Unbeknownst to me, while we worked outside, Liz had nipped onto the Internet and found a goat-cheese recipe which only needed lemon juice and heat and a couple of hours. By the time we had done dogs, Liz re-appeared with a chilled pink wine and three flavours of perfectly good goats cheese, plain, garlic and chives. I don't suppose cheese has ever been made faster than that (or eaten!). We are looking forward to more milk as it comes available and have also been offered some from friends Sue and Rob who have now sold all their kids and are milking 3 nannies. They have milk coming out of their ears by all accounts. Blesséd are the cheese makers?

The ducks finally work out what the pond is for. Liz and
Mary look on.

Meanwhile, we have also played host to the Mum-in-Law (Steak Lady)  and Auntie Mary who came up for an over-night and a relaxing look around the farm, plus a visit to Strokestown House. The weather held off for long enough for them to enjoy the out doors and Liz has also enjoyed a bit of feeding the pigs while managing this time NOT to be chased by the gander. The ducks finally worked out what the pond is for and are now regulars dabbling and up-ending so that the ladies were able to sit on our big ash-log and watch them busily going about duck-business. Mercifully, this has not, so far, been too damaging to the pond.

As I write this we are relaxing back indoors after the Strokestown visit (enormous Ploughman's Lunch but too much rain for more than one border of the walled garden) and soon to drop the guests back to the railway station. It has been a lovely relaxing interlude and all the better for being a shade cooler after all that heat but, no, that was NOT the sound of me complaining about the weather.

50% Success

Anne and Simon's pigs ready to go. 

An early start this morning has me nipping round our own livestock doing 'breakfasts' and releases so that I can couple up the trailer and hit the road by 07:45. I am headed for Mentor Anne's (and Simon's). Their 2 cross (traditional) breed pigs are ready to go on their final journey and we are providing the haulage vehicle, our little Fiat and trailer.

See also Anne's blog if you like, on http://anirishalternative.blogspot.ie/2014/08/whoops.html?showComment=1408039916196#c4573968651786064362 .

Temporary pig 'race' through the hedge

The pigs' paddock is in the corner between their drive and the lane on which they live, but has been, up to now 'behind' a hedge. Coming in, small and in their crate, the pigs could be hauled up the 100 yards of driveway, round the end of the hedge and back down the garden to their paddock. It was not really feasible to walk them back all that way, so Simon had hatched a plan to cut a hole through the hedge, lining it with pallets to make a mini 'race' leading to the trailer parked at the drive/lane junction. We both knew that the pigs might not want to go where the electric fence had been even though it was now turned off, and that they might not want to cross Simon's wooden 'clippetty clop' bridge over a ditch made of pallets.

50% success - one loaded. 

In fact neither of these hazards fazed the piggies at all, and we quickly got one loaded using the bribery of a bucket of meal and boiled spuds. However as a professional display of good pig wrangling, it was at that point it stopped being our finest hour. The 2nd pig hated the idea of getting cornered in the confined narrow space of the 'race' and was having none of it. Three quarters of an hour of trying included some near misses where Simon's feed bucket almost almost almost coaxed her in but then she'd spook and bolt, and 120+ kg of pig is not anything you can stop of it decides to barge you out of the way at a squealing gallop. I was tied up keeping pig #1 in the trailer, so Simon was just working up a good sweat on his own and the pig leading him a merry dance.

Narrow delivery lane. Topp reversing skills needed.

Time was running out - we needed to be at the butcher's for ten and anyway, Simon had a 'date' for 10 a.m. We decided to go with just the one pig, block the hole in the fence and head for town. After that decision what remained of the 'mission' went back to being plain sailing, an easy drive into town, a successful reverse into the narrow delivery lane and a problem free release of pig #1 to trot happily down the concrete into the butcher's lairage. A 50% success then and Anne will re-book pig #2 for a later date at which we may well enroll some extra man (or woman) power, but Anne tells me that pig #2 will now ONLY be fed from a bucket and will be coaxed down the race a few times as practice for her own big day, possibly next Thursday.

Left to right, Steak Lady, Mr SL and Liz.

For me, then, a whizz back home where we were to receive a visit from Steak Lady, Mr SL and 'Auntie Mary' (sister of Mr SL), down to have a look round the place and see all the new 'lines' (bees, pigs, goslings, this year's sheep) as well as to give Liz her Birthday presents (a little early!). We also fed them of course with many of the ingredients being home grown and the bread home made; they were delighted with that. They had arrived bearing various other gifts too, including some empty jam jars, so when they left we packed them off with their own vegetable crate.

Auntie Mary gets some 'tay' down her. 

