The Great Outdoors

The two marmalade kittens are growing fast. At 12 weeks now (we think) they are not big enough to take on the dogs and we don't yet trust the dogs with them, but they are getting too big and lively to be confined to the one room. If you go into the Sitting Room to sit with them they quickly start doing 'wall of death' style charges around all the furniture and racing up your legs or across your shoulders. They are fast and agile and look every inch as if they NEED a bigger space to let off steam into. They also, rather alarmingly, make a dash for the door to their room as soon as you open it a crack, so keen to greet you that they seem unaware of the doggie danger lurking just outside.

Newest member of our menagerie meets our most seasoned
veteran. 

We have taken to smuggling them outside while the dogs are sleeping off a walk and letting them play round the yard and buildings with both of us supervising in case they should decide to split up; one person would only be able to keep tabs on one of these. The weather has been warm and it is very pleasant sitting out there in the sunshine watching the antics of 2 kittens.

Sitting in the sun supervising kittens. 

They have met some of our birds and even play-stalked the Guinea Fowl. They seem to find the chickens and, especially, the rooster, a bit big, so they've not pushed their luck there. Liz noticed that they seem to have an aversion to grass, even new mown short grass. Maybe they have 'feral concrete jungle' DNA, she says, as the kittens race between hard-standing areas and sprint across the grass between.

When you want to take cute kitten pics
among the flowers but they want to play
among the engineering. 

They loved the front 'drive' bits and the car-port with its 'Mad Max' vehicle and stacks of wood. When we carried them over to the 'Darby and Joan' chairs so that we could sit by the pond, they could not wait to get up off that grass by climbing into a lap or onto a shoulder. Ah well. I suppose they will get used to all the rest in time. We are doing all we can to get them to grow big and strong so that they can join the dog-owning half of the family without risk of getting chewed. When Blue was a kitten of course, Towser and Poppea were tiny pups - they grew up together without one side being dominant and when Soldier arrived he was big enough to cope and well versed in dog-management. This introducing tiny kittens to a full grown dog pack is all a bit new.

A nice tight cosy pen seems to be the answer. Nobody has
space to think they might get up some speed if they charged
 'that way'.

My other 'livestock' stories are 1) just that time came round again to foot-trim the sheep and 2) we 'harvested' a first Hubbard rooster. The sheep were last done at shearing and though you can't really get a good look at feet when they are wading through tall-ish grass, I'd been seeing occasional tenderness or lameness when Lily or Polly walked across the dry mud bits of their paddocks.

A neatly trimmed hoof. Lily in this case.

Nothing for it but to run them onto the concrete of the cattle race and give them a proper going over. We could now see that some of the sides had grown a bit long and were splaying, and some toe-points needed attention. We are good at this one now, so it was the work of no more than half an hour to do them all with my special "secateurs" while Liz subdued and calmed the neck and head end.

Every trimmed foot then gets a splash of the bright purple spray even though I could see no signs of foot rot. I even get most of it on the sheep's hoof (and up the gap between the 'cloven' toes) and not too much (OK some) on my hands or up the side of the sheep. The girls are then all released back into the East Field and we like to see the comfortable, relieved gaits on them as they spread out to graze. Job done.

First Hubbard rooster of 2016

At 80 days the Hubbard chickens are right at the start of their 'proper' harvesting time; we normally leave them to more like 100 days to let them get nice and big. However, we fancied a chicken for the weekend roast and had none in the freezer, so one of the boys got it in the neck. He plucked and dressed out at 2.320 kg, or about 5 lbs and was the ever reliable Hubbard version of delicious, tasty, meaty and tender. They really are superb, these hybrids specially bred to do the job under commercial Free Range or Organic systems and we swear by them (and thank Mentor Anne, of course, who can still get them as day-olds despite no longer being in that business and putting in orders for them by the hundred). We are always so disappointed when we have to buy other chicken in supermarkets.

Soapwort. Don't grow it near the pond - it is very toxic to
aquatic life.

Unrelated to any of this I had an exciting and interesting time a few nights back when asked by a friend in the village to 'rescue' his cattle water situation. No pictures for this story - I was not about to take my camera with me when scrambling about in a stream among cattle. These cattle live in a set of fields where their water supply is to drink from a stream just before that stream vanishes down a swallow hole. There are many of these fascinating geo-morphological features round here due to the fractured limestone geology.

