Meandering Min

St Patrick's Day goose egg

Regular readers may remember the fun and games we had last year with a wayward Sussex Ponte hen who decided to lay her daily egg away across the fields in a hedge. We named her Wandering Wendy (though we never really were able to tell our 5 Sussex girls apart) and we used to try to predict when she'd slink off and try to follow her or even get ahead of her by running down the lane. These 'Operation Chicken Watch' manouvres did eventually lead to us discovering her stash and being able to bring it home and she has since mended her ways. Today we got 10 eggs out of the 11 current hens (a new record!) and ALL were laid in sensible places, the rabbit 'Maternity Ward' hutch in the chicken house (currently empty of bunnies and left open), the official nest boxes or the Cuckoo Marans' out-station coop.

St Pat's Day Breakfast fry.

No, it is the Guinea Fowl hen, 'Min', who has today caused us a bit of concern. I saw, out of the corner of my eye when standing in the kitchen, a shaggy collie type dog sprint down the neighbouring 5-acre field past the gate. Naturally I went out to check 'we' were OK and whether there might be people in the lane who had let their dog get out of control. I later saw this dog skulking off down the lane westwards, still with no attendant humans, apparently sniffing at all the rubbish in the verge, so maybe lost and hungry, or dumped and scavenging. Returning to base we realised that we had the cock-bird Guinea Fowl 'Henry' but no sign of Min. We thought that Min was not missing due to the dog, as there had been no 'shouting' or trauma and Henry was wandering about happily with the chickens, very quiet and unconcerned. They make a devil of a racket if ever they get separated, even by just wandering to either side of a wall or bush, so we couldn't imagine he'd accept having his wife snatched in front of his eyes with such lack of drama.

Donkey cart, pig in cage, geese on roof
and goat and sheep tethered behind.

The Guineas are probably our most wandering of birds and we regularly see them at the boundaries, often nipping through into the 5 acre field, or down beyond the 'allotment' and orchard (to our North) and still, more worryingly, occasionally in the lane where they are, at least, very sensible and street-wise around the traffic. We also know that Guineas will often lay their eggs in a hedge and ignore all your nice tidy, hay filled and INDOOR boxes. As we are now in March, we therefore hoped that the missing Min was just a sneak off to lay an egg and that Henry had been told to go 'act natural' so as not to draw suspicion. I had a quick look round but could find no sign of Min though we did see Henry gazing under the caravan at one stage. We left them to it and an hour later we were both relieved to hear Min's 2-tone "buck wheat buck wheat" call as she had arrived back on site and was now summoning up Henry, who rapidly appeared. We have no real idea which direction she came from (this time) but Liz thinks it was from the front garden or lane. We wonder whether the silly girl has decided to lay her eggs (and then go broody?) down across the lane somewhere. We will have to do a bit of Operation Guinea Watch, see if we can track her hidey hole down.

No man's land.

(Other) Regular readers may recall that we are gradually working our way through the site here 'designing' bits of garden to suit the area but that (again) last year we realised that we had a bit called, jokingly by us, "The bit we don't talk about". It was between the hay barn and the orchard, and has now become the big pond, the paths and the raised beds edged with scaffold board. Well, now we have another one which keeps prodding at us. It is a small section between the bottom of the yard, the top of the gulley, 'the bit behind the wall' and the 'back of the goose house. It is an awkward sloped area which had also suffered the indignity of spoil from the yard being dumped on it during the build, so it is a lumpy bumpy mess of clay-wrapped rubble, rushes and poor drainage. We are now looking at it with sharp and critical expressions on our faces.

