Bo, Luke and Daisy

...in which I update you on a lot of exciting live-stock stuff including ewe 'Rosie' going sick and needing the vet, we collect this years pigs and the grey hen, 'Crate Lady' comes off the nest with 5 new babies. It's all go, for sure. We have left the slow-news days and short posts behind but I daren't give you too much detail on these stories or we'll all be here hours.

Towser tries to work out what flavour of dog this is.

The bottle feeding of the rejected ewe-lamb is going really well and she is thriving. She is also coming to love being indoors and socialising with the dogs, who have also now got used to her and we are not living on our nerves worried that they might turn on her and attack her. Indoor "sheep worrying" is definitely not needed. She is filling out and growing visibly before our eyes, so much so that she is leaving her "breast fed" brother behind, but more of that in a while.

Indoor sheep worrying?

I woke up to a worrying sight on Weds 14th, the new Mum, 'Rosie' standing miserably in her pen, facing away from me, showing no interest that breakfast might have arrived. She was also "scouring" (diarrhoea) badly and also passing some bloody remnants of after-birth from her vulva. A bucket of part-eaten food sat in the pen from the day before. All was not well. I needed to phone our wonderful vet, mentioned several times in this blog, "Aoife (rhymes with Deefer)". We tried taking her temperature (rectally) using our first aid kit mercury-in-glass and could not read it. We did not know then that 'normal' for a sheep is 38 to 39ºC, and our patient, who was at 41.5ºC pushed the mercury so far up the (human) thermometer that all you could see was mercury.

Baby-formula for lambs. The green tub is
"Survivor" brand colostrum. 

Armed with this knowledge, Aoife turned up in an impressive hurry. Hurry is her style, and when she talks to you it feels like a machine gun blast of information, symptoms and medicines to solve the thing. I find myself thinking "Whoa! I need to write this down". Sheep-folk here would generally do a lot of their own 'vetting', though possibly with 'prescription' meds which you can only get from the vet, so Aoife tends to do that day's injections but leaves you stuff for any treatments over the following days, making sure to show you how to do a subcuteneous jab or an intra-muscular one and that you are happy doing them.

Sheep meds and my scrappy notes of instruction.

To cut a long story short (well, shortER) our girl had a rake of issues. She was exhausted and still off her food from the labour and the lack of roughage (she was ignoring the hay) had stalled her rumen. She was also possibly in early stage liver-fluke attack. Her temperature was up, making her feel uncomfortable inside all that fleece. Aoife showed me that the inside of her eyelids was salmon pink rather than red, and that you could pull small tufts of fleece away with a little force - it was not falling away easily in hanks. Red eyes and fleece falling out are symptoms of advanced fluke infection.

The ram lamb gets a go at the formula milk.

She got injections of anti-biotics, a vitamin to stimulate the gut and anti-inflammatory to get her temperature down. I also had to take her off the 'crunch' (meusli with molasses) and put her on hay and water (plus small amounts of ivy) while she stopped scouring. Later that day and over the following days I had to mix up some 'by mouth' antibiotic from a sachet and do her two injections. If her temperature came down I needed to get her out on the grass. Under this regime (Thanks Aoife!) she perked up really quickly, got her appetite back and has stopped scouring. Everybody is out on the lawn during the days, even the bottle fed lass, who is now named 'Bábóg' (Irish for female baby or doll, say it 'bab' and the the og as in 'bogus').

First hatch for Crate Lady, our grey hen. 

My little comment about Bábóg out-performing her brother on the formula milk had us worrying today that her brother was looking a bit weedy, thin and 'meh'. We wondered whether Rosie's sickness might have also involved her drying up a bit and the lad not getting enough milk. Elizabeth took him in hand and tried him on a bit of Bábóg's bottled milk, which he sucked well enough, all be it nothing like as well as Bábóg. He will learn. We will offer him more 'little and often' over the next few days to supplement the real stuff. If Mum starts up again, he will presumably ignore the offered bottle.

Sorry about the rubbish photo - the grey hen comes off the nest
with 5 babies but into a small sunbeam in a dark shed. I will get
better pics when I can get her out into the sunshine.

The grey hen we call 'Crate Lady' came good at the end of the last post, with a first hatch on the Tuesday and she climbed off the nest on Thursday with 5 new babies. As she was famously down in a foot-deep crate, this meant me having to lift her down off her shelf and tilt the family carefully over  so that the little ones could get out of the crate - they were never going to be able to climb out. They are now all thriving and Crate Lady is bringing them out of the shed, our first new family of 2018.

