Dipping a Toe into 'HelpX' Waters

Hollyhock

Another slow-news week and this time I really will keep it short. In the last post, I warned the reader that I'd not much to say and then went on a medium sized epic about concrete and what not. Not this time, I'm afraid - genuinely just plodding along the old familiar paths but about to embark on a new adventure, namely hosting some volunteer labour for the price of bed and board. Yes. A big change - instead of adding to the amount of man-hours we NEED in a day, we are adding to those available. Step forward the on-line service, Help-X.

From their own website (http://www.helpx.net/) "HelpX is an on line listing of host organic farms, non-organic farms, farm-stays, home-stays, ranches, lodges, B&Bs, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats who invite volunteer helpers to stay with them short-term in exchange for food and accommodation."

Black Marans hen decides to take a turn at this broody-ing.

So on one side of this arrangement are loads of places like ours with too much to do in the day and weeds taking over the veg' gardens, buildings in need of repair or, at the right time of year, lambing, sheep shearing or any amount of other livestock tasks PLUS spare room(s) and a willingness to take in complete strangers and feed and accommodate them.

Might be man-junk and old paint tins but at least it's TIDY.

On the other side, thankfully, are an army of people whose idea of the perfect holiday or the best form of research into whether they'd like to do this job for real. They just have to get themselves to you and then do, the general rule says, around 25 hours work for you per week. The rest of the week is theirs to go touristing, shopping or what ever they fancy. They live with you as family.

The 'bird house' still needs white lime at the far end in the
goosey bit. You can just see the broody bird holding the job up.

Both sides register their existence and advertise their wares on the Help-X website, with a view to trying to attract interest from the other. We, the 'hosts' have to make our place sound and look enjoyable enough to hook some volunteers and they have to apply to us and convince us they are the kind of volunteers we'd love to have around.

Amusingly, on the website, each side can see the other's previous 14 transactions/emails so while this negotiation is going on you can tell that your applicants are also applying to many other places. It is a bit like an E-Bay auction and we 'lost' our first 2 sets of applicants and began to wonder whether these people were looking with half an eye to the 'down-time' and hitting the night life and clubs and pubs of an anticipated nearby city. Perhaps, out here in the wilderness we'd never attract anyone.

The Hubbard meat-birds half way there at 45 days

But, No! No need for pessimism. Earlier this week we got a possible 'bite' from a couple of lads from Spain. These guys had a quick conversation with Liz on the website e-mail system and have now gone as far as booking flights and asking for directions to us from the airport. I do not want to tempt fate and say too much too soon so I will stop here and promise more on this when it is really happening.

We like a decent sized "new" potato on this farm. These are just
volunteers from the compost heap.

We are very excited and planning how we will feed them and what we will put them to work on and so on. We want them to be very happy with us and very happy here as well as wanting to be delighted with them. It is our first little dip into these murky waters, though we know of several friends who have used these websites before and have a long and happy history of using the volunteers.

Messing with the sour dough starter. Every now and then you
must split it and 'discard' half. A friend suggested make a 'gallette'
pancake/crumpet to eat with butter and honey.

Some are 'Help-X' but others use the stricter ORGANIC farming service "WWOOF" (website wwoof.net - the acronym is for the Worldwide Federation of Organic blah blah Organisations but is not in English). WWOOF volunteers are known as 'Wwoofers' but we are not sufficiently organic to qualify. Our new friend Anne, working with my Sligo-based Texel sheep owning chums, is a Help-X volunteer. She is in the middle of a 6 week stint there, she is delighted with how it is going and I know that Colin and Alayne are over the moon with her.

There now! You don't get a dog's ear-'ole on
every blog, do you? Towser is now all clean
and a healthy pink. More comfortable too. 

More on this later. Oh, and if you're into this post so quick that you saw it without pictures, an apology. The camera battery went flat as I was trying to download pictures (actually at the exact second that having selected the pics I wanted and chosen the destination folder and reached for the 'Paste' button). You will just have to be patient, like me, while I charge the battery and can then get the thing to boot up again.

Purple loose-strife

Until next time, then.

Stirring it Up.... Early

Stir It Up..... Christmas Pudding Mix

Normally we would be looking to make up our Christmas Pudding mixes on the 'proper' day, "Stir Up Sunday" which, as you will probably know falls on the last Sunday before Advent. This year that is the 20th November. However, this year Liz wanted to make extra puds to give away as Christmas presents, one of which will be going to some UK visitors who are here soon; way too soon to have a pud mixed on 20th November.

...because sometimes you need to leave yourself a reminder
for the next morning.

So as I sit here writing this on a Tuesday evening with Liz off at knitting club and then drama group, I am actually supervising three puds 'blupping' away gently in three different places. this just to make sure nobody boils dry. I have to turn off the hob pair at 10 p.m. but the slow-cooker one can keep on a-going till Liz gets home. The house seems to be acknowledging that Christmas is just around the corner (though we are not ones for early decorating or playing any Christmas songs till much nearer the day).

One of the puds simmering gently (lid removed for photo)

This very mild, food-based, Christmas feeling is also spreading to our sense of 'harvest time'. I like to get all the killing done by the Solstice (21st Dec) because then I can go into Christmas in a constructive frame of mind, not a destructive one. I mentally turn a corner on that date and start my getting ready for Spring. We have started to "finish" (that aul' euphemism!) the Hubbard meat-birds who are currently on day 93; you may recall that we try to finish them all between days 80 and 100 so that they a big and meaty but still very young and tender. Superb meat. So tasty and succulent.

Hubbard carcasses. These two were 2.4 and 2.7 kg oven-ready

This year I am mildly concerned that following a good 'harvest' of our pork and our lambs, the freezers are a bit full to be accepting a dozen biggish chickens but Liz is calm and tells me not to fret. "Keep on killing them", she says, "and I will keep on plucking them, dressing them, jointing, packing and freezing them". She shuffles up the smaller items already frozen to make more space and immediately capitalizes on any vacant places gained by us whipping out a joint, a frozen left-overs tub or a bottle of stock.

Rolled Rib Roast of pork

Reading Anne's blog, she found that this batch were unusual in their inconsistent oven-ready weights. "There is a wide range of weights", she writes, "with these latest birds which are supposed to be Hubbards, a slow growing strain. They have ranged in weight from six and a half pounds (2.94 kg) to nine pounds three ounces (4.17 kg). We really  do have our doubts as to whether they were in fact Hubbards. None of our previous batches have weighed so much yet they were reared and fed exactly the same as previous batches". We have killed our biggest 4 roosters here so far, with weights ranging from 2.4 to 2.7 kg - the hen birds all look quite a bit smaller.

With Charlotte now off in Dublin working for a living (good
luck Charlotte!) I had to clip my own dogs. I know! Outrageous!

My other comment on them would be about the dirtiness of them. Regular readers will know that this year, to avoid wading through lazy, over-fed Hubbard poults (and their poo!) as soon as we stepped out of the kitchen into the yard, I confined them to a pen out by the 5-Acre field-gate. They quickly mashed this ground to a muddy desert and, not being ones for perching or roosting up out of the wet, they ended up more brown than white and looking very bedraggled.

Liz enjoying Mum's car. 

I shovelled in no end of shredded wood to try to dry them out and eventually let them out fully free range so they could walk the clean, green grass. Their upper sides and backs were quickly cleaner but the damage was done on their bellies and breasts, their feathers worn and mudded to discoloured "stubble" which was not a lot of fun for Liz to pluck out. I don't know what the answer is to this - it rained so much through August and September. Ah well, they look OK as carcasses with all those soiled feathers gone and in the bin, and they were happy and healthy enough despite the muddy pen.

These 6 youngsters escaped into the lane once too often and
the owner decided to take them 'home'

The local cattle have all been taken 'home', the ones who rent the land surrounding ours. As they ran out of grass in the field, they started trying to push through the fences and hedges to get at the greener grass beyond. This happens and is normal (I am told) and it is usually the youngsters who get out first because they are smaller.

Walking our summer guests home.

Several times last week I'd return from a dog walk or drive and find the lane "filled" with calves all happily grazing the verges (the "Long Acre") and helped by either random passers by or Liz, we'd be rounding them up and shepherding them back into their field. Each time I'd text the owner but then send him another text to say "sorted". The owner had been hanging on as long as possible because these Mums and children run with the bull (young cousin of the original 'Felix') and he did not want the bull mixing it with the ladies he already had nearer home.

Those 'kattens' are due their operations this week. We don't
want any dodgy brother-sister incest. 

Eventually even he got fed up with all the escapes and came down with a small crew of walkers and followers (plus vehicles) to take everybody home. We'll miss them and, with the land now having changed hands, that will be the last time we see them. We got quite good at shepherding the calves about.

That is pretty much it for this one. I was hoping to get some pics of the 'super-moon' - last night's full moon which was meant to be the closest to earth (and therefore biggest and brightest) for 70 odd years. Well, Roscommon did it's usual 10/10 cloud and misty morning so there was no moon to see that night. I did get a glimpse of it on my morning rounds as the sun burned off the mist on the 5-Acre field to our west. That would have been about 07:45 and almost full daylight. I could have probably got a pale photo but, hey, had my hands full of bird food and sheep crunch. Such is life.

Making New Friends

We have made some new friends locally; a small-holder couple called Anne and Simon. They live quite close. They are just a few kilometers south of the local village of Lough Glynn as we are a few kms north. Dad first 'found' Anne on an internet poultry discussion forum website and when they got chatting they realised how close they were each to Castlerea. It was Anne who suggested Mum and Dad go to Castlerea Agricultural Show where they had such an enjoyable day. Dad and Anne had swapped mobile phone numbers with a plan to text each other at the Show and maybe meet up for a burger or a coffee. In the event they nearly missed each other and met up for a quick chat and a chance to meet and put faces to names in the car-park as they were all headed home. Mum and Dad and Anne and Simon promised to invite each to look round the two small holdings.

Anne and Simon are a bit older than 'us' and have been at the small holder game far longer. This one is their 4th or 5th; they have 'done' a couple here in Ireland and then one in Galicia and one Catalonia and have now moved back to Co Roscommon, even though they are both, actually, Brits. They are both mad keen 'organic' farmers who were in at the start when the organic movement first kicked off in Ireland and Anne was a lecturer on poultry management in the Organic Centre at Rossinver, Co. Lietrim and they do a lot of the 'permaculture' stuff and sustainability techniques as well as playing with African-Aid style "Keyhole beds". They are pleasantly 'old hippy'-ish. They keep the place going despite not being in the first flush of youth or the pink of health and they have dozens of chickens in 3 main breeds (including Buffs and La Bresse) as well as 2 donkeys (just to keep the grass down!), many ducks and huge meat-rabbits. Successfully burgeoning fruit and veg are everywhere and there is a well stocked poly tunnel. They also have 9 cats and 2 aged dogs all of which they brought back from Spain with them through all the hassles of rabies control and import vetting.

Mum and Dad were invited down for a visit and a look round on Thursday 16th, arrived with a jar of our blackcurrant jam, and came away with a jar of lemon curd and 4 blackcurrant plants. They returned the visit on Thursday 23rd arriving with 6 big duck eggs for Mum and Dad. They fell in love with all we dogs and puppies and, especially, Anne loved the kittens. We were all a tiny bit anxious, as if we were going to be 'inspected' but we needn't have worried. They were delighted with the place and impressed by the amount of work which has been done to get it to where we are now, all be it we are miles 'behind' Anne and Simon in the getting-established stakes. On both visits the chatting was fascinating and Mum and Dad learned so much. We are now all firm friends and the 'cultural exchange' visits are likely to continue into the future. Next stop is for Dad to take our lady rabbits, Ginny and Padfoot down to 'meet' their meat-breed Californian White buck, Peter. (Don't worry, Rogers is still here and his turn will come but for now he is still a bit small to be taking on the chunky girls). We hope that nature will take its course - that will happen on about the 6th September and 28-34 days later we may be in the baby bunny game.