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.

A Good Sign?

You may be able just to make out 2 sheep shouting for their
breakfast through the snow. Another dire morning.

We may be finally seeing signs of coming out of the long, cold and dark Winter. In the last post, I alluded to some data suggesting that most of Northern Europe had experienced the darkest (least sunshine) winter on record. Today we saw confirmation that Ireland had been soaked by the wettest January since 1885 (yes, I DID say Eighteen Eighty Five!). Come on Met Éireann... enough's enough. We can all take a joke but.... I can hear the faint laughter of all those Kent friends muttering "Well, you DID move to Ireland"

Kato assists with the St Brigid's cross
assembly. 

Ah well, now that we are through the 1st of February, St Brigid's Day, Celtic / pre-Christian first day of Spring (Imbolc which translates as "in the belly" and refers, obviously, to all the new birth and fecundity). I promise you that today, in bright sunshine and no wind, I got a strong feeling that we might be drying out a little. The puddles have all but drained away, the concrete paths are that pale grey of dryness, not the shiny dark of wet or icy concrete. The mud underfoot, where we have mud, is now sticky, rather than sloppy. A good sign? There are people everywhere touching any wood they can lay their hands on and steeling themselves not to speak too soon.

Way more elabourate than mine, this St Brigid Cross was a gift
from our good friends Con and Niamh.

The output of eggs is definitely rising as the 2017 birds realise that there is (as they say here) a "grand old stretch in the evenings". They are now not taking themselves off to roost till half past five.

Last year's cross now all dried out and the new one. There
are various traditions regarding what to do with the old ones.

Today I collected 3 duck eggs (which is a 100% hit rate for them - we only have 3 females) and 13 hen eggs, which is a new site record. This is definitely enough hens for us - we don't want to be over-run with eggs. Still no action from the geese, though. In previous years they have come back in to lay in November but not this winter.

Spring busting out all over, at least in
the tubs dept. 

My good friend Miles (in Kent) says he goes with Valentine's Day but one of his geese started early this year, presenting him with an egg today. Like with all these things, we are in the lap of Mother Nature and we will have to preserve our souls in patience and wait and see.

Snowdrops down by the gate. 

In the plants dept, we have plenty of bulbs pushing up, especially in the pots and tubs. You expect these to be early because the tubs cool down quicker than the ground, so get frost-treated early, and then warm up faster to start the new season's growth. We have a good collection of daffs and tulips looking very promising this week and the snowdrops down by the gate are almost there.

That much heralded Blue Moon. This pic off the Internet.
We saw nothing of it due to cloud cover.

We had to smile ruefully at one 'casualty' of the wet. We alone in all the world seem to have been denied a view of the much talked-about and heralded full moon on 31st Jan which was going to be Blue and Super and even Blood in some parts of the globe. I was amused to see respected newspapers putting the 'blood' thing on their websites, possibly unaware that it was only going to be 'bloody' (eclipsed) in other parts of the globe, nowhere in UK or Ireland.

"Our" piglets at 18 days

Social Media was also chock-full of rather daft photo-shopped or double-exposed made up pics of the moon unfeasibly huge - filling half the frame as it rose through a city sky-line straddling several sky-scrapers or the whole width of rivers. What ever the case, we were not to see it at all on the 31st, due to the cloud cover. We saw it 24 hours prior and 24 hours post, though, so we will be happy with that.

The piglets look quite big till you see
them dwarfed by Mum's rump.  

Over in Boyle, half an hour's drive away, "our" piglets continue to thrive and grow on plentiful supplies of Mum's milk. Breeder, Adrian. generously sends me pics every now and then when ever we are in touch confirming quantities required and any friends we might have who also want them. The babies in these pics (which may end up being ours) were born on 15th Jan so, all being well, we can collect them on 12th March. Watch this space.

A pretty risotto under construction. 

I think that is probably about it for this one.

Rolled and tied shoulder cut.

I will talk to you again on Tuesday.

Taken on Liz's phone. I am joined by 3 dogs and
Soldier the cat as I read my book.