Rather a lot of pig for one small car and two dodgy looking crates.
You may be able to see a snout at ground level in the left hand crate
down between the feet of the standing pig. 

Biggest news today was our collecting of this years piglets from our breeder in Boyle (Co. Roscommon). It was lovely to be able to go see our breeder (Adrian) again, see all his piglets and talk breeding and blood lines. I was slightly worried because he sells such big pigs. Last year's were 10 weeks old and we could barely fit 2 in the crate - I had asked for smaller, 8 weekers this year. However even though these were 8 and a half weeks old, the litter was only 3 pigs, so the babies had had so much milk that they were nearly as big as last year's. Adrian struggled to do that lift-them-by-the-back-legs; they must be 15-20 kgs already.

Landed safely.

We got them to the car (they got wheeled in a wheelie bin!) and loaded into my worryingly flimsy looking crates. I was definitely having second thoughts and it was an anxious journey home (at least to start with), as I could see in my rear view mirror, the two in the wire crate fidgeting about, trying to turn round, climbing over each other and sometimes pushing (inadvertently, I'm sure) against the sides and doors of the crate, looking like they might well burst the crate and I'd have loose pigs in the passenger seat.

Settling in and straight down to nose-based exploration, 

I knew that if I pressed on, a) I'd get home quicker and reduce the length of the risk and also b) pigs tend to be unhappy passengers and the movement and vibration of the car makes them go all quiet and subdued. I still sent Mrs C a text pleading with her to be ready in gloves and wellies as I might need to make an emergency landing!

No such worries in the end. The subdued pigs just lay in the bottoms of their crates, no more thoughts of bursting out, while we wheel-barrowed them round to their paddock and landed them outside the ark doorway. Another long story gets cut short here, as they are now settling in and looking very happy and they have even received 2 visitors. Everyone wants to see the new pigs.

Working on a suggestion from 'Sparks', I was trying to name them some combination of the characters from the old American TV comedy, "The Dukes of Hazzard" which has crooked and corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg. But these pigs are 2 'bonhams' (males) and one gilt (female), so Elizabeth decided they should be the main Dukes of Hazzard characters, cousins Bo, Luke and Daisy. I now need to make the name plate.

What ever the case, they are here and we are very happy with them. Only one resident is not happy. The black hen we call 'Beeblebrox' had been, unbeknownst to me, laying her eggs in the ark, walking in to the pen each day. She had accumulated a clutch of 13 eggs, so may have been about to go broody. I found the eggs when I went to bed down the pigs. Beeb was in there when we landed the pigs and shut the gate. She does not know how to fly out (apparently) so we had to release her after she'd been chased a few times by the playful newcomers. Her eggs come to the kitchen but we don't know the exact age of them, so they get labelled 'With Care'. That way we know not to use them as hard-boiled and to always open them into a empty bowl before adding them to baking or scrambling them in case they are off.

Small...... Far away. 

As I said, there is a lot going on. Neither of us will need anyone to sing us a lullaby tonight. We will sleep like new hatched chicks, belly-full lambs or travel-exhausted piglets.

Bouncing around like Tigger

Elizabeth heads off to work through the snow.

The plan for this morning was to lead the ewe, Lily, and the surviving lamb out to the front lawn for a look at some first grass, fresh air and exercise. By Day 3 the lamb is bouncing around like Tigger and looking very much like he needs more space than the 20-odd square feet of the hurdle pen. Mum is looking a bit fed up too with this mean old diet of hay and 'crunch' ( a mix of grains etc with a dash of molasses for energy ) even though I have brought in the odd, blown down 'branch' of ivy as greenery.

Please let me out. I want to run around on the grass. 

However, we woke up to a keen, frosty wind, an inch of snow on the grass and more wet snow falling, so the family had to stay indoors today, as they will, in fact, tomorrow with us being involved in a local funeral for most of the day. We will try again on Sunday, praying that the warming-up forecast will come to pass.

Lamb #1 gets some intensive care. 

But "Whoa!", I hear you cry, "Did you say 'surviving' lamb?" Yes, I am afraid I did, dear reader. We have a tragedy to report - one of Lily's twin lambs only just made it through the first 24 hours, fading and dying at around midday on the 2nd day. Readers of the previous post will know that this lamb was born outside - the pictures of her are in that post - and for this reason, and the weather, many have commented that she died of hypothermia (including vet Aoife (rhymes with Deefer)) but I am not so sure.

