Brer Fox Comes Back for a Goose

Not a clean death - she was covered in puncture bite marks
and badly bruised. We think the neck wound was inflicted
when the fox tried to pull the carcass through the sheep wire. 

Our fox left us 10 days after taking the duck, in which to relax, start thinking he was a one-off and maybe drop our guard a little. Then he sneaked back at 4 pm on a Saturday. Luckily for him (or her, of course, foxes are almost impossible to sex on a fleeting glimpse) he chose a time when I was off site and Elizabeth was hoovering, so that she did not hear the Guinea Fowl alarm-call cacophony until it was too late.

A good old fashion (goose) stew with
dumplings. 

I was out at a gentle, afternoon, drinkless, family and friends gathering for the 60th birthday of my archery coach, Con, and heading home at half past 4. At roughly the same time, Elizabeth finished the hoovering, killed the noise and heard the Guinea Fowl clamour. She raced outside and found one GF high up a tree, giving out all manner of dog's abuse, which is never a good sign. Casting around she could find no cause for the racket but we know and trust these birds, so we keep looking for as long as it takes, or they stop the screaming.

Goosey Gumbo? This lovely soup (over rice) made a fitting
end to the fox's abandoned prize. 

Then she saw the sad white shape right at the bottom of the orchard against the fence. It was straight away obvious what had happened - the fox had got into the orchard, killed the goose and then dragged her to the fence. Unluckily for the fox, this was a big, 5-6 kg bird he had chosen, so he could not jump back out of the orchard with his prize.

The day after losing her 'sister', one of the
survivors gives us the first goose egg of
2018. 

He'd put it down by the fence, jumped the fence unladen, then tried to pull the goose through the fence. It was too big a goose to fit through, so he'd presumably spotted Elizabeth bearing down on it and fled the scene. She never actually saw the fox. She'd just about time to carry the body back to the shed and hang it up to bleed out a bit, and shepherd the survivors to safety, when I pulled in to the drive way and heard the sorry tale. We didn't know at that point, whether the victim was one of those females I'd been waiting to start laying eggs, or our belovéd gander, Gorgeous George. It was the former.

Still spoiled rotten and sleeping indoors at this stage, Lily and
the month old lamb, Tigger. 

The plucking took place that evening, when the bird proved to be so full of puncture holes and bite marks, that Liz decided to skin the bird instead, half way through plucking. This goose was going down the 'stew' route. At the gutting stage it turned out that the bird also had half a dozen part-formed eggs up her 'pipework', the largest of which was almost laying-size and could only have been a day away from our long awaited "First Egg of 2018".

Outdoors now - breakfast with Mum and Aunts on
Monday morning.

Long story short, the goose became a superb stew and dumplings, the gribbly bits went in the wheelie bin and a great pile of white feathers went on the compost heap. The latter fact is the most significant because our furry, bushy-tailed friend came back for his lost prize the next day (Sunday) at about half past eleven. This time we were both up and about when the Guineas kicked off, we raced outside, each via a different route and caught the lad in the act of sniffing the pile of feathers on the compost heap, right up by our cattle race. He scarpered, of course, when our 2 heads appeared round either end of his covering wall, galloping off and clearing the 3-4' sheep wire into the pig-pen without breaking stride. He paused briefly to see how serious we were and then shot off down the pig-pen and cleared to bottom fence the same way, vanishing off down the bog field below us.

A 2018 first, the new kitchen windows are
thrown open to let some warm air through
as the sun shines brightly outside. Spring
is here. 

In a surprising parallel to Sue and Rob's garden-fox mentioned in a previous post (10th Feb), to get to the compost, the fox must have come in over the fences again but through the gangs of surviving geese and ducks, ignoring them. My guess is that he came first to the piece of fence where he'd left the goose in such a hurry, and once there, could either see or smell the "dead one" (he wouldn't have know it was only a pile of feathers) 40 yards away on the compost. I assume that had we not disturbed him, he'd have quickly worked out that he needed to kill another bird and done that (or more) on the way out.