The swallow hole in question sits at one end of a shallow pool but the pool-bed and the bed of the stream feeding it are only water-proof because they form a trough and dish shape made of fine sediment. Water can leak off the sides of this bed into any number of similar holes and this was what was happening when the stream became blocked by a log-jam of branches, reed-mace, plastic barrels and empty feed sacks. The 'dam' raised the water level upstream of our friend's land and all the water diverted left and right out of the stream (and underground) before his cattle saw any of it. Poor thirsty creatures were standing in the drying mud lowing their protests.

At last my Archery paperwork arrives. No stopping me now!

The friend is not really up to scrambling about in streams pulling out debris, so my job was to get in there and try to free up the dam while at the same time packing rocks and some of the bits into the 'leaks' in the sides upstream; really trying to get the stream to disappear into the correct swallow hole, rather than the neighbour's ones. Well, it worked and I managed to free up the log jam. The water surged forwards into 'our' pond and the cattle got to drink some before it gurgled away underground. I checked it all again today and it was still free, so everybody is happy.

As Fed as Mice

As fed as mice? Our 3 remaining lambs
and one of the ewes (left).

I chug along here playing 'small holder' and beginning to feel nicely integrated when I am brought up short by a local expression which I have not met before. A local near-neighbour and friend, a beef farmer has called round on an unrelated errand and says to me that "Those sheep out there... they're as fed as mice!" I must have looked at him a bit shocked, thinking that he might be being rude about them ( - mice - small - underfed? ) because he looks at me a bit anxiously and hurries to reassure me that "You can tell when they are nearly ready - the grease (he says it "grace") starts to rise in their wool"

At least it is wearing its seat-belt. Another load of stock feed

Local lore has it that when lambs start to turn yellow with the lanolin starting to rise up through the fleece, they are fattened up nicely. Also, presumably, the local mice are very well fed, plump little things; no "sleekit timorous cowering" rodents this side of the Irish Sea.

Footie with a water melon....... naaah. We'll sniff it a bit then
ignore it. 

While I'm on stock, feeding of, I had read somewhere that it would be amusing to try the pigs out on a water melon. The local supermarket had them at a sensible price, so I picked one up. The theory was that the pigs had great fun playing a rather frustrating game of football while they worked out how to get into this unidentified, new food item. I grabbed the camera and went a-visiting.

Rip it to bits.

Well, my two know that when I arrive un-announced midday, this can sometimes mean an unscheduled food treat, but they had not read the book about the football game potential of water melons. I can only assume that an intact 'closed' water melon does not smell or taste at all interesting. Both pigs raced over to the thing, gave it a quick sniff and an exploratory nudge but then looked back at me as if to say "OK - funny green round item which we might look at later but where's the food?"

Schlluuurrrrrp.

They raced back to me and started the usual round of nuzzling my wellies, trying to mouth my ankles and feet, rubbing the backs of their heads and necks on my legs as if I was a scratching post. They are like puppies or cats only they weigh in excess of 50 kg a-piece, so there's a good chance they would trip you or knock you off balance. If I cannot make them cop that this is a fruit which might be nice inside, I have to 'dink' the thing gently on a fence post to make a crack in it which will leak juice, smell and taste.

This year's Buffs at 5 months.

Straight way then, of course, we are away. Both snouts start to bully the melon open and both sets of teeth start to rip and crunch, both tongues slurping delightedly at the sweet, juicy contents. The girls soon have the thing ripped in half and then chopped up completely and emptied of its red lusciousness. I stay with them about 20 minutes and when I return an while later with their proper evening meal I note that every scrap of water melon is gone, green skin and all. Great fun had by all even if there was no 'footie'.

Spot the gosling! The young one is getting increasingly hard
to tell apart from his parents, aunts and Dad.

Meanwhile the birds are also eating well and growing up fast. Our gosling is now very difficult to tell apart from the adults - he is fully feathered and has lost most of his gosling fluff. Because we had to cull out one of the 'aunts' this year when she lost the use of her legs, we have decided that the gosling can stay all the time 'he' does not mature into a gander and cause problems with George, our existing 'alpha'.

The Marans half dozen are feathering up well
at just over 3 weeks old.

