A Drop of Rain

A drop of rain overnight freshens up these "Red Robin" leaves

A drop of rain last night, and more forecast over this weekend, brings much needed relief to the dry-as-dust gardeners and a hope of grass growth to the hard-pressed farmers. More importantly its a chance to relax for the local fire crews who seem to have been on continuous alert or in action for a couple of weeks, battling those bog, scrub and forest fires.

These big dark tubs were part of my Birthday present and are
now covering the post-daff and post-tulips gap out front. 

No such life-or-death drama here, of course but it will be nice to put the watering can down. We tend to go in for a low-maintenance style of gardening and only grow stuff that can survive without being carted gallons of water but even so human mercy says you still have to look after the new stuff, the poly tunnel and the seedlings. The sheep grazing can definitely use it; we're well into May now and there is little grass for them to eat. I keep swapping them from East Field to front lawn as either recovers a bit from the last cycle.

Those pigs take breakfast in the early morning sunshine

While I'm on sheep, we are now closing in on May 25th which, on the calendar at least, is the last likely day for any lambs to be born. On 31st Dec we hauled Silas-the-Ram's lazy butt outta there and sent him home. We have no reason to think he scored a big fat zero for 7 weeks and then suddenly whipped round all the ewes in the final days doing the job intended. We are forced to admit that we are very unlikely to have any lambs this year, a decision which moves us naturally into 2 more plans from 25th May.

First, the ewes need shearing which we can do on any (3rd) dry day. You should not shear sheep when they are wet (electrical hand-set) and it takes them 3 days to dry out after rain; hence the "3rd dry day" rule. People with bigger flocks sometimes even bring them indoors 3 days out from shearing day lest they get rained on.

Second we need to buy in some store-lambs or we will have no meat for the freezer this year, so I've been back in contact with our original ewe-supplier, Mayo-Liz, to place my order. Her babies are still "on their Mums" at present so we need to wait while they wean. While we were at the livestock buying we also stuck in our order for turkeys from Sue and Rob. That should do us. We don't NEED any more chickens at the moment but if one of the girls were to go broody (stage whisper) we'd look kindly on her and give her a good clutch to sit on.

Snuffling

The pigs are in and well settled by now, all be it rather nervous and not piling in to food as much as I remember previous pairs have been. I am going through that stage of sitting quietly in there with them to get them used to me and they have started some very tentative approaches. They are nothing like as 'tame' as last year's; I guess because new breeder Adrian is not as hands on as our 2016 man, Dermot.

They do not polish off food anything like as keenly either, which is slightly worrying; I am not used to bowls still having some of last night's supper in when I turn up with breakfast. No need to panic yet, though - they are up and about, chasing around the paddock, bright of eye and curly of tail (straight tails are bad news on pigs; a sign of stress or unhappiness). No sign of 'scour' (diarrhoea) either - nice firm stools.

The River Lung at Feigh, as low, weedy and sluggish as anyone
can remember

Maybe they are just a bit out of sorts having been separated from their Mum (and in the case of 'Pride' also castrated on Sunday. He might be a bit sore still!). They may also be finding more natural food (incl. grass and herbs) in our wooded paddock than would have been the case in their bare field in Boyle. They may not need my offerings of commercial ration and apples. We'll have to see how we get on. More news on this in future posts.

Our hostas are doing well around the pond.

Our friend and neighbour down the lane finds himself tractor-less after the machine threw a sickie. One door is all bent out of shape after he got a bit close to a hedge while driving with it open and now it won't close. Also, his power-steering hydraulics have gone wonk to the point where they are quite lethal - there is a full half turn of steering wheel at the 'top' before any directional adjustment is detected at the tyres!

The lilacs are finally in flower after several
years of waiting patiently.

So that beast is in the menders and I am occasionally taxi once again as well as doing some runs out to check on the guy's animals. "Those down in the bog field", he advises. "How many should I be looking at?" I ask. He tells me there are 8 but I need to check whether this group include a bullock who has recently been treated for an eye infection. "So if I have 8 and no bad eyes, I'm OK then?", I ask. "Ah, sure, just rise 'em and make sure they all get up" he re-assures me. Easy.

Our young lime (Tilia) trees are doing well

I love these local expressions. The weed 'dock' is referred to as "dockin's" and last night's rain was "quite a good dash". You ask your neighbour whether he/she knows any new gossip or news with "Anything strange?" You often bid farewell with "Good luck, now"

Good luck, now!

Back in the Pig Game

The new pigs in their new home. 

Our biggest news by far for this post is a story I feel I have been living for 9 weeks already (or even longer); the arrival of our 2017 pigs. We placed our order for these before they were even born and through a regular supply of pictures sent to us by breeder Adrian we have sort of been with them through their births, first steps outside the ark and their early growth. Many of these pictures have been posted on here. We (and you) have not had to wait till that arrival day, pig under each arm, iconic first picture.

Not much room for these two to rattle around in our dog crate.

In the latter case, this just as well as we have not been able to collect these pigs till they were 9 weeks+ old. They are HUGE! Monsters! They were part of quite a small litter (5) so they were bigger at birth than "normal" and their Mum, Iris is a particularly good milker. When we saw them, at last, we gulped a bit and wondered if two of them would fit into our dog crate for the run home.

The Empress emerges from the ark. 

In fact, they did, all be it with no room to slither about as we went round corners. One more week and we could have had a problem. As it was, we reinforced the crate with a ratchet strap to stop any "bursting" and they settled down on their tummies with their tails sticking out through the bars. We were glad it would only be a 20 minute run home. We unloaded them by opening the side door of the crate so that they didn't have to worry about turning round or coming out bum-first.

Bumble bee on apple - more blue skies!

The size of them (I can't wait to get a first weight estimate) was also the reason why I never got the iconic pig-under-each-arm shot this year. It would have been a powerful aul' lift and to keep them quiet if they chose to wriggle while Liz readied the camera. We were beefy enough, Liz and I, to lift the crate plus pigs on and off the wheel barrow but decided to quit while we were ahead.

A dog in the same field as some poultry and nobody is
getting eaten. Progress

Sue and Rob were with us too, collecting their pair on the same day. They solved their problem a different way. As well as the choice of 5 by 9-weekers we already KNEW about, Adrian had driven down Sunday to last year's breeder (Dermot) in Wicklow with the boar-piglets to get them castrated and had come by two youngsters at a growth stage 3 weeks earlier AND from a huge litter. These lads were TINY and would be half the price of ours and we could have them if we preferred a smaller animal. Sue fancied them so Rob put both in one cat basket and walked back to the car with those. No wheel barrow required.

Quince blossom

All parties are back home and our respective purchases have been shown their new arks and straw-beds. Ours have also had a light supper of apple and have been out and wandered round the paddock for a quick explore. We will go and meet them properly tomorrow. We hope they will be very happy here and will not give us any problems. Huge thanks to breeder Adrian and to his (and all of ours!) 'Mentor' Dermot who is like a vigorous one-man campaign to re-introduce the Oxford Sandy and Black breed to smallholders. Also to supply every wedding or event happening in Ireland with a hog-roast. He certainly gets about.

There have been some impressive pics of the fires on Social
Media. This one was on Facebook. 

Our hot, blue skies weather continues and everything remains dry. The skylines in various directions are regularly marred by plumes of smoke from wild fires burning through the heather, bog-turf and even forestry. Our most impactful one was a big one across both sides of the main road South from Castlerea down towards Ballymoe.

We had to drive down that road to help deliver a friend's tractor for a repair and we were quite lucky the road was not closed. There were half a dozen "fire engines" on site and many police, forestry and Civil Defence vehicles. One verge was burning so hot that the car's fresh-air ventilation drew in quite a blast of heat even though the windows were closed. The fire had already engulfed square miles of the bog-heather and was looking like it was about to invade the nearby forest. I was down there again today and they had got it out and the forest looked as if it had escaped.

Yes it's only 20-22 degrees but come on, this is Ireland.
That's HOT by our standards. 

With everything so tinder dry the fire-fighters must be exhausted from one fire after another and they are all presumably hoping that the break in the weather forecast for Friday brings a huge dump of rain.

Joints scrim-taped and filled.

Much more parochially, we can report good progress on the kitchen. The plasterer has come at last and done the honours on our ceiling, wall and archway. He has done a really good job and we are delighted with him. He was really good around the join from flat plasterboard to our deliberately exposed stonework wall where he has done a job every bit as good as our 2012 lads in the Living Room. Thank you very much Michael D.

I guess we'll have to paint it now! The new plaster.

That's probably enough for this one. If I think of anything else, I will add it to the next post. Good Night you new piggies. Sleep safely,

Looking Forwards

With Christmas and the New Year all done, dusted and packed away we start to feel like we should be looking forward to the new season, Spring, new stock and all the fruit, flowers and veg leaping into action. In the previous post, I wrote that we were waiting on the splatter of tiny feet with a batch of 7 duck eggs in friend Sue's incubator. That has all now happened with three lovely healthy ducklings hatched over the 6th and 7th, collected by us on the 8th and now going through the first "brood box" week.

We use a semi-transparent plastic crate for this (well, a series of crates of increasing size to suit the growing babies) and our "electric hen" (warming plate) and we feed chick-crumb with plenty of water on the side (as these are ducks and they prefer their food dibbled in the wet) plus, for the first week, finely mashed hard boiled egg with the shell finely chopped and mixed back in.

Curiosity might not kill the cat in this case!

We are reminded each time we do this, that ducklings do not naturally creep under mother's skirts (if she is swimming, they'd submerge!) but climb instead onto her back. The ducklings are the same with the electric hen and you can generally find them all hopped up on top in a huddle. As I write this they are 3 days old and thriving. They have good appetites and have quickly learned about food, water and keeping themselves clean. You can not let them out onto the water properly till they are about 3 weeks old, as their preen-glands have not yet developed or started to produce the water-proofing oil for their feathers. In nature their mother would have oiled them up in the nest.

Hopefully the parents of this years piglets, pregnant sows
Iris and Plum.

I may also have mentioned that we had been in contact with our piglet-breeder, a guy called Adrian who farms over near the town of Boyle. You may recall that although last year's piglets came from a chap called Dermot in Wicklow, 3 hours drive away, we did not have to make that drive ourselves. Dermot was coming most of the way here and if we'd meet him in Boyle, we could get away with a half hour drive and a bit of piglet-wrangling in Boyle's market car park.

Half grown piglets at Adrian's place.
These are about 5 months old

The reason Dermot was up here was to collect a sow from Adrian and take it 'home' to get it pregnant by one of his boars. That sow and another have now produced a couple of litters each and are pregnant again (pig-people like to keep their sows in pig as much as possible because if you 'rest' them they can be a devil to get back on heat). One is due this month and the other in March. We hope to take 2 gilts from the January litter, which will be weaned after 8 weeks, in March. Sue is hoping for the same. Obviously it is all in the lap of the gods at present - as with humans there is no telling whether they will successfully 'farrow', or when or how many piglets might result and how many survive to weaning. Litters can be as big as 15 piglets or down in the 5s. All we can do at this stage is wish them all luck and pray hard.

Polly with last year's twin lambs in March (2016)

In the sheep department I had been getting a bit concerned at a stiffness or lameness I had seen on a couple of cold damp mornings in our oldest ewe, Polly. At 9 years old, Polly is at least 5 years older than any commercial 'serious' sheep farmer would keep a breeding ewe. They are allowed a couple of seasons and then generally turned into mutton at 4 years old. Well, every day is a school day with livestock and I now know a bit more about shepherding after seeking advice from Mayo Liz, the person who we are sure knows more about elderly sheep than anyone - she supplied us with Polly (and Lily and Myfanwy) in the first place aged 7 and still has some of her other ewes at 13 years old.

Mineral Lick for sheep.

Every time I see a lame sheep, I have been reaching for the foot-trimming shears and paring away any shaggy edges of 'toe-nail' I found. Well, apparently you should not always do this - restrict foot trimming to 1 or 2 times a year. Sheep get over most foot problems much faster untrimmed. Then, too, I have learned all about "The Mineral Bucket". This I possibly should have known because way back when I was a student doing a bit of milking, I remember the cattle had access to great big salt-blocks to lick. Also I know, in theory, that those goats you see creeping out along the sheer vertical walls of dams in Europe, clinging on by the edges of their toe-nails to the joints in the stone, are doing it to get to the salt deposits encrusted on the wall by water seeping through the dam.

Polly beats Myfanwy to the mineral lick. 

Be that as it may, Mayo-Liz always gives her sheep mineral licks in Winter because the quality of the grass falls away and they might lack minerals in their diet. This might be why Polly is getting stiffness in her joints, especially if she is starting to lose teeth through old age. The 'lick' is a mix of minerals and salts thickened up to a very stiff, clay-like consistency with molasses and is dark brown in colour. All the sheep love it and the older 3 (born at Mayo-Liz's) all piled in with delight. It was like an old friend! They lick and nibble and try to rasp away at the stuff goo with their lips, teeth and hard-pad (top jaw) trying to beat all the competition off till they have had enough. The bucket is now a stop on their endless circuits of the field. I THINK I can detect a new spring in Polly's step but that might just be fond imagination.

Not so chatty now, Mr Fox?

Finally a bit of fun to close off the fox story. We are fairly sure that we have solved that problem for now with our shooting of the boy-fox back in November and our new habits of keeping the birds in if we are both off site seems to have driven off the older girl (plus my man-with-shotgun from Jan 2015 has shot 2 other animals recently on his own place). Well, I thought it might be fun and cathartic to take a stuffed toy fox to our first archery club session on Sunday - we are for ever shooting at coffee cups, balloons and other bits of junk when we get bored with shooting at the official targets.

The only good fox?

So it was - we sat Brer Fox on a little wire hoop in the target at 40' range. I was actually the first to hit him and with a very lucky first arrow (right in the mouth) but he was soon getting peppered by all and sundry and starting to leak stuffing. Ah well. All good harmless fun. I should quickly re-assure my readers who do not know this story or about archery, we would not dream of taking a bow and arrows to the real thing. It is illegal throughout the British Isles to hunt any animal or bird with a bow and arrows. I am told you can still hunt that way in parts of Europe and USA but have to use the very powerful "compound" style bows and even then it has to be under license.

Towser.

So there you have it. 2017. Bring it on.