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.

Au Revoir to AB

AB rocking the mesh visor. 

Farewell then, Augustin (AB), our Help-X volunteer of the last 4 weeks, who I dropped to the railway station this morning for his journey onward to Dublin. It nearly didn't work; as is commonly the case, Castlerea station was all locked up and gone away, unmanned and the ticket machine out on the platform was crashed and inoperable.

Nailing the docks (Rumex)

He and 2 other passengers decided to get on the train anyway and throw money at the first railway official they saw. A text later told me that they had all arrived safely in Dublin and had not been arrested for 'hobo-ing'. AB had done a month in Belfast prior to his month here and is now planning a month in the capital and one in Galway before, apparently, heading for Sweden. Yes. Sweden. It's a French thing, he tells me. They all want to see Ireland and Sweden. Works for me.

The pig paddock has never been so clear

Regular readers will know we've had a great time with the lad and we have done LOADS of work, mainly around Autumn-tidying, clearing nettle patches and pulling out of them, big heaps of old prunings and tree branches (incl. the Christmas tree from 2016!). If this was me doing the volunteer side, my mission would be to leave every place in a far better state than when I arrived. If that is also theirs, then AB should be very proud of himself. We are transformed.

Heavy rain stops play on what was to be
our last task.

His last working day was going to be yesterday and we were going to strip away all the grass growing from cracks in the concrete on the back "terrace" and then mix some cement and fill the cracks. Well, lashing rain in advance of the next named storm (Brian) put a stop to that and we both took a day off after having got up at the crack of dawn to nip down and help a friend move some cattle. AB's last job was on Wednesday, then, when he had a good session at bashing docks with the brush-cutter. We'd translated the stinging nettles as "ortie" but could find no such common name for French docks, so we called them 'Rumex' which amused AB ("It sounds like it should be an insurance company!").

My current favourite evening snack. Goat's cheese and strips of
our bullace-plum "fruit-cheese". 

All good things must come to an end, though, and although we loved having AB, we are home birds, a bit set in our ways and enjoying of our own company, so we were both looking forward to un-shipping the 'help' and getting our house and our routines back. No offence, we hope, in either direction.

One of the cats supervises the wine racking.
(pic by Liz)

One amusing side-line to this is that although AB was the easiest bloke in the world to feed (he ate everything we cooked for him and came back for seconds every time. Liz jokes that her worries were only about whether she'd "manage to fill him". He has a bullet-proof appetite) there were 2 minor mis-matches to his preferences. He does not like fish (he's OK with shellfish and prawns) or cooked cheese, so out of solidarity we avoided fish and cheese for 4 weeks. No pizza, then, and certainly no cheesy fish-pie. We are so going to make up for this, now that AB has gone!

I'll leave the last word to our friend and Archery Coach, 'Con'. We were over to his on Wednesday to help whacking in some tree stakes, to clear the shooting field of its 3D target "animals" (into dry store) and to fold Con's 2 enormous cone-shaped tent canvases. Con obviously likes AB and loved teaching him to shoot for those 4 weeks so in my little 'farewell' to AB on Facebook, Con replied,

"(He is) a big man with a big smile and willing hands - may he enjoy every step of his Path."

A dog on your lap is no protection
when this cat wants to come aboard.
Not NOW Kato!

Meanwhile, as we wait through the gap between Ex-Hurricane Ophelia and Storm Brian (how can you take those two names seriously in the same sentence?), our only other entertainment seems to have been racking off the wine. This was meant to be a 3 week kit but has taken us more like 2 months, possibly because we'd let the kit get old and maybe the temperature. yeast or the stabilizer were not up to much. We thought it had nearly done so we "killed" it with the stabilizer and it just took on a new lease of life, fermenting madly for 5-6 weeks before it finally calmed down enough to be 'racked' (bottled). It is surprisingly good and we find we prefer it to the shop-bought Ozzie Shiraz we had been drinking on the non-gin and non-beer evenings. Bottoms up!

(Nearly) Seeing it All

A first scrape-the-ice morning this morning.

The days I like best are the ones filled with livestock activities. Friend Charlotte phrased it best when she said that what she misses about having left home and gone off to college and to work in Dublin, is that before she departed and when the place was full of animals and birds, "There was always something to DO, even if it was just mucking out the rabbits". Regular readers will know that when she is back around, down here, she remains our No.1 go-to person to help with stock jobs.