This year's crop of Buff Orps are now 5 months old and have decided to be a rooster and 3 hens. 2 of the hens are, we think, pure Buff Orp (along with the rooster) but one is a darker bird with some dark (black) tail feathers. She may have some Sussex Ponte or "mini-Buff" in her - we have one remaining hybrid buff from gifted eggs a couple of years back. Possibly even some Hubbard. This is quite a handy situation because the roo might be able to be our replacement 'alpha' if the 'Colonel' goes sick again next year. This year, if you recall, he went sick and got himself beaten up by our then #2, "The Captain". This youngster has been named "The Corporal", sticking to the naming system. He's looking good so far.

As all these young birds come of age, of course, they start to think about getting hitched and finding out about the birds and the bees. The Corporal and some of the Hubbard roosters have all been amusing us by trying out a bit of 'Cock-a-Doodle-Doo' -ing. Liz amused me a couple of days back by describing one 'crow' as sounding as if the bird was doing it through a kazoo.

Purple loosestrife by the pond.

No such vocalising for the ducks who are also 5 months old - they seem to have gone straight to adulthood without passing 'Go' or collecting £200. I saw them all heading for the small pond in the orchard yesterday and then in a flurry of splashing and quacking, one mounted another while the 4 others raced round in excited circles flapping their wings. It was confusing and fast and I cannot now swear who jumped on whom, but they were definitely going for it despite their lack of obvious sexual differentiation (curly upper tail feathers etc).

This neatly stacked barn caught my eye when I was out 365-ing

That is enough for now. I need to head for the kitchen and gaze meaningfully at some food, see what can be done about supper. Have a good weekend.

Half Way There

New feature in the nearby village - this splendid stone unveiled
on Sunday.

I was posting last time about the Celtic Festival, 'Lughnasa', the start of the Harvest. This used to be held on the morning of August 1st but inevitably got hi-jacked by the Christian church and now moves with the 'last Sunday in July' and is famous locally for the huge (10,000+) "pilgrimage" hike up local Holy Mountain, Croagh Patrick or "The Reek" (764 m or 2507 feet in old money). Down in Kerry they have the popular 'Puck Fair' which has to do with crowning a wild goat caught for the occasion among all the more usual modern show/fete attractions.

Castlerea's brass band play us in. 

Here, you'll know that archery instructor Con, holds his Lughnasa Celtic Games but for our nearby village of Lough Glynn, a much more local and recent celebration. They chose that Sunday to unveil the new Centenary Garden, memorial to the signatories to the "Proclamation of the Republic". My UK friends may not know this piece of Irish history and, being no historian myself, I would hesitate to describe events here - if you would like to know more then go off and research Easter Rising or 1916 Ireland.

There was a good turn-out of local politicians. On the right is
one of our TDs (=MPs), Michael Fitzmaurice (Independent)

Very (and inadequately) briefly, a huge step in the journey of Ireland from British Colony to Independent State took place at Easter in 1916 when a small band of Irish men and women rose up under arms and took over some bits of Dublin, most famously the GPO building. From the steps in front of the GPO they proclaimed the new State and themselves as the 'provisional government'. Obviously there could be no hope of these few revolutionaries winning this one and the British Military crushed the uprising quickly enough including shelling the GPO with Howitzers.

The CE scheme which Liz helps to administer, gets the credit here

The 'rebels' surrendered and were carted off to jail. It is widely said that most of the country were not involved and thought that all the events far away in Dublin were just the acts of 'poets and dreamers'. Then, however, the Brits made a bad move and executed all 7 signatories to the proclamation plus 9 other leaders. Suddenly those "un-involved" folk were very much involved - these lads (and lasses) might be poets and dreamers but they are OUR poets and dreamers. A huge movement kicked off which put Ireland through dozens of events and stages, a War of Independence and a Civil War and the establishment of the new fledgling state in 1937. There, see! 100 years of very complex Irish history in 2 paragraphs. HUGE apologies to anyone reading this and shaking their heads in disgust and disbelief.

Chivers and Chip are getting curious

Anyway, what ever the case with the following events, this year is the Centenary of that Proclamation and our village did it proud. A marching band from Castlerea played it all in (and stayed around to play the hoisting of the tri-colour and the National Anthem), The MC made a short speech, the beautiful stone was unveiled, an aged Monseigneur did the blessing bit, 2 local school children read out the Proclamation itself, 2 of the 'Tidy Towns' committee ladies hoisted the flag and a local lass sung, very well and unaccompanied, popular local patriotic song "The Woodlands of Lough Glynn". An impressive turn-out lined both sides of the road (at least 200 including 5 local politicians) and clapped, cheered and sung the National Anthem appropriately, before the event broke up for photographs and a goodly spread of refreshments in a marquee set up at one end of the garden. We thoroughly enjoyed the event.