Naturally we are back on high alert, Fox-Watch for all the hours that the birds are out of their sheds and free ranging. We have also abandoned all our optimistic foolish ideas that this might be a one-off, fox, a 2017 youngster turfed out of the home earth and roaming around looking for a territory to call his own. He came on the 2nd Jan, took the duck on 8th Feb, and has now come back on the 17th and 18th. He is now a local and regular visitor, though he didn't come back on Monday or today. While he is all unpredictable and careful, there is little we can do about this except keep watch and listen to what those Guinea Fowl tell us. However, if he starts to get regular, predictable and a bit complacent, then we have some options. Wish us luck.

Briefly chaotic Living Room scene, books
everywhere. 

It is never ALL bad news though. The next day, one of the other geese laid her first egg of 2018 so we are back in that 'game' and the waiting is over. The ewe Lily refused to come 'home' that evening to her indoor pen in the Tígín as we've done happily for 4 weeks now and seemed to want to go, instead, into the East Field where her 'sisters' have been all along. I let her in and closed the gate on her happy re-union. It was a warm evening, so I decided that she was all done on the 'Intensive Care', indoor housed thing. Tigger is a big, bouncing, plump, chunky lad at this stage and no more likely to die of his sister's hypothermia that is his fully-fleeced Mum. They have slept out ever since (all be it they actually sleep in the shelter with the other girls) and I have been able to muck out the pen ready for the next mum+lamb. This looks like it might be first-timer Rosie, from the 'bagging up' evidence, or Polly, from the 'I want to be alone' sleeping behaviour.

One of the book walls!

Finally, Elizabeth finally made it to IKEA in Dublin to buy 2 more of their excellent, full height, 80 cm wide, flat packed "Billy" book cases. There are, obviously, a gazillion books here and the cases we have have been double stacked and overflowing for too many months. Liz finally cracked, girded her loins and went to do battle with IKEA. The boxes, although almost 7 feet long, fit neatly into our little Fiat Panda with all the doors shut; you just post them in the back hatch and slide them down into the passenger side foot-well. Brilliant. Well, now they are assembled (by the Flat-pack Queen) and full of books after a massive, day-long sort-out. We are so tidy, we won't know ourselves.

AB's 6 from 6

AB 'schmoozing' up some bullocks with a bag of feed as bribery

We are now well into our 3rd week with Help-X volunteer, 'AB' and it's all going brilliantly. This week he has managed to add 2 species of domestic livestock to his 'list' of animals of which he has had experience, and two new species of weed to his 'bashed' list. The animals are sheep and cattle and the weeds are rushes and thistles.

A whole shoulder and front leg of venison, Fallow Doe in this
case. Slow roasted in a buttery foil parcel. Delicious.

The sheep were ours. One of our ewes, Lily, had gone lame favouring her front left. We think this was perhaps where she had trodden on a bit of blackthorn bush in the area AB and I had recently cleared of old prunings, tree branches and stinging nettles. Nettles are now known in these parts by the French name "Ortie", usually preceded by a rude epithet. We needed to get hold of Lily so that I could clean, check and trim her feet, giving the soft parts a good explore with my thumb to make sure there were no blackthorn spikes in there; a bit like getting a splinter in your finger.

It was AB's day off but he happily piled in with the shepherding back and forth to the Cattle Race  and moving gates about. I was worried that moving the 6 animals might be complicated by the presence of the 2 new lambs and, particularly, Pedro the Ram. I needn't have worried. It all went like clockwork and we probably could have done it without AB, but it was good to have the extra man-power shutting off the 'side-roads' and keeping the sheep on course.

That venison again. Couldn't resist another pic.

The cattle thing is just AB getting involved with the daily feeding job I am currently doing for a friend; 8 bullocks all coming up to 'end' weight. They are big animals, as you can imagine, maybe 600-800 kg (live weight) but AB, City boy with no experience of any kind of farming takes them all in his stride and moves confidently among them under my supervision, staying the right amount of quiet, calm and quiet-voiced. My 8 "boys" just accept him and seem to know he is no danger, especially when he is rustling a feed sack.

AB's 6 from 6 at 20 feet in Week 3

He's also made a good impression in the Archery Club - I have been taking him along on Sunday afternoons for a taster as the club's Coach, (Con) is currently running beginner training. Our club is a very welcoming group of people, happy to accommodate new members and enthusiastic in our encouragement of their early successes. The training happens on the right hand side of the hall, on the short-range targets (20 and the 40 feet) while we experienced regulars shoot down the left hand side to the full range butts.

This means that we each have to be very aware of where the 'other lot' are at and all stay in the safe areas till someone shouts "Collect" to the whole range. Quite often, therefore, we 'old hands' have finished shooting and can keep a quiet eye on the beginners as they go through their paces. We see when they get a bull's eye and, if appropriate (and allowed by Con), cheer, clap, whoop with joy etc. That's where we all were on AB's Week 3 when we all spotted that AB, who had been told to shoot off all 6 arrows, had got 2 bulls from his first 2 arrows.

We cheered his 3rd but were shushed by Con and held our breaths while AB focused on his 4th arrow. He knew we were all watching but you could have heard a pin drop as he planted his 4th, 5th and then amazingly his 6th right into the gold. Good shooting, AB. The lot of us went mad cheering and whooping and Con called for the photographer(s). He was as pleased as Punch, as you can imagine. His reward, of course, was to get moved on to the 40' butts, so he was back to square one but he will not forget that moment for a while. Because he is with us till 20th Oct, I have booked him in for a 4th session and he thinks he will keep with the archery when he gets back to Paris, trying to find a local club over there.

My only other news is that the Honesty Box for eggs is steaming along and spends a lot of its time sold out. I had to make a 'Sold Out' sign to fix across the main sign to save people fruitlessly getting out of their cars and checking the box. OK, we are never going to make our first €million as we still only have 3 ducks and about 7 hens in lay, but it is still a good feeling to know that local people like our eggs and our prices. We even made a couple of new friends when I spotted a couple of strangers rooting in the box and asked them in for tea and a look round the place. They are from nearby village Kilmovee. Welcome aboard.

On a Chicken Mission

Liz plucks the final bird. 3 finished birds
are in the background.

This post sees us finally through the harvest of the Hubbard variety chickens. Regular readers will know that the Hubbard is a commercial breed used widely in Ireland by farmers supplying the supermarkets with, specifically, Free Range and Organic chickens. We get them as day-olds and grow them through to around day 90 by which time they have reached 2-4 kg oven-ready weights and are just the most succulent, tender, meaty and flavoursome chicken you will ever put on the table.

The final 3 hens and a cock await jointing and/or vac-packing

These are normally only available in industrial scale batches (10,000 for example) but our friends Mentor Anne and Simon who were once in that business, are still 'in' with a guy who manages one of the big hatcheries and is happy to make up mini-orders to suit we few smallholders. We get a dozen and A+S add those to their own 'few dozen' order. If you like, go back a few months on this blog for some pics of a previous lot newly arrived  (http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2016/05/hubbard-chick-at-2-days-little-list-of.html ).

Vac packed and ready for the freezer

Those regular readers will also know that the latest batch have now 'cooked' and we have been processing them at a two a day for the last week. That brought us to Saturday with 4 birds remaining. Normally we'd share the load but that day Liz decided she was "in the Zen" for a solid 2-3 hours of plucking and gutting.

Fringe benefit of a Hubbard kill. Lovely fresh paté

She took the laptop into the kitchen, put on an Oz murder-mystery series on download which she is currently "binge-watching", shut the door to keep out the kittens (they are devils for climbing up your back without warning, leaping from the floor to about waist height, then digging their claws in for a scrabble to shoulder height. Poor Liz is lacerated about the nape and fed up with the pain, and was going to be working in the warm kitchen with her shoulders protected only by a tee shirt and apron) and went for it.

Boiled chicken feet? Not your cup of tea?
The dogs LOVE them

My part in this is to bring in the killed birds on demand, supply tea in regular and copious amounts (plus the occasional G+T if the job is running past 'yard-arm') and then, at the end, jointing, vac-packing, finding homes for all this largesse in the freezer(s) and disappearing the bags of feathers, guts, heads and any other unmentionables. I can pluck but I am nothing like as careful or patient as Liz and my birds end up looking a bit like road-kill with torn skin, etc. Liz picks away carefully and gently, busily and efficiently producing lovely looking oven-ready birds. She is very good at it and has found, to her own amazement (Dublin city-girl!) that she thoroughly enjoys it and finds it very therapeutic. I, of course, am not arguing. My job is to hatch (if necessary), rear and 'grow' the birds and then kill them and bring them to the kitchen door and take away any bags of waste. It is a neat and easily worked team effort. We both, of course, thoroughly enjoy eating them!

