All Growed Up?

We do not claim to be experts in Meteorology but we are reasonably knowledge-able (A level in Geography, Environmental Science as part of the degree, that kind of thing) and we are sure that we had around 3 inches of rain over Saturday night into Sunday morning. This would be quite amazing and I am sure I would think "pull the other one" if it was only being told to me by a "bloke in the pub". I remember that rain guages are all a standard shape and size, with known diameter, knife-sharp horizontal rim, placed out dead-level in an uninterupted air-flow and so on. Well, we don't have that but I did have a vertical-sided bucket which I am 99% sure was empty the day before, and accumulated a good 3 inches of rain overnight. My second witness would be the all night roar and hiss of rain on roofs and windows. My third the huge puddles all around the place on Sunday on what had been only damp ground and I would also draw your attention (M'Lud) to the River Lung under Feigh Bridge being higher than I have even seen it and Lough Feigh being fuller. Under the bridge a large diameter pipe drains water into the river from fields on the west bank and is normally a good 6 feet above the water so that water falls in quite an impressive 'force'. I have seen on previous wet spells, the water half way up this pipe but yesterday (Monday) it was over-topped. Finally in Met Éireann data, Knock Airport had 37 mm on the Saturday, up to midnight and I can easily believe that another 38 mm fell after that (data not yet published - perhaps they are double checking their figures too!)

A first tiny egg from 'OneChick'?

Meanwhile, back with the poultry, all hunkered down in the buildings out of this rain (and me hunkered down playing on t'internet) we think we have had a first egg from 'OneChick'. OneChick was hatched in late May by one of the Buffs in the Tígín, so she is only 3 months old; a bit young to be laying eggs but if not her, then we don't know where this came from. There has only been the one so far, so maybe she is just practicing being a grown up.

OneChick at 3 months.

Actually, we are a little confused by her parentage and as she grows up and starts to look like an adult bird, we are no longer so certain she is purebred Buff Orpington, which had been our first guess. She is losing her Buff-Orp shape and getting a bit longer legged and necked. Also she has a few dark feathers in her wings and one or two dark tail feathers, which I do not think Buffs are "allowed". She also has a dark 'cere'; the flesh where the nostrils come out, above the base of the beak. None of our pure Buffs have that. Her father will definitely be a Buff as these are the only roosters we currently have, but if biological Mum is not a Buff, she might have been either of 2 other red-ish 'breeds' we have. We have the red Hubbard, 'Miss Scarlett' still laying. We also have a couple of hybrids which we call the 'Mini-Buffs'. They were bought as Buff eggs but proved when hatched and grown to be smaller and short-legged like some kind of bantam as well as having dark feathers in the tail and cape, as per Sussex hens. Ah well, she is a delightful little thing and if she proves to be a reliable layer, she is welcome here.

Part of the last joint of the 2014 lamb meat, a leg coated in herby
bread-crumbs and then slow roasted at 100ºC for 6 hours.

Hot on OneChick's heel in the growing up race, come the Two Chicks hatched by the Buff under the elderberry bush. These two are now two months old, fully feathered but not very independent. Up till last night they had all crowded into the little space in the Tígín at night, where OneChick was hatched. Then last night at lock up I found the pair wandering in the yard, cheeping in a confused manner, but with no Mum in attendance. I eventually found her in the grown-ups coop happily settling down to roost with her 'sisters'. She had apparently decided to move house without telling the youngsters or they had not been listening. I had to shepherd them gently into the coop where they continued to cheep on the floor as if seeking permission to sleep in this strange adult world. I checked them a few minutes later and they had worked it out. They were up with the Mums and Aunts on the perching ladder. Poor sweet little mites.

Em-J in the Debs dress

Talking of growing up, another 'Proud Uncle' post - the niece and God-Daughter, Em-J who featured in a recent post as getting good results in her Leaving Cert exams is tonight making that modern Rite of Passage claimed by all young Irish ladies, the 'Debs' (Debutantes' Ball). Best bib and tucker for the lads, glad-rags, hand-bags and the best jewellery for the lasses, with Mums, Grans, Aunts and assorted family friends all converging on the place to help get the Deb ready and to see her off to the posh 'Reception' at 4 pm. Liz has hot-footed it down to Silverwoods to be part of this and to spend the night celebrating at the homestead with the Silverwood parents. She has promised to take some pics and ping them up here via the miracle of the Internet, so I promise in my turn to edit them into this post as soon as I get them.