Last moments for the ewe lamb. 

The story goes something like this. The lamb was born outside onto wet ground in a bitter wind but was efficiently licked clean by Mum and was up and suckling in minutes (no more than 10) . Mum very soon passed the afterbirth so, thinking that this was all, we rescued the ewe and lamb into a shed within an hour of the first ewe being born.

Mum and 'Tigger'. The pen now has extra
draught-proofing. 

This is when the first sign of trouble was seen and both of us were a little concerned for the lamb - I put her down into the pen with Mum but she lay there on her side either shivering or spasm-ing. "That's not good" said Nurse Elizabeth. I picked her up and rubbed and massaged the baby for a while, seeming to help her so that she could stand OK and at that point we went inside for a cup of tea, thinking no more about it.

The 'Easter Island Man' gets a woolly hat.

My previous post shows that the p.m. went fine with the 2nd lamb being born and both then sharing the suckling and seen several times up and about or curled up together as twin lambs will in a 'yin and yang' pair. We all went off to bed thinking all was well and certainly I had no thoughts of the lambs suffering hypothermia.

By morning at first checks, it was clear that all was not well. The ewe lamb was lying flat on her 'tummy' like a frog (which no lamb normally does) and when I tickled her rump she pushed that up in the air with her back legs but her chest and chin stayed put. When I lifted her, her head flopped right round onto her shoulder and she seemed way too floppy, lethargic and sleepy. I started to vigorously massage her to try to get some oomph back into her, and texted Nurse Elizabeth that all was not well.

We took the baby indoors and had a morning of trying everything we knew to warm her plus phoning the vet and Mayo-Liz (our sheep supplier and guru). I whizzed out to buy colostrum formula-powder and a bottle and we tried dribbling some of that across her tongue but she didn't even try to swallow that. Occasionally she would seem to spasm some more, kicking out with all 4 feet as if trying to struggle upright, or she'd bleat loudly and give us a flash of hope. Sadly, these were just spasms and the general direction was downwards. We worked this out at about 11:45 and put her to die in peace, wrapped in a warm coat. She slipped away just after Mid-day. We think she was just not a do-er who probably would have died anyway. It was a sad and crappy day.

Sorry about the dark pic, but it was taken on the pig breeder's
phone. These are the first batch of 'possibly ours' piglets. 

Happily, that was the low point and things have been picking up ever since. The 2nd lamb, the ram, is thriving and risks being named 'Tigger' for his bouncy antics in the pen. In the afternoon of that same day, we received word from our pig breeder that he has started farrowing for this year's piglets, these from his first sow, 'Plum', who had had these three by that point. Since then Plum's sister, Iris has had 10 and 2 other sows in that group have also had 10 each. Lots of choice for mid March when we come to want our class of 2018.

Snowdrops starting to show themselves.

The garden, despite the snow and the sloppy, snow-melt mud, is showing good signs of spring. Daffs, tulips, snowdrops and Muscari are all bursting out of the ground and starting to bud up. Liz is back on the Drama Club rehearsals trail, with the usual Easter weekend (end of March) deadline looming.

10,000 Tweets. 

In the week, I saw that I have now passed the 10,000 tweets milestone on my Twitter account. I am not sure whether this is proof that I am officially become a boring old fart or whether it just means that I ought no longer to reply when asked about this social media that "Ah yeah, Twitter.... I don't really get on there much....". Truth is, I think, that I might be 'done' with my Facebook phase.

If your filing is getting a bit behind and the pending file getting
a bit thick, a cat will weigh it down nicely and it will not look
so neglected. 

FB is OK for proudly putting up a picture of your latest good news (lambs born, piglets bought, foods cooked, etc) and getting a load of old mates 'liking' it but it is not any place for interesting discussions. I think I am losing the love for it and moving on to Twitter just as many friends are moving on from Twitter to the newer, smart-phone-friendly systems like 'Instagram' where I have not yet been. Also not likely to while I am working on an old PC, rather than a smart phone.

One of the cats adds a final touch to this tray of chocolate
fudge brownies by walking across it. Thanks cat!

That, I think, is about the lot for this one. I will just close with a couple more pictures because (as usual), I have them.

May not have needed this many logs.

Bye now.

