False Alarm!.... (or not).

Good book choices among the Birthday present 'haul'

In my previous post, I recorded that both a turkey hen and a goose had gone broody; the former in an inconvenient place lost in a neighbouring field, the latter nice and tidy in her proper coop. Well, as soon as I had gone to print, of course, both ladies changed their minds. In the morning, the goose was off her eggs and asking to be let out with the gang into the orchard, where she happily stayed all day and the cold eggs, I picked up for normal kitchen use.

Calf-eens a-plenty in many neighbouring farmyards.

In the middle of the afternoon, while I was away buildering, Liz texted to say that Barbara had turned up, butter wouldn't melt, looking for food in our yard. False alarm? Well, you never know with poultry. The goose, having taken her day off, decided to go back onto (some more) eggs and has now spent the last 2 days sitting tight. I assume the eggs can stand this on/off start to the incubation when they are still only a 'germ' of embryo. Barbara spent a day or so very much here, mooching about with the husband (Tom) but today went AWOL again from about 9 a.m. till just before lock-up (8 p.m.). These eggs are either taking a long long time to lay, or she is doing like the goose and building up to broodiness.

Rounding up the mini-horses. 

Meanwhile in the Sligo dept, the mini horses which had been happily grazing the last few millimetres off the rented field down by our local river-bridge, suddenly needed moving. The person who is taking over the rented field next was asking if he could spray slurry all over it prior to the agreed date and Carolyn was not at all sure he would take no for an answer.

Primroses are everywhere this month.

K-Dub and I had to take a day off from the buildering to rapidly create a horse proof paddock about 40m by 50m at the new place (not an easy one but we made it) and then I was asked to help with the rounding up and loading of Cody, Romeo and Bob at this end into a borrowed stock-trailer. That bit, at least, was a doddle because these boys are suckers for a carrot-bribe. I offered them some nice fresh crunchy veg through the gate while C snuck up behind and slipped head-collars onto them. They are well used to trailers, being former show-horses, so all three were led up the ramp with a minimum of fuss and off they went to Sligo.

The warm weather has given us some gorgeous sunsets

Out of nowhere we have been enjoying a week of gorgeous sunny, warm weather. That's 'warm' by Roscommon standards, you understand, so daytime highs of 17ºC, nothing too tropical (or even Mediterranean) but after a long, cold, wet, miserable winter it is a lovely relief. Liz and I have been able to enjoy a post-work coffee 'al-fresco' and on one evening sat out by our pond in the 'Darby and Joan' chairs till gone 8 p.m. rather than spoil it by coming indoors to cook. We didn't even light the range. The dogs had been let loose in the orchard at 6:15 p.m. expecting to only get the usual half hour and they were still out there, running free, at 8 p.m.

A '365' pic of a nearby swallow hole. The yellow arrow
shows flow direction before the water disappears under-ground.
Obviously I have not put the arrow on the 365 version. 

I heard my first cuckoo out in Sligo (on the 19th) while we were putting up the horse-fence; he sang away all day. I then heard my first home-bird the next morning here at 7 a.m. on my first dog-'patrol'. We saw our first swallow near here on the 16th and then saw a load of them flying over a nearby lough (Lough Glynn). We have since seen "our" swallows dipping over our pond to catch insects and to drink. Summer is definitely coming, even though the forecast has some nasty cold nights (down to 2ºC) coming up over the weekend.

Keep warm, people.

IS(S) That Really Santa?

No rest for the girls on the 25th.

The boys at the International Space Station must have thought that all their birthdays had come at once in (British Isles) PR terms. They managed to get the beast to fly over Ireland and the UK not once but twice in full view of the excited Christmas Eve, Santa-obsessed children at a perfect time in the evening. For those who have not kept up to date on this project, the ISS is still 'up there' 16 years after the first bits were 'launched' (via a shuttle), all estimated $100 bn of it and is now 98% complete with just a couple more bits of laboratory to be banged up (this time in a Russian rocket). It 'flies' round in the lowest possible orbit, 242 miles above the earth (modern commercial long-haul jets fly at about 40,000 feet, or 7 and a half miles but in a series of loops like the wires on a balloon whisk, tracking a bit further north over 'you' at each pass. It takes about 92 minutes to orbit.