At the "smutty sausages" with Sue. 

Our other main event over that weekend was  a 'Sausage Fest' over at Sue and Rob's. They have a decent sized, powerful meat-grinder and sausage stuffing machine which we have been planning to use shared between us to make sausages and Sue had checked her freezer(s) and found a mountain of pork joints she had forgotten about.

We got quite good at it with time and produced
some quite professional looking 'links'.

If you have never done sausage making then you may not know what a rich vein of 'toilet' humour lurks there what with the need to keep everything wet and slippery, to carefully slide huge lengths of sausage skin up (we used natural gut, rather than the modern 'plastic' stuff) and then to draw full sausages off the end of the filler spout, squeezing the continuous bead of meat into individual sausage lengths. Well, there is if you have that 'naughty school boy' inside you trying to get out. We had a great laugh with it all, almost crying with laughter at some stages. Phnarr phnarr, tish tish. We got the job done though - pushing about 15-20 kg of mix through the two sizes of 'blade', making 2 different mixes (Cumberland and a Lincolnshire with added apple) and stuffing half of each into skins all in about 90 minutes. Teamwork.

Beef is the traditional Lughnasa fare.

We broke for a lovely lunch (Thanks, Sue and Rob!) of baked spuds, salad and (of course) both flavours of sausage, followed by 'Millionaire's Shortbread' and then had a masterclass in goat milking. I struggle with that, being unused to the small teats on a goat (compared to the good 4 hand fulls on a cow! ) but Rob assured us that they were as slow and rubbish as we now are originally. They used to take an hour for each of their 3 goats with the bucket getting sent flying by the animal's hoof, or Sue getting impatient with the goat. They now work as a team with one of them sat either side of the milkee doing just one teat each and taking no more than about 15 minutes per goat. The goats have also learned to love this process and stand co-operatively as long as there are a few bits of fresh carrot in their bucket of grub. They get about 9 litres from the 3 animals (total) per day.

365 Picture - a dog walker in Creevy townland.

But why my 'Half Way There' tag? In this house, July 31st may have been Lughnasa but for Liz and I it marked an important milestone on the 365 photographic project, our photographic record of the village's (and surroundings's) everyday life captured by local photographers. The project had launched on 1st Feb 2016, so 31st July was the half way point. It is going OK but it has, of course, had its ups and downs. Most importantly, we have not missed any days. We have a dozen or more contributors so we now have around 700 pictures. You can see some of these by clicking on the links to 365 "Year so far" from the village website (LisaculInfo.ie) where there are also a couple of thematic albums (Bio-diversity, the Village Play etc) up there on photo sharing website 'Flickr'. My role is as 'backstop' to make sure that there is at least one (preferably 3 plus) shot(s) for every calendar day, so I was delighted to pass the half way marker and start taking August pictures - it feels a bit like the run-in to the end, even though that (31st Jan 2017) is ages away and 700 more pictures.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

Yoiks! Not a howling success then, that 'hard' cheese. 

I have always tried 'on here' to report our story. like Cromwell's portrait, warts and all. Thankfully embarrassing howlers are infrequent and most readers' comments focus on the good stories with happy outcomes - "living the dream" and all that jazz. I think you can probably place my latest cheese making attempt and my first try at hard-ish cheese, firmly in the 'warts' camp. I have definitely missed a stage in the process and the lovely white, semi-hard cheese I hung up in a muslin bag to ripen started showing very dark through the cloth within a couple of weeks. I have, it seems, hung a lovely moist, nutritious chunk of fungus-food up at air temperature in a non-sterile bag in a non-sterile air flow. Spores must have been queueing up to come to this party. It seemed like a good idea at the time and I can't quite believe how stupid that sounds now. Back to square one - I will go read some more book and talk to our goat-milk supplier and (now) successful cheese-making mentor (Hi Sue! Congrats on your "promotion"!).

Ouch. Yellow arrow shows where the girl's sting went in. The
big red patch was the itchy, alarming result but I am still here
to tell the tale.

Then I was just off to enjoy a bit of archery on Sunday and took the opportunity to water the courgettes growing in the polytunnel. I leaned over my water tank wielding my watering can, then stood up and flexed my arm to lift the can just as a wasp zoomed up from the tank and through the crook of my elbow. Bang. I half-crushed Miss Wasp and she reacted as wasps do, zapping me before I could flick her off. She fell into the water and a less merciful soul would have wished her good luck.

