I'm afraid this is the last post on this account. Matt died suddenly on Friday 7th December of a massive heart attack. Since then, there has been an outpouring of love and affection for him on Facebook, Twitter, and in person, from our family and friends and the wider community in which we now live.
Thank you for following Matt's adventures in Kent and, latterly, his adventures in smallholding. If you enjoyed them half as much as he did, you are very fortunate.
Tuesday, 11 December 2018
Thursday, 6 December 2018
Where there is Livestock there is Dead Stock
Gandalf's end. The stock pot. |
"All the farm’s a stage,
And all the birds and animals merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances......."
New Sheriff in town..... "Lucky" |
This made us smile - a gift of 6 cushions depicting cats on bikes. |
Plenty fruit in the diet now. |
The fruit for the Christmas cake sits overnight steeping in an odd mix of booze. Mum-in-Law had had a de-clutter of the dog-ends from her drinks cabinet from last year. |
Village Christmas Party |
Lisacul 2019 Calendar. |
https://www.facebook.com/pg/lisacultoday/posts/?ref=notif
Getting back into the sourdough making. |
We are both impressed by this tin that came around latest gin. We think that, with the (plastic) lid off, it will make a nice Christmas candle holder. |
Enough for this one. Till the next time. Good luck now.
Labels:
365,
calendar,
Cat Basket Lady,
Gandalf the Grey,
Lisacul,
Lucky,
Marans,
Mayo-Liz,
Memorial Hall,
Shakespeare,
sympathy
Monday, 26 November 2018
Cull-a-Cock Curry
Some lovely sunsets. This taken by a friend on the Facebook "Ballaghaderreen" account yesterday and used with permission. |
Full moon - pic blagged off Internet |
Blue sky, green grass, white geese and a rather black-ice frozen pond. |
Frozen pond. Good news for Brer Fox, bad news for ducks. |
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) |
Sometimes just a tomato soup and tea will do. |
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 |
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.
Labels:
Beaver Moon,
Bellanagare,
Derbyshire,
hay,
hedge,
loppers,
mahjongg,
mineral bucket,
molasses,
Sunset,
supplements
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
A Face in the Shadows?
The picture in question |
This shows all the café elements crowding the paving in front of a row of cafés in a tree lined avenue; people sit with drinks or food, waiters in black waistcoats squeeze between tables taking orders or delivering trays of food. A fiddle player and an accordionist stand in the road, presumably serenading the customers. Two big white flat-cone parasols shade a group of customers and the mature trees cast a flecky shade on the buildings. I imagine that possibly this is the Bois de Boulogne or some leafy part of Paris but I also think that the picture is generic and modern, rather than a classic artwork. I can see no signature and a brief hunt around in Pinterest and on Wiki has not shown our picture up as a famous Monet, Manet or Renoir. I am happy to be corrected on that - my knowledge of the history of art is very sketchy.
Can you see the face? |
Get too close and the 'face' dissolves back into a mess of leaves and white wall. |
First frozen windscreen of 2018/9 winter |
Back in the duck egg game. I think these are being laid by Mumma-duck back on line, but it is possible that one of the female 'babies' has now reached point of lay. White duck egg is on right. |
Almost complete restored chair. Just needs a bit more waxing on the woodwork |
This piece needed all manner of work, so has been an excellent subject for applying the new skills and techniques. All the soft furnishings, webbing and detail had to be carefully removed (noting carefully how they were so that she could rebuild it!). The frame was also starting to sag backwards so that the legs were no longer vertical and the sides were going diamond shaped; that needed straightening and glue-ing.
30+ years of old varnish and dirt had to be stripped and sanded away from the wood so that it could be built back up with our home-grown beeswax polish. The cushion covers were dumped and new ones made using the sewing machine here. The back padding was completely rebuilt as new and I can vouch for its comfort and support. As the classes ended, the chair has now come home, though it still needs more polishing but it is superb and Elizabeth is (and should be) very proud of it. No pressure 'boss' for the 2nd chair - this one's partner!
Hey Dad! Sun's going down. Surely supper time! |
Labels:
beeswax,
Bois de Boulogne,
café society,
David,
French art,
impressionists,
Michelangelo,
Monet,
Paris,
Theo,
Wiki
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Gallows Humour...(If I'm Spared)
There were some lovely poppy pictures among the blizzard of Armistice Day posts on Social Media. This is not my pic, just one I blagged off the Internet. |
Love some of the pictures that Windows uses on log in screens. |
Larch down by the main gate. It's deciduous but only does this thin yellow for Autumn colour. |
Oak leaves. |
Our new patch of forestry to the north of us, down in the bog |
Geese near the front drive. |
Beech lit by the evening sun. |
Rooster pot-au-feu under construction. |
Horse Chestnut sticky-bud. Excellent source of "propolis" for the hive bees. |
That 'hen in question' has developed int a fine rooster. Bad move. |
Finally we had a bit of a disappointment (but no damage done). Regular readers will recall our enjoyment of one of our best ever Help-X volunteers, Laura who mowed the place to within an inch of its life when she was here in May. She was delightful and were sorry to see her go.We told her she'd be welcome back any time, working or just resting. Well, last week we got an e-mail from her saying she was still "out there" Help-X-ing but had a problem with a booking in Portugal and asking might she swing by here for a week. Of course, we said and started preparing for her arrival. But then she found a farm in the south of France, much closer to her home and didn't need us after all. Ah well.
Another 'not mine' pic, blagged off the Internet. |
Thursday, 8 November 2018
War Room
Another not-really-a-post for now (sorry, no pictures) but I thought my family-followers might welcome a health/medical update and a few random jottings. If you have come on here looking for smallholder adventures, then I am sorry to disappoint you again. That version of Deefer-Dawg may well be back but for now she is still on holidays.
We have been in for two out-patients 'follow-up' visits this week, so I have some medical updates though, sadly, not yet that 'first prize' of a date for the heart surgery up in Dublin. That is the 'big one', the one that I hope will finally sort this breathlessness, fluid accumulation and congestive, ticklish cough and allow me to finally bounce back to full health and ability to do useful work round here. Meanwhile, I am still so short of breath that a walk down to the front gate to check the egg honesty box has me pausing at the lane to get my breath back. I can just about do the livestock rounds morning and evening (feed poultry, let them in/out) and I am OK getting coal and kindling from the carport in the fire bucket and getting the home fire(s) burning. That, though, is about the limit. Pathetic and frustrating.
So.... these out-patient appointments, then, one with the main 'heart' guy, the other with the respiratory lady. Regular readers may recall that previous visits in August involved the TOE (Trans-oesophageal echo-cardiogram) tube down the throat job which, in my case, necessitated a total knock-out sedative. That gave the docs the best ever pictures of the state of my heart damage including one important change.
Up to then 'we' had been talking about a replacement Mitral valve, either mechanical or pig spare-part. This is now no longer thought to be the case because my damage is a tear in one of the 'cusps' of the valve and can be fixed (they tell me) by sewing the tear, make do-and-mend style. The doctor here is, I know, in contact with the surgical team at St James's Hospital in Dublin (they don't do the surgery out West here, only the stents etc) so we are all just waiting on a date. Weeks? Months, After Christmas? Watch this space for updates.
The respiratory team, you may recall, had me in the 'Tardis' booth for some breathing tests (50% normal volume, if I remember right, and 63% flow) but also gave me a sleep monitor pack for the one night, checking for sleep apnoea, snoring and other breathing problems. I saw a more junior member of the team this time but I noticed that there were some comments written on the notes by boss-lady. I may not have mentioned in here that the night chosen for the sleep-pack was not a good one for the coughing - there is a bit of a pattern here where too much walking around hospital corridors seems to stir up the congestive fluids and ensures I have a bad night.
I'd had to hand back the sleep-pack with a little hand written note in it explaining to the technician that she should ignore the 10 pm to 2 am period as the data would be rubbish;just go with the 2 am to 8 am bit where I slept like a log. They obviously didn't need this as their print outs show in great detail where I was asleep, with every breath a little stroke of the 'pen', and they can even tell whether I was sleeping on my left or right side, my back or my front.
In those 6 hours, apparently, I did not snore and nor did I have any full, stop-breathing, apnoea episodes but I did have a couple of what they call "sub-apnoea events", where your breathing slows right down but does not quite stop. However, when we discussed these and the coughing all agreed that it was not worth trying to 'cure' them while my heart valve is still leaking. Much more sensible to sort the valve, stop the back-pressure and congestion, get me into a steady state (I do pray that that means OFF the liquid intake restrictions and the diuretics!) and then look at it all again from the sleep-pack stage. Then we will know whether we still have a problem and can address that.
So we shook hands and said our good byes and promised to meet up again in 4 months which we all hope will be AFTER the heart op. We were half way down the corridor to the exit and suddenly heard our names being called - a nurse had been sent to chase us with one last easy option. My sub apnoea events, apparently, all show up when I am sleeping on my left side, so if I can sleep propped the other way (there are long-ways pillows, apparently) it might improve my sleeping comfort and be a "quick fix". I am happy to give it a try (I did last night) but my sleeping style seems to involve a lot of tossing and turning and I wake up every which way.
Finally, the non-medical news. The calendar eventually clicked round to the much heralded and eagerly awaited US mid-terms. Elizabeth, in particular LOVES her US politics and had been main-lining podcasts on the various 'races' House, Senate, State Governors and so on. That night was always going to be an all night vigil for her. She sets herself up a little "War Room" in the sitting room with the open fire lit, with a supply of blankets for her feet and the sofa equipped with lap-top and the i-phone, chocolate 'Mikado' biscuits and fancy crisps, plus tea on tap.
This is a US election and count, so she also had a little plan of the time lines for GMT (our local time, obviously) but also the "Eastern Time" equivalents in which the live feeds and pod casters tend to report. Polls close for some states at 7 pm (ET) which is midnight here, for example. Most states had closed by 23:00 (ET) which is 04:00 GMT. Hawaii and Alaska come along at 05:00 GMT but by then enough 'mainland' stuff has happened that our all-nighter has a clear picture of 'how it went', so she leaves me a little summary in case any interested parties should call and goes off to catch up on some sleep with a request to be awoken with tea at midday. History will show that the Democrats took back the house and gained some good Governorships, plus got back one Nancy Pelosi as Leader of the House, but lost ground in the Senate.
And there you have it till next time.
We have been in for two out-patients 'follow-up' visits this week, so I have some medical updates though, sadly, not yet that 'first prize' of a date for the heart surgery up in Dublin. That is the 'big one', the one that I hope will finally sort this breathlessness, fluid accumulation and congestive, ticklish cough and allow me to finally bounce back to full health and ability to do useful work round here. Meanwhile, I am still so short of breath that a walk down to the front gate to check the egg honesty box has me pausing at the lane to get my breath back. I can just about do the livestock rounds morning and evening (feed poultry, let them in/out) and I am OK getting coal and kindling from the carport in the fire bucket and getting the home fire(s) burning. That, though, is about the limit. Pathetic and frustrating.
So.... these out-patient appointments, then, one with the main 'heart' guy, the other with the respiratory lady. Regular readers may recall that previous visits in August involved the TOE (Trans-oesophageal echo-cardiogram) tube down the throat job which, in my case, necessitated a total knock-out sedative. That gave the docs the best ever pictures of the state of my heart damage including one important change.
Up to then 'we' had been talking about a replacement Mitral valve, either mechanical or pig spare-part. This is now no longer thought to be the case because my damage is a tear in one of the 'cusps' of the valve and can be fixed (they tell me) by sewing the tear, make do-and-mend style. The doctor here is, I know, in contact with the surgical team at St James's Hospital in Dublin (they don't do the surgery out West here, only the stents etc) so we are all just waiting on a date. Weeks? Months, After Christmas? Watch this space for updates.
The respiratory team, you may recall, had me in the 'Tardis' booth for some breathing tests (50% normal volume, if I remember right, and 63% flow) but also gave me a sleep monitor pack for the one night, checking for sleep apnoea, snoring and other breathing problems. I saw a more junior member of the team this time but I noticed that there were some comments written on the notes by boss-lady. I may not have mentioned in here that the night chosen for the sleep-pack was not a good one for the coughing - there is a bit of a pattern here where too much walking around hospital corridors seems to stir up the congestive fluids and ensures I have a bad night.
I'd had to hand back the sleep-pack with a little hand written note in it explaining to the technician that she should ignore the 10 pm to 2 am period as the data would be rubbish;just go with the 2 am to 8 am bit where I slept like a log. They obviously didn't need this as their print outs show in great detail where I was asleep, with every breath a little stroke of the 'pen', and they can even tell whether I was sleeping on my left or right side, my back or my front.
In those 6 hours, apparently, I did not snore and nor did I have any full, stop-breathing, apnoea episodes but I did have a couple of what they call "sub-apnoea events", where your breathing slows right down but does not quite stop. However, when we discussed these and the coughing all agreed that it was not worth trying to 'cure' them while my heart valve is still leaking. Much more sensible to sort the valve, stop the back-pressure and congestion, get me into a steady state (I do pray that that means OFF the liquid intake restrictions and the diuretics!) and then look at it all again from the sleep-pack stage. Then we will know whether we still have a problem and can address that.
So we shook hands and said our good byes and promised to meet up again in 4 months which we all hope will be AFTER the heart op. We were half way down the corridor to the exit and suddenly heard our names being called - a nurse had been sent to chase us with one last easy option. My sub apnoea events, apparently, all show up when I am sleeping on my left side, so if I can sleep propped the other way (there are long-ways pillows, apparently) it might improve my sleeping comfort and be a "quick fix". I am happy to give it a try (I did last night) but my sleeping style seems to involve a lot of tossing and turning and I wake up every which way.
Finally, the non-medical news. The calendar eventually clicked round to the much heralded and eagerly awaited US mid-terms. Elizabeth, in particular LOVES her US politics and had been main-lining podcasts on the various 'races' House, Senate, State Governors and so on. That night was always going to be an all night vigil for her. She sets herself up a little "War Room" in the sitting room with the open fire lit, with a supply of blankets for her feet and the sofa equipped with lap-top and the i-phone, chocolate 'Mikado' biscuits and fancy crisps, plus tea on tap.
This is a US election and count, so she also had a little plan of the time lines for GMT (our local time, obviously) but also the "Eastern Time" equivalents in which the live feeds and pod casters tend to report. Polls close for some states at 7 pm (ET) which is midnight here, for example. Most states had closed by 23:00 (ET) which is 04:00 GMT. Hawaii and Alaska come along at 05:00 GMT but by then enough 'mainland' stuff has happened that our all-nighter has a clear picture of 'how it went', so she leaves me a little summary in case any interested parties should call and goes off to catch up on some sleep with a request to be awoken with tea at midday. History will show that the Democrats took back the house and gained some good Governorships, plus got back one Nancy Pelosi as Leader of the House, but lost ground in the Senate.
And there you have it till next time.
Sunday, 4 November 2018
Silver
I couldn't quite stay away. In particular, I couldn't let a major milestone like our 25th Wedding Anniversary slip by without a mention. 3rd November 2018, High Noon, as Elizabeth loves to point out.
Plan A had been to take the weekend off in Westport at a nice hotel, nice restaurant. We had Charlotte of the Mini Horses* lined up with time taken off work to cover the farm baby-sitting. Then I got sick and the hospital visit and op were looming over us, threatening to scupper any plans we might have involving hotel bookings plus I'm on restricted fluid intake so I'd have been the one ordering quarter pints of Guinness!
We decided to rein it all in, stand Charlotte down and re-schedule a 25.5th or 26th Anniversary when we are over this hump and we know where we are. Plan B was to be a home version of the fine dining, some wine and with the place set up as much like a hotel environment as we could manage - house gleaming like a spotless new pin., best table linen and fancy candlesticks, best china (I'm pretty sure the china is also 25 years old - it was surely a wedding present).
It was a miserable, wet, cold day, so we also had fires going at both ends of the house and a goodly stack of logs on hand. I was set up to "cheat" a bit surreptitiously on the fluid volumes - saving myself (almost) enough cc on the water bottle that I could join Mrs C in 2 glasses of the fizz, a glass of the posh Beaujolais and a 'tint' of Teelings whiskey with the cheese.
The menu was as follows......
Plan A had been to take the weekend off in Westport at a nice hotel, nice restaurant. We had Charlotte of the Mini Horses* lined up with time taken off work to cover the farm baby-sitting. Then I got sick and the hospital visit and op were looming over us, threatening to scupper any plans we might have involving hotel bookings plus I'm on restricted fluid intake so I'd have been the one ordering quarter pints of Guinness!
We decided to rein it all in, stand Charlotte down and re-schedule a 25.5th or 26th Anniversary when we are over this hump and we know where we are. Plan B was to be a home version of the fine dining, some wine and with the place set up as much like a hotel environment as we could manage - house gleaming like a spotless new pin., best table linen and fancy candlesticks, best china (I'm pretty sure the china is also 25 years old - it was surely a wedding present).
Near neighbour and local florist supplied these gorgeous flowers. |
The menu was as follows......
Salmon Fish Cakes with salsa of tomato and cucumber.
Steak with roast-on-the-vine cherry toms and duxelle (mushrooms)
Pear and chocolate tart
Cashel Blue cheese with slices of pear and water biscuits
'Fizz' - McGuigan's (Oz) frizzante
'Fleurie' Beaujolais from Francois Dubessy
Teelings whiskey
Nom Nommetty Nom!
Ooops. Looks a bit black in the pic but trust me, that's just the mushrooms (Duxelle). Steak was deliciously rare inside |
It all added up to a superb, splendid day and evening and, for me, a lovely relaxing spoil. The Lady of the House, of course, was on duty for which I am so, so grateful, swapping between accessorising her floaty dress and pearls with a champagne coloured shawl and the kitchen apron, one minute 'Domestic Goddess', the next 'Domestic Help'.
Pear and chocolate tart to the right.. |
The steak had come from our good friends and local butchers, Ignatius (and Joe) Gannon down in Castlerea, who "deal with" our lambs when required. Joe had thrown a couple of burgers into the bag for good luck and both congratulated us on the 25 years.
When you can't have many cc of liquid in the day, might as well make them count. |
After a suitable rest (a 'trou Normande'?) to let the pear and chocolate tart settle (I love that combination of flavours) we segued into the Cashel Blue cheese and with that cleared away, we played a couple of games of Quixx (one to me, one drawn) and adjourned into the Sitting Room for a nice long evening of reading and total rest congratulating ourselves on a Celebration well planned and excellently executed.
We also thoroughly appreciated the blizzard of congratulations and good wishes that come to us via Facebook and Twitter whenever we have one of these family type things to 'announce', so if you are an FB-er or a Twitterer and happen to be reading this too, then thank you very very much if you supported us that way. Plenty of jokes about the "next 25 years" too of course - I'd be 86, which is quite do-able if I can get through the current hiatus. Who knows what the future holds.
Ah well, just a couple of unrelated pics to use up. The 'pie' is my Turkey-Shepherd's pie.
Deefer. |
The picture of Deefer is one Elizabeth took of her asleep on my lap last night. Have a good weekend, all.
* Charlotte of the Mini Horses has pretty much handed the horses (Romeo, Bob and Cody) back to Mum and has branched out into 6 (at the last count) goats. Good luck with those, Char' !
Labels:
25th Anniversary,
Cashel Blue,
Charlotte,
Domestic Goddess,
Guinness,
High Noon,
Mini-Horses,
Plan A,
Quixx,
Westport
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