They are currently in mid move, from Portmarnock down to near to the Silverwoods, with all the B+B students now 'evicted' to other homes and quite a lot of the furniture and 'stuff' already moved down to County Laois. The place they are buying has, allegedly, a rather fine and luxurious shed in the garden with heating, lighting and fancy worktops, so all the 'children' are full of curiosity as to the fate of that. Even more notable was that there was a fancy 'rabbitry' - a building also with heat and light, lined with rabbit hutches, but apparently the vendor is taking that one with him/her.

One of our honey bees on a leek flower

Meanwhile, no sooner had I posted bemoaning the lack of our bees using the flowers in our garden, than they suddenly are all over some leeks we left to go to seed over the winter. We have also seen them on hollyhocks and around the Kitchen Garden, so maybe the dearth of wild flowers is forcing them to look more locally.

That is it for this one. Catch up with you again soon.

Big scary rooster....

Big scary rooster; poor defenceless sheep?

These days we let the sheep out for an hour morning and afternoon from their run (where the grass is almost grazed off) to the front lawn, woods and hedgerows for a graze and browse; where there's still plenty of grass etc. At the same time the chooks are out free ranging, wandering about as a group. Each hen takes her turn to peel away from the group to nip back to the coop to lay her egg and, when she's done wanders back to find the gang and William (The rooster). William is delighted to see them back and charges towards them making his throaty growly noise, racing up to the returning female and doing his little stompy dance, which seems to translate as "Yay hay! Can we make lurve now?"

This morning the 'gang' were in the woods and the 3 sheep grazing away just outside the woods, all with their heads down so that they'd not have been able to see the hens over the long grass and brambles at the wood's edge. Returning hen appears on lawn from far side, so sheep are between hen and gang. William spots her and charges through the undergrowth, 'exploding' out into the open just by the sheep, who freak and shy, stampeding away! Dad nearly splurged his coffee laughing. Not sure if sheep can look embarrassed, but ours came pretty close.

It occurs to me that we have not reported a visit yet by Steak Lady, Mr SL and Auntie Mary, the Nun (85). 29th September was the date, to nearly coincide with Mary's Birthday but they were mainly here to show Mary around. We have always been close friends with Auntie Mary, who has called Mum her "Little Princess" since a very young age, but who spent most of her life Missionary-ing in Africa. For a tiny, petite, soft spoken 'little ol' lady' she has probably seen more of horrific real life than any of us are likely to see and can quietly relate stories which make your hair stand on end - whole African villages wiped out by AIDS, persecution of Christian villagers, war, turmoil and strife, starvation and hardship. She is a fascinating person to talk to. The picture is left to right, Mum, Steak Lady, The Nun and Mr SL, with Towser sneaking in at SL's feet and Poppy just getting her nose in shot bottom right. The visit went well and they all love the place. They piled into Mum's food, loved what we'd done with Steak Lady's garden cuttings and admired the sheep.


We have also been on a visit down to the Silverwoods, birthplace of Towser and Poppy (and their 5 brothers and sisters). This was to have been so that Dad could see and get photo's of the children's new activity, horse riding lessons, which happens on Sundays with the two eldest and the two youngsters alternating weekends. In the event it got moved to the Friday so that we could babysit little R (4) while Mr and Mrs S took M (6) off to Dublin for an appointment. We could collect R from school and hand her over to Aoife the Social Worker who was to take her on a visit to her natural family, and we could also collect J-M from school in the rain. We took the pups along so that they could experience their first proper car ride and re-acquaint with Silverwood and the S's. So it was a good fun visit with lots of coming and going but never really got going as a whole family event or a meal because everybody was there in snatches in between zooming off on 'things' - even J-M was on a French lesson as soon as she got back from school and Em-J now does homework / study after school till gone 6 p.m, so we never saw her at all. 

Dad's 2CV is now being readied for her NCT test (=MOT). We have finally got the windscreen we needed and she is now in the garage where they are sorting out her ignition and mixture. She's lost the ability to idle, which meant a quick pull on the choke to keep the engine going at every T junction. The garage have tried changing points and capacitor in case it was an ignition problem but have then found the car is leaking air round the carburettor. We are waiting for Monday when the garage will let us know what we need to do about this - is it a new 'carb' or just the gaskets around it. Luckily we have 2CV Llew to call on at the other end of the phone, with a stack of old carbs stripped off dead 2CVs, so we won't have to spend £££s either way. We just need to get Llew to actually put one in the post, which has been, in the past, not anything you can hurry! We love Llew madly but he's nobody's version of 'urgent'. We'll see.


That's about for this one. 

Deefer