Baba Marta Day

Happy Baba Marta Day! This is a 'Martenitsi'

A long time ago in the early years of our togetherness, when we were a bit younger and fitter than now, we were mad keen on ski-ing and went for a few years to Borovets in Bulgaria to get at some real snow in between the dry-slope training sessions in the Medway Towns. Out there we got quite friendly with our instructor (Oggi) and eventually his wife (Zana) and family. We are still in touch with Zana (Hi Zana!) through social media and today we learned of a nice Bulgarian/Balkan tradition, Baba Marta Day, the 1st March. This is another pagan one unrelated to St David, where they celebrate the mythical figure of Baba Marta, or "Grandma March" who comes round bringing the end to a cold Winter and the start of Spring. People exchange and wear cords, wrist bands and little figurines made of red and white twine called 'martenitsi'. More of this later.

The last post brought you the arrival of our own latest signs of Spring, the birth of Polly's twins. These were both ram-lambs, one black and one white, so have been named Ebony and Ivory at the suggestion of one of our internet friends - (Thank you, Ianthe C). These last week's days have been sunny and dry, if a bit chilly, but that gave us a chance to put all 4 lambs onto the front lawn and get some lovely cute pictures. We did not expect the third ewe, Myfanwy to do anything just yet as she was not, from what I could see, 'bagging up' or showing any of our other 'pet' symptoms.

2 more twins, these for Myfanwy. We are now all lambed out.

Well, that just shows how much I know, doesn't it?! We chugged through leap year day half expecting the biggest news to come in human form, with two of our unmarried chums (no names no pack drill) hinting that the lady might do the Leap Year thing of proposing to her man but to no avail this time. Maybe in 2020, you guys? We woke up to a lovely surprise this morning at the end of a very wet, rainy night, the sight of our 3rd ewe, Myfanwy lying down contentedly at one end of the field shelter with a little lamb curled up next to her on either side.

My quick check told me that these were both females, both warm and dry and with nicely full bellies - the contentment was apparently due to an comfortable birth in the dry straw and some quick and efficient suckling of the vital early milk, colostrum. Clever girl(s). Myfanwy had presumably also passed the afterbirth because there was no sign of any hanging around her back end. The lambs are, once again, one dark and one light - we do not seem to be able to do 'proper' white lambs.

Hi-rise nesting for these two chooks, who are
currently laying their eggs 5 feet up my straw
stack. At least they are safe from sheep hooves

I quickly nipped back indoors to wake poor Lizzie with a rather early cup of tea and presented my news. She'd want to know but could then easily drift off back to sleep till a sensible time. How she suffers!

So, we now have 3 ewes and 3 sets of twins - two sets of ewes and one of ram lambs. 9 sheep. It is beginning to look like a flock. We are fortunate that it is not any bigger as we are decidedly short of grass so we are having to supplement feed with the lamb 'crunch' (a mix of grains and molasses) and hay. This has led us to a decision to bring the whole operation round a few months LATER next winter. We will not get the ram in till November, so that we can lamb in April/May rather than Feb/March, by which time, we hope, the grass will have started to move.

Mini-horse Bob

In honour of the day, these two babies have been named Baba and Marta (Baba is the lighter one). My sheep news is, though, not all as happy or good. Remember the small infection which Lily 'caught' after her lambing due, we think, to some small ammount of retained afterbirth? We thought we had cured it with various injections from Vet Aoife and Lily had been as right as rain since, always baa-ing the loudest for food and leading the charge.

Good vigorous ferment still going in the 'hedgerow' wine.

Well this morning she was back in the Doldrums, refusing breakfast and looking downright miserable. She walked OK to the front lawn field with her thriving babies but then spent the day standing, shifting her weight from foot to foot and looking a bit hunched up and not grazing. There was nothing for it but to get back onto the vet who confirmed that Lily still apparently has a bit of that infection and had better receive 2 more doses of the antibiotic, one today and one Friday. Although these are intra-muscular, I now do these myself after Aoife showed me how, so she only has to leave the meds out for me and I collect them.

 (Half) Leg of Dylan

So, this evening, we had a bit of a marathon job shepherding; by our own standards, obviously, not compared to the 'real' shepherds. The weather is forecast to be a bit wild, windy, wet and cold. We had to gather Myfanwy and the new babies up into the hurdle-pen and Polly and her recent twins into the Tígín. All 4 of those babies are still too small to be safe outside. Lily's babies are over 2 weeks old and should, normally, be outside now but with Lily being sick and needing a jab, it was easier to round her up too into the Tígín where Liz could get a firm hold on her shoulders while I stuck a needle into her thigh muscle. I will keep you posted as to how these various dramas play out.