Sunday morning dawned Hubbard-less but also with a good frost. During my first livestock rounds (which now includes getting 'wet', liquid water out to the birds - the ducks and geese do love to wash their faces and they are unimpressed by that rock-hard crust that comes on the drinkers these mornings. The outside tap is, of course, frozen up, so this involves bringing out buckets of water from the kitchen) I had heard what I thought were a few more Whooper swans flying N-S past us to the West and being called down by more birds on Lough Feigh. I headed down there again with my long lens, hoping to improve on my '365' pics of last week.

No luck on the swans by then (10 am). The Lough is quite low at present and was completely frozen over except among the reed beds, so there was not a swan to be seen, not even the ubiquitous Mute Swans. I had to satisfy myself with a couple of picturesque frosty scenes and a small flock of wigeon zig-zagging about. I'd given up and headed home when I got my best surprise of that day - I put up a snipe. I don't think I have ever seen one before but I know that, in theory, they do live here.

This tiny 'dot' cropped out of the middle of a huge blank
sky is my snipe. First one I'd ever seen, never mind photo'd.

Of course, once it had exploded into flight it was quickly up to a gazillion mph and headed away from me as fast as its little blurring wings could go. I whipped up the 400 mm and fired off a couple pics and thank Heaven for modern "image stabilization" on these fancy lenses. He was outta there. I was relieved to be able to crop this silhouette from the resulting huge, featureless picture of grey sky.

Thawed patch and neat pile of poo tells
the tale of where one sheep slept last night

Finally I have had some fun today helping to clear away the outdoor archery equipment for our Coach, Con who is currently laid up in his bed, too sick to do any hefting and carrying but fretting because all the gear was still 'out there' getting rained on and frozen.

We all laughed at this superb pic of archery
boss-lady, Niamh who had finally nailed that
coffee cup with a superb tight pattern of 3
arrows. Ace shooting Niamh!

Our archery field 'out there', south of Castlerea town is a square with earth banks thrown up all round it like ditches and walls, a copy of an Irish fort (or 'Rath'). In one corner is an access gap for Con's tired old ride-on mower which comes with a handy little trailer.

From shortage to glut. We probably have
'enough' eggs now.

My job, helped by our archery 'boss-lady' Niamh (Brits may need to know this is pronounced "Neave") was to scurry back and forth collecting up all the 3D foam-rubber targets (life-size animals like wild boar, ibex and deer, fox etc), logs, tarpaulins, metal 'tent-peg' pins and pallets, bring them all to dry storage. On Sunday a gang of us will return to demolish the big marquee and then Con will be able to get some healing sleep. Get well soon, Con!

Work(s) in Progress

Those beautiful floors made of Indian limestone slabs and
skimmed skinny-size scaffold boards. 

This pic does not really do justice to the intense torquoise
colour of the hand made kitchen

I got so carried away with my bats in the last post, I completely omitted the biggest news story that week, the (near) completion of the Sligo house rebuild to the point where K-Dub and the family were able to finally move in. 'Near' here is just because there is a small amount of the inevitable de-snagging - touch of paint here, connect up something over there, plumb in the hob, that sort of thing. But we spent most of Thursday scrubbing those floors to within an inch of their lives so that K-Dub could spend the evening sealing the woodwork and lacquering the stone, leaving them overnight to dry.

The "we" here as with all these Sligo house posts, you will know by now to mentally add "Mainly K-Dub" to every time I use it - we built this, we moved that, we painted the other. I have helped, but I am only the part-time labour. All the skilled stuff and the lion's share of the man hours are definitely due to K-Dub himself and I know he is as proud as he has every right to be, of the house "we" have built, as are the ladies (who have also helped). I have moved endless amounts of rock, shoveled and swept tonnes of sawdust and wood shavings and run a gazillion 'mixes' through the cement mixer, but in the house itself I have laid at most half a dozen blocks (mine are above the front door!) and stuck a few stones in the exterior stone-masonry. I have 'held' some stuff while the boss screwed it into place and that kind of thing but, as I said, 'we' is definitely K-Dub for 99% of this house.

I love these stairs also built from skinny
scaffold boards. 