I am currently feeding these lads for a neighbour. Grub's up.

I am silly enough that I rescued her with the spout of my watering can and, as far as I know, she lives to sting again. I was alone in the house at that stage and could only wait the few minutes to see if, like my Mother, I am allergic to wasp venom and there would be anaphyllactic shock dramatics, ambulances and paramedics. Fortunately, no. A tiny white pimple with a fan-shaped red patch below it was my only injury. It itched like fury and 'Nurse Lizzie' administered Piriton and a chilling 'Wasp-Eze' spray but I was able to go to archery and lash the required number of arrows down the hall as if nothing had happened.

Yes, I know we have a bowl each. but....

With Thursday came the piggies' 6-Month Birthday. Local tradition (all be it only 3 years old as an event) has it that the pigs get an extra meal that day at lunchtime which includes Guinness poured into their barley. It is very simple as kiddies' parties go; there's no jelly or crisps trodden into the carpet, no disappointing magician or balloon-animal guy, no party bags and no tears before bedtime, but we like it and so do the pigs. They can't believe their luck - an extra meal! And beer in it - which they have never tasted before (and won't again). I also got them some banana and cherry tomatoes (both on special offer from Lidl; I wonder if their marketing bods know that their special offers are the must-have fruit choices for 6 month old gilts party fodder?)

A Birthday back-scratch. All pigs love a good, hard,
dig-your-finger-nails-in, rake-over. Get that dandruff flying!

The Guinness was almost a story in itself. I'd bought 2 cans and was only going to give the 'babies' one between them, but I took the other can (the pigman's share?) in with me to make a better photo. I put it down while I messed with bowls and barley but Ross took a shine to this new object and promptly gave it a good chomp. She pierced the thin can with her teeth and set the whole thing off with a spray of beer like a fire extinguisher. Rather than waste it I glugged the rest into the bowls and the pigs got a can each.

Two very happy little piggies schlurrrrped up the beer-soaked mixture and the fruit with more gusto (and saliva) than normal and then did a good job of cleaning the ground around the bowls. No waste there, then. At that point they pretty much headed for the ark and a mission to sleep off the full bellies on the straw. Later I was barrowing in some shredded wood to 'repair' the poached up muddy bits and it was only at the 2nd barrow that two bleary eyed pigs woke up to investigate, shaking strands of straw from their noses as they wandered over.

Of course, we have now probably spoiled them rotten and they were 'asking' for more barley and beer at lunchtime today but I only gave them a couple of chopped up apples to shut them up. Over feeding was the mistake I made on the Tamworths in 2014, handing them food every time they squealed. That way madness lies (and pork chops where 30% of the weight is the skin and subcutaneous fat!). I am pleased to say that my pics of these ladies at 6 months, posted to Facebook yesterday, have been complimented by our breeder/supplier who says they look "perfect".

On that subject, too, on the day we went to collect these pigs, the breeder passed me the phone number of another customer of his, who is now a breeder of 'Oxford Sandy and Black' pigs only half an hour's drive away. I contacted that guy yesterday to see how that project was going and the man was delighted to talk to me and have me as a likely future buyer of his piglets along with our friends Sue and Rob, who are also looking to get back into the pig game with a couple of these. More on that next year, probably.

Happy Birthday, Somerville and Ross.

Work(s) in Progress

Those beautiful floors made of Indian limestone slabs and
skimmed skinny-size scaffold boards. 

This pic does not really do justice to the intense torquoise
colour of the hand made kitchen

I got so carried away with my bats in the last post, I completely omitted the biggest news story that week, the (near) completion of the Sligo house rebuild to the point where K-Dub and the family were able to finally move in. 'Near' here is just because there is a small amount of the inevitable de-snagging - touch of paint here, connect up something over there, plumb in the hob, that sort of thing. But we spent most of Thursday scrubbing those floors to within an inch of their lives so that K-Dub could spend the evening sealing the woodwork and lacquering the stone, leaving them overnight to dry.