Have a good 'Imbolc' one and all.

Some First Snow

'New' Potatoes from the poly-tunnel

The first snow flurries of this Winter are falling even as I put pen to paper (well, start tapping the keyboard, maybe) on this post. The day has been a bit like that, starting with a very gentle frost, mud still soft and the pond surface only a little bit 'crinkly'. It carried on cold with a biting breeze but shower clouds that always threatened a more crunchy version of rain. The wind is a strengthening NW-erly. More frost is forecast tonight.

Two more roosters get it in the neck. 

Not much to report. I am over my cold and back to full health. Liz is lagging a bit behind having waited a sensible 48 hours before catching it from me. She's still struggling with bursts of coughing and general sleepiness. She was probably a bit brave to accept the job of 'cleaning' two more roosters. No matter how careful you are there is always a certain amount "dander" comes off the feathers and poor Liz was pulling feathers with one hand and chugging cough medicine with the other. OK, maybe not, but you get the picture.

We are nearly through that nasty job now; six down and maybe 2 or 3 to go. These last 2 were, sadly, the beautiful black and gold birds who I have featured in an earlier post when I was still wishing they would stay as hens. No luck there - all three developed their male characteristics - lovely capes and tails, big, upright bodies and big flappy wattles to go with their tall combs. Roosters to a man. Bad move guys.

The Stanley range got a good 'muck-out'. If you use it 'idling',
ticking over with the air supply turned right down, it gradually
blocks up all its little baffles and convoluted airways with soot.
Like a car, it needs a good toasty roar up its 'venturis' to clean
it all out.  

They have killed out at just over 2 kg oven-ready. One is spatch-cocked for tonight's supper. Chickens don't come much fresher than that without plucking them while they are still warm! No food-miles, either. About 6 paces across the yard in my wellies.

Iris and Plum, our Mothers-of-pigs are both in the
family way.

Some progress to report off site. Our pig breeder/supplier (Hi Adrian) sends me a picture of his 2 'Mums', Plum and Iris, both of whom are in pig. This is promising news. If all goes well they will 'cook' for the famous "3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days", farrow successfully, and then 8 weeks later we could be back in the piggy game. April, maybe?

I have a new "friend" on Twitter, too, Irish author Felicity Hayes-McCoy. She popped up on one of the groups I was chatting on, chopped in with "Doing a small happy dance, having just hit the 75k word count on my latest #novel. Technically known as getting over the hump. 😊☕️🔥 #amwriting #amtakingabreak  #cupofteabythefire " I was amused by the idea of doing a 'happy dance' back while clutching cold-ridden hankies like some kind of manic Morris dancer and so we fell into conversation. I was almost finished my latest novel (a John le Carré) and was about to be out of reading material.

Back in the day I was a great fan of Maeve Binchy so when I asked Felicity what her books were like and she said "I think u'd like the series. My feelgood's like Maeve's - deffo not chick-lit, more can-do contemp rural Ireland - real-life (no leprechauns). Where funny, observational, not one-liners. Includes love; bolshy builders; dogs; county councillors; books. Lots of books. Also divorce.", that was good enough for me. Had to give her a try. I have now just received my first "FHMcC" from Amazon and am impressed by the first few chapters, anyway. I will let you know how I get on.

That's about it for this post. It seems to have stopped snowing for now (nothing "laid" or "stuck"). Keep warm and dry, everyone.

A Drop of Rain

A drop of rain overnight freshens up these "Red Robin" leaves

A drop of rain last night, and more forecast over this weekend, brings much needed relief to the dry-as-dust gardeners and a hope of grass growth to the hard-pressed farmers. More importantly its a chance to relax for the local fire crews who seem to have been on continuous alert or in action for a couple of weeks, battling those bog, scrub and forest fires.

These big dark tubs were part of my Birthday present and are
now covering the post-daff and post-tulips gap out front. 