So on the Friday (22nd) the buildering paused and we turned our minds to humping furniture about. The family have all the 'stuff' from their old house stored in a single storey abandoned building over the road and in our spare room here. We got into a good rhythm with K-Dub and Charlotte pulling the stuff out of the store, me bringing it across the road to the new house and Carolyn blitzing it with cleaners and furniture polish before it could be assembled , the cushions added or it be moved into its final position. Finally K-Dub and I, 2-handed the heavy stuff (Welsh dresser etc) across before we started on boxes of kitchen gear, bags of bedding and all the other bits that anyone who moves house will know all too well.

K-Dub and Carolyn feeling like they are in. Young H (4) is there
too but has curled himself into the easy chair in such a way that
you'd miss him if you looked quickly.

The family were looking at a fairly mad weekend - no gentle getting moved in, unpacked and sorted out for them. K-Dub's best mate from Dublin was down on the Friday night (there might be drinking involved with that one) and then K-Dub's sister and her little boy are down from the Saturday round to the Thursday (28th). It all sounds a bit hectic.

'Medieval' tented round houses. 

Meanwhile, in archery land, I have been helping with a completely different 'build'. Instructor, 'Con', is a man of many talents. As well as a former army weapons trainer and now archery coach for us lot, he is an ace leather-worker and respected national expert in the construction of medieval footwear (for which he makes 'repro' copies for shows and museums) but is also a knowledgeable enthusiast on all things medieval, Celtic history, Druid-ing and the like.

Inside one of the round houses. 

At his place near Castlerea he has created the earth-banks for various forts and encampments and every year he hosts a "Celtic Lughnasa Games" (Lughnasa being a Celtic festival which happens at the end of July into August). Families can come, camp the nights, socialise and then try their hand at the 'taster sessions' on games like spear-throwing, axe-throwing, knife-throwing and, of course, archery all in a controlled and safe, strictly managed (and sober!) environment. For obvious reasons Con forbids the mixing of booze with dangerous sports; he also (maybe more tongue in cheek) forbids discussion on Religion or Politics while anyone is armed!  

We got the car through the NCT at the re-test stage.

In the centre of all this - the public and socialising areas - he creates a tented 'village' a bit like the space for a jousting tournament, with wooden framed (and skirted) round houses and stripey 'viewing tents', plus a big fire-pit for the evening storey-telling etc. That was our bit - a couple of Saturdays spent as volunteers banging in posts, fixing planking, erecting the middle post and the 'rafters' and then wrangling the tarpaulin canvas 'hat' over the whole thing. Con and co kept us supplied with breakfast, cups of tea and a bit of lunch and we all had a great deal of fun and happy banter throwing these buildings up and getting to know each other. Different but brilliant. I assume we will all reconvene after the event to pull it all down again but I have not heard of that yet. Good luck Con over the weekend. Hope the rain holds off and you get a good croud of reasonably well behaved 'students'.

Meanwhile we chug along through a very wet July, making progress in some other departments, too. The Hubbards continue to thrive and put on weight. At 70 days they are looking decidedly edible and we are looking forward to starting to 'harvest' the big ones (mainly the three roosters). The ducks are also definitely starting to look adult and, so Charlotte tells us, we should definitely start to consider a couple of them who are getting a lovely dark green 'Mallard-ish' sheen to their heads, as drakes.

Note dark green 'mallard-ish' sheen on the heads of the
two rear-most ducks here. Drakes, maybe?

Houdini Duck continued to escape every day through the sheep wire of the orchard and would go on the pond but as there was only one of him he seemed not to be doing much damage and the pond was starting to recover. Then H-D made a fatal mistake and showed one of the others how to get out and invited her to join him on the pond (or poss her/him/her). I have had to nip out today and invest in some 2-inch-hole, 2 foot tall chicken wire to run along these fences to stop the rot. I seem to have settled their hash for now.

One of the Hubbard roosters at 70 days

The very-baby Marans chicks are coming on well too and are getting well feathered despite being only 14 days old. They spend their days out in the rabbit run, all be it able to retreat into the nice, dry, warm, draught free 'bedroom' bit if they fancy a break from the fresh air. We bring them back indoors at night and they can huddle under their 'electric hen' warming plate but on these very warm nights we are looking forward to thinking about risking them outside. It won't be long (maybe 2 weeks?) before we scratch our collective chins and say.. "No...... I think they're done" and pack away the brooder boxes and the elctric hen. Our breeding season will be over. The year is flying by.

