Chivers Marmalade

Love the old beans tin protecting the exhaust on this old
bog-hopper but I can't help thinking that protection is a bit
late in arriving.

One of those days today that seem to be so full of "stuff" that you get to the end and say, "Wow! That was quite a day!" For Liz too, though she managed hers totally out of synch with everybody else by pulling an all-nighter. Brexit of course with its BBC coverage all through the night as the results rolled in and hacked off at least 48% of the nation. The referendum is now done and dusted, of course, and you will know the result unless you have seriously been trying to avoid it. We are not sure what happens now and how it might affect us in Ireland either from the 'Brit living abroad' aspect or from the Northern Ireland border angle - all we really know is that David Cameron is baling out by the October Tory Conference and the replacement (BoJo? Gove?) will be left to lie in the 'bed' they have just made. Good luck with that, lads.

A picture for Liz's boss of one of the
planters currently being built by the
scheme lads, at Lough Glynn church.

Locally it meant that Liz stayed up all night to watch the results coming in and had taken today off work to recover, as is her normal wont at anything election-based (Ireland, UK or USA). This gave myself and Charlotte (of the mini horses) a clear field to put into action a cunning conspiracy which had been a few weeks in the planning. I have not been able to say anything on here yet, obviously, but the plan was to secretly find a new kitten and bring it home to Liz. The conspiracy had involved a number of friends all sworn to secrecy but all putting feelers out to find someone with kittens they were trying to re-home.

Marmalade kitten - "Chivers" of course (pic by Liz)

Our little mission over to Mayo-Liz's place to collect the Marans hatching-eggs bore fruit first as a volunteer-led rescue centre based around a Claremorris vet had suitable youngsters and the timing could not be better with Liz possibly needing cheering up after the Brexit thing. We managed to appear with kitten as she was waking up from her catch-up slumbers

Honeysuckle growing in our hedge - we didn't plant it.

She was as delighted as we were sure she would be so we got all brave and put Phase 2 into action. We had found out in Claremorris that this little marmalade lad was, in fact, one of a pair of 'left over' kittens, all that remained of a litter of 5, and by taking one we were splitting up 2 siblings. We guessed that when we told Liz this she would agree that we should take both, which she did, so a quick (pre-arranged) text to the vet's confirmed us returning to Claremorris tomorrow morning to gather up marmalade #2 and bring him/her back to his/her brother. We suspect these 2 marmalades will get named Chivers and 'Little Chip' (which unbeknownst to me is another brand of the orangey breakfast delight.) More pics in the next post; Chivers is not that keen on us yet or getting his pic taken and we don't want to stress him out.

Guinea Fowl 'Belvedere' shouts from
the top of our road gate.

The cat-wrangling, though, was fitted into a full day. K-Dub is now sporadically back from working in the big smoke, so I am back into the buildering. We are currently filling and sanding (K-Dub) and painting (me) the place. I had also taken my foot-trimming shears over with me so that we could trim the feet of the three goats, Billy, Nanny Óg and 'Henno' the kid (him for the first time). Then after all the cat-based fun I needed to run Charlotte back to Sligo but via nipping into Supervalue for kitten based supplies (kitty litter, food, kitten-milk, bowls) before whizzing home to do long-overdue dog exercising etc

You're a funny colour for a Buff Orpington chick. Are you SURE
you're one of mine?

On the calendar, not only was there written "Brexit Vote" and "Brexit Count" but also "Day 21 for box #4 Broody". This hen had done a marvellously consistent job sitting in her quiet nest box in the proper chicken coop (where they are ALL meant to lay and sit but the word does not seem to have gone round!). All around her hens were trying to sit on fresh air or getting hooshed off nests while other poultry wanted to lay eggs in the nest like a cuckoo, eggs were getting trampled and broken, or thrown out of nests with half-formed embryos in them.

Black babies. Nigel Farage would never approve.

Box #4 broody, once we had dropped in 3 blue eggs from Sue and Rob just to try her out, sat there serene and did the job properly for 21 days and came due on Brexit day. We think she hatched at least 2 of these on the day because those babies were buzzing around, as dry and fluffy as day-olds this afternoon. They look like they will definitely need letting out of the box (it has quite a high lip) tomorrow. They look quite cute in their black (Araucana) fluff next to their huge golden Mum. More pictures of these guys soon along with the kitten pics.