Rent a Reverser (?)

A first look for Tigger, at the soggy, puddle-strewn front lawn

At just a week old, newest lamb 'Tigger' is thriving. I have been getting him out of the Tígín (along with his Mum, Lily, of course) each day for a run around on the front lawn. He seems to love this, following his Mum around as she grazes but often charging away from her a few yards in a mad, bouncy 'pronking' tip-toes gait of a deer, and then zooming back to her side.

Staying close to Mum

I am 'doing' them alone on the front lawn for the moment because I am not 100% sure of the ram Pedro leaving him alone and because it makes the process of letting him out and getting him back in of an afternoon, a whole lot less complicated. Trying to extract them from the East Field while not letting the rest out to play is more risky a prospect than I need.

I am not sure about Pedro anyway - I have seen him chasing the big ewe Myfanwy about and butting her a bit too aggressively for my liking so, even though he has not had a go at me, we may part company soon one way or another. At the moment I have him up for sale on the Irish 'classified ads' website (DoneDeal.ie) but I have not even had a 'tickle' so he may end up in the freezer. We'll see. If his chasing of 'Myf' is due to her not being pregnant yet and now coming on heat, then that might see him forgiven, but nobody needs a ram trying to 'T-bone' their in-lamb ewes in the midriff.

A house favourite use for a sheet of belly-pork. Mini porchetta.

Talking of animals going to the butcher's, I was involved over the last 24 hours in our good friends Sue and Rob finally getting their 2017 pigs off to Webb's in Castlerea. Friends of the blog may recall that Sue and Rob came with us over to the breeder's place near Boyle on the day we went out to collect our own pigs, 10 week olds Pride and Empress. They chose much younger babies, maybe 6 weeks old, so they were already a month behind us on schedules.

Thanks very much 'Steak-Lady' for this framed print, latest
Paris-themed picture in our collection. 

Their pair came ready about a month after ours (end of October) but Sue and Rob had little space in their freezers, so decided to keep the pigs on till after Christmas. It was very wet and now the time came, they asked me for help extracting the pigs from their 'swamp' and getting them into their trailer. Also, Sue, by her own admission "cannot reverse the trailer for a toffee" (and Rob can't drive anyway) , so could I help out at the other end of the journey, reversing her 4x4 and the trailer into the tiny narrow 'slot' between buildings which is the butcher's answer to a "loading bay".

Paris scene

That all went swimmingly in the event. Rob had constructed a really good, pig-proof 'race' up from the swamp to the hard standing and those pigs had been kept hungry so that they would be suckers for the bribe of a rattled food bucket. Pigs never explore anywhere new fast - they just amble along with their noses to the ground, taking an occasional step. They will not be hurried and you are a fool if you try. If you did spook them and made them bolt, you are not going to stop 80 kg of charging pig, so the best bet is to let them amble along and just gently (but firmly) close the ground behind them by nudging up against their bums with a big board. By this method, Sue guided them up the 'race', and Rob and I nudged up behind them till they eventually went up the ramp and we could close the trailer on them.

Pig haulier's breakfast.

In the morning, I'd set the alarm for 7 so that I could meet Sue with the 'load' at the butcher's nice and early while there was not much traffic about for us to upset. It is a known bad manouvre - the narrow gap is at 90º to a narrow but busy main street in the town. The gap is only about 6 feet wide, so as you slot your trailer neatly and professionally in (ahh shucks!), don't go in past the kerb with the truck or you will not be able to open the doors and get out! We managed that OK with Sue seeing me back and then, with the pigs unloaded and safely into the lairage, Sue finished all the paperwork, I bought a pack of Webb's superb dry-cure rashers and we adjourned to local Deli, Benny's for a celebratory coffee. Job well done. I even grabbed some croissants and Danish pastries 'to go' so that Liz and I could have a nice breakfast back at the ranch.

My new favourite Irish author, currently filling the gap left in my
reading due to running out of Maeve Binchy books.

In other news, we have been quite deeply involved in a local funeral. No names, no pack drill for the usual reasons. I think if you ask any Brit who has moved over here, what is the biggest single difference in local village or community life that they noticed compared to the UK, it will be the Irish way of death. In 55 years in the UK I probably went to half a dozen funerals at most and all of them small, quiet affairs which involved you to attend for only a short time.

Comparatively, the Irish funeral is massive, especially in rural areas where everybody would know the family of the deceased especially if they have lived in the community for all their life. Hundreds of people will attend and the proceedings can easily take up the evening prior and all of the day of the actual burial. Family and friends who have long since left Ireland in search of work or what-ever will make the trip home to be part of it. The deceased may even be one of the 'diaspora' wishing to be laid to rest in the family plot back in the village of their birth.

I apologise hugely in advance if I have any of this wrong - please do comment and I will make corrections. The last thing I want to do is cause any offence to anyone involved in 'this' or any other funeral. The proceedings follow a sequence something like this, with every bit attended by a good many of the mourners. First is the 'reposing' where the deceased is laid in the coffin at the Funeral Parlour  - you queue outside for yards down the pavement to get in one door and you slowly process, shuffling forward to view the departed and then shake hands with the immediate family . It is good to have something to say to each - I have taken to using popular local expression "Sorry for your trouble". You then shuffle down the out-corridor to the exit, passing the book of condolences on the way. This stage takes a couple of hours to get everyone through. It is common for the coffin to be open at this stage, so that you see the deceased - I have not got used to that bit yet.

Next is the 'Removal', where the coffin is taken by hearse to the church, commonly followed by all those mourners in dozens of cars - an impressive cortege threading its way down the country lanes. The hearse may pause at the house where the deceased lived, or was born, letting the 'late' soul know that he is really home, I guess. This is followed by the Mass itself. Mass going is way more popular here than (taking Communion) in the UK and churches are packed every Sunday, so it is no surprise that all our mourners pack the church for this bit, likely to be the most familiar to mourners in the UK.

Next we move to the graveyard. Depending on distance this might be all back in the cars or walking. This is the 'Burial' and can involve, again, a big group of mourners gathered round while more prayers are said and the coffin lowered into the grave. Some of these graveyards can be on quite bleak, windy hilltops, so the wise mourner equips with a warm coat, hat and gloves. We then adjourn, if invited, to a suitable location for 'Refreshments' - in the case of my Father in Law (Theo), this was a nearby pub for drinks (obviously), welcome hot soup and bread, with sandwiches or even a full 3-course meal, maybe stew and veg and a dessert. This stage can go on as long as you want - there will often be live music and happy chatter as family members and friends who may not have seen each other since the last funeral catch up on gossip and each others lives.

You Brits can see that this all adds up to quite a day, an impressive event. More amazing (to us) is that this all happens generally within days of the passing away of the person, the whole 'machine' fires up and all the stages are organised and slotted into place. In the UK, that is normally the work of weeks - we hear that person X has died and maybe 3 weeks later we find out the arrangements for the funeral. They KNOW that this is all a bit special here and there have been some excellent (including funny in some cases) books written and TV programmes made explaining the process. I hesitate to compete with those, but thought my UK friends might like a small flavour of what it means when someone here says "There was a funeral".

Additional reading - Try the book "How to be Irish" by David Slattery

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Irish-Uncovering-Curiosities-Behaviour/dp/1871305241

Wheel Tappers and Shunters

Cylindrical "Sausage" turf

Way, way back when I was a student (70's?) there was a rather silly variety show on TV known as the "Wheel Tappers' and Shunters' Social Club" about which I can remember very little, but the name, which I found intriguing. It derives from the fact that in railway engineering there was a task to check whether the steel wheels of rolling stock (carriages, railway trucks etc) might be cracked and this was done by whacking each wheel with a hammer and listening to the ring, or otherwise. Sound wheels rang, cracked ones answered the whack with a dull 'clonk'.

Achillea millefolium (a Yarrow cultivar)

I only mention this because we had 'The Man from ESB' (Our electrical supply company) all around the property and surrounding fields this week testing the "telegraph poles" for soundness in exactly the same way. Walk round whacking them high and low with a hammer and listen (I presume knowledge-ably and skillfully) to the noise. If a pole proved to be suspect, then phase 2 of the process involved hammering a 6 inch nail into the wood and seeing how easily it sunk in. We got chatting to him and he proved to be a fascinating bloke, brilliantly chatty and a mine of local lore to listen to.

One of two hugely spreading "Orion" geraniums

We have a pole on this property which has been concerning us because it is (now) well buried in the earth bank and surrounded by elder trunks and branches as well as having our previously mentioned buried clamp of 'sausage' turfs at the base. We wondered whether the burying of the first 5 feet or so of the pole would have given it damp-rot and also then whether our works to unearth all the turf and re-model the bank might undermine the pole (cutting off power to the rest of the lane!).

New Keet Run

Well, the pole is one of a batch now about 52 years old, most of which are still sound (others in the area, only 11 years old are rotting badly already) but our particular one is indeed rotten and is now marked for replacement in the next 2 months. The sausage turf is not, as I had guessed, ancient, hand-won stuff. It is cut and extruded by a machine like the modern (rectangular) stuff, but a different machine which favours the wetter bogs and is still in use in much of Mayo. So it could well be from our previous owner, TK-Min's days on the farm, maybe only 20 years old or there-abouts.

Keet run from the south end.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have met our ever-growing Keets' need for more space by slotting a clever little run into a bit of waste-ground between our 'Primrose Path' and the Eastfield. This is basically a 6 foot tall, 9 feet wide and 30 feet long rectangle with a coop and gate at one end. It was cheap as chips. The 'walls' are made from a donated roll of 6 foot high 2" chicken wire, held up on the big trees or existing fence posts, and the roof is a piece of fruit-cage bird-netting held up by polypropylene 'rope' and the gate wrangled out of rough-cut 2 by 1 and a half inch timber.

Keets at 5 weeks explore the new big space.

We successfully moved the ten half-grown guinea fowl keets (babies) which are now well able to fly and to run much faster than Liz or I can (!) using a cat-basket method suggested to us by Charlotte (Thanks, Ch!) who was reported to have been in fits of laughter telling her Mum how we had originally proposed doing it, but I will draw a veil over that bit. There was one small hiatus when we went back to check on them and saw, sitting cutely in a row on top of the coop (inside the run), a row of nine keets. Nine? Didn't we have ten? Number ten was sitting up on the polyprop rope on the top of the run - he/she had found a tiny corner where we had left a gap twixt wall and roof and got out somehow. That one was quickly rounded up and gap closed with a bigger, more powerful cable-tie (Thanks again, Ch!) and we have had no escapes since.

We were not actually looking to sell these keets (yet, anyway) so we had not advertised them anywhere, but John Deere Bob had let a friend know we had them, when talking to the guy and finding out that like us, he had lost his male bird. We had no sooner released them into the new run and I had snatched these pics of the ten, than this guy (Declan G) arrived wanting to buy 3 (un-sexed) birds hoping there would be a replacement cock-bird among them. We sold them for €8 each which will nicely pay for most of their chick crumb and growers' pellets. I have since had a 2nd call from a lad who wants 2 more, so the word may be spreading but we will not sell any more after that - we want to know what these guys taste like after all this hard work!

It's not ALL glamarous cooking - a first go at
home made pizza.

We also managed to sell, at last, a couple of baby rabbits. We seem to be plagued on the local 'classified ads' website, Donedeal.ie with getting very few bites and a huge percent of those who make contact prove to be time-wasters who do not phone back when they say they will, or don't show up. You also get short text conversations which end without apology or 'goodbye' when they say something like 'where are you?' and you say County Roscommon.

Possibly the best Black Currant Clafoutis ever.....

It seems to be perfectly OK here to just stop texting. There is no need, apparently to finish with 'Ohh, that's a bit far, I'll pass' or 'OK, sorry to trouble you'. I am not alone in this - plenty of sellers complain of the same problem. One trap I have not fallen into yet and do not intend to is to hang around the house waiting on a call or a visit. If I'm in, I'm in. However, you do occasionally get the exact opposite, a serious, well meaning, polite buyer willing to drive all the way from Galway; in this case they got a bit lost en route and took 3 hours but still turned up. They were a Lithuanian couple, again brilliant people who we felt would have stayed and chatted for hours. They took 2 female bunnies at €20 each. They had actually wanted a breed-able pair but ours are all brothers, sisters and litter mates. They will keep hunting for a Giant breed buck.

Hubbard rooster at 10 weeks, carcass weight 2.012 kg.

Rather early, on Day 72, we decided to start 'harvesting' our Hubbard chickens, delivered as 1 day old chicks on May 1st. Although they are a bit young yet, the roosters in particular are already starting to look huge and are starting to clutter up the place - we get that feeling of too many chickens under foot when we walk in the yard. So, pretty much as an experiment, this guy got the chop and turned out to have a live weight of 3.016 kg, a carcass weight of 2.012 kg (plus 232 g of 'bits' (liver, heart, gizzard for us and the neck for the cats!) Not bad for a free range bird only just over 10 weeks old!

Pioneer gardening. Liz hefts a rock.

So that's about it for recent adventures. Opening up the run for the keets showed us that we have yet another untamed bit of 'garden' which needs sorting, so Liz has been out pioneering in the stinging nettle proof gloves and rock-proof wellies, breaking off only to study the gardening books for the 'dry shade under trees' species. Convallaria, anyone?

Selling the Children

Anyone in Ireland will happily tell you what to do if you want to buy or sell baby bunny rabbits - go on (or put an advert on) the advertising website "Donedeal.IE". It's like a massive Classified Ads section on line with a gazillion sellers advertising and another gazillion buying. Bound to work! Cute pictures, sensible prices, what could go wrong? Well in our case, with 12 'pet' rabbits to sell, the progeny of Ginny and Padfoot, it is not working. For the first month or so of the advert we had not a whisper. The website tells me that we had over 100 'views' but they must have all gone in, found us wanting, and gone off to hunt rabbits elsewhere.

On advice we dropped the price. On more advice, this time from Mrs Silverwood, we "bumped" the advert back up to the top of the lists (another €3 for the second 'insertion') and she also changed one of the pictures. I had photographed one of the babies held by Liz when she'd been wearing gardening gloves; Mrs S thought this might look like these were some kind of fierce bunny which was only safe to handle in gloves. Suddenly we had 2 phone calls and an enquiring e-mail. One lady was going to come over on Saturday, another chap would phone me on the Thursday to arrange a visit on the Friday. I was getting hopeful and I should have known better.

Hubbard chick at 17 days, steppin' out.

We know from experience that one of the differences between the Irish culture and the English comes out at this point - the agreeing dates and making arrangements thing. Liz tells me, tongue in cheek, that there is no word in the Irish language for "No" or "Yes", so that they would always hedge around a bit. "Will you have a cup of tea?" you ask. "Ahhh", they will say, "I'm just after having tea". Even their Referendums have to be worded carefully. You do not have a 'No' camp and a 'Yes' camp. The question has to be phrased so that the answer is "I do not agree with this proposition" (or you do agree).

Combine this with the natural politeness of the Irish; they do not want to offend you by saying they do not want your rabbits. They would rather tell you something you want to hear, than an unpalatable truth. We had this so many times with tradesmen during the house build, I should have got used to it. It should have come as no surprise when the email came to nothing, the lady failed to show and the guy failed to either phone or to show. It was not looking good; we still have 12 bunnies eating our grass and slowly getting bigger, coming up on the 3 month stage where males need to be separated from females, with Goldie's babies following on behind.

Luckily we have another string to our bow. Our friend Charlotte, of mini-horses fame, is off to a Show in Swinford (Co Mayo) this weekend with some of her own baby bunnies to sell and has offered to take 4 of ours along too. Her own babies were getting a bit same-y in colour (she'd sold all the more interesting colours). It so happened that we have 4 males and 8 females, so Charlotte has taken our 4 males and thereby also solved the problem of us having to separate the sexes. Good luck selling those tomorrow, Charlotte! When she runs out, she will also pass our phone number on to any customers who show up with un-met demand.

Pumpkin

Maybe we will 'clear' some of these bunnies after all. Liz is rather wickedly joking that any kids who now come to view, she will straight out and tell them that any unsold bunnies are headed for the freezer, so that the children bully their Dad into 'rescuing' them from this evil woman. I'm not sure that is allowed in rabbit selling ethics, but it might just work.

The pics on this blog have just been some I have taken today of the fast growing Hubbard chickens (now 17 days old) and of the garden, some nice hollyhocks imported as seed from Faversham in Kent when we moved, the forest of marigolds which I had only intended as companion plants to the raspberries and a prospective pumpkin for the Silverwoods. Here now is a first white waterlily in the big pond. Its sister plant has also produced a flower, so we hope the flying insects will buzz between the two and fertilize each. The pond is still crystal clear and we are enjoying it immensely.