I am unable to attend (though sure I'd LOVE to spend several hours in female 'getting ready' mode!) because I have 2 other 'growing ups' to worry about - our piggies Mary and Isabelle are now 'ready' and booked off on their final journey Thursday morning. Our experience tells us that the best way to persuade pigs to climb up an unfamiliar wooden ramp into a trailer is to start 3 days earlier, giving them their breakfasts and suppers up there. They soon learn that the trailer is 'safe' and full of food so that, on Thursday morning we can load them quietly and calmly with nobody getting stressed out. That is the intention - in an ideal world the pigs get right up to the slaughter-man's stun-gun (or humane killer) without a Scooby-Doo that they are in danger.

A Pig in a Poke.

An excellent list of As, Bs and Cs
gets Em-J a handsome 425 points.

This blog has now been running for so long that our dear niece, Em-J, who first appears as a lock-gate wrangler on our 2007 narrowboat holiday aged just 9, has now moved all through 'big school' and come out the other end as one of the tens of thousands of students getting their 'Leaving Cert' results this week. For my UK readers, Leaving Cert is equivalent to 'A' Levels although thought to be slightly higher by many UK Universities. The exam takers take up to 9 subjects and the Cs, Bs and As all contribute points to the final score. These points mean you will either get accepted by the colleges and Uni's or not. We are very proud of both the 'victims' we have anything to do with (Em-J and one of Liz's students, Tilly) who both came out with superb results and enough points to get to Uni (all be it Tilly is actually moving back to the UK and had applied to Gloucester Uni.). UK readers may also be interested to know that these courses and exams are standard across the whole country - all the students sit exactly the same exams on the same days and time, papers are marked nationally too and results come out all from one database and website. Anyway, well done Em-J and Tilly. We are very proud of you.

Piglet pyramid. There are 12 here. 

An amusing distraction and adventure came our way on Wednesday this week when we were asked to help "catch 9 piglets". These babies belong to our friends Rob and Sue and had found themselves born into a pig ark in a big grass field instead of a barn where they had been intended to be born. Worse, the nice new grass field the parent pigs had been moved to just before farrowing had become a victim of the heavy rain through July and August and was a quagmire of 4-6 inch deep mud, too squelchy to run through in wellies.

The author releasing one bagged piggy in the barn

Total pig-ignorami may appreciate the following study notes.

• 5 week old piglets squeal and scream like mad if you upset them by trying to lift them up or take them away from Mum. They make a ferocious racket!
• They are the size of a Westie (dog) and weigh about the same, maybe 7-8 kg? 
• The normal method is to grab them by one or both back legs and let them hang head-down, which makes them go quiet. 
• Piglet legs taper fiercely down from ham, through shank-end and hock to trotter and there are no nice knobbly heels or joints to get a grip on so if the pig's leg is muddy it will slip through your hands like a sausage coming out of a hot dog. 
• Fortunately, 5 week old piglets are quite narrow at the pelvis and if you have big hands you can grab a chunk of back end which is cleaner, and lift the piglet like that.
• If you are on your own and dive into the ark to grab a piglet, you may catch one but the remaining piggies will scatter to the 4 winds in panic, out of the ark door and into the field where, trust me, you are not going to catch them. 
• Full grown sows and especially boars are over 100 kg and can easily knock you flying and make a serious mess of your good looks if they attack you. They can also run much faster than a wellie-clad person across a muddy field. 
• Parent pigs, especially sows do not like you interfering with their babies and making them squeal. They will surely come over to investigate even if they decide you are not actually murdering their offspring.
• On the other hand they are also hungry, greedy animals and if they realise that by investigating the squeals, they might be losing out in the food being handed to their colleagues at the other end of the field, they will probably say "Oh... alright then" and trot back to the shouting food-deliverer. 

Safe, warm and dry in the new quarters. 

You may by now have started to get a picture of the fun we had. Rob had tried to catch them on the Tuesday but he was working solo, so he had only managed 2 before his already injured leg cried 'Enough!' running through the mud. Grown up Grandson Lewis had grabbed a third. There were 9 for us to catch, but on Wednesday, we were going at it mob-handed - 5 humans. Rob went off to the top of the field armed with copious amounts of food in a rattly bucket, to distract the grown ups. Liz and Sue were armed with many feed sacks and cable ties plus straw to lay on the mud to make a bit of a path. I had a big mesh frame to use as a gate for the ark and Lewis had the job of going into the ark to catch and bag piglets. I stood outside the ark with the gate wedged against the opening with my foot to stop barrelling piglets from charging out when they realised what Lewis had in store for them. 

Liz's normally clean and precious pink Hunters do not look
quite so pristine now!