Some '365' pics of a favourite local walk. The Golden Mile

The last 24 hours have been no exception and a real team effort, mainly because the main animal involved was one of hers, the 7 month old kid, originally born here, Henry-Óg (or 'Henno' for short). He had finally come round to his 'finish' - he is getting sexually mature and would have been harassing his Mum and falling foul of his big-horned 'step-father', 'Billy'. Smelling too, as Billy goats can. He needed ear-tagging and then hauling off to the butcher we use for our pigs, in Castlerea.

Stone stile into the old graveyard

He was a bit grown-up to be getting ear-tagged (it would hurt him and he was not going to like it) but when he was at the right (softer) age of 6 weeks, the family were in the process of moving to their new place in a different county, which meant that their herd number and supply of old tags no longer 'worked'. They have since had to apply to the new county and only now can buy tags with the new correct serial numbers. The new tags work with my 'pliers' (applicator) so I nipped across to do the deed while Charlotte held the very tame Henno in a firm grip lest he jump at the unwelcome and un-anaesthetised "ear piercings". He squeaked but was quickly OK. He, of course had no idea what was in store for him and why he needed the tags.

That was yesterday. Today I was back over there to collect him up, now meekly walking alongside Charlotte on dog-collar and lead and not objecting when boosted unceremoniously into the trailer. We drove him gently down and, because he'd be led 'round the back' I simply parked outside the butcher's in the street, no need to do that tricky road-blocking reverse into the tight alleyway up the side of the shop.

Liz was up to Dublin with the local Knitting Club on Sunday
and bought, she said, "ALL the wool"

So Charlotte led the lad in to meet his fate and I took the paperwork into the shop. I heard a short conversation about "doing him now" and I knew that Charlotte likes to get back all the 'gribbly bits' for dog treats, chews and food. Also that K-Dub fancied making knife handles from the horns, so they would be bring the head home too. Unbeknownst to me, C had led the goat into the shed and when the slaughterman suggested she might like to 'leave' and she'd replied that, no, she was 'grand' and happy to help, the guy had lifted the humane killer (captive-bolt gun), steadied Henno's head and popped him between the eyes, and had the sharp 'sticking' knife out practically before the lad hit the floor. A gush of blood and Henno was dead inside, Charlotte said, 5 seconds of being led in. It took her longer, she said, to get the dog-collar off him than it had taken for him to die; no drama, no pain, no awareness of what was happening. Clean, fast, efficient and humane. Surely the best way.

C then came back into the shop to talk offal and collection times and the boss said that if we wanted we could watch his man behead, skin and gut the late Henno there and then and take all the bits way with us, save coming back on an extra trip (I also got the impression that he would be relieved to pass us the head and bits lest they got lost during any intervening days!). It was all grist to the mill for hardy Charlotte but it would be my first time seeing this process but hey, in for a penny, I was sure I'd not let the side down by getting upset or 'gipping' all over the floor.

The sun rises through the trees around our house, as seen
from 2 fields away (to the West, obviously)

It was, I must admit, a bit of a shock to see him lying there with a bright red whoosh of blood coming from a gaping neck wound, his eyes still bright and his body steaming gently on the floor. We stood and chatted to the guy and saw a masterclass in cleaning a dead goat, with Charlotte steadily accumulating a bag of bits - the head, 'trotters' tail, scrotum and 'balls', then stomach (for the tripes), liver, heart, kidneys, lungs. It was like the pig "everything but the squeal" thing - the lad was pretty much left with just the intestines and skin (too goat-smelly). He had a good work out skinning the animal because, as in Henno, goats often have no fat beneath the skin so that the easy "fisting" thing they would do on sheep, pushing a fist between flesh and skin to separate the layers, is very hard on a goat.

All up we were in there less than an hour. Impressive and, as I said, re-assuring to know how humane, stress-free and painless it all is behind the scenes. The carcass now hangs in the cold store till Thursday when they can go down to collect it and see it cut up. For Charlotte and I, 'Phase 2' and the turn of my animals once we'd brought the trailer home and partaken of some nice banana/nut-loaf and a cup of tea (Liz was enjoying having been able to sub the job out to Charlotte and had baked but had also landed a 78 page document to proof read and correct for Mrs Silverwood).