Bull's Eye

4 weeks into my archery training and I am beginning to feel like I know what I am at. I have got so so lucky with this course. Roscommon Archery hold their courses twice a year and can cater for up to 6 novices per course, but this Spring, for what ever reason, only 3 people applied to join. One of these fell by the wayside for no apparent reason and a 2nd had to stay in India due to work commitments, so I inherited the course on my ownsome - one to one tuition!

Bit of pride might be sneaking in here! Not a bad grouping
for a 40' target. 

My instructor goes by the name of Con and is a top bloke. I pay close attention to him and try to absorb everything he says and he is delighted to have someone who listens to him and does what they are told. I gather it can get a bit doubting or rebellious on occasion. Between us we have got me well into the all-important CONSISTENT shooting. At my level hitting the bull is less important than getting your arrows into a close group or "pattern". The theory goes that if you stand exactly the same, breathe the same and handle the bow the same for every shot, all your arrows should arrive at the same place. Once you are consistent, you can then move the 'sighting' (aiming) onto the bull and up the distances without peppering the hall or surrounding scenery with random arrows.

Here I am in week 4 able to create a decent pattern even at the longest indoor range (18m or roughly 60 feet) onto a 2 foot square target or, if Con is messing about a bit, 'caging' and nailing small drinks bottles of coffee cups pinned to the target. On this course (I cannot answer for others) you start by using a small plastic 'sight' on the bow while you get your consistency sorted (your eye lines up bow-string, sight and bull's eye) and later (next week!) you convert from sighted to "instinctive" shooting. I presume there is a stage where you sight the target and then take a sneaky look where your arrow-head is lined up before loosing the arrow but that's all in the future. Not very far into the future, admittedly. Con says it all goes to pot but then you realise how good you are and you prefer the unsighted shooting. Everything else he has said has worked so what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Charlotte's Trixie - an ace ratting dog

He has also sent me off to browse around equipment supply websites but I must not buy anything because I have not yet been 'measured up' for bow length (riser and limbs), arrow length and draw weight (poundage). I am glad about that. I went onto one website and have to admit to being completely baffled by the choice of gear available. We are confident, though, that I can bring in a full set of equipment at under my "half a 2CV" budget.

Meanwhile, months back, I may have sneaked in a reference to a new village project with which Lizzie has got involved. I was sworn to secrecy back in the early days as it was all a bit tentative and Liz did not know what form her involvement might take. Now it can be told - the village Amateur Dramatics group (The Lisacul Players) is staging 3 nights of Michael Joseph Ginnelly's comedy "A Wake in the West" -loads more detail on this one the village website including (soon) a review by me of the Opening Night which was a superb and thoroughly enjoyable riot.

The Lisacul Players (dress) rehearsing 'A Wake in the West'

As well as the 'admin' support that goes with her job (the play is happening in her building); tickets and books and so on; she is the official 'prompt' as well as costume adjuster/seamstress. Yes. She has a little seat just outside the window (stage right) and a heap of blankets because of the cold and draughts and her script and she has to follow every actor's every performance to make sure no-one misses a line or freezes. If they do she has to 'whisper' the line through her window and hope that the actor wakes up and cops on seamlessly.

The chicken eggs start to hatch.

For most of the cast this works well, she tells me, but one of the cast is (deliberately) a rambling drunk given to mumbling as if very well lubricated, in a heavy local accent. For this guy she is usually laughing behind the scenes, unable to understand half of what he says and totally unable to detect if he has missed a line or a cue. She tongue-in-cheek, gives out to him at each act-interval for being such a convincing drunk. "Years of practise", he says.

They wont be needing these any more.

Meanwhile in the livestock dept, we have a happy event to announce. Well, reasonably happy. Our chicken eggs in the incubator came round towards Day 21 and there was a mad scramble to pip and hatch. Unfortunately I missed the signs on Day 20 and failed to remove the dividers in the incubator or block up the floor-gaps which allow you to roll the eggs. Chicken #1 hatched and fell down the gap, so drowned in the water reservoir. Ooops.

Cup-a-soup?