Six inches of good compost goes over the potatoes in the
poly-tunnel raised beds. Feed the soil and the soil will.....

Meanwhile in other news we are suddenly over-run with eggs. We went through early Feb with the girls laying sometimes 1 or two, even no eggs a day. Our poorest week was only 7 eggs. Lots of different chickens, but only one egg each that week. Suddenly everybody came back into lay all at once, often laying in bizarre new places. Some lay on top of a stack of straw bales 5 feet up, one in the pig ark (currently Billy goat house), some in straw down under my tool boxes and workbench and one in the rabbit 'Maternity Unit' (as was).

A batch of 'hedgerow' wine we started was coming up as possibly finished ferment after 3 weeks but must have been chilled because although it is fermenting vigorously now, it is still way too full of sugar to think about 'killing' (stabilizing) it. We will leave that for a few more weeks before we check again. Liz has been asked to help out with another village 'project' but I have been sworn to secrecy as the calling may or may not be the result of someone possibly dropping out. More on this when we know more and when the press 'gag' is lifted.

I have now made contact with the local archery club (Roscommon Archers) and have signed up for a ten week beginner's training course. I am very much looking forward to it, my appetite whetted by pictures in Facebook of the Silverwoods getting on so well down in their club that they have all been out taking part in an outdoor competition and, in some case, have come back with medals for class wins and thirds. More on this, too, when it happens.

Ah well, wish Lily a 'get well soon' and happy thriving growth to all the little kindergarten members. Health too, to the Mums.

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

Some lovely heads of calabrese coming off the 'allotment'

Poor aul' Pirate the Cat seems to be taking a step back for every 2 forward at present. In general he's improving; he's getting good food into his system at present, so he's putting on good weight and we can no longer feel each individual vertebra or rib, his skin and fur are coming on a treat and we know he has been wormed, spayed and systemically de-flea'd. But just when he was nearly over the last bout of vet treatments, his empty eye socket popped open as the dis-solvable stitches parted company and he had to be taken back today for a 2nd attempt. Not only is the (lack of) eye a bit spooky to look at, it is basically an open wound which would for ever be picking up dirt and infection, so it needs stitching up closed; all his 'insides' should be inside and not exposed to the open air.

'Blue Salad' and 'Sharp's Express' salad potatoes

Hence the lad was back down to Aoife the Vet today for a 2nd attempt and, reading between the lines of what she was telling us, I think that this time she has not only used tougher (but still dis-solvable) stitches, but she has also created shallow 'wounds' in the top and bottom eyelid, so that they will bind together and heal over as a pair, better, closed. Sorry if you're just having your tea! So the poor old fella was back to us at 5 o'clock tonight all groggy from the sedative, ravenous from the fasting and grubby and filthy from the various anti-septic 'goo's and medical fluids. You had to pity him. He was trying to eat chunks of cat food from the bowl but not managing it, so he took to hooking chunks out of the bowl with a paw. He could not seem to bite them from his paw in his addled state, so he'd flick his paw and send the chunk flying off across the caravan and lose it. Liz decided to try him on a feline version of 'egg flip', a whole egg whizzed up with whipping cream! He scarfed two of these in quick succession. We have now put him to bed in the caravan so that he can give in to the battle for sleep and recover over night.

A batch of fencing materials delivered today.

Wrapped around our runs to and from the vet, we have played host to a knitting chum of Liz's who had been playing host in her turn to 4 grand-children down from Dublin for a week. She was looking for ways to entertain the kids and had accepted Liz's invitation to bring them to eat cakes, drink drinks and look at the animals, so we were in 'petting zoo' mode again - the children enjoyed feeding apples to pigs, stroking bunnies, talking to geese and goslings, quietly watching our broody hen and fussing the excited dogs. We are happy to be of service.

Garden flowers for the table

Also slotted in to this eventful day was the delivery by our fencing supplier of the 'posh' wood for our fence around the front lawn by Sligo firm, McHale Sawmills. In all of our build and heavy work we have never had such a skilled and careful lorry driver. We have had the lawn edges 'trodden down', gate piers leant upon and all manner of 31-point turns and struggles, where you are tempted to offer to drive the man's lorry for him. This guy was into the drive in a whisker and up into unloading position without hitting anything. Then when it came to backing up round a 90 degree turn through another gate way he was round in no time with only one 'bite' at it and off down the drive forwards to swing easily out of the gate onto the lane. "You've played that game before!" I commented. He smiled. "Yes, a few times" he smiled as he waved me away. Good to watch.

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.