The geese survive to see their own Christmas Dinner of
spent sprout plants. 

It is so big (356 feet 'wide' and (soon) 240 feet long, roughly football pitch size) and it is made of shiny metal so it reflects so much sunlight back at the earth that, when it is there, it is the brightest "star" in the sky and it moves across the whole sky in 4 minutes or so, so it is moving as visibly 'fast' as a commercial jet, dead easy to spot even by the smallest 'Santa spotter'. With superb timing and by complete coincidence, it would be visible high in the sky at 5:20 pm on a clear, cloudless Christmas Eve night (!), going from SW, pretty much straight over, and then pass over again at 2 minutes to 7, lower in the sky. Parents everywhere were taking their kids out to show them 'Santa' flying past once to check up on them and warning them that he'd be back in 92 minutes to check they were all in bed. He's making a list, he's checking it TWICE. Excellent. We 'grown ups' were out there too, with a glass of wine watching both passes and raising our glasses - we two are in awe of this technology and knowing that it "is us up there". Fair play to them.

Comfy PJs for the 'duvet' days. 

Well, no obsessions and over-excited kiddies for us; we had a nice quiet relaxing Christmas planned and that is what we achieved, but I'm not about to bore you with all the details; you will probably have done your own thing and once was enough. We were sensibly restrained, though, in the event, with no obligation to eat more or drink more than we wanted to (nothing to prove, nobody urging us to take seconds or manage just one more drink, No forced jollity and certainly no games). I did get Shanghai'd by Bob, mind, who pounced on me when I was out with the dogs and forced me to drink a glass of Whiskey. Rough job this 'being neighbourly' but someone has to do it!

Tígín and the house from the back I nice inviting plume of
 smoke promises a toasty warm Living Room. 

Even our main meal was not the 'obligatory' turkey or goose (the geese were delighted!) - we did a baked gammon/ham with new potatoes and a mix of greens (yes, sprouts did feature); there was no starter and pud was our homemade Christmas Pud with just double cream ( I can't abide brandy-butter). Even our "Christmas Movie" was the not-very-seasonal 'Casablanca' with Bogart, Bergman and Paul Henreid. We turn the internet off for the whole day, adopting the Silverwood's policy of actually talking to each other! I know. We lit fires at both ends of the house, so the place was toasty warm. Very relaxing. Just what was needed.

Geriatric bunnies Ginny and Padfoot get whole carrots with
the leaves still on for Christmas. A firm favourite - they eat the
leaves first. 

Boxing Day (they call it 'St Stephen's Day' here, or more unusually "Stephens's Day" as if the guy was Mr Stephens already with an 's' on the end) was equally relaxing and unplanned, no visitors and no visits out. We'd done the 'in' visit earlier week with The Airy Fox and we are not due down to Silverwoods for a day or so. We woke up to a heavy fall of big wet snow flakes, but no laid snow. We wandered along to our friend and little aul' lady, Una and were plied with excellent home made mince pies and porter-cake (porter as in Guinness), 'tay' and brandy. We nipped out for milk and bread; Una did not need any shopping. I then walked the dogs along in the other direction and got Shanghai'd by Bob again (only tea this time).

A goodly selection of excellent books.

This time he asked me had we "seen any Wren-boys?" (he says 'Wran'); at that stage we hadn't but this reminded me of the Wren Boy tradition locally which I have, I am sure, described before. The local children would dress up as Mummers in straw costumes and parade round with a wren in a cage, demanding money and treats with menaces lest they kill the bird. I think, though the rhyme that Bob told me sounds like the intent was quite opposite

"Up with the kettle and down with the pan / now give us a penny to bury the 'Wran'! "

Mid-bake, the gammon joint gets its skin sliced off, the fat
cut into diamonds and dredged in brown sugar. A clove is
pressed into each 'diamond' and then it is back into the oven
for another 25 minutes.

These days of course, the wren is a protected species and anyway, the children are a lot less murderous (we hope!) so the kids come round ready to sing or play music for their donations. They don't seem to do the dressing up, either. Bob had had two lads who "played the mouth organ" to him. As I type this we have just been visited by a young lass being driven round in a car. She had on a Santa hat and played us a tune on a penny whistle. It was not that sure-footed a rendition and we think we heard strains of 'She is handsome, she is pretty' in it, but we clapped her vigorously and dropped a stack of Euro coins into her fist. She declined the Clementines. So, we have now officially been "Wran-boy'd" all be it by the female of the species

The newly planted daffs by the drive are starting to emerge. 

The incoming gifts this year included a nice healthy stack of excellent books (Thank you all concerned - we will be thanking you properly, of course!) with a good leaning towards food growing and cooking as well as a toehold into my 'new interest' of exploring history. It is only Boxing Day, so I've not done much more than open and flick through most of them, but I have delved into 'Gubbeen' and am very impressed. The 'Gubbeen' here is the famous artisan cheese which comes from the farm and dairy in Co. Cork, way down almost on Mizzen Head by the Fastnet Lighthouse. The 'team/family' there farm dairy cows and outdoor pigs as well as running a kitchen garden and all four main characters have contributed to the book. Hence there are sections by the main farmer and cattle-man, the pig products and smoke-house charcutier (who also makes kitchen and butcher knives), the wife who is also the main cheese-maker and the kitchen gardener and herb grower. As well as covering all these subjects (which fascinate me anyway), the farming and production is done in as sustainable and chemical-free way as practicable/possible - soil fertility has always been mainly by collecting sea-weed from the rocky shores; the kitchen garden is run on 'bio-dynamic' lines. I thoroughly recommend it if that's the kind of thing that floats your boat.

Muddy parsnips, dug for the 'day that's in it'.

Meanwhile, I hope you all continue to enjoy your Christmas and the run in to the New Year. Ahh, the Haggis.

Rough Winds Do Shake....

Quince blossom.

We are neither of us very impressed by this weather and we would like to be able to hand May back in and stick with our April, if that is OK with everyone. The lovely warm days of April have been replaced by a continuous fitful Sou'Westerly bluster which brings in showers and long bursts of that heavy drizzle that only seems to happen in Ireland and which they call 'soft'. A good bit of our fruit is currently in bloom and it is being badly blown about - rough winds indeed DO shake the darling buds of May.

Apple blossom (Red Windsor, here)

The poor quince has a lot of big leaves on by now so it seems to catch more wind than the top fruit, the tree rocks about so that I debate whether to stake it higher up and the big, soft, delicate blooms quickly get brown edged wind-burn to the petals, as do trees like Magnolia stellata. I worry that the blooms will manage to get pollinated before they are reduced to wet brown rag. There are very few bees of any kind in this breeze and no hover flies either but there does seem to be a good population of a narrow, black, soft-bodied looking fly in among the flowers; perhaps they will pollinate the trees by sheer weight of numbers.

Winter cress (?) growing as a weed in our raised bed. 

Talking of bees, we have finally received our first copy of the magazine of the Federation of Irish Beekeepers' Associations (FIBKA). This mag, called 'An Beachaire' (The Beekeeper) contains an article about doing pollinator surveys for the National Biodiversity database (similar to what we do with the birds and mammals). These people need you to agree to walk a set route at least once a month and record the bumble bees you see, and they supply you with a wealth of info and pictures which will help the beginners (like me) to identify them and know which species to expect.

The ex-Hastings fig may only be 18"
high but it is still trying to fruit!

