In The White

Plumbing bits.

Learning a whole new skill this week, I have been indulging in a little Farm-Plumbing. The local tradesmen need not fear me taking away their business, there is little skill involved, I will not be bending any copper pipes or blow-torching any solder joints in a professional, leak-free manner. All you need for this kind of plumbing is to be able to saw through a plastic pipe straight and do up a plastic fitting to a sensible degree of "hand-tightness". Oh and if you let the rubber ring seals fall out of the fitting or take out the white plastic "olive", then you need to be able to put them back in the right places and the right way round (hands up if you spotted a fact drawn from personal experience there!).

Step-down fitting from the IBC's
big-bore outlet.

We have had the big 1010 litre pallet-sized water butts (they are properly called IBCs or Intermediate Bulk Containers) on site for years but the one on the east end of the house has never had any of the stored water drawn from it or used, it has just sat there full, waiting for me to buy and plumb in a sheep drinking trough just 10 m away in the East Field. For this mission, I didn't even need to know what fittings I needed - the guys at Connacht Gold down in Castlerea are so used to farmers wandering in and saying "I need to connect a pipe from x to y.... what fittings would I need?" that as long as you are using their standard "half inch bore, heavy" pipe, you're away on a hack. I told them I needed a step-down from the 2 and a quarter inch thread outlet of the IBC and (because I do have a rough clue what I'm doing, thank you!) a T junction to cope with a possible future T-off to a pig drinker, and because I was buying the trough from them, the guy dipped a hand into a few of his drawers and rapidly assembled a small stack of fittings. He even dissembled some and put them back together to show me how they should 'go'. The pipe even comes pre-marked in metres, so the guy just had to read the metre number of his previous end and then add the 12m I asked for and cut there. Simples.

Sheep drinking trough all plumbed in and filling nicely.

Back home, all I had to do was pick-axe up a trench across the 'drive' (only compacted gravel), saw my pipe to length and then assemble it all, test my pipes and back fill the trench. Job done. No great shakes for you seasoned farm-plumbers but this was my first go at it, so I was quite proud of it, all be it it runs quite slowly as the float-valve thingy is designed for mains pressure and ours is just working as a 'syphon' from the IBC, just over a metre of head pressure.

A clearer pic of the lamb's ear tag.

We were smiling, though at the thought that we would now be able to take the Government's "Water Conservation Grant" money with a clear conscience. British readers may not know about the uproar going on 'over here' as the State tries to introduce water charges nationwide. Brits grow up in a land where paying water 'rates' is just what we do. You try to get a job, try to buy a house and there after you just pay all the utility bills that go with it, water and sewage included. Not so here, water has been free, certainly for recent decades though we did have to pay €1900 to get connected 3 years ago and now, under the umbrella of austerity measures borne out of the crashed economy, Ireland is going water-metered and getting charged for its water.

 The Irish, in general, are not happy and in some cases they are 'not happy' enough to be objecting fiercely and even violently - refusals to register as water customers, marches, lots of  'frank and open' discussion, even attacks on meter installing workers and court cases leading to imprisonment. The widely held view is that the Government have not handled this at all well, bungling the consultation, hiring hugely expensive consultants, delaying for ever being able to tell anyone how much they would be charged and then drip feeding out concessions as if forced to by the loss of control of the story. There are now concessions for areas where the tap water is not fit to drink (still under a 'boil-water' notice), there are allowances of so many thousand litres of free water per child under 18 per household and, most recently they have published the charge amounts but said that each house will be able to apply for a "Water Conservation Grant" of  €100 as long as you register. Amusingly for us, the charges for the first year(s) at least might be as low as €80 per annum, so the grant will more than pay for it in year 1. I would (cough) have been very troubled taking this generous hand-out (cough) had I not done my bit of water-saving plumbing. Mmmm.

Line-caught North Atlantic mackerel.

Meanwhile, back in the garden you may recall that we have been hankering after some single snowdrops to pep up our 'bee-food' range in the pollen for February department; that is assuming we ever get weather warm enough in the snow drop season  to attract the bees out on any significant foraging flights. The one snow drop fact I am certain of from reading, listening to GQT and my own experience is that the best way to buy snow drops is 'in the green', i.e. when the bulb has finished flowering but still has green leaves.