No such life-or-death drama here, of course but it will be nice to put the watering can down. We tend to go in for a low-maintenance style of gardening and only grow stuff that can survive without being carted gallons of water but even so human mercy says you still have to look after the new stuff, the poly tunnel and the seedlings. The sheep grazing can definitely use it; we're well into May now and there is little grass for them to eat. I keep swapping them from East Field to front lawn as either recovers a bit from the last cycle.

Those pigs take breakfast in the early morning sunshine

While I'm on sheep, we are now closing in on May 25th which, on the calendar at least, is the last likely day for any lambs to be born. On 31st Dec we hauled Silas-the-Ram's lazy butt outta there and sent him home. We have no reason to think he scored a big fat zero for 7 weeks and then suddenly whipped round all the ewes in the final days doing the job intended. We are forced to admit that we are very unlikely to have any lambs this year, a decision which moves us naturally into 2 more plans from 25th May.

First, the ewes need shearing which we can do on any (3rd) dry day. You should not shear sheep when they are wet (electrical hand-set) and it takes them 3 days to dry out after rain; hence the "3rd dry day" rule. People with bigger flocks sometimes even bring them indoors 3 days out from shearing day lest they get rained on.

Second we need to buy in some store-lambs or we will have no meat for the freezer this year, so I've been back in contact with our original ewe-supplier, Mayo-Liz, to place my order. Her babies are still "on their Mums" at present so we need to wait while they wean. While we were at the livestock buying we also stuck in our order for turkeys from Sue and Rob. That should do us. We don't NEED any more chickens at the moment but if one of the girls were to go broody (stage whisper) we'd look kindly on her and give her a good clutch to sit on.

Snuffling

The pigs are in and well settled by now, all be it rather nervous and not piling in to food as much as I remember previous pairs have been. I am going through that stage of sitting quietly in there with them to get them used to me and they have started some very tentative approaches. They are nothing like as 'tame' as last year's; I guess because new breeder Adrian is not as hands on as our 2016 man, Dermot.

They do not polish off food anything like as keenly either, which is slightly worrying; I am not used to bowls still having some of last night's supper in when I turn up with breakfast. No need to panic yet, though - they are up and about, chasing around the paddock, bright of eye and curly of tail (straight tails are bad news on pigs; a sign of stress or unhappiness). No sign of 'scour' (diarrhoea) either - nice firm stools.

The River Lung at Feigh, as low, weedy and sluggish as anyone
can remember

Maybe they are just a bit out of sorts having been separated from their Mum (and in the case of 'Pride' also castrated on Sunday. He might be a bit sore still!). They may also be finding more natural food (incl. grass and herbs) in our wooded paddock than would have been the case in their bare field in Boyle. They may not need my offerings of commercial ration and apples. We'll have to see how we get on. More news on this in future posts.

Our hostas are doing well around the pond.

Our friend and neighbour down the lane finds himself tractor-less after the machine threw a sickie. One door is all bent out of shape after he got a bit close to a hedge while driving with it open and now it won't close. Also, his power-steering hydraulics have gone wonk to the point where they are quite lethal - there is a full half turn of steering wheel at the 'top' before any directional adjustment is detected at the tyres!

The lilacs are finally in flower after several
years of waiting patiently.

So that beast is in the menders and I am occasionally taxi once again as well as doing some runs out to check on the guy's animals. "Those down in the bog field", he advises. "How many should I be looking at?" I ask. He tells me there are 8 but I need to check whether this group include a bullock who has recently been treated for an eye infection. "So if I have 8 and no bad eyes, I'm OK then?", I ask. "Ah, sure, just rise 'em and make sure they all get up" he re-assures me. Easy.

Our young lime (Tilia) trees are doing well

I love these local expressions. The weed 'dock' is referred to as "dockin's" and last night's rain was "quite a good dash". You ask your neighbour whether he/she knows any new gossip or news with "Anything strange?" You often bid farewell with "Good luck, now"

Good luck, now!

Back in the Pig Game

The new pigs in their new home. 

Our biggest news by far for this post is a story I feel I have been living for 9 weeks already (or even longer); the arrival of our 2017 pigs. We placed our order for these before they were even born and through a regular supply of pictures sent to us by breeder Adrian we have sort of been with them through their births, first steps outside the ark and their early growth. Many of these pictures have been posted on here. We (and you) have not had to wait till that arrival day, pig under each arm, iconic first picture.