They seem to be happy to have some seriously doubtful data while you are learning and getting your eye in, and do not expect you to dive straight as able to tell queens, workers and drones across the 20+ species. Well, I walk the dogs every day and I am quite happy to keep my eyes open for bees as I stroll along. Indeed, since we have been interested in honey bees I have been doing this anyway and mentally trying to distinguish my Garden Bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) from my white-tailed BB (B. lucornum) and my buff-tailed BB (B. terrestris). I have had to submit my 2 favourite dog walks as 'transects' to be used in the study. Thank you, too, Pud Lady who sent me in the post a "Bee Saver" pack which came to her house from Friends of the Earth promoting something called the "Bee Cause" but which included a load of charts and pictures about making your garden bee friendly AND an identification wall chart. I call that timely.

A bit frayed by the wind, Cambria's old "bob"

Meanwhile, barking up a completely different tree, I need to thank my old chums from the Sailing Barge Cambria (for which project I still maintain the website, keep blogging and now 'Tweeting' and, with Liz, produce their Newsletter ( http://www.cambriabargecharter.co.uk/?page_id=1211 ). The winter re-fit of this lovely old Thames 'sailorman' (108 years old in theory, but mainly now a very young 3 years of age!) involved the replacement of her "bob". This is the flag flown at the top of the main rig which was partly to advertise the company colours but also to work as a 'burgee' telling the helmsman the wind direction and strength.

Cambria flying the bob from the topm'st head (arrowed)

When Cambria was in trade, the (Everard's of Greenhithe) bob would have been red left and right, white top and bottom. When she was sold off by Everard's to her famous and final Skipper-in-Trade, Cap'n Bob Roberts, he chose blue and white. Now 'we' (The Cambria Trust) have her the Board decided to go with red white and blue combining both the stages of her story, but then a bit of green to denote that we were engine-less and therefore a green form of transport. The first of these flags went on when she first sailed as a re-launched restoration and had been out in the weather getting shredded by the winds (rough and otherwise!) for the first season, after which it was claimed by colleague, Dave B. I am honoured and delighted to have been chosen by the Team to receive the 2nd one, an important piece of barge history. I will treasure it and keep it safe and sound. It might look like a tatty ol' bit of flag cloth to you but it certainly isn't to me. Thank You the Cambria Trust.

The Boys are Back

The field has had a few weeks to recover a bit and the grass is now 'moving' well and giving it a lovely new green 'pile'. I have had to mow the lawn its first cut and the other two miniature horses are getting through the hay we made last June and stashed away in the barn at Carolyn's, so today we get them back. They (Bob and Romeo) are delighted and, says Charlotte, as soon as they turned right out of her drive and realised they were coming here, they were pulling like mad down the lane to get here.

Once released into the field and cleaned of all tack, head collars and so on, they went completely giddy, racing round the field in big figures of 8 and loops, bucking and playing and stopping now and then to munch big mouthfuls of grass. It is a pleasure to see horses so happy and we are delighted to be able to give them this fun and pleasure just by having a spare field which needs a bit of mowing now and then till our lambs arrive. Carolyn is, meanwhile going to fertilize her own field and let it grow to hay again so that we can do the hay-making, hopefully in June and then put the horses out on the aftermath.

20 years of gardening - our first
successful fritillary!

The third amigo is still confined to home awaiting his appointment with Aoife the Vet. He needs 'doing' in between the risk of frost and the start of the blow fly season, which is a tight window but his other problem is that the months of separation have led to him no longer being able to get on smoothly with Bob and Romeo. He, an entire stallion, is convinced that he should be top dog but Romeo, backed up by Bob argues this point quite forcefully. At the moment, he can't go back into the field with them but he could now go into our pig-field which is also horse-proof, so we're waiting to see in his case how the operation goes and the reduction in his testosterone levels which will follow.

Concrete pig-drinker.

In the pig department we have had a nice result as a gift from former pig keepers, Carolyn and Charlotte. As we now know from our pig-learning, pigs are devils for destroying any plastic bowls or buckets you try to use for feeding them and providing water - they are playful, boisterous animals and they will happily grab up the bowl and go for a game with it, hurling it around, fighting over it, doing tug of wars, climbing into it and generally messing. K-Dub's solution to this was to build a bowl shaped mould out of wooden shuttering and fill it with concrete, thus creating a heavy robust concrete bowl which the pigs could not move, never mind play with. We have inherited this (Thanks very much, all three of you!) and hefted it into the car to bring home. It is currently being washed and sterilized with Miltons fluid prior to being installed in our own pig-run.