Busy Bees

You may have spotted the plethora of St Patrick's Parade pictures. We decided to do St Pat's properly this year, having the fried breakfast and attending the parade in nearby town Ballaghaderreen, followed by a Guinness or two in town (for me; the lovely and very generous Lizzie offered to drive) and then a supper of bacon, cabbage, mash, carrot and parsley sauce. The parade was quite fun, though small and very 'Balla' flavoured (by which I mean that all the local issues seemed to have a float to publicise their cause; 'Leave the By-Pass and shop locally!' and 'Stop the lines of pylons!', for example)

Bypass the Bypass

There were five or so marching bands from local schools etc who all seemed to be playing "Star of the County Down" as they passed us and a more grown up marching band (Ballagh Pipe and Drum) playing "Forty Shades of Green". There was a nice float from a petting zoo which featured a cart pulled by a donkey containing a cage housing a pig, geese on the roof and a sheep and a goat tethered behind. There were nursery groups (we loved the Busy Bees in their yellow and black stripes!), bikers, classic cars including a Cadillac with acres of 'hood' and 'trunk', tractors, tow trucks, an open-sided lorry, a racing car, fire engines and all manner of noisy and brightly dressed people. All seemed to be going well.

A good crowd of watchers

And so we retreated to Durkin's bar for a well earned Guinness or two and thence home for a lie down. Much later came our patriotic supper - 'bacon and cabbage'. These daughters of Steak Lady, though, they do not just do the veg and ingredients and whack them onto your plate snack-bar style. The cabbage (green), mash (white) and carrots (orange) get laid out onto the plate to represent the Irish national flag.

The 'bacon' was also a bit special and an eye opener to me. Liz had heard of a recipe in which the bacon joint is boiled for a while in, among other things, Coca Cola. Neither of us drink Coca cola and we would never normally have it around the house, but we had a couple of cans left from one of the visits last summer, so in it went to the Nigella Lawson recipe. It was only a mass-produced supermarket bacon joint but I have to admit that it was sweet and delicious cooked that way.

Finally, in a less well known aspect of 'Paddy's Day', it is the day by which you are 'meant' to have your seed potatoes in and your onion sets. I am happy to say that after the dry, warm week leading up to The Day, all my ground had a chance to dry out and I have been able to get 'out there' and plant my 3 nets (6 kg total) of Sarpo Mira (main crop), plus 2 kg each of Sharp's Express and Rocket (First Earlies) as well as my white, gold and red onion sets. The season has started.

Ward Round 25th.

Doctor's Ward Round Report 08:00 25th Jan. "The patient appears to have managed an almost full recovery and is bouncing around with the others like a mad thing this morning. We have walked the estate, she has poo'd and pee'd. She has eaten a hearty breakfast and the three have now been allowed upstairs to rest on Liz's bed (the morning treat). Poppy was maybe a little less sprightly going up the stairs, but she made it. I lifted her onto the bed. Today we buy short leads for pups before anyone goes out in the lane. The relief is immense". 

Thank You, Aoife (Rhymes with Deefer) the Vet for your prompt and skilled response. Poppy is on pain killers called Meloxidyl (Oral Suspension of 'Meloxicam') and may be floating around on a drug-induced fluffy cloud, but they seem to be working. I was thinking I'd have to leave her behind on walks for a couple of days and then dreading meeting the lady who she collided with in case the lady saw only 2 dogs and had a panic. I am now thinking that Poppy will not actually put up with being left behind, so I'll do a gentle, careful, recuperative walk with all three (on short leads). 

Meanwhile, in other species we have no more goose eggs yet but I am getting a fairly regular supply from the hen 'Lucy Long Drop' and from Wandering Wendy. Lucy Long Drop is our hen who gets caught short while still up on the 7 foot perch in the night and drops the egg onto the bedding of hay (and poo) below. They always survive this, cushioned by the hay and just need a quick wipe to remove any poo they may have picked up on impact. WW lays eggs which are slightly freckled with tiny blips of shell material which stand proud of the surface, just enough to feel them with your finger tips, as if the date code was written in braille. She mostly now lays hers in the nest boxes, but we do occasionally find them in the yard, on the front terrace, down the drive or in the cattle race. We think it's just the 2 girls in lay at present. Broody Betty has been off since her broody episode and the other chicken is just, we guess, fed up with all the rain and cold and is waiting for the humans to lay on some proper spring sunshine for her.

When is a broody hen not....

