A Visit From The Dans

Welcome aboard, Dan and Dan.

As promised, a post mainly about the current visit from Friends of the Blog, 'Dan and Dan(ielle)', a.k.a. "Mr and Mrs Dan". These two have been here before several times, but normally as a rest cure (though once Dan came alone, to write up a Masters thesis). This time they wanted to support us in our hour of need for volunteer labour, so were determined to be more like Help-X students than holiday makers. Most welcome and huge thanks, Dan and Dan. It had been lovely to see them again.

All three dogs adopt Danielle on the black sofa. Here, Deefer
seems to be doing a 'High 5'

They flew in to Knock on a very early flight on Wednesday having been woken up in Milton Keynes by an 0430 alarm. They hired a car at Knock; previously they have brought their own car across on the ferry but that loses them a whole day at either end, travelling.

Danielle on the mower. It was a bit random, but eventually the
mown patches got joined up.

I wasn't at all sure how the 'volunteering' would work out. They are city types with no garden and no experience of the physical jobs we might need doing round here on the small-holding; mowing, splitting logs and so on. Also, these two are family and good friends, so I did not want them to fail at anything or get upset, so I wondered if I might have to be a very gentle 'boss'.

Team effort alternating the mower pushing with the bag empties

In the event, I need not have worried. They are also enviably full of youth, strength and fitness, so they went at every task with enthusiasm, power and increasing skill and speed. They have LOADS done. Despite the early start and long travelling time, the first afternoon had them master the mower and mow the entire pond-garden.

Refreshments near Westport.

Day 2 and we all woke up to heavy drizzle, so mowing was off and the pair decided to go touristing, taking their hire car off to Westport, a look at Achill Island and some of the twisty, mountainy country roads of the "Wild Atlantic Way". They stopped, of course, at the odd pub for refreshments. Some of the pictures in this blog post are theirs, taken on their phones.

Dan getting tight into the edges by the living willow arch/tunnel

Today, then, back onto the treadmill with more work. They really got stuck in; Dan was still mowing at 5 pm! Other jobs today included breaking up the messy stack of old roof timbers from the chicken house into single clean lengths.

Attacking the pile of old roof beams.

This had been cut up as it stood, with all the 'A' shapes and 'T' joints intact, making for a very untidy pile. With Dan on the nail-bar and lump hammer and Danielle putting all the bits together like a giant jig-saw puzzle, the big random heap was quickly re-assembled as a neat efficient stack up on 'skids' out of the wet and flat of top for easy sheeting from the rain.

Dan goes lumberjack on the old hawthorn
hedge

One day I will be fit enough to zoom round it with the chain saw and reduce it to 16" lengths for the range. I pray! The chain saw is one piece of kit I do NOT let the volunteers play with.

The next job was unusual and, I suspect, a unique one locally. Friends of the Blog may recall that we have a decapitated hawthorn hedge up between the front lawn and the 'Primrose Path' and that we also have a ewe (Myfanwy) with an itchy patch in her middle back which we are just now starting to cure. Among the ewe's favourite scratching posts are some of the "overhanging" limbs of the old hedge which she can get right under and itch upwards.We want to put the sheep back on the front lawn (to save the mowing) but we needed to cut off all these offending limbs before we let Myfanwy anywhere near them, or she'd just open up all the nice new tender skin again.

Feast fit for a heart-patient? Don't worry, I
reined it in a bit!

Obviously, this was also a visit by cherished cousins, so the catering dept has also swung into full, 5-star, envelope pushing action. There has been duck in Guinness sauce followed by choc-cake and home made lemon ice cream. There has been a superb, creamy, cidery 'Somerset Pork'. There has been a gorgeous fish pie and a lunch time version of the full Irish (breakfast) fry. These have been well accompanied by interesting salads and side dishes.

Somerset Pork.

Danielle is a cider drinker, so she has been working her way through some local small-brewery, artisan type ciders and Dan loves the local "red ale" style beers, so he's been ranging around those.  I'm still on restricted fluids, so I get to taste these goodies but can only look at these pints getting poured and quaffed. One day......

Good Night all.

Ah well. That is surely enough for this one. Dan and Dan are here with us tomorrow and then head off back for their flight home on Sunday, so more on the  visit in Tuesday's post. Good luck now.

The Dans

Mr and Mrs Dan tuck into a hearty breakfast after their early
flight into Knock Airport. 

In which we enjoy a lovely visit from Friends of the Blog, Dan and Dan, now Mrs & Mrs Dan. We fondly refer to these two as "The Children", because they are like the next generation down. Danielle's Mum is favourite cousin and play mate from Liz's youth, Cathy, who herself visited us earlier in the year. Dan and Danielle have been coming for a couple of years and set off on their scenic tour of Connemara, where Dan proposed to Danielle, last year. They were married this Summer on a cruise ship off the coast of Italy, hence 'Mr and Mrs Dan' now.

Dan accumulating animals. 

These two are the perfect kind of guests - they are immediately at home and relaxed on arrival, they slot in like members of the family. They make no demands on us - we do not feel the need to entertain them or make small-talk. They love the food that we serve them, enjoy the drink and sleep like logs in the spare bedroom. Dan is comfortable enough to slope off and take video-conference calls to do with work, or hide himself away and do a bit of "school" work (he's doing a distance course with LSE at present).

Danielle decking the halls. 

Danielle loves the livestock and can't wait to get out and round catching up with all her old 'friends', missing the ones who are no longer with us and greeting the new arrivals. She's actually on quite a hard-driven mission to 'evolve' from the vegetarian she used to be, to a high-welfare carnivore, but more of that later.

Dans relaxing in the evening.

My first job, then, was to nip over to Knock airport and collect the pair from their early flight. They'd been up since 04:30 and were due to land at 09:35. It was a frosty morning and Liz had sent me off in Mum's snazzy red, nearly new, chequered flag go-faster striped Skoda buzz-bomb. "Be Careful", she said, though I was not about to do anything silly in that low-profile tyre-shod hot hatch. Even so the run out nearly became a story in itself (and the ruin of a good weekend).

A venison supper.

Luckily I was only doing about 40 kph when I hit the black ice just beyond the local bridge. I was very grateful for a youth spent as a fan of motor rallying, messing about trying to rough-house our cars on any snow, ice or gravel we could get access to. The back end of the car stepped neatly out of line and I knew to whip on some opposite-lock to kill the slide before I got anywhere near the soft verges. Roger Clark would have been impressed by my graceful, crossed-up, drifting "moment". I took it even more carefully for the rest of the run and actually arrived a bit late, but luckily Ryan Air did the same to the Dans' wheels-down time, so we all matched up. I brought us all home with equal care.

'Shedders' admire the new premises.

I was briefly interrupted in my hosting at that point by a call on my camera-man services. The Men's Shed are getting a 'branch' (OK, a shed) in local town Balla-D, so they are doing tea and cakes at their new premises and could I come along and take pics for their website. I had not met 'Men's Shed' up to now though I'd heard of them.

A new space for the Shed. An old garage in the back streets
of Balla-D. Rent €0, which can't be bad. 

They are a charity set up to help give a safe and purposeful space to men struggling with general loneliness, or mental issues, drink or depression where they can find company which is not in a pub. That is probably a very bad 'flavour' of what they are about - I will do a fuller paragraph in a future post (when I know more, myself!)

So while I was gone, the gang started to decorate The Tree. This was once Liz had moved it a few times deciding where to put it. This was Danielle's first go at doing a 'real' tree. It is now a tradition here that Tree dressing comes with warmed Glühwein. Liz also lit the open fire in that hearth to get a really cozy, Christmassy atmosphere going.

Turkey 'stag' - brother to the one who went
just over 9 kg oven-ready. A whopper.

I mentioned that Danielle is on a mission to move from the kind of veggie who refuses to eat in any restaurant which had venison, rabbit or game on the menu (Don't try to understand, she says, I was young and foolish), to a relaxed carnivore who is happy to eat any meat grown "as well as we do it". At the last visit she was happily posting to Facebook, montages of pics of her cuddling piglets, feeding the full grown pigs and then enjoying the roast pork.

9+ kg oven-ready turkey.

This time she'd expressed an interest in 'helping' to slaughter something, maybe a goose. She wanted to be there and see it done, she said, though she might not actually want to do it herself. Well, it so happened that we had a couple of male ('stag' or 'tom') turkeys who needed finishing for Christmas, one for the Silverwoods, where Liz would be heading once she'd dropped the Dans back to the airport.

A fridge full of turkey.

I agreed, then, to let her watch. I was curious to see if she'd 'cope'; I suspected she could. She is that kind of tough underneath. I talked her through what I was planning and what she'd probably see and also what might go wrong and what we'd need to do about that. Then at 6 pm, when it was good and dark, we went out with head torches on to do the deed. Danielle was OK but maybe a bit shaken by the minutes of flapping and twitching it takes a bird to go still. She was happier when she could see the limp head hanging there, eyes closed and me able to poke the eyes with the billhook point to demonstrate the lack of 'blink' or reaction. Fair play to her. 

Dans and Dogs. 

This bird was bagged up the next day and taken by Liz down to Silverwoods for their Christmas, after dropping the Dans to the airport. I knew it was a heavy one - I'd carried it out to the killing place under my arm and then back, swinging from my hand by the feet - but I thought maybe 5-6 kg. Liz plucked and gutted it and then weighed it by hopping on/off the bathroom scales with/without it. Just over 9 kg was the amazing result. Easily the heaviest we'd done so far and quite an achievement for one of these old-breed, fully free range Bronze breed birds.

Fairy lights all up the fences and over the Tígín roof.

With the guests gone and Liz back down to Silverwood-land to mind Mum for some more days, I was home alone again. This time I had an even better supply of left overs in the fridge (venison, paté, rillette, soup, savoury flans, cake...). I also had two definite jobs. I had to string up the outdoor fairy lights and ice the cake. The lights are now in two strands by 25m so we can run them right down the drive and all over the roof of the Tígín but my it was cold messing about with cold, frosty fencing and cold ladders. It was pure pleasure to come indoors, warm the hands and start the icing.

This year's cake design might be seen as "a bit weird" by some critics (you know who you are!) but it made me smile and I thoroughly enjoyed trying to conceive of it and deliver it. I wanted to do it with one of our Oxford Sandy and Black (OSB) pigs which are, in icing terms, a nice bright combination of orange, black and pink. The only way I could come up with of getting OSB in there and having it a bit 'Christmas' was to borrow the OSB out of the singer's name Bing Crosby.

So there you have it. I am sure it will be every bit as delicious as the ones with Santas, polar bears and penguins on them.

And there, I think, I will leave you. Lovely having you, The Dans. Welcome back any time.

Get me to the Ship on Time

Dan and Dan last November. Happy Wedding, guys!

We trust that by now, our good friends and frequent guests, Dan and Dan(ielle) are now Mr and Mrs Dan, married late this morning on a cruise ship somewhere (I think) in the Med. We all wished them well early this morning via Facebook and text messages when they said that they were scheduled to do the job at around 11 on board. As expected and for a load of good reasons, we have not heard anything since (They were kinda busy, we guess!) so we just hope it all went off without a hitch and they are now 'done'. Happy Wedding Day, you guys. See you soon-ish I expect.

We were, of course, involved in this set up in a small way as it was on one of their visits over here that Dan proposed. They were heading from here to Galway at the end of a stay and Dan secretly asked us for a suggested route which would include suitably beautiful scenery where he might stop the car and leap out to go down on one knee. People who know Danielle, know that she is such a bubbly, talkative soul, that he might have expected trouble getting her to go quiet so he could slide the big question in edge-ways. We had suggested driving via Cong and Connemara; plenty of scenic lakes and lovely views that way.

The ducks support the cause.

Dan headed off and found a suitably beautiful lake-side spot, stopped the car and got them both out. Ring-box hidden in his hand, he lunged down on one knee but just at that split second Danielle turned away and, overcome by the gorgeous lake-scene, scampered off down the beach towards the water bubbling over with plans to come back with canoes. Dan was left there on his knees while his intended got further away, wondering whether to shuffle forward on his knees or get up and walk (Take 2?) and Danielle only stopped gabbling when she realised it had gone a bit quite behind her and where was Dan? All sorted out in the end, Dan proposed, Danielle said 'Yes' and the rest is history.

Pedro at the whittlin'. 

Other than that, not much happening. We have the Help-X lads, Manu and Pedro with us till Saturday and we are continuing to be delighted and impressed by the whole deal. This place has never looked so tidy all at once; they have worked so hard bashing the nettles, docks and rushes, mowing as well as occasionally helping us move sheep about or rounding up cattle which have escaped into the lane.

Pedro and Manu 'relaxing'. 

They have finally caught some fish - 3 roach in the River Lung by Feigh Bridge. That was a relief. They'd been trying and trying at various "never fail" , popular sites and not even seen a fish never mind hooked one or landed one. They are off down there to try again even as I type this. They expressed an interest in wood carving so I supplied them with a big old spare fence post, chisels and an orbital sander, with which they intend to create a totem pole with face(s) on. They are struggling a bit with this as the wood proved to be very hard and dried out but we live in hope.

Hand made bamboo ball-point pens. 

They made a little diversion into hand-made biros made in green-bamboo tubes. These are very clever, with their ends at the joints in the bamboo and with the lids made in tube just big enough to telescope over the smaller pen-tube. Very clever. They have cooked for us once already but, when they decided to ask to extend their stay to Saturday, they offered to cook again. We are promised some kind of Spanish beef dish tonight. We are looking forward to it.

2 Hubbards jointed for the freezer.

Meanwhile, the Hubbard birds are so big now, that even though they are only 64 days old they are looking harvest-able. We have therefore 'offed' a couple, which came in at live weights of 3.38 and 3.58 kg respectively and the 'dressed' (oven ready) as 2.66 and 2.70 kg respectively. 5 lb birds at 64 days from a genuine free-range system with no growth promoters or excessive "pushing". Amazing.

I Ran Out of Bullets

Nice surprise for Liz sneakily organised by the guests - the
Dining Room got decorated while she was outside, seeing
to some catering.

First a big Happy Birthday to the lovely Lizzie for Saturday. She bravely agrees to remove all chance of rest and swanning around getting spoiled, by inviting two guests over to stay the night (and then a 2nd night). These are a lovely couple and the best of guests, Dan and Danielle who jointly get referred to as "the children" even though they are grown up, working adults. This is because Danielle is daughter to Liz's closest cousin while she was a child, Cathy, so both of them should feel like a whole generation 'below' us (hence 'children') but, of course, we are all young at heart (cough) so they are just like 'normal' friends and we thoroughly enjoy their visits.

One of the ducks does the honours here. 

Dan lives a fairly high-power, management life, so he mainly loves the chance to relax in our brand of serene calm, but Danielle is mad keen to get involved in the small holdering, dealing with the stock and asking a gazillion questions. If anyone was sure to have her own place 'one day' then it is this Lady. Joking around, we have assembled a training course with tasks at various levels of difficulty and we sign her off as she progresses up through the "Stock Wrangler" skills.

Happy Livestock Wrangler. Here with a rather anxious
looking 13 day old Hubbard chick. (Pic by Dan)

Level 1: Basic early morning rounds, feed, water and release and basic evening round locking up.

Level 2: Shepherd 6 ducks to and from sleeping quarters to orchard without losing or panicking anyone. Mimicking duck's waddle as you follow them optional.

Level 3:  Load 12 Hubbard chicks from brooder to cardboard box and transfer to warm, sunny rabbit run without losing any.

That was going to be it for this visit but then she got bumped up to the next class when she was suddenly asked to do....

Picture by Dan

Level 4: Sort out which chick currently under successful broody hen B is actually in the wrong 'family' having snuck across from hen A when first brought off the nest for an explore. This only really possible because nest B chicks are either still a bit damp from the egg or less mobile than the 'A' chicks which hatched 2 days ago. The boss Stockman will help by lifting Hen B up a couple of inches so you can see under her skirts.

Danielle is no longer "The Children" but is now "My Level 4 Stock Assistant". All good fun.

Dustbin Lady shows off her first hatched.

While they were with us we were delighted by a huge amount of luck in the broody hens dept. In the last post I wrote of our 2 broody Buff Orps, Dustbin Lady and Crate Lady who had started on 6th and 8th Aug respectively, and as a result we just might have happy events while the guests were here (21 days later). Well in the event, both girls hit the target so a delighted (even tearful at one stage) Danielle was able to see 2 new chicks under 'Dusty' on Sunday and then a 3rd plus 2 under Crate Lady this morning (Monday). Dan was happy too, of course, but is a bit calmer and says he is "only the official photographer".

...and then a second.

Danielle also got involved in the chick-abduction mentioned under 'Level 4' above. One of Dustbin's three, when brought off the nest by Mum, wandered round the divider to Crate Lady in the 'next bed', walked right up to her chest, looked up at her huge 'same as my Mum' shape and presumably asked "Are you my Mummy?" Real Mum was going nuts behind the chick trying to contain the other 2 while calling the wanderer back, but Crate Lady said "I am now!" and promptly scooped the chick up under her skirts. It was a theft so fast and efficient that, had I not been there, I would have assumed all was well till I counted the 'dud' eggs left over, by which time the abducted chick would have bonded to not-Mum and would not have been returnable.

Dan takes some time out to study for his
soon-to-start first year at LSE and the kitten
may not have been much help. (Pic by Danielle)

What ever the outcome, we currently have 5 chicks from ten eggs which is not a bad score. The whole visit was the usual feast of excellent food, sensible drinking (yes, we do that now!) lovely chat and relaxation in lovely company. The guests' first plan was to stay one night here and go camping on the 2nd night somewhere in Wexford but they were so happy here and not entirely convinced they actually wanted to camp, that when we offered them a 2nd night, they jumped at the chance.

Blue gets 'Danielle'd. Pic by Dan

They took themselves off touristing on the Sunday instead, exploring Killala Bay, Enniscrone and the Ceide Fields. They had lovely warm weather for it. This morning we fed them the traditionally full-fry breakfast and off they went to find their ferry home. They have already booked their next visit. What do we give Danielle for her Level 5 test?

'Moloch' gets it in the beak

While the guests were away, I went, as usual on Sunday pm, archery-ing. I still love this and Sunday was a beautifully warm, sunny one, so we were out doors shooting at the foam rubber animals again. I was doing OK and managing to hit most targets plus, at one stage, for the first time ever I nailed the elusive 'Moloch', a fist sized owl who sits glaring at you from 25 yards away. If you need to know about the name Moloch, I refer you to 1 Kings 11:7. Impressed? Don't be. I only know this because our 'coach' Con told us. He is some flavour of dodgy Israeli false god. The owl, not the coach. I got him right in the beak (again, the owl, not....) and we were all so amazed we had to take a pic. Of course the lens-man and a friend and fellow archer, Paul, then went one better by nailing Moloch and the equally difficult 'Log Rat' with 2 SEQUENTIAL arrows. Show off! Also of course, neither of us could do a thing to refute the 'fluke' accusations - we never got near either target again.

Poppea not quite eclipsing my ample belly with
her own. 

Don't get too excited about looking for me in the Olympics, however. This was an out door shoot so all of us, expert and beginner alike, tend to lose a few arrows in the grass, or shoot high over the bank into a bramble patch, or ping the arrow, nose first, off an underground stone, or undershoot the target and hit the woodwork of the stand. This arrow-carnage can run you out of 'ammo' in a bit of a hurry and, since starting back in spring, I was getting through my original dozen and another 6 I had bought from a local guy. Fortunately some of the damage was only tips broken off at the 'join' and I have the tapering tool, glue and tips to repair these.

That day, though, I lost 2, snapped 2 more in half and someone smacked one of my successful arrows up the back end like Robin Hood, breaking the 'nock' into which the bow-string fits. It was half past 4 by then and I'd had enough when the instructor asked "have you run out of bullets?" Nothing for it but to pack up my stuff and head home to rejoin the house, where the guests were already back from Mayo/Sligo. Since then the archers who stayed to the bitter end actually found 2 of my lost arrows in the grass and I have been able to re-tip 5 more, so I am good to go back into action next week. Watch out Log-Rat.