Tarte tatin with pâte brisée.

Meanwhile, Happy Birthday to me.  Not a significant number but one with a rather neat symmetry, I was born in 1957 and I am (tomorrow) 57 years old. Tomorrow though, we have an extra session of Bee School thrown at us, so we decided to do the special meal tonight. In our family the rules are that the Birthday-boy (or girl) gets to choose the menu and the other person has to cook it, but is allowed to interpret too. I 'ordered' steak and chips, apple pie and ice cream but this being Liz, it was not your standard apple pie with shortcrust pastry.

Steak, chips, peas and chestnut mushrooms.

Nope. She got out the Darina Allen books and went for a rather special Tarte Tatin (a French upside-down apple tart). The pastry is a superb fragile, rich, 2-egg-yolk job called Pâte Brisée (Broken or 'crumbly' pastry) which is allowed (nay, expected!) to break up as you try to turn out the pie. The apple you start by getting butter and sugar to foam in the frying pan till it turns fudge-golden, then add the apples and cook till the whole is caramelised to a dark brown colour. "Hold your nerve" advises Darina in the book, you will think you have burned it all to blazes but , no, you will have created a superbly sticky, sweet, apple-y version of heaven which your husband will be very very impressed by and grateful for on his 57th Birthday.

Spoiled, I am.

Gig Driving and Pony Rides

You'll have read in earlier posts that we are currently entertaining the Silverwoods on a week's 'holiday'. Just Mrs S and the children this time, as Mr S has to work. They arrived Sunday afternoon and are here for this week till Mr S comes back this weekend to collect them all up again. Not much time, then, to post on here; the usual run of farm based entertainments and front lawn games.

We have been getting to know animals and poultry, training sheep to eat from buckets and to come up to the gate for food at meal times, helping Broody Betty to scratch up worms for the ducklings and giving the baby bunnies a good amount of handling practise. We have played tennis, badminton, soccer and GAA football. We have lost shuttlecocks and balls all over the shop. We have built wooden toy sailing boats and bird houses. The sailing boat is exhausted from many voyages on the pond.

The highlight of the week (for me at least) so far was a session we arranged with Charlotte the mini-horse owner to come down and let the kids have a go at driving the gig pulled by Romeo or just riding in it and, for the two smaller ones, a bit of bare back riding on Bob. The older children and adults also went for a spin down the lane, dicing with the local traffic.

The horses were due to arrive at midday, by which time it was raining quite hard, so we retreated indoors for tea and to let it stop. The rain obliged by about ten past and we got a lovely hour or so of sunshine to do our stuff and to get some lovely pictures.

The kids, Mrs S and I all took a spin round the front lawn on the gig being shown the reins and the very soft-mouth, gentle action steering of Romeo. Charlotte, of course, drove him in some of the shows where they won all the awards, so she can make him reverse, turn tight round, go slow and fast, but we were just beginners so we were on the very basics.

Mrs S and I both had a go and took pictures of each other but the camera chose that 5 minutes of the day to mis-fire, so we have dozens of lovely pics of the children but none of the grown ups.

We had a whale of a time and everybody loved it. We all thank Charlotte so, so much for doing this for us. She was quite enjoying being able to do some actual training on 'sensible' horses. Round here, she tells me, all the riding schools are for specialist work like show jumping using highly strung, competitive thoroughbred horses which are 'away with the fairies' and not really for inexperienced children. Hence, she says, none of the children are ever into horses.

Outdoor Paddling Pool

With the geese now wing clipped I can construct them an outside run today without risk of them taking off into the wide blue yonder (in this case rather overcast and with light snow falling). I build a circular corral outside their door using an off-cut of sheep wire generously donated by our fencing guy, Paul M after the last job for use as tree guards against sheep.