We finally found venison! This from the Wicklow Mountains
but to us via Aldi (supermarket) in Roscommon. Cheap too!

My sheep were the ones in the frame now. I needed to fluke and worm drench all 4, inject new ewe-lamb 'Rosie' for Clostridium and fit her EID (electronic) ear tag to complete her legal identification now that we have decided to keep her as a breeding ewe. The latter went better than for Henno. Her ears must be softer or less sensitive (or I just missed all the nerves). She barely twitched as the 'pliers' closed, pushing the inner and outer halves of the tag together through her flesh. The drenching was 10 ml of each of two 'gloops' for each ewe, one white, one blue. These went OK and all ewes managed to swallow most of their 'shot' adroitly snuck into the side of the mouth while Charlotte held their nose high and sky-ward and their lips closed. No dribbling, ladies! Yes, it probably DOES taste awful but it's for your own good!

Soggy Doggies

At that point Charlotte's work here was done and I could deliver her home with her bags of offal etc and my afternoon "livestock" jobs were just all the feed rounds and taking the dogs for a lovely long walk across the Kiltybranks bog-land including a chance to leap into the stream and get nice and wet and muddy. Bless them. We have also been continuing their training on how to live with and love kittens and not eat them at the first opportunity. This is going a bit variably but so far no-one has been eaten, so I guess it's a success.

Deefer eye-ing up the hunting potential
of 2 kittens in Mum's easy chair.

Finally we remember our great friend Diane (also 'Diamond' on this blog) whose Birthday would have been today. RIP Diane. Still miss you. Never forgotten. Posh Cheese!

Topp Hosting

Liz rests between courses with (l to r) Dan, Danielle and Keith

I may have mentioned in here that three of the gang who were at the funeral which took Liz to the UK last weekend, were due to follow her back hot on her heels to stay with us this most recent weekend. 2 of them (Dan and Danielle) have been before, last year when they famously drove from here, through Connemara to Galway pausing by a lake for Dan to propose to Danielle. Ahhhhh. Keith is a Dublin cousin, actually son of my Best Man. We 'knew' him properly back then but as a 7 year old (!) and we had lost contact when we were back doing 'married' in the UK. He is one of those who Facebook has brought back into our circle. FB is good for that. It would be his first visit.

Roast duck with Guinness and honey

We love these chances to do hosting and Liz, in particular gets focused and creates lists and menus of special foods and other stuff not normally stocked here. These people will get fed and will get fed WELL and memorably. As I sit here after the event the list, which was fixed to the kitchen dry-wipe board by a magnetic strip has been tidied away, but if memory serves it had on it such goodies as, for Saturday lunch, Asparagus and Gruyere Tart, a pie of sausage meat, black pudding and caramelised apple and a salad of tomatoes, goats cheese and finely sliced onions.

Asparagus and Gruyere Tart

Supper was a genteel soup of bacon and leek (no bread - pace yourself, guys!) followed by mains of Roast Duck in Guinness and Honey (with just noodles and steamed spinach) and a dessert of either/or rhubarb and cream meringue or banana bread. The "cheese course" was Liz's speciality chilli, cheese and bacon biscuits. Breakfast was the expected 'dippy' goose eggs, a keen request from Danielle remembered from last time.

The guests were here, as well as the food, very much for the livestock - we are like a petting-zoo for them all and they love the chance to meet, feed, pet and cuddle as many species as they can get to co-operate (pretty much everybody except the geese!). The pigs were a real hit here, being now 13 weeks old, so small enough to have bouncing around on your lap like a pup and trying to mouth everything. Somerville particularly likes to be rubbed and fussed all over - between her ears, her back, flanks and tummy and under her chin. Ross is not quite so keen but Danielle just saw that as a challenge and was determined to 'tame' her by Sunday dinnertime!

Danielle meets the piggies

The lambs are a bit heavier now (Rosie is ten weeks) but are well used to being handled. Both Danielle and Keith managed to get the guest-goat Nanny-Óg to eat some crunch out of their hands and then went off round the field doing a little happy dance. Then there are the ducklings and the little chicken poults and Tom the Turkey who is currently missing his good lady (out in the fields somewhere (we hope) sitting on eggs) and seems more approachable, let them stroke his knobbly head. A great time was had by all on the food rounds and interim communing.

Thank you so much for the lovely
flowers (also wines, beers and
Hendricks gin). You shouldn't have!

In short, it was a lovely successful visit and much enjoyed by everyone. Our FB 'lot' will have seen a blizzard of pics on FB; I have used just a few of them on here (Thanks D+D). You are welcome back any time, guys.

The ducklings meet Tom and some other residents

The gang headed back to Dublin and their flight home via a visit with 'Sparks'. Liz headed off for a well earned lie-down and I headed for Castlerea and what was planned to be a session out of doors with the archery club setting up the outdoor shoot (targets, marquee etc) followed by a bit of out door shooting. I, for one, was pleased that this was rained off and we adjourned back to the badminton courts of Castlerea's "The Hub". This meant that I could get my new bow set up indoors by instructor 'Con' and learn to use it in the familiar indoor environment. Long story short, that went well and I love the new gear. More on that in a future post.

Poults feathering up well

The Bank Holiday weather proved better than expected and gave us a chance, at last, to release the ducklings and poults for a quick explore of the 'free range' potential of this place. In practise these youngsters are always a bit nervous on their first sessions and never go far. We watch over them mainly in case of inappropriate interest by either cat (they are too big now to be of any use to crows, magpies and the sparrowhawk) and soon they get tired and return home, where upon we shut them back in till tomorrow. It works well. We then increase the time and reduce the supervision each day till they are out all day with everybody else. I can't wait for the ducklings to find the big pond, but I am not going to hurry them and they have not yet tried to get beyond the main yard. The only water they know is the cat litter trays, ridiculously shallow now for these long legged, tall "babies".

I just passed Danielle the lamb, Rosie. Bit of a lump! Keith
seems to be in deep conversation with #3 ewe, Myfanwy.

Ah well, I will leave you with Liz away in Silverwood-land with a bitter sweet task ahead of her. With Mum, bro (Sparks) and sis (Mrs S) the family must choose a head stone for their late Father's grave and decide what should be engraved there-upon. Mum wanted everybody to be there so that the decisions could be family ones. There was also to be a lunch. Liz is not back yet so I have no idea how that went for the moment but I cannot imagine it was a barrel of laughs.

A rather unkind pic of Danielle deciding whether yet another
portion of rhubarb Pavlova would be a good idea! 

...and that is enough for this one.

Dustin, Done and Dusted.

Dustin emerges from the American
deep-bath fryer. 

To a man (and woman), Irish 'kids' now grown up and our age, remember from their TV watching youth a classic character from kids' TV, Dustin the Turkey. Dustin was a glove puppet but not like any soppy, mamby-pamby puppet they had ever seen before. He spoke with a strong Dublin city accent and was given to (what must have been) deliciously irreverent and disreputable behaviour, playing up and 'messing' (misbehaving and bantering) in the studio and being outrageously rude to studio guests (well, within the limits of a National TV broadcast). He is now part of Ireland's 'classic TV' culture and is lately enjoying a new lease of life in pantomimes and so on.

Dustin carved up nicely.

This all explains why Sparks, the brother-in-law, decided to name "his" turkey Dustin, the one he collected from us on Wednesday, that we killed, plucked and dressed in my previous post. The plan was to cook this bird for a gang of Dublin builder mates tonight, all of whom would be well familiar with the TV Dustin and his antics. Sparks was also going to print one of our pictures of the bird in life, to put in a wee frame with a black ribbon, as if this was his wake. Sparks is a bit of a foodie and fancy chef, so he has bought this year (ordered from America) one of the latest 'things', a cylindrical deep-bath, outdoor, turkey fryer which looks a bit like the tea urn and cooks a 17 lb bird in about 45 minutes. The bird would also be brined for 24 hours, though I doubt it would need it.

Dustin's Dad (and Mum) out in the sunshine
today.

Well, that is all done and dusted now, the fryer has done its thing and the suntanned bird has been carved up and by now, eaten. Sparks has put a few pics of this up on Facebook in which it looks splendid and I am quite proud of it. Sparks reported that Dustin tasted "Absolutely amazing, sooooo juicy, he was a credit to you". Thanks for those kind words Sparks.

Turkey #2 will have no such fancy fryer finish. He is Dustin's younger brother, at 5 months old (Dustin was 6 mths) and killed out at fresh weight 8.1 kg, oven ready at 6.2 kg (14 lbs). Liz was off to Silverwood land this afternoon, down to 'babysit' the children over the weekend while Mr and Mrs S nip over to the UK to sort out some family business. Turkey #2 went with her smuggled in 2 plastic bags and a towel in Liz's suitcase - she didn't think the staff and users of the Irish national rail service would appreciate a carcass hung by its feet from the baggage racks. I am not sure whether this bird will be roasted by Mrs S or by Steak Lady but I do expect that both the whole family will eat together on the 25th, so everyone will get to taste it.

No turkey for us yet but we did enjoy this excellent salt beef,
only the last remnant here, bought as fresh brisket, brined by
us and then rolled, tied and boiled. Yum.

Meanwhile, we recover from our Desmond Deluge. The water level is dropping in all our lakes and rivers though the mass of water now working its way down the Shannon is causing all manner of flooding and damage now and for days yet - it is a long river! Up here on our hill top all the puddles are gone and we are enjoying some calm, sunnier days.

The laid stone walls visible here and, top right, the start of some
upper walls made from 9 inch cavity blocks. 

Out at the Sligo house, more milestones in the buildering at which I am helping. The bottoms of the new walls, with their beautiful and impressive stonework on the outside are complete and a professional bricklayer has been down today to 'top off' the walls to roof height in 9" cavity blocks. It is all beginning to look a bit like a house!

2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

Some lovely heads of calabrese coming off the 'allotment'

Poor aul' Pirate the Cat seems to be taking a step back for every 2 forward at present. In general he's improving; he's getting good food into his system at present, so he's putting on good weight and we can no longer feel each individual vertebra or rib, his skin and fur are coming on a treat and we know he has been wormed, spayed and systemically de-flea'd. But just when he was nearly over the last bout of vet treatments, his empty eye socket popped open as the dis-solvable stitches parted company and he had to be taken back today for a 2nd attempt. Not only is the (lack of) eye a bit spooky to look at, it is basically an open wound which would for ever be picking up dirt and infection, so it needs stitching up closed; all his 'insides' should be inside and not exposed to the open air.

'Blue Salad' and 'Sharp's Express' salad potatoes

Hence the lad was back down to Aoife the Vet today for a 2nd attempt and, reading between the lines of what she was telling us, I think that this time she has not only used tougher (but still dis-solvable) stitches, but she has also created shallow 'wounds' in the top and bottom eyelid, so that they will bind together and heal over as a pair, better, closed. Sorry if you're just having your tea! So the poor old fella was back to us at 5 o'clock tonight all groggy from the sedative, ravenous from the fasting and grubby and filthy from the various anti-septic 'goo's and medical fluids. You had to pity him. He was trying to eat chunks of cat food from the bowl but not managing it, so he took to hooking chunks out of the bowl with a paw. He could not seem to bite them from his paw in his addled state, so he'd flick his paw and send the chunk flying off across the caravan and lose it. Liz decided to try him on a feline version of 'egg flip', a whole egg whizzed up with whipping cream! He scarfed two of these in quick succession. We have now put him to bed in the caravan so that he can give in to the battle for sleep and recover over night.

A batch of fencing materials delivered today.

Wrapped around our runs to and from the vet, we have played host to a knitting chum of Liz's who had been playing host in her turn to 4 grand-children down from Dublin for a week. She was looking for ways to entertain the kids and had accepted Liz's invitation to bring them to eat cakes, drink drinks and look at the animals, so we were in 'petting zoo' mode again - the children enjoyed feeding apples to pigs, stroking bunnies, talking to geese and goslings, quietly watching our broody hen and fussing the excited dogs. We are happy to be of service.

Garden flowers for the table

Also slotted in to this eventful day was the delivery by our fencing supplier of the 'posh' wood for our fence around the front lawn by Sligo firm, McHale Sawmills. In all of our build and heavy work we have never had such a skilled and careful lorry driver. We have had the lawn edges 'trodden down', gate piers leant upon and all manner of 31-point turns and struggles, where you are tempted to offer to drive the man's lorry for him. This guy was into the drive in a whisker and up into unloading position without hitting anything. Then when it came to backing up round a 90 degree turn through another gate way he was round in no time with only one 'bite' at it and off down the drive forwards to swing easily out of the gate onto the lane. "You've played that game before!" I commented. He smiled. "Yes, a few times" he smiled as he waved me away. Good to watch.

Trailing Home (Tail Between her Legs)

There she comes, then, trailing home with her tail between her legs, poor old Clara Bow, 2 weeks overdue for her NCT re-test and her owner's wallet €280 lighter. We called by the garage today having heard nothing, to see if she was finished, to find that they had just finished putting her back together and cleaning her up before they phoned me. Not brilliant service this time but I do sympathise. They had taken her in to do some easy tweaks on the carburettor which weren't going to cost much and would be done by garage owner Keiran who'd taken over the task from son Aaron. They knew I wanted the car back for the 14th and knew not to spend too much on her.

2CV carburettor (pale grey, centre of picture)

In the event both K and A jazzed off to the USA to mechanic on a Kart race (in which their other son, Andy, was driving for Ireland) having first posted the carb off (without asking me) to a specialist in Dublin. At this point it all went a bit astray. The carb needed €280 worth of work and was no way going to be back for the 14th. Hey ho, I asked them to just re-assemble the car and I'd either drive or have it towed home, end of job, end of hobby, car officially booked off road on a SORN notice. Unbeknownst to me, the specialist guy had already fixed the carb.

I wasn't happy, but these are old, unfamiliar cars and the guys left on site were doing their honest best. They were very apologetic and offered to charge me only what the carb guy had charged them, no labour on their part and no VAT. It would have been unfair to hurt the Dublin guy so I bit the bullet and paid up thinking, philosophically, that at least it will be the final spend on the car. I drove home enjoying the feel of the repaired mixture and smiling a wry smile - I was probably driving a perfectly good car which might well breeze an NCT but, No, we have made our decision and this baby gets to sit in the car port, SORN'd and getting used only within the 'farm'. Maybe the law will change and the statutory age for 'classics' exempt from NCTs will hop forward from its current 1980 date; cars have to be 33 years old here to be exempt, mine is only a youngster at 27 years old.

Christmas Pud

But enough of 2CVs for the moment. We have progress on the sheep front at last! Sheep Mentor Kenny is almost fixed from his broken collar bone and is able to drive his enormous 4 x 4 if he takes it carefully. He texts me out of the blue to say he is coming to see if our lambs are ready. I round them up using food bait and he gets a chance to grab some thighs and press down on some spines checking for the chunky muscle blocks of Beltex sired lambs and the right amount of fat along the spine, covering the tops of the ribs. He pronounces himself happy; They are 'Finished' he declares and can go to slaughter. He will be OK doing the haulage, he assures us. Book them in.

Hollyhocks still in flower on 27th November

Our job now is to contact the small slaughterhouse -stroke-butcher who we use, Ignatius G in Castlerea. This proves easier said than done, as he is either engaged on the phone all afternoon, or he is so busy he has taken the thing off the hook. We are in town tomorrow, though, so we can drop in and make arrangements face to face. Kenny quickly threw another couple of complications my way, but that's Kenny. "See if you can get carcass weights," he asked "by breed and sex" This is just for his own interest, but it should be easy enough. We have, in the group of 5, 2 rams and 3 ewes. All are sired by his Beltex ram, but there are 3 breeds of 'Mum', one out of a Texel, 2 out of Suffolk Down ewes and 2 out of Galway ewes. I had to note down breed and sex against their ear tag numbers, so when I fed them tonight and their noses were safely in the trough, I was sneaking around tickling ears till I could see the ear tag codes and then looking under the tail of each for dangly bits. They all carried on eating but they were a bit fidgetty at all this weird invasion of their supper time! Kenny's other 'complication' was that he has a hospital appointment in Galway at 13:00 on the Monday, so we need to be in, sheep delivered nice and early.

And finally, Andy and the Kart race? Apparently they were doing OK and enjoying themselves but in the big final race "some Mexican guy" punted Andy up the back end on a corner and knocked him off the track. Andy's OK, but the kart was wrecked, so no trophies this year.