In the event, the plan worked and Lewis was able to catch and bag all 9 piglets one by one. Once the piglets were cable-tied into their bags they went quiet and only wriggled, trying to get to their feet when all visual clues had vanished, which was a mercy as the sow then ignored them and just looked baffled. One piggy did escape past my gate but kept circling back to try to be with its siblings inside the ark, so I got a chance to lift him back in. Periodically Lewis would pause to hold the gate while I marched bags across to the ladies, who would then ferry these wriggling bags to the barn and release the captives. One of the sows did get a bit upset by the squealing and come look, but she seemed to relax when she could see the babies through our gate. She made one lunge-attack at Sue's hand but never tried anything with me and never even tried to nudge my legs. We just paused to let the squealing subside and everything to calm down and the sow would trot back over to Rob, till the next set of lifts and squeals. 

Liz took this superb pic of 'our' sparrowhawk.

We had arrived at 11:30 and had a cup of tea before we started, and we had them all rounded up and another tea plus a slice of cake by 1 pm. A good and enjoyable mission, which I know Rob and Sue much appreciated our help in. Great teamwork. 

Wrapped around that job I am now also helping JD Bob with his cattle. The old boy has slipped on the foot-steps trying to get down from his tractor and badly barked and bruised his shin, so he is hobbling around like an 'aul' wan'. Forking silage and throwing 25 kg sacks of cattle feed around are a bit beyond him so we are helping out. I love cattle anyway and until I came here I had only had to do with dairy animals. It is nice to get some experience of these big, beefy, 2 year old Charolais and Limousin bullocks

This female sparrowhawk stands helpless to move her badly
broken left wing. 

Then on Wednesday evening at 7:30 pm an experience which was at once a once-in-a-lifetime thrill AND an upsetting horrible tragedy. The thump on the kitchen window set the dogs barking and told us of another bird-strike but we get a few of these and they are normally chaffinches or sparrows which seem to bounce off OK and you rarely find them injured on the ground. This, though was a magnificent female sparrowhawk. Sadly, we quickly saw that she had smashed one wing, compound fracture with blooded bone ends sticking out through broken skin. She was not defeated, though and would happily have raked my hands with those razor-sharp talons while lying on her back and had a go with the beak. We needed to drop an opaque cloth over her and I put on my chainsaw gloves just to try to pick her up and get a look at the injury. Tom the turkey did not help - he took exception to the bird-of-prey screams and the fact that every chicken in the place was clucking loudly and anxiously, and charged over intent on stomping her to death. Liz fended him off while I rescued the hawk.

As far as we know there is no vet round here who even knows about birds (chickens), never mind a specialist wildlife rescue centre who could help fix this fine-tuned thoroughbred. It can only have been agony for her everytime she 'bated' and flapped in a panic, to have the whole wing grating against her shattered humerus. There was only going to be one outcome to this. Although I hated having to do it to such a beautiful, beautiful bird, the only sparrowhawk I have ever got this close to, we took  few pictures and then ended it for her. I apologise if I have upset anyone with this. 

Baby turkey in the sick bay.

This morning we woke up to a sick young turkey, a patient for the sick bay. When she did not emerge from the shed pleading for breakfast, I went in a found her standing on the floor looking pathetic and with a badly swollen and blooded side to the head just behind her eye. The swelling was almost closing the eye. We have no idea how she got injured (kicked aside by Tom in his heroics last night? It might even have been the sparrowhawk having a go before it hit the window) but all you can really do in these circumstances is give them quiet, warmth, food and water (plus cod liver oil if you choose) and pray that they might recover. Some do. Some just mope around for a while and then you find them stiff and dead. This little one has hung in there all day and is still alive at the time I write. We have put the 'electric hen' (warming plate) in her crate as a substitute 'cuddle' with her gang.

...And then there were the Perseid meteors. Unusually we had lovely clear skies last night so we could already see a gazillion stars including the broad sweep of the Milky Way overhead. We had gone out to gaze upwards at around 11 pm and were quickly able to see the streaks of the meteors running through from roughly NE to the East. I tried to take a few pics with my 'posh' camera but although I took over 2 dozen long-exposure pics, I never managed to have the camera open when a meteor whizzed through. They either just beat my shutter release, or they waited till the shutter clicked closed. Never mind, we SAW them, which was the main thing. Most of our UK contacts were complaining of cloud cover and a no-show. I will not bore you with a pic, which would surely just be a black square - blown up on screen you can see the myriad stars but not, I think, on a postcard sized print. The Perseids are going great guns till about the 15th, so maybe you will get some clear-sky luck tonight? Good hunting.  

Lily Tidied Up.

On a gorgeous sunny day we bring the baby turkeys down
for a brief look at some Roscommon sky. 8 days old here.

With Lizzie missing again, I find myself of a mind to catch up on jobs and sort out things that have been hