Judith and Vicky

Help-X-er Judith turns out to be a nimble whizz at the tiny
Origami. Here are 3 crane-birds with normal dice for scale

Busy people. The biggest pieces of news for this post have got to be that we successfully "landed" our two latest Help-X volunteers and saw Auntie Mary (The Nun) off on her final journey. The other jobs have all been a slow chug through that "ever extending task list" detailed in my previous post, none of which are particularly blog-worthy.

Judith gets loved up by Poppea and Towser

The Help-X lasses are Judith and Vicky, 2 Berlin-born medical students just at the end of their 5 years of 'basic training', now completed (successfully, they believe) their final exams and released for a while to party, travel, enjoy themselves and find hospitals to work in where they can do a 4-part 'rotation' round possible speciality areas of medicine for their chosen careers. One fancies radiology, the other "internal medicine" (e.g. surgery).

Vicky with Towser.

They are both, currently at Lübeck University Hospital in far-north Germany. The rotation, 4 chunks of 3 months, does not have to happen in Lübeck, and Judith has plans to do one chunk on the French owned island of Reunion, just off Madagascar. As I've said before, these Help-X-ers get about. Ireland is chicken-feed!

Ah the mowing!

They are very similar in appearance, both being tall and slim, with similar hair styles and colouring, and both wearing glasses, so that I struggled for the first day to tell t'other from which, but I have now sorted them, Judith is slightly fairer of hair than Vicky. They are both delightful and also very keen and hard working. Exhausted when they arrived, they enjoyed a light supper but then retreated to their room where they managed an 11 hour sleep and still got up for my suggested 08:30 breakfast and set to work.

Hidden between the trees, Judith mows the drive banks

Popular first jobs in the dry sunshine were mowing and pulling nettles. Mowing is also a good job to make a rapid visual impact on the tidiness of the place.Even though the grass is not too long anywhere and had been well grazed off by the sheep on the front lawn, it was still looking a bit shaggy. Well, not any more! The girls, in 2 mornings have mowed almost every grass blade we own; front lawn, Primrose Path, drive banks. pond garden orchard and the paths down to the apiary plus along the lane outside (the daffodil verges). Tomorrow they have asked if they might give the dogs hair-washes and shampoos (sorry dogs!). The Lady of the House is never going to turn down an offer like that!

A tidy front lawn.

Welcome aboard, the pair of them. This is working out well and though we will still probably call them our final Help-X volunteers of 2018 (we've run out of jobs!), we will miss them and definitely be doing it again in 2019. Like all these 'travelers' they are fascinating to talk to. One, in this case, is from either side of the Berlin Wall, though they were not even born in 1989 when the wall came down (They are 24), so their 'divided' experience is all parents and grand parents.

A 'Kanzan; flowering cherry tree for the
Auntie Mary Memorial garden

Thursday, then, saw Elizabeth off up to Drogheda and Dundalk, away on the east coast of Ireland, north of Dublin, for the funeral of Auntie Mary, the (Franciscan) Nun (90). She had been asked to source a flowering cherry tree for a memorial garden. Our brilliant local small-business garden centre guy came up with a 'Kanzan' variety tree which nicely fitted the bill. Elizabeth and the various other nieces and nephews are, of course, known to the Nuns from previous visits, who LOVE to be visited by 'outsiders' and her main impression of the day was of being swallowed up by a sea of fluttering little-old-ladies all wanting to make a big welcoming fuss and feed her tea and mountains of good biscuits.

Beech in the Pig Run turning colour.

They were also all invited to stay for a good lunch after the formalities, though they got away with being asked to stay the night (as happened to Mum-in-Law, 'Steak Lady') in voluminous borrowed Nun-nighties which enveloped their bodies from chin to ankle and wrist to wrist. I mentioned 'tea' there - in fact Elizabeth tells that her day was full of cups of tea barely sipped at before she was moved on to be shown the Reading she'd have to do, or to retrieve the cherry tree from the car. She was as thirsty when she got back as if she'd been deprived of tea all day.

Enough, though for this one. In the absence of Mrs C, I must look to livestock and possible supper making. Laters.

The Ever-Extending Task List(s)

One of my favourite pictures of Auntie Mary. It is fairly old at
this stage - Friends of the Blog may recognise the little girl here
as (now) University Student, Emily Jane. 

Just 2 posts ago (9th Oct), I noted that Auntie Mary (The Nun) had been causing a little concern with her health. Just prior to her 90th birthday she was taken quite ill but then had rallied well. Ah well, the rally was not to be and Mary passed away peacefully in her bed this afternoon with Mum-in-Law (Steak Lady), friends and members of staff and co-residents of the home at her bedside. The funeral will be on Thursday up there in Drogheda. Elizabeth (and many other family members) will be there but I regret not myself. RIP Mary. You were a lovely Lady and will be much missed.

Storm Callum clears away so the sheep
get to rest on the good grass in the sunshine

Even without the funeral, this back-end-of-week is turning into one of those whirlwinds where the jobs, events and appointments add themselves to the calendar at a faster rate than we can cross them off, and a lot of them involve some lengthy car journeys, especially for Elizabeth. Even the weekends are no longer free. This workload at present is mainly being picked up by the Woman of the House, so I need to re-iterate my gratitude both to her and to the 'Health Gods' - they laid me low but at least at a time when help is at hand.

Work has gone a bit mad-busy for Elizabeth lately and she already had her Horticultural Course on Thursday and a voluntary work shift on Friday, both of which are now sidelined.

Did I mention that the goose egg season
had started?

Tonight (Tuesday) is the Lisacul Players meeting to read the 2nd possible play. I have no idea what they are reading tonight but I can, at least, update the previous post with what last week's choice was, being "Love Thy Neighbour" by local playwright Jimmy Keary.

The small-batch gin makers are getting
a bit lairy with their branding. The gin is
very nice, says Elizabeth but definitely
pre-lemon'd. 

Our main man, Tommy C knows Jimmy quite well and Jimmy has volunteered to come and sit in on one of the readings or rehearsals. Even better, if our cast man/woman balance cannot be made to fit and we need to have a woman play a man's part, Jimmy may be able to help us with a re-write. Naturally we all hope it will not come to that, but the Players need young men to come and fill the likely vacancy.Thursday evening, of course (funeral mission permitting) is furniture restoration evening class.

'Parma' ham leg now sleeved and air-drying

My contribution to the 'to do' list is definitely easier. I am off to the Doc's tomorrow for a catch up. I need to re-assure myself that "we" (Doc and me) are doing all we can to make this heart surgery happen and to stop my occasional bad nights of coughing and losing sleep. Have we chased paperwork and responded to all contacts between the hospital and the GP? Nothing we've missed? Nothing she is thinking I've covered and me vice-versa? I am 12 weeks out of hospital today and it's all gone worryingly quiet.

Lamb leg (plus a whole bulb of garlic in the wee 'tagine' thingy)

Talking of which (quiet), we were homing in on the arrival of our next pair of Help-X volunteers, Vicky and Judith, German medical students. They had gone very quiet too, such that I was just starting to think we might be victim of another blow-out, like with our French lad for August.

In the down-time, such as it is, Mrs C gets on with some
furniture restoration 'homework'

No need to worry on this occasion; an email and a text had them 'awake' and responding. They were all excited, packing, booked on flights to bring them into Dublin at 12:20 on Wednesday. Collecting them from Castlerea station at either 5-ish or 8-ish is just another task on the list.

Completed piece. Elizabeth always was THE
BEST gloss painter I know.

We will settle them and then Mrs C will head off to 'Sparks' for an overnight much nearer to Drogheda than here, to ease things in the morning. I will look after them that night and for breakfast and then give them some jobs for Thursday, plus feed them round till Elizabeth returns.

I hope that by the time I write again, we will have ticked off a lot of these jobs and be feeling a little less 'buried'.

Crab Feast

Up tails all?

Three days of solid wind and wet, squally rain are just "normal" Irish weather while all wait to see if the next 'named' storm (Callum, formerly Leslie in the USA. All our best storms are American hand-me-downs) comes in this direction. It is being described as a "ferocious looking beast" and is due, if it does arrive, on Thursday. Another one making me glad we replaced that tarpaulin roof on the chicken house but also raising a wry smile; earlier in the weekend there was talk of an Indian Summer. It all seems to have gone a bit quiet in that direction.

Auntie Mary enjoys her tea.

Auntie Mary, sister to the late Theo, gave the family cause for concern over the last month(s) by getting very ill. Mary is our retired Nun, living now in the Sisters' Retirement Home up by Dublin after a life spent doing 10-year tours of duty missionary-ing in Africa. Well, I am delighted to say that she was moved into a more intensive care part of the building and got some improved medical attention and is now well recovered and is described as "good as new", "flying", "doing wonders" and "out of bed". She has also enjoyed her 90th Birthday, so well done Mary.

Advert for furniture restoration classes on the Village Website

Meanwhile, closer to home and enjoying a restoration to good health (Did you see what I did there?), is some of our tired old furniture. A few weeks back, the Village 'Hall' (Centre) started evening classes in furniture restoration. Students were asked to bring along a small piece of their own furniture which was looking tired, so that the instructor could start to show them tools, techniques and safety stuff as well as showing them how to pull these pieces apart carefully.

Our 'Darby and Joan' chairs by the pond.

Elizabeth took along a small bedside drawers unit and has thoroughly enjoyed it. She has taken a gazillion photos and written reams of notes. Then this week, she upped the ante by moving her attention to one of our two (well, 'my') favourite upholstered chairs. These are old style sit-up-and-beg things, very narrow with no big wide padded 'wings'.

A nice and unusual find in the shopping
- frozen crab!

We actually acquired them when previous owner of our Faversham house left them behind in a stack of junk in one of the many garden sheds. Back then (25 years?) they had lovely tooled leather backs which had seen better days. We had a chum who did a bit of upholstery 'do them up' with dark blue fabric and I have loved them ever since. Maybe it is the 'too well loved' current appearance of them that has drawn Mrs C's focus.

She took one of them into the class last week minus its seat-cushion and spent the evening prizing away the fabric layers, pulling out pins and staples with the mini-crowbar, easing off webbing and beading strips, lifting out the wadding and the hessian and rougher fabrics which supply hidden strength. All these goodies were stashed careful for use as templates on a shopping trip. The instructor and she were also able, with the chair stripped of upholstery, to fix a slight rearward lean on the frame (this heavy bas***d flopping into it too many times?) by removing some brackets, straightening the legs, gluing the joints and re-fixing the brackets.

Before it all got messy.

Off today shopping then, armed with her parcel of templates and samples, to the good fabric shop in Roscommon Town ("Finishing Touches"?) who had everything she needed and plenty of it reduced in price including a lovely burgundy coloured fabric, enough for both chairs and a separate seat cushion for each. There is a great bundle of wadding for a soft seat, webbing straps, beading 'ribbon', new hessian and the rough cloth which I do not know the name of. It is spoiled I will be!

Deconstruction.

Then in a nice surprise shopping discovery, Elizabeth came across frozen (cooked) brown crabs for only a fiver each. We love our crab here but have not been able to find any since we moved over. Only one meal, maybe, but with the weather outside being so miserable that the photographer is pinned down inside feeling uninspired, you get half a dozen pictures of it. Hope you don't mind.

That's more like it.

Half the fun of crab and lobster is all that cracking open claw bits and prizing out the meat with your skewer, so our way to serve is to pre-prep all the body-meat plus the tiny stuff from the legs and upper limbs. That gets variously en-saladed or mixed with mayo and served back in the empty shell, and you get the big claw bits (cracked but not open) on the side to play with. The food prep area in the kitchen looks like a road accident for a while but is easy enough tidied and the hens love picking the bits of shell over on the compost heap. At those low prices, the shopping dept also snatched up a bottle of Prosecco to go with, nicely chilled. It was a lovely meal.  A delightful and rare crab feast.

Fastest Cheese in the Wesht?

Our Arum has finally produced some clean spathes. Last year
they all seemed to get frosted, drowned or munched.

...in which we saw an end to the blue skies, for now at least, experienced a 'first' in the wildlife dept, had our shaggy dogs visited by our tame dog-groomer and played host to some rels.

Yes, the run of blue skies and heatwave temperatures came to an end but we quite welcomed it and saw it as a bit of a relief and the garden has definitely appreciated the refreshment. The 'wildlife' drama was our first sighting, in Ireland, of deer and much to our delight and surprise they were just a mile away, in our own home lane, not even as far as the local village.

Bog Asphodel in Kiltybranks.

These were 2 female fallow deer and we 'caught' them wandering on the lane as we headed off to Balla-D on a mission to retrieve (would you believe) our chemical toilet. The lane is straight so we could see the buff/white shapes  at a distance and first thought they might be dogs. According to the bio-diversity maps, we are 'meant' to have fallow deer all over Co Roscommon and I've been hunting around with my eyes open as this is a species I know well, love and 'follow' from the Kent days. In Kent, when I was involved in the Challock Forest 'friends'

First peas of 2016 - in the poly-tunnel, obviously.

I was the one doing the 'expert' (ha!) guided walks for the public during the rut, and it was fallow deer that we were looking at. I have not seen hide nor hair, not a whisper of a fallow deer in all the 4 and a half years we have been in Ireland. I have missed them. Then there they were, not a 5 minute drive from home, clearly visible and definitely fallow does till they saw us arriving and nipped off down the bank into the young forestry to the left of the lane. We have been back that way many times since but, of course, not a sign. There is one not-so-good possibility for this sighting before we all get too excited. We know that there is a deer farm locally though we have not, so far, found it and I have no idea whether it is fallow deer the man keeps, but these two might just be farm escapes. Never mind. I have added them to the bio-diversity database with that rider in the notes.

Towser gets it in the neck from Charlotte. Everywhere else, too!

The dogs were long overdue for a clip and I took it easy with them all through the hot spell. Regular readers will know that I clip them myself and would normally do them around about my birthday in mid April. This year though, they were booked in long ago for some more special, 'professional' treatment. Our friend Charlotte, trainee vet assistant, animal wrangler and also dog groomer had her eyes on them for some pictures before and after of the 'Westie Cut' (and other styles) for her curriculum vitae, so we were saving them up.

Come on you boys in green? Poppea is ready for the footie. 

She loves doing the westies and as they are white, she can also practise playing with her colours/dyes. These are only the cheap, last-a-few-days, water-based inks which wash off so the dogs do not have to worry long about their street cred. There would be no market round here (says Charlotte) for the proper, €6-a-bottle colours used by the "Creative Groomers" that you might get to use in a city 'salon'.

Towser loves C anyway, even though she
has really 'done' him this time!

So, Towser got a (golden) lion cut which, once photographed, got all cut off again so that his head and shoulders would be cool and he finished up with a 'Gay Pride' style rainbow and many coloured dots. Poppea got an Irish tricolour on one side and a goal net on the other so she'd be ready for the footie (Euros). Deefer got butterflies on 3 sides and a desert-island palm tree (green leaves, brown tree trunks, golden sand) on her rump.

3 flavours of goat cheese - plain, garlic and chives.

There was, too, a nice bonus to this day. Charlotte is now milking that guest-goat (Nanny Óg) on a 50/50 share basis with the kid and pulling off more milk than they have need for over there, so she offered some to us and we, of course, spotted the chance to make some more cheese - we love a feta in particular but also all the younger, softer goat cheeses. I collected Charlotte and all the grooming gear plus the milk at about midday. Unbeknownst to me, while we worked outside, Liz had nipped onto the Internet and found a goat-cheese recipe which only needed lemon juice and heat and a couple of hours. By the time we had done dogs, Liz re-appeared with a chilled pink wine and three flavours of perfectly good goats cheese, plain, garlic and chives. I don't suppose cheese has ever been made faster than that (or eaten!). We are looking forward to more milk as it comes available and have also been offered some from friends Sue and Rob who have now sold all their kids and are milking 3 nannies. They have milk coming out of their ears by all accounts. Blesséd are the cheese makers?

The ducks finally work out what the pond is for. Liz and
Mary look on.

Meanwhile, we have also played host to the Mum-in-Law (Steak Lady)  and Auntie Mary who came up for an over-night and a relaxing look around the farm, plus a visit to Strokestown House. The weather held off for long enough for them to enjoy the out doors and Liz has also enjoyed a bit of feeding the pigs while managing this time NOT to be chased by the gander. The ducks finally worked out what the pond is for and are now regulars dabbling and up-ending so that the ladies were able to sit on our big ash-log and watch them busily going about duck-business. Mercifully, this has not, so far, been too damaging to the pond.

As I write this we are relaxing back indoors after the Strokestown visit (enormous Ploughman's Lunch but too much rain for more than one border of the walled garden) and soon to drop the guests back to the railway station. It has been a lovely relaxing interlude and all the better for being a shade cooler after all that heat but, no, that was NOT the sound of me complaining about the weather.

50% Success

Anne and Simon's pigs ready to go. 

An early start this morning has me nipping round our own livestock doing 'breakfasts' and releases so that I can couple up the trailer and hit the road by 07:45. I am headed for Mentor Anne's (and Simon's). Their 2 cross (traditional) breed pigs are ready to go on their final journey and we are providing the haulage vehicle, our little Fiat and trailer.

See also Anne's blog if you like, on http://anirishalternative.blogspot.ie/2014/08/whoops.html?showComment=1408039916196#c4573968651786064362 .

Temporary pig 'race' through the hedge

The pigs' paddock is in the corner between their drive and the lane on which they live, but has been, up to now 'behind' a hedge. Coming in, small and in their crate, the pigs could be hauled up the 100 yards of driveway, round the end of the hedge and back down the garden to their paddock. It was not really feasible to walk them back all that way, so Simon had hatched a plan to cut a hole through the hedge, lining it with pallets to make a mini 'race' leading to the trailer parked at the drive/lane junction. We both knew that the pigs might not want to go where the electric fence had been even though it was now turned off, and that they might not want to cross Simon's wooden 'clippetty clop' bridge over a ditch made of pallets.

50% success - one loaded. 

In fact neither of these hazards fazed the piggies at all, and we quickly got one loaded using the bribery of a bucket of meal and boiled spuds. However as a professional display of good pig wrangling, it was at that point it stopped being our finest hour. The 2nd pig hated the idea of getting cornered in the confined narrow space of the 'race' and was having none of it. Three quarters of an hour of trying included some near misses where Simon's feed bucket almost almost almost coaxed her in but then she'd spook and bolt, and 120+ kg of pig is not anything you can stop of it decides to barge you out of the way at a squealing gallop. I was tied up keeping pig #1 in the trailer, so Simon was just working up a good sweat on his own and the pig leading him a merry dance.

Narrow delivery lane. Topp reversing skills needed.

Time was running out - we needed to be at the butcher's for ten and anyway, Simon had a 'date' for 10 a.m. We decided to go with just the one pig, block the hole in the fence and head for town. After that decision what remained of the 'mission' went back to being plain sailing, an easy drive into town, a successful reverse into the narrow delivery lane and a problem free release of pig #1 to trot happily down the concrete into the butcher's lairage. A 50% success then and Anne will re-book pig #2 for a later date at which we may well enroll some extra man (or woman) power, but Anne tells me that pig #2 will now ONLY be fed from a bucket and will be coaxed down the race a few times as practice for her own big day, possibly next Thursday.

Left to right, Steak Lady, Mr SL and Liz.

For me, then, a whizz back home where we were to receive a visit from Steak Lady, Mr SL and 'Auntie Mary' (sister of Mr SL), down to have a look round the place and see all the new 'lines' (bees, pigs, goslings, this year's sheep) as well as to give Liz her Birthday presents (a little early!). We also fed them of course with many of the ingredients being home grown and the bread home made; they were delighted with that. They had arrived bearing various other gifts too, including some empty jam jars, so when they left we packed them off with their own vegetable crate.

Auntie Mary gets some 'tay' down her. 

They are currently in mid move, from Portmarnock down to near to the Silverwoods, with all the B+B students now 'evicted' to other homes and quite a lot of the furniture and 'stuff' already moved down to County Laois. The place they are buying has, allegedly, a rather fine and luxurious shed in the garden with heating, lighting and fancy worktops, so all the 'children' are full of curiosity as to the fate of that. Even more notable was that there was a fancy 'rabbitry' - a building also with heat and light, lined with rabbit hutches, but apparently the vendor is taking that one with him/her.