Into the start of August we finally get some decent weather and can start spending proper time in the garden. Wandering Wendy decides this is also a good time to go broody and is spending long sessions on her eggs in the nettle patch. On the 2nd she's out there from 0930 and still sitting there at the end of our day's gardening at 1630, so Mum and Dad decide she's now serious. We believe she's got a clutch of 6 eggs in there or maybe 7. There were 6 in there yesterday and she's been sitting all day. It comes on to rain a bit, so M+D decide to gather her and her eggs up and move them to the safety and dry of the calf house. Dad creates a 'broody box'  and lines it with new hay. Dad grabs WW and Mum the eggs and we all process back to the calf house. WW is not too happy with this disturbance and 'growls' at Dad in the special way broodies have. This is a GOOD SIGN.  WW is settled on her eggs after a bit of a battle of wills and we retreat quietly to await developments. Will she stay put?

Meanwhile, as I said, we all enjoy some good gardening time.  The two big old perished tractor tyres we inherited from TK Min get that cliché, white paint on the treads and are filled with soil from the inherited pile as planters. One gets a purple verbena which will be, we hope, mother of many a self-seed, the other a perennial wallflower. They will get other stuff, or course but they look quite nice sitting down by their gate pier.

We have almost written off the 'Secret Garden', Dad's first attempt at veg plot, done before we knew just how shaded that would get under the trees, but also before Mike-the-Cows ploughed the ground for the allotment. The beans and other stuff there in has grown weedy and thin and wasted away in the shadows, but the spuds, surprisingly have survived and avoided blight, so we have hopes that we may, after all, get a few tiddlers off the patch. Various new climbing roses appear along the hay barn wall and in the kitchen garden (New Dawn, Joseph's Coat, High Hopes, etc) and the tubs in the yard get love-in-a-mist, Lucifer crocosmia and a yellow potentilla.

By lock up time, Wandering Wendy has abandoned the eggs and made her way through the outbuilding, including climbing over an internal wall, and is with the other 'hins' all be it outside the wire. Dad gives up on her broodiness for the night and allows her back in to sleep with her sisters, The eggs get moved to the nest box in the coop, in case she should show an interest tomorrow (She doesn't). Dad's internet poultry discussion-group all seem to be saying that this weather has made a very bad year for anything going broody. These are very young 'hins'. Maybe next year. The eggs are gathered up and used up in the normal way, first checking each one in case of the start of baby chicks.

A long time coming....

Huge apology. It seems to have been an awfully long time since I last posted in here. The 28th, in fact so it's over 2 weeks. In my defence, we have been extremely busy, in part because of an invasion by the entire Silverwood tribe so that the day I'd normally have written to you we were tied up getting ready for that but it's still a rubbish level of service and I will accept any slaps on wrists which are coming.

Dad's mission for Monday 30th July was to head for Carrick on Shannon to buy wood for the door of the hot press (airing cupboard). C0S is hometown of Anna L, the lady from whom we bought the house, and who is fast becoming a firm friend. Actually we bought it from the Three Sisters, but Anna took the role of spokesman and it was with her that we seemed to be doing the negotiations and the business around buying the extra field to square off the property. Mum and Dad therefore decide to text Anna to say they are going to be in town, and arrange to meet Anna at Esquires coffee house for a coffee. From there they all adjourn back to Anna's so that M+D can have a look at the garden and admire the burgeoning crops of beans etc. Our own stuff, started late due to the house building and then held back by the rain, wet and chill, is all very backward and pathetic by comparison. "We will get there!", says Dad but we are all praying for some kind of a Summer to start. We give Anna a jar of our home made blackcurrant jam and she gives us a bag full of broad bean pods.

M+D nearly do not make the coffee appointment, when Wandering Wendy stays rather too long on the nest in the nettle patch and appears to be going broody but eventually, just as they've given up and got in the car, out she wanders and strolls round to the run asking to be let back into the run. In your own time, Wendy.... no rush.

Mornings are now  falling into the routine of pup and kittens. Dad and I are woken at 06:30 by the clamour from the kitchen and Dad gets up to release the gang into the backyard. While they chase about he gets a chance to mop up the inevitable pee and poo most of which is, admittedly, in the cat litter tray or on the pads and paper we have put down. This usually involves a bit of wiping floors with tissues held in one hand while batting away pup or kittens with the other. The kindergarten gets fed. Preparing the food is a bit interesting as the kitten Blue is quite good at climbing the whole height of a person, starting with a leap onto the back of a calf-muscle. Yowser!