The geese immediately come out to explore the new space and spend the afternoon coming in and out and splashing about in the crate of water, I have surrounded the crate (which I must stress is only a temporary pool pending them getting moved to their proper 'home', the sheep field / orchard) with logs and rocks to allow them to scramble up to the rim and climb in if they wish for a quick 'swim', all be it a rather space-restricted one.

So far they have only messed around on the edges but they love ducking their heads and necks and then throwing the water down their backs. In this way they are cleaning themselves really well and starting to look bright and white, rescued from their Rahara mud-farm 'Somme'. They can not get at any mud here (yet). They are also settling down well and do not run about in alarm as much when we appear or come near. We are delighted with them and we are sure we will enjoy their company as well as their eggs.

We also took the opportunity to introduce them to the dogs and vice versa. This had to be on the leads at first as the dogs would charge the fence and panic the birds. The geese do not yet know they are safe behind the wire. That gave me a nice chance to take a catch-up pic of the two pups at nearly 8 months, looking very shaggy and woolly bear here. Towser with his floppy ears is on the left. He will stay this way now - if he didn't prick his ears up in the first few weeks, then it's not going to happen, but we find him cute anyway and it certainly makes it easy to tell them apart even at a distance.

Meanwhile I was out with Bob today across his land with the tractor doing some more logging. He'd asked for my help, I thought to log up a tree already felled by our neighbours, the McG's, but in the event "that" was another tree and I had to fell 'ours' before we started. We did OK and spent a couple of hours at it, but my chain saw had started playing up and was refusing to idle. You could still cut the wood at high revs but stand back and 'lift off' and the saw sputtered to a halt. I was getting worn out with the number of times I had to re-start the thing by pulling on the starter cord.

About 11:30, Bob called a halt "for today" and suggested we go to see a man he knows 'out beyond Moyne' (a nearby village) who was good with chainsaws and would sort my machine out. We broke for tea and then piled into the 2CV (much to the delight and amusement of Bob, who'd never been in such a car) and headed out into the back woods. This man turned out to be an amazing 'find'. He is a real back-woods looking bloke with a bushy beard and a pony tail. He is chubby and speaks with a foreign (Dutch?) accent. Bob did find out his name once ("it's an unusual name") but has forgotten it.

His workshop and, indeed, his house are old and wooden and are in the middle of a grass-less wood running with chickens and ducks. His workshop is an Aladdin's cave of broken quad bikes and other equipment but his passion and knowledge on his subject was amazing. He immediately spotted that my saw was ex Lidl and knew that it had been €120 but said that they were a qood quality saw. He was interested in how I was getting on with it and delighted that I had been able to obtain extra chains and a sharpener. He gave every impression of being delighted and welcoming of this new bloke who loved his saw and tried to look after it. He gathered up my saw and had me write down my name and phone number. He is going to phone me back when it's done.

(Again) Meanwhile I have sneaked in a couple of pictures, one of the pathetic snow we woke up to this morning, more like a hard frost really, but we are being careful what we wish for! 2nd is a shot of the 'baby' chicks at 13 weeks, now looking very leggy and 'velociraptor'- ish. Their long thighs and high 'keel' have us convinced that these are both boys, so the coq-au-vin pot looms for them in March or April.

We are working our way steadily through the home made wine, in this case some bottled into a recycled Greek Brandy (Metaxa) bottle. It is so light and quaff-able that we are sometimes tempted to pile into the 2nd bottle when perhaps we shouldn't. In our defence, though, we are planning to take a break from the booze for the '40 Days and Nights' of Lent. This not for any religious reasons - it is just a nicely placed and sensibly long 'fast' which reassures us in the years when we do it, that we are not desperate alcoholics! The last drink we will take (all being well) is on Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day on February 12th, and we will then try to stay off it till Good Friday. That's our 'Lent' although it might not be recognised by any theologists. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we are not so virtuous.