After that plenty hatched safely or nearly hatched (they can get exhausted or stuck half way out) but for some unknown reason a couple have died since. You just find them flaked out on the floor. One other hatched successfully but has badly made legs and cannot get up off the floor. He/she flails around like a frog and we will have to cull this one out. Net result so far, then, just 4 healthy chicks (from 13 eggs), but, hey, it is still only March. Plenty of time for more batches and some incubated by broody hens. That is the way it goes sometimes. On the bright side, 10/13 eggs were fertile, so there is not a lot wrong with our roosters.

Of Mighty Trees and Hungry Lambs

Three mighty Black Spruce trees loom over the
 house but perhaps not for long. 

In our front lawn stand 3 mighty trees, black spruces more than 60 years old (maybe even 100) which are, we estimate at least 60 feet high and a good six feet round the trunks at chest-height. Regular readers will know that we have many such trees but these three are 'special' because they are due SSW from the house (right in the line of the most common named-storm winds) and are only about 35 feet from the house. Also because we could "easily" get them down without needing to miss overhead wires, fences, buildings, the drive and so on, They would fall right across the blank lawn. My picture is taken so that there is no tricky perspective - the trees and the house are equi-distant from the camera. If these trees blew down they really would smack the house with BIG pieces of trunk and big side branches.

Ebony and Ivory at a week old.

Most of the time, we are happy that the trees are well glued to the ground and would probably go another hundred years with no problem. We have even been advised of this by our friend Aerial-Keith, who came and de-limbed a tree for us a while back. But those named storms come rocking through and the tops  of these guys are whipping about, you can see that massive thickness of trunk arching and you can feel the shudders through the trunk at ground level and you know it has been raining solidly for months. Then you get to remembering the 'hurricane' which hit SE England in 1987 and the scene of devastation which greeted us that morning, the roads blocked with trees and villages like Three Oaks and towns like Sevenoaks wondering if they'd need a new name and you don't feel quite so safe and serene.

You can imagine that felling them would need to be done by a pro with big machinery and insurance - it is hardly a DIY job for me with my weeny 16 inch cut chain saw - and not cheap. We have been avoiding doing anything about the trees so far but step forward a generous benefactor with an offer of possible help. Thank you GB, you know who you are. Also step forward a likely 'pro' who we spotted doing just such a task for a near neighbour and who I asked same for contact details of. I have now got this fella coming round to look at the job and quote me a price. The job will include slicing up those trunks into 16" thick rounds which I can split for 'logs', and the shredding of all the trash (sneddings). We can use the shredded stuff on the garden. I can cut up the small stuff (branches and tops of trunks) myself. Watch this space and listen out for shouts of 'Timberrrrrr!!!!!!'

Whose is that zippy looking red buzz bomb of a hot hatch-back
parked out front.? That'll be the Mum in Law come to stay!

While thinking about these entertainments, we have been playing host to Mum-in-Law, 'Steak Lady' currently gadding about in a very pretty red buzz-bomb, a tweaked up shiny Skoda hatch-back. She came for 5 days (4 nights) and enjoyed a good old show around of this place and some 'farming', plus some trips to local attractions, a bit of shopping and, of course our own home-grown food and a few drinks. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and we were quite sorry to fill the lady with an excellent breakfast (goose-egg omelettes with ham and cheese), set up her sat-nav and bid her adieu.

The trailer gets some more abuse. It just takes 15 bales with the
'top down'. Here, straw for a neighbour. 

Among the 'farming' we laid on for her were chances to join me on my feed rounds, to round up the various stock at 'bedtime' and a visit to the Roscommon Poultry Sale on Sunday morning where we were looking for Muscovy ducks. No ducks, unfortunately (only a few rather sad looking Khaki Campbell drakes) so Liz got tempted by a dozen Khaki-Campbell 'hatching eggs' which are now in Sue and Rob's incubator. We may yet be in the duck game in 28 days or so. More on this when things happen. She also got involved with bottle feeding our lamb.

Lucy gets a first dose in the dark of Sunday night.

"Bottle feeding?" I hear you exclaim, "Why so?" Long story, but if you have the patience, read on. We had been worried for a few days that our problem-child, 'Lily' to whom we have had the vet a couple of times now seemed to be only milking out of one teat and we had only seen the bigger of her twins, Rosie, doing any suckling. The weaker of the two (Lucy) seemed to be struggling and we had seen her standing with back arched; which we thought (from last year) might be another unformed anus problem, her straining unsuccessfully to poo.