With the kindergarten feeding happily, Dad can go release and feed chickens and let the rabbits out into their run. By now I have stretched and luxuriated enough and join him for the walk out to the bunnies. Back indoors we all settle down while Dad has a coffee, at which point I generally wander back upstairs and hop back onto the big bed with Mum, where no pups and kittens have yet ventured. Dad brings Mum a cup of tea at 0800 and the day proper begins when Mum comes down.

Wandering Wendy and Lucy Long-drop

Thursday 26^th

Hin3 does it again with the egg from 7 feet up stunt. Please don't let this become a habit. Mum and Dad like these eggs and they taste nothing like as nice when collided with poo-y sawdust and concrete.

A scorcher of a day here so what's more sensible, asks Dad, than to don a sweaty chain-saw hard-hat and thick kevlar glubs and go throw that petrol engine around again at the neighbour Una's? He is rewarded by more beautiful tea, scones and farmhouse kitchen. Lovely! Mum takes advantage of his absence and blitzes the floors. Kitten unspecified has managed to poo one end of the leather sofa and wee the other end. Happy, contented young animals will sleep in kitchen from now on. Living room is returned to 'best parlour' status and animals are barred.

The West Field gets mowed and Dad digs a third raised bed. Mum and Dad do lots of weeding in kitchen garden and thinning of young, but too close-planted carrots. There is lots of communing with happy animals in evening sunshine of yard. Dad even got the hand-held camcorder out to record but we promise not to inflict another cute kittens playing video to the millions on You-Tube. There is a SUPERB oxtail stew from Restaurant Feigh and so to bed.

27^th /28^th

Meanwhile, back in diary territory, we had a bimbly Friday. Dad was aching a bit from chain saw wielding Thursday, so he pottered and did tidy up jobs, thinned carrots, weeded, moved some corrugated iron sheeting and left-over concreting gravel and plastering sand off the "bit to the left of the hay-barn" (we have snappy titles for our bits of garden). 'Lucy Long-drop' did NOT, for once, lay her egg early morning from the 7 foot perch, so we know we got 100% productivity - 4 heggs from 4 hins. Go the Lovely Girls . All be it 'Wandering Wendy' still hops out of the run and nips off to our woods to sneak hers out privately. We have now 'busted' her and found where she's a-laying but we think she might be getting a clutch together to go broody on (5 so far) so we are sneakily date-marking them and returning them to the nest each day, leaving them be till she has, in her view, enough, whereupon she may start to sit, and will be gathered up, eggs and all and put in a broody-box somewhere safe from foxes and out of the rain, probably the calf house.

On the Saturday Dad is off up to Dublin to help Sparks in his attic. The alarm goes at 0530 and we have that usual flurry of feeding pup and kittens and mopping up any badly located poo and wee, then letting out bunnies and letting out and feeding chooks. Lucy Longdrop has, this morning, done another 7-foot up egg, so Dad has to clear that up, chuntering about stretching necks and the stock pot. He gets a good run up to Dublin (2 and a half hours on almost clear roads) and gets stuck in to 'slabbing' (cutting and fitting thermal panels and then plasterboard) in which we they, rather delightfully, joined by Dad’s old friend and Best Man, Billy T. He is a good friend but one of those you sadly let drift, till it's barely a Christmas Card a year and it’s always easier to make the effort some other time (all be it they have been chatting on Facebook for the last couple of months but never actually got together). Well, says Dad, they had a brilliant day working with Billy and chatting to him and it just highlights that you should never let good friends drift away in the first place. 

Sparks reimbursed Dad petrol this time in the form of a couple of chainsaw toys; a new chain/blade and a sharpener/grinder. Hours of fun trying to work out how to use that later. He has a nice run home into the sun always seeming to on a stretch of road just AFTER it had rained, so had all the spray and glare driving west into the setting sun, with his eyes already sore from the dust from the thermal panel 'foam'. He has a “beautiful shower” and lovely chickenny pasta provided by the welcoming Mum (love her!) and a glass of wine or two before we all settle down to watch a recording of that superb and uplifting Olympic Opening Ceremony. And so, via another try-to-open-your-eyes-under-water-in-the-sink eye wash, to bed.