Cull-a-Cock Curry

Some lovely sunsets. This taken by a friend on the Facebook
"Ballaghaderreen" account yesterday and used with permission.

Rather pleasingly our 2018 which started out with that long, cold wet Spring where no grass grew and we were all feeding our livestock with hay and supplements, has now given us a lovely Autumn. You will recall we also had that humdinger of a heat wave in May/June so it has been a bit of a weird year for the weather.

Full moon - pic blagged off Internet

So the last few weeks have featured no wind, clear skies (lovely and blue by day, big bright moons at night including the 'Beaver Moon' full moon on 24th this month), some light frosts and minor freezing of the big pond. More importantly there has been no rain so we are nice and dry and mud-less. A lot of the beef animals are still outside on the grass, to the delight of the local beef-men. Indoor housing means more work and more slurry to spread from the tanks under "slatted houses". After their tricky Spring, that will come as a lovely relief.

Blue sky, green grass, white geese and a
rather black-ice frozen pond.

For us,with our sheep, it is already the 26th Nov, less than a month to Christmas and Elizabeth is only today having to buy the extras for the ladies; a bucket of their 'salt lick' mineral with molasses and a bag of their "crunch" (mixed grains, again with molasses). These give them plenty of energy, minerals and trace elements to keep their bones, feet and guts healthy as the grass starts to be exhausted. It is especially important if they are pregnant but Friends of the Blog will know that we are not 'doing' lambs this Winter, so that, at least is not a concern.

Frozen pond. Good news for Brer Fox, bad news for ducks.

The cold, dry sunshine has also been a good opportunity for the 'staff' to polish off a few jobs out of doors (we could have made good use of a couple of last Help-X-ers after all!). The Woman of the House decided to tackle the privet hedge out front.

Elizabeth goes 2 feet back into the hedge prior to taking the
top out of it down to about her shoulder height. The daffs in the
verge will love it and we will be able to see out as we nose the
car into the laneway.

This hedge had grown thick (4'?) and tall (8'?) and since we had been here it had only been shaped/trimmed by any passing Council contractors we could flag down and then picked at by us around the gateway 'splay' when we couldn't see to poke the car's nose out of the driveway. Elizabeth decided to "go for it" carving 2-3 feet back into the  front of it, exposing an old cutting-level at about her shoulder height. She will then cut it off at that height - we will be able to see into the windows of passing cars.

The downside of this, of course, is the MOUNTAIN of prunings that have to be coped with, gathered from the verge and disposed of but this is not, in fact a big problem. Just beyond where the lady is standing in the picture is another gateway - that through to our "Primrose Path". Nip in there and on your right is a cleared patch of ground under the trees (scene of much nettle pulling by Help-X-ers (and myself) this Summer). From here the prunings (after the leaves have fallen) can be tossed over the sheep fence and easily dragged across to the fire-pile ready for Bonfire Night (23rd June in Ireland).

Latest 'time-suck' for the heart patient, Mahjongg (solitaire)

Of course, I am chatting away here describing all this hard work as if I am involved. I can only sit and watch, longing to be fit enough again to help, lobbing in the odd "helpful" suggestion (Sorry, Boss!) and killing time with Mahjongg, Card Patience or some such. This is all Elizabeth's doing at the moment and I am extremely grateful. The daffs in the verge will definitely enjoy the extra light and people (including us, of course) will be able to see over the hedge even from normal-height saloon cars. I was holding off the job while we thought about buying a proper power-tool but Mrs C did this with normal secateurs and loppers. Fair play.

Sometimes just a tomato soup and tea
will do.

The frost and ice have unfortunately brought Brer Fox back out scenting around for sources of food other than the mice which are presumably now retreating under ground. We had our first strike since 3rd Sept. It was broad daylight (they all are!) and I was home alone but wide awake. The Guinea Fowl kicked off and I let the dogs out. They went fast a furious making that bee-line for the hole in the hedge through to the 5-acre field, that tells us that this is probably no false alarm. They were gone a good 20 minutes, so presumably chased the scent a good distance. I went to check the birds and found, sadly, only 5 ducks. A female (inevitably) was missing. Why can't they take the drakes?

I guess that the ducks, which have been used to racing out to the middle of the pond for safety whenever Brer Fox's nose appears through the hedge, were snookered this time by the pond-ice and may have been confused and indecisive, long enough, for the fox to nip in and snatch one. Ah well. Down side of full free range. I read subsequently that mine was not the only "first-in-a-long-while" fox strike that day. An Internet friend who small-holders in Derbyshire had a strike and our friends Sue and Rob over by Ballenagare had a turkey-stag taken. It's that time of year.

Processing the roosters

And talking time of year, as we run into Christmas, all those Spring-hatch baby chickens we were enjoying are now reaching the 21 week stage, which is 'Point of Lay' if you are a female, but time to issue those first Cock-a-doodle-doo calls and start bothering the hens if you are a 'bloke'. We hatched about 30 babies this year so the Law of Averages says we are looking at 15 probably roosters - way too many! These guys need culling out, or you end up with cock-fights and the hens getting too harassed. I watched one poor hen get 'trodden' by 3 roos in quick succession. She did not get up off the ground after #3 for a good 5 minutes, till #4 grabbed the back of her neck and tried to climb on. It's not pretty and is horrible to see done to your gentle, lovely ladies.

We chose 4 likely 'roo's and offed them on Thursday. It seems a shame - they are gorgeous birds, bright of eye, clean of leg and beautifully feathered, with their gold flecking flashing in the sun and their black tails glowing iridescent green (think magpie or head of mallard duck). They have had a good, free-range life and theirs was a quick, stress-free, painless respectful end. They are delicious and still tender - only 6 months old, so no need to go down the slow-cooker, coq-au-vin or "cull-a-cock-curry" routes; normal cooking is fine.

We are always a bit sad by how "scrawny" these big magnificent roosters turn out when plucked - you are pulling a good 2" deep 'pile' of feathers off legs, breast and cape and these are only range-y young adolescents of 'multi-purpose' breeding. (Dung heap specials, basically!)  We are more used to the 'designer' 'Hubbard' meat birds which will go 4 kg carcasses even at 120 days age but our source of Hubbards dried up a couple of years ago, so we are now more than happy with these 2 kg 'babies'.

That, I suspect, is enough for this post. Look after yourselves, till next time.