Liz and Lucy getting a bit more professional by Monday morning

However she had the required orifice and was pooing OK so we looked further (Google is your friend!) and found that she was actually standing the the classic "hungry lamb" position, back arched, knees almost touching elbows and all 4 legs and feet almost together (see pic). We sought advice from our experts (Charlotte and Carolyn!) and realised that we needed to rapidly become competent in supplementary feeding - bottle feeding!. This, though, was Sunday evening so we had to find a DIY solution. Liz found a reasonable sounding mix of cow milk and beaten egg on the internet and (oh so luckily!) Charlotte remembered that among her 'stuff' being stored in our spare room while they move house, would be a box labelled "Charlotte's bits and bobs". This might contain the one lamb-sized bottle-teat which she had kept as a souvenir from her own teenager sheep/lamb rearing days.

Lucy in what we now know is classic 'hungry lamb' stance,
elbows and knees almost touching, back arched and tail
pulled in tight between the legs. 

A bit of 'bucket chemistry', the teat successfully located and a washed out beer bottle and we were away. Out in the dark by head-torch we managed to find the lamb and then get the teat into her mouth, all be it, getting her face and front and Liz's gloves and coat liberally sprayed with milk in the process. We really felt like beginners and were worried that we'd not be able to help the girl because of our incompetence. Lucy was trying her hardest to co-operate though and we soon had her suckling away and got a half inch or so of bottle-depth into her.

Lucy's breakfast, dinner and tea for a few weeks. 

We have got a lot more proficient since then and on Monday morning we were able to get hold of some proper lamb-milk (Lamlac) formula and some better sized teats. We are now getting decent quantities of the warm goodness into her , though nowhere near the 1 litre a day you'd do if that was her ONLY food. We suspect that it is not - she is also starting to wean now (3 weeks old) so we see her grazing and stealing some of the adults' 'crunch' mix, plus she may be getting some milk from Mum and also from 'Aunt' Myfanwy. The Lamlac milk, though, has quickly started to put some weight on her and we both think she is plumper, warmer to hold, more lively and a lot less 'hunched up' looking. It is 8 pm as I write this, so I have actually just been out to do the last feed (today) and she was going well even when interupted by her sister (Rosie) who was curious at all these shlurrrping noises and wanted to try out this new thing. We have the vet called to Lily, obviously, as she may have mastitis or some other problem which is causing the milk not to flow from her left side. More on all this as things develop.

In through the side of the mouth seems to do the trick!

On the archery story, I have been down now to my first beginner-training session and I am bubbling over to anyone who will listen at how enjoyable and good it was. The coach, 'Con', is by way of being a former army weapons trainer (among other things) so I guess I should have expected my Silverwood's taster-session technique to be completely trashed so that I could start again with better foundation but I thoroughly enjoyed the process. There are 3 of us beginners but, by chance, my 2 colleagues were unable to come that day, so I enjoyed some one-to-one tuition.

The Mum in Law gives the bottle feeding a try.
I ask "Is this the first time you have fed a lamb?"
She says "It's the first time I've been near
enough to one to touch it!"

Con started by barring my Crocs (shoes) from future sessions and went on from there, changing my 'sidedness' ( I now shoot holding the bow in my  left hand and drawing the string with my right even though I am left-eye dominant), and then ripping into my stance (hips, belly, head, you name it) but in a good way. This was not a 'boot camp' and he kept saying "hope you don't mind a good slagging!" so that we both had a good laugh about it. He was impressed by my consistency, however, so that my groupings of arrows were good and tight throughout. When I do it wrong, at least I do it wrong the same every time, which, apparently, makes me a lot easier to work on.

Not one of ours - I just love Herefords!

That's about enough for this rather long and rambling post but I will just close with the fact that as well as the duck eggs sitting in Sue's big incubator over at her place, I have set 13 chicken eggs (mainly pure bred Buff Orpington) in the little incubator we borrow each year from the currently away-at-college Charlotte (Thanks, C!). This was going to happen anyway but we did it today so that Mum in Law could see the start of the thing. She may come back in 21 days hopeful to see some hatching. That City Girl is definitely starting to get 'infected' with all the goats, lambs, geese and other birdies.