Healthy snow drops in Una's garden.

In Kent we had a fine population growing, spreading out from a gnarly old James Grieves apple tree. Every year we'd buy another 25, 50 or even 100 bulbs in the green from special offers we saw advertised in national newspapers (The Telegraph one year, I recall). We wanted to do the same here and we were disappointed that none of these offers 'worked' in the Republic of Ireland; we think there must be a regulation against shipping growing plants across country borders, even root-washed.

What we aspire to; neighbour Una's magnificent drift
of flowers along her drive-side bank.

There is one Irish website which purports to be a snowdrop specialist nursery (with all the weird (and sterile) double and triple flowered varieties, species and variants ( http://www.fieldofblooms.ie/ )) but as far as I can see it is defunct - I have never managed to get a reply out of it, anyway. We were therefore at a bit of a loss. I found a couple of tiny clumps in 'no-man's-land' in a  roadside ditch, so we appropriated them. This year, though, we have had a result as eagle-eyed Anne spotted a local florist selling pots of snowdrops still in flower ("in the white" we guess?). We snatched up 5 of these at €2 per 3 inch pot.

Our starter population, a filched mini-clump
and 5 potted bunches. 

At first sight we thought they were a bit pricey, 2 'yo-yo's for a tiny clump of 4-6 stems, but when we did the sums, five pots of 5 plants, 25 plants for a tenner, was not that different from the special offer prices we'd been paying for in the UK. In addition, we may have found another light at the end of the tunnel. An internet chum who is a professional gardener has heard our plea and reckons he can do us a batch of 'in the green' from his own stocks when they are done flowering (Thank You, Anchs!). We'll get there. These garden jobs are always best done slowly and patiently, we never did go in for the 3-day make-overs of Alan Titchmarsh and his "Ground Force" team.

These few snowdrops have gone into the lump of ground under the trees we jokingly call the 'Shallow Grave' (see 19th Feb 2012 post at http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2012/02/shallow-grave.html ). When we first exposed it by clearing tall nettles we found the heels of 2 farm boots sticking up perfectly placed to suggest that someone had pitched a dead body in to a hole head first, legs spread, and then buried him leaving the heels sticking out. It's actually not so much 'fertile, well drained soil' as a heady mix of soil with broken glass, bottles, jars, plastic and metal bits - a right old rubbish tip which it's not safe to work without tough gloves. Every time I use the handfork to create planting holes I keep a feed-sack with me for the rubbish, but it is a nice, picturesque mound in which we are growing fox gloves, pulmonaria and hellebores as well as, now, snow drops. Watch this space, but patiently?

Revolving Doors

The Ivy flowers are now open. Go for it, you bees!

We are thinking about fitting revolving doors to the house. Lately it seems that one or the other of us is out on a trip and it goes almost by return of post, one in, one out. First there was my trip to the UK visiting friends, relatives and the barge, and then while I was gone, Liz's parents finally got their moving date, for the same week. Liz had to pretty much collect me from the airport, we came home for her to enjoy just one lie-in (a break from the livestock she'd been attending in my absence), and then she was packing her own stuff for the trip to Dublin.

This worker bee is foraging Phacelia tanacetifolia, so her pollen
baskets are purple from the pollen.

There she helped pack the family home into the van, blitz-cleaned the place, and then followed the van down to the 'new' house down near the Silverwoods. Here they all tipped the van into the house but then hit a snag; some kind of paperwork issue in the 'chain' which meant they could not unpack, move in or claim the key. They had to fill the house with packed stuff, hand back the key and walk away, all promising to return on Friday-next by which time the issue will (allegedly) be resolved.

Pig 'muesli', pig nuts and blackberries!

Another trip for Liz but meanwhile I took a call from Kent friend Diamond to say that her own house move (in which Liz had also promised to assist) had been moved earlier. The carpet man has given Diamond a cancellation for the 30th Sept, so they are moving over the 2nd and 3rd of Oct, this one a short one across Faversham in Kent from one end of town to the other. That brings us round to the 7th of October when, we think, all this jet-setting and gallivanting will take a break.

Red Kuri Squash

Meanwhile back at the calm, mill-pond that is our smallholding, the ivy flowers have opened in the warm, Indian Summer weather, which is good news for the bees. The bees, though, seem to have finally decided that it is OK to forage inside the home garden and are giving my various clumps of the 'green manure' plant Phacelia tanacetifolia, a good going over. Phacelia is such a good bee plant that I usually let it go all the way to flowering instead of digging it in green. We noticed today that the bees were taking pollen from the long stamens as well as taking nectar and that because this pollen is purple in colour, the bees had purple pollen baskets on their legs instead of the usual orange or yellow. There will presumably be purple cells in the 'honey comb' too.

Good sized fruit.

The hedges all around are still laden with delicious, big, sweet blackberries so although we have picked our fill for the freezers, jams etc, I still collect a load each time I walk the dogs, to bring back for the pigs, to make their lunchtime pig-nuts a bit more interesting and varied. Just out of curiosity, Liz offered blackberries to the dogs and all three seem to have fallen in love with them. When I am walking the dogs and I stop to pick berries for the pigs, I now have three little dog noses pressed into the hedge nibbling off any fruit at westie-height. I have seen pictures of foxes doing this, but did not know that the domestic dog might have the same tastes.

25 kg of mixed daffs.

We have been impressed by the crop we have on our 'Red Kuri Squash' plants. We had never heard of this beast but last year, Mrs Silverwood passed us a couple of the fruit she had bought in a supermarket but had not then got around to cooking, mainly because she did not know what to do with them that the children would actually eat. Well, we knew what we'd like to try, and that was a roast of wedges done with chunks of pepper, onion, tomato, lemon and a splash of olive oil; this is how we treat butternut squash also. The Red Kuri were gorgeous, so we decided to save some seed round to this year and try a few plants. They have done very well and we now have this season's crop to play with.

Pirate. He might never be 'handsome'
but he's a lot cleaner now with no cuts
scabs and missing tufts of fur.

In other news, we spotted that the local farmer's co-op (Aurivo; formerly Connacht Gold) was selling 25 kg nets of mixed daffodil bulbs. Our front at present is just a green verge and the nice tidy (but boring) privet hedge, so we decided that a row of daffs along the front might look nice in spring and some hot-red nasturtiums clambering through the privet in Summer might pep it up a little. Just need to dig a 100 foot trench then.... that's me tired out for the day!

AWOL Annie and Romantic Meals

Mum announces on Weds 11^th that the forecast was for frequent heavy showers all day and she wasn't wrong. Dad was wrangling a log store (stops for rain) out of some wood and (stops for rain) left over tar felt (stops for rain) and it felt like every other saw-cut (stops for rain) and change of tool (stops for rain) he was stopping to avoid a rain shower (and relax). Never mind, the job got completed and he has now stacked what we thought of as our big pile of logs into it and the new store has swallowed them and is asking for more. Is that all yer got? Come on! We are going to have to go logging again, so today's mission to the lovely "Connacht Gold Garden Centre and Agric Merchant" will have chain-saw chain-lube on the list.

The Lovely Girls, meanwhile, have bizarrely decided that afternoon is a better time to lay eggs than morning. Not a one has laid an egg prior to midday for the last couple of days. We'd been hanging on keeping them in the run till we had 4 and then letting them out to free-range, but now we're letting them out even if there are no eggs and they can catch up with that side of things when they get back. Not a bother. We are currently on 4 eggs most days but we think all 5 are laying, just 2 of them might be doing it every other day (or 3 of them 2 out of three days?) Whatever, you get the drift.

Thursday 12^th

As they say round here "Wait 'n'I tell yer!"; I have a bizarre and unique tale for you this morning; possibly an "Only in Ireland" one or possibly an "only in our unique circumstances" one.

A day of carpentry for Dad, building wee housey round the gas canisters and for Mum, Domestic Goddessery and painting said housey. Then Dad is mowing in the west field when neighbour one side Una shows up with bag full of rooted slips and cutting of broom and lilac. We feed her tea and biscuits, Dad nips out briefly to finish the mowing as it starts raining and Una is well enough entertained by chatting to Mum who then walks her home. At that point (about 6pm) we feed chooks and they are all present and correct.