The "we" here as with all these Sligo house posts, you will know by now to mentally add "Mainly K-Dub" to every time I use it - we built this, we moved that, we painted the other. I have helped, but I am only the part-time labour. All the skilled stuff and the lion's share of the man hours are definitely due to K-Dub himself and I know he is as proud as he has every right to be, of the house "we" have built, as are the ladies (who have also helped). I have moved endless amounts of rock, shoveled and swept tonnes of sawdust and wood shavings and run a gazillion 'mixes' through the cement mixer, but in the house itself I have laid at most half a dozen blocks (mine are above the front door!) and stuck a few stones in the exterior stone-masonry. I have 'held' some stuff while the boss screwed it into place and that kind of thing but, as I said, 'we' is definitely K-Dub for 99% of this house.

I love these stairs also built from skinny
scaffold boards. 

So on the Friday (22nd) the buildering paused and we turned our minds to humping furniture about. The family have all the 'stuff' from their old house stored in a single storey abandoned building over the road and in our spare room here. We got into a good rhythm with K-Dub and Charlotte pulling the stuff out of the store, me bringing it across the road to the new house and Carolyn blitzing it with cleaners and furniture polish before it could be assembled , the cushions added or it be moved into its final position. Finally K-Dub and I, 2-handed the heavy stuff (Welsh dresser etc) across before we started on boxes of kitchen gear, bags of bedding and all the other bits that anyone who moves house will know all too well.

K-Dub and Carolyn feeling like they are in. Young H (4) is there
too but has curled himself into the easy chair in such a way that
you'd miss him if you looked quickly.

The family were looking at a fairly mad weekend - no gentle getting moved in, unpacked and sorted out for them. K-Dub's best mate from Dublin was down on the Friday night (there might be drinking involved with that one) and then K-Dub's sister and her little boy are down from the Saturday round to the Thursday (28th). It all sounds a bit hectic.

'Medieval' tented round houses. 

Meanwhile, in archery land, I have been helping with a completely different 'build'. Instructor, 'Con', is a man of many talents. As well as a former army weapons trainer and now archery coach for us lot, he is an ace leather-worker and respected national expert in the construction of medieval footwear (for which he makes 'repro' copies for shows and museums) but is also a knowledgeable enthusiast on all things medieval, Celtic history, Druid-ing and the like.

Inside one of the round houses. 

At his place near Castlerea he has created the earth-banks for various forts and encampments and every year he hosts a "Celtic Lughnasa Games" (Lughnasa being a Celtic festival which happens at the end of July into August). Families can come, camp the nights, socialise and then try their hand at the 'taster sessions' on games like spear-throwing, axe-throwing, knife-throwing and, of course, archery all in a controlled and safe, strictly managed (and sober!) environment. For obvious reasons Con forbids the mixing of booze with dangerous sports; he also (maybe more tongue in cheek) forbids discussion on Religion or Politics while anyone is armed!  

We got the car through the NCT at the re-test stage.

In the centre of all this - the public and socialising areas - he creates a tented 'village' a bit like the space for a jousting tournament, with wooden framed (and skirted) round houses and stripey 'viewing tents', plus a big fire-pit for the evening storey-telling etc. That was our bit - a couple of Saturdays spent as volunteers banging in posts, fixing planking, erecting the middle post and the 'rafters' and then wrangling the tarpaulin canvas 'hat' over the whole thing. Con and co kept us supplied with breakfast, cups of tea and a bit of lunch and we all had a great deal of fun and happy banter throwing these buildings up and getting to know each other. Different but brilliant. I assume we will all reconvene after the event to pull it all down again but I have not heard of that yet. Good luck Con over the weekend. Hope the rain holds off and you get a good croud of reasonably well behaved 'students'.

Meanwhile we chug along through a very wet July, making progress in some other departments, too. The Hubbards continue to thrive and put on weight. At 70 days they are looking decidedly edible and we are looking forward to starting to 'harvest' the big ones (mainly the three roosters). The ducks are also definitely starting to look adult and, so Charlotte tells us, we should definitely start to consider a couple of them who are getting a lovely dark green 'Mallard-ish' sheen to their heads, as drakes.

Note dark green 'mallard-ish' sheen on the heads of the
two rear-most ducks here. Drakes, maybe?

Houdini Duck continued to escape every day through the sheep wire of the orchard and would go on the pond but as there was only one of him he seemed not to be doing much damage and the pond was starting to recover. Then H-D made a fatal mistake and showed one of the others how to get out and invited her to join him on the pond (or poss her/him/her). I have had to nip out today and invest in some 2-inch-hole, 2 foot tall chicken wire to run along these fences to stop the rot. I seem to have settled their hash for now.