Not much room for these two to rattle around in our dog crate.

In the latter case, this just as well as we have not been able to collect these pigs till they were 9 weeks+ old. They are HUGE! Monsters! They were part of quite a small litter (5) so they were bigger at birth than "normal" and their Mum, Iris is a particularly good milker. When we saw them, at last, we gulped a bit and wondered if two of them would fit into our dog crate for the run home.

The Empress emerges from the ark. 

In fact, they did, all be it with no room to slither about as we went round corners. One more week and we could have had a problem. As it was, we reinforced the crate with a ratchet strap to stop any "bursting" and they settled down on their tummies with their tails sticking out through the bars. We were glad it would only be a 20 minute run home. We unloaded them by opening the side door of the crate so that they didn't have to worry about turning round or coming out bum-first.

Bumble bee on apple - more blue skies!

The size of them (I can't wait to get a first weight estimate) was also the reason why I never got the iconic pig-under-each-arm shot this year. It would have been a powerful aul' lift and to keep them quiet if they chose to wriggle while Liz readied the camera. We were beefy enough, Liz and I, to lift the crate plus pigs on and off the wheel barrow but decided to quit while we were ahead.

A dog in the same field as some poultry and nobody is
getting eaten. Progress

Sue and Rob were with us too, collecting their pair on the same day. They solved their problem a different way. As well as the choice of 5 by 9-weekers we already KNEW about, Adrian had driven down Sunday to last year's breeder (Dermot) in Wicklow with the boar-piglets to get them castrated and had come by two youngsters at a growth stage 3 weeks earlier AND from a huge litter. These lads were TINY and would be half the price of ours and we could have them if we preferred a smaller animal. Sue fancied them so Rob put both in one cat basket and walked back to the car with those. No wheel barrow required.

Quince blossom

All parties are back home and our respective purchases have been shown their new arks and straw-beds. Ours have also had a light supper of apple and have been out and wandered round the paddock for a quick explore. We will go and meet them properly tomorrow. We hope they will be very happy here and will not give us any problems. Huge thanks to breeder Adrian and to his (and all of ours!) 'Mentor' Dermot who is like a vigorous one-man campaign to re-introduce the Oxford Sandy and Black breed to smallholders. Also to supply every wedding or event happening in Ireland with a hog-roast. He certainly gets about.

There have been some impressive pics of the fires on Social
Media. This one was on Facebook. 

Our hot, blue skies weather continues and everything remains dry. The skylines in various directions are regularly marred by plumes of smoke from wild fires burning through the heather, bog-turf and even forestry. Our most impactful one was a big one across both sides of the main road South from Castlerea down towards Ballymoe.

We had to drive down that road to help deliver a friend's tractor for a repair and we were quite lucky the road was not closed. There were half a dozen "fire engines" on site and many police, forestry and Civil Defence vehicles. One verge was burning so hot that the car's fresh-air ventilation drew in quite a blast of heat even though the windows were closed. The fire had already engulfed square miles of the bog-heather and was looking like it was about to invade the nearby forest. I was down there again today and they had got it out and the forest looked as if it had escaped.

Yes it's only 20-22 degrees but come on, this is Ireland.
That's HOT by our standards. 

With everything so tinder dry the fire-fighters must be exhausted from one fire after another and they are all presumably hoping that the break in the weather forecast for Friday brings a huge dump of rain.

Joints scrim-taped and filled.

Much more parochially, we can report good progress on the kitchen. The plasterer has come at last and done the honours on our ceiling, wall and archway. He has done a really good job and we are delighted with him. He was really good around the join from flat plasterboard to our deliberately exposed stonework wall where he has done a job every bit as good as our 2012 lads in the Living Room. Thank you very much Michael D.

I guess we'll have to paint it now! The new plaster.

That's probably enough for this one. If I think of anything else, I will add it to the next post. Good Night you new piggies. Sleep safely,