We retreat indoors and Mum goes wild in the kitchen creating a gorgeous romantic meal of lobster, a green salad from our garden, pork ribs in lovely sticky peanut sauce and rice salad with peppers. She has Dad light the range for extra cosiness and they light the candles on the wrought-iron stand and one on the table. There is wine and nice linen. Mum and Dad are settled to a lovely romantic evening....sigh. They progress through lobster (yummy) and are just at the last scrape out of meat bits from among claws, cracking the claw shells etc when there's a knock at the door. It's other neighbour, John Deere Bob 

A bit non-plussed but not yet at the stage where they can tell this lovely old boy to scram on his tractor as it's not really a good time, Mum and Dad invite him in, flapping away any objections. He shuffles through in farm boots to sit by the range in 'his' chair, completely un-phased by the romantic scene and candles. Mum serves him tea and biscuits and returns to the table. Mum and Dad start back into the rather in-your-fingers, messy-eating ribs in sauce course, all a bit weirded out by having to wipe their mouths every now and then to hold snatched conversations with Bob, who alternates between sitting happily silent looking around him, or commenting on the car-port or the garden, weather etc. 

Dad soldiers on through my ribs and salad and wine and eventually finish, and Mum tries to do the same but eventually (as she puts it) her nerve cracks and she pushes aside the last ribs and salad pretending to have finished the meal, and clears away. Dad goes to help but they are curiously un-nerved by Bob and Mum always says to Dad, "No, you sit still, I'll do it!" as if she is worried Bob might think the less of us if a man is helping in the kitchen.

They all chat some more, now a bit more relaxed around the cleared table and glasses of wine half-hidden behind 'stuff' so it's not quite so in non-drinker Bob's view. Eventually he gets up and goes, put-putting back down the drive on his tractor and Mum and Dad both breathe out simultaneously, but any pretence of the romance being re-awoken vanishes when I go to lock down the chickens and find the one missing. One of the Lovely Girls seems to have gone AWOL. We don't yet know whether that's AWOL=lost and will wander back, AWOL=gone broody and is hidden up somewhere on a clutch of eggies or AWOL=snatched by Brer Fox. We searched everywhere but to no avail. Dad was rather hoping William's crowing on Friday morning would guide the 'lost' her back like Siren Song and she'd be standing on the porch all apologetic this morning. No such happy ending, so far anyway.

An everyday tale of country folk?

Friday The 13^th

Dad decides, as it's not windy, to 'drop' the 2nd ugly Leylandii at the top of our woods, figuring that if he cuts the required wedge on 'that side' nearest the concrete wall and then slopes a cut through from 'this side' it would neatly fall 'that' way across the wall which would then act as a neat saw-horse while he logged up the trunk. Mum is happily weeding out to the side, 90 degrees from the expected (some of you may have spotted a pattern here!) direction of falling but is, cleverly, more than the tree height away. This turns out to be a salutary lesson to all readers who might fancy playing with a chainsaw one day. An argumentative Leylandii will not necessarily do what it's told. Still, no harm done and Mum was shaken but not stirred.

AWOL Annie stays AWOL. There is, so far, no happy re-union and Dad’s dream that William's enthusiastic crowing in the morning would guide her little lost but unharmed self home so she'd be waiting when we came to let the rest out, was not to be. Never mind. We have not yet given up hope. We keep the other chickens close through the day; they stay around our logging and weeding activity and we round them up well before the end of the afternoon and lock them up by 6pm. Little foxy chum (if indeed there has been foul-play (fowl play?) and he/she is the culprit) is not getting another one. 

Bizarrely, black and white doe-bunny, Padfoot. who has spent a week excavating a neat hole and tunnel under the fence of her run till she was down two body lengths (We're WATCHING you, Padders!), suddenly fills it all in again in half an hour in the evening, just before 'lock-down' and seals it up by stomping the soil down as if it had never been. She even leaves a bigger stone on the top as if to mnark the spot. We have no idea why. Perhaps she was upset at Mum and Dad poking a stick down it to see how impressively deep it is.

14^th

We have a bimbly day where not much is achieved but AT LAST the ground is drying enough that Dad can get onto the 'allotment' and hoe! He can enjoy the sight of decapitated and uprooted weeds wilting quickly in the sun's heat and the breeze. Up to now this has been impossible because the grass started growing again immediately it landed on the sodden ground (sodding ground?). Facebook still seems to have all our old Kent lot suffering under the still-relentless rain, so we sympathize with them.