One of our honey bees on a leek flower

Meanwhile, no sooner had I posted bemoaning the lack of our bees using the flowers in our garden, than they suddenly are all over some leeks we left to go to seed over the winter. We have also seen them on hollyhocks and around the Kitchen Garden, so maybe the dearth of wild flowers is forcing them to look more locally.

That is it for this one. Catch up with you again soon.

Big scary rooster....

Big scary rooster; poor defenceless sheep?

These days we let the sheep out for an hour morning and afternoon from their run (where the grass is almost grazed off) to the front lawn, woods and hedgerows for a graze and browse; where there's still plenty of grass etc. At the same time the chooks are out free ranging, wandering about as a group. Each hen takes her turn to peel away from the group to nip back to the coop to lay her egg and, when she's done wanders back to find the gang and William (The rooster). William is delighted to see them back and charges towards them making his throaty growly noise, racing up to the returning female and doing his little stompy dance, which seems to translate as "Yay hay! Can we make lurve now?"

This morning the 'gang' were in the woods and the 3 sheep grazing away just outside the woods, all with their heads down so that they'd not have been able to see the hens over the long grass and brambles at the wood's edge. Returning hen appears on lawn from far side, so sheep are between hen and gang. William spots her and charges through the undergrowth, 'exploding' out into the open just by the sheep, who freak and shy, stampeding away! Dad nearly splurged his coffee laughing. Not sure if sheep can look embarrassed, but ours came pretty close.

It occurs to me that we have not reported a visit yet by Steak Lady, Mr SL and Auntie Mary, the Nun (85). 29th September was the date, to nearly coincide with Mary's Birthday but they were mainly here to show Mary around. We have always been close friends with Auntie Mary, who has called Mum her "Little Princess" since a very young age, but who spent most of her life Missionary-ing in Africa. For a tiny, petite, soft spoken 'little ol' lady' she has probably seen more of horrific real life than any of us are likely to see and can quietly relate stories which make your hair stand on end - whole African villages wiped out by AIDS, persecution of Christian villagers, war, turmoil and strife, starvation and hardship. She is a fascinating person to talk to. The picture is left to right, Mum, Steak Lady, The Nun and Mr SL, with Towser sneaking in at SL's feet and Poppy just getting her nose in shot bottom right. The visit went well and they all love the place. They piled into Mum's food, loved what we'd done with Steak Lady's garden cuttings and admired the sheep.


We have also been on a visit down to the Silverwoods, birthplace of Towser and Poppy (and their 5 brothers and sisters). This was to have been so that Dad could see and get photo's of the children's new activity, horse riding lessons, which happens on Sundays with the two eldest and the two youngsters alternating weekends. In the event it got moved to the Friday so that we could babysit little R (4) while Mr and Mrs S took M (6) off to Dublin for an appointment. We could collect R from school and hand her over to Aoife the Social Worker who was to take her on a visit to her natural family, and we could also collect J-M from school in the rain. We took the pups along so that they could experience their first proper car ride and re-acquaint with Silverwood and the S's. So it was a good fun visit with lots of coming and going but never really got going as a whole family event or a meal because everybody was there in snatches in between zooming off on 'things' - even J-M was on a French lesson as soon as she got back from school and Em-J now does homework / study after school till gone 6 p.m, so we never saw her at all. 

Dad's 2CV is now being readied for her NCT test (=MOT). We have finally got the windscreen we needed and she is now in the garage where they are sorting out her ignition and mixture. She's lost the ability to idle, which meant a quick pull on the choke to keep the engine going at every T junction. The garage have tried changing points and capacitor in case it was an ignition problem but have then found the car is leaking air round the carburettor. We are waiting for Monday when the garage will let us know what we need to do about this - is it a new 'carb' or just the gaskets around it. Luckily we have 2CV Llew to call on at the other end of the phone, with a stack of old carbs stripped off dead 2CVs, so we won't have to spend £££s either way. We just need to get Llew to actually put one in the post, which has been, in the past, not anything you can hurry! We love Llew madly but he's nobody's version of 'urgent'. We'll see.


That's about for this one. 

Deefer