One of the Hubbard roosters at 70 days

The very-baby Marans chicks are coming on well too and are getting well feathered despite being only 14 days old. They spend their days out in the rabbit run, all be it able to retreat into the nice, dry, warm, draught free 'bedroom' bit if they fancy a break from the fresh air. We bring them back indoors at night and they can huddle under their 'electric hen' warming plate but on these very warm nights we are looking forward to thinking about risking them outside. It won't be long (maybe 2 weeks?) before we scratch our collective chins and say.. "No...... I think they're done" and pack away the brooder boxes and the elctric hen. Our breeding season will be over. The year is flying by.

Roamin' in the Gloamin'

Leisler's (lesser noctule) bat. All three of these bat pics
are blagged off the Internet - just Google the species and
click on 'images'.

The young Hubbard poults are now penned in an area out towards our Western boundary and they have a fox proof coop of their own out in their run. This move has resulted in me having to "teach" them to go to bed inside the coop (not under it, you numpties!) and, being youthful, adolescent stop-outs, this is only possible as deepest dusk descends. It is pointless trying to round up 12 chickens and steer them through a dark pop-hole to "safety" before they are good and ready.

Our ever-useful bat detector box. 

So every evening, at that time when it looks much darker outdoors through the windows of a lit room, than it really is if you went out there, I find myself playing "chicken" with Mr Fox. The Hubbards are away from the house and a bit exposed were our brush-tailed chum to come exploring so, as it starts to look dark outside, I soon crack and have to go check on them to see if they might oblige me by going to bed. This has, in turn, led to me spending a lot more time outdoors in the gloaming than has recently been the case and I have rediscovered my fascination for bats.

The local bogs are a blanket of colour -
here is purple loosestrife and meadowsweet
in Currasallagh bog.

In Kent we were very keen on bats and could sit outside on our terrace any summer evening as the sun went down with the bat detector box standing on the table between the glasses of wine. We'd be chatting away till we were inevitably interupted by the patter, squelch, tick and 'raspberry' noises of bats passing over the garden(s) hunting their midges and mozzies.

We had lost the habit here for several reasons. First, dusk is an hour and a half later here in the West of Ireland than it is on the Greenwich Meridian, so we were already starting to think about bed by the time the bats came out. Second, those midges and mozzies - sitting outside in the half light here is not necessarily pleasant or restful. There also seemed to be far fewer bats, so we had several fruitless sits in conditions which would always have 'caught' you a bat or 6 in Kent. Also, in my head the bats we saw all seemed to be Pipistrelles.

These two move in just down the lane

Pips are perfectly good bats and users of bat-boxes like ours know there are "now" 2 species emitting their chirrups and squelches at 2 different frequencies. Normal Pips emit at around 45 kHz, and the 'new' Soprano Pips do their thing at 55 kHz. Obviously both those frequencies are well outside human hearing-range, but the bat box is there to 'Doppler' it all down pro-rata into human-audible noise. Google 'bat detector box' for details - they are around €120

There I was, then, wandering around in the half light whispering sweet lullabyes to a load of unco-operative white chickens when I found mysef being buzzed by a much bigger bat, obviously too big to be a pipistrelle. My brain was raking around the usual suspects like "Greater Horseshoe Bat" (just because it has the word 'greater' in its name) and Dubenton's bat because it happened to be cruising up and down above our big pond. But I had no idea whether we had GHBs in Ireland (we don't) and I was not sure whether you could pin Daubenton's down to species by bat-box frequency (you can't - he is one of the annoying 'mid-range' bats who shout at the same frequency as lots of other bats).

We may get this good at cheese making some day. This
pretend 'Parmesan' is from Sue and Rob

Off to the internet then to consult my 'tame' experts, Kent Wildlife Trust and then blog-regular, our own Mrs Silverwood who has been on ID training courses as part of the Irish bat-survey. I had forgotten that. She suggested Leisler's bat (aka the 'Lesser Noctule') Nyctalus leisleri. This is the biggest Irish bat (I now know) but one with which I have never crossed paths. Now I have and I am sure from my recent research that my bat was a Leisler's. This guy is reasonably easy to 'detect' as he emits at 20-30 kHz with nothing below 20. Naturally, I have been out each night since and not seen 'him' again but, heh, why would you expect co-operative bats when you are trying to guide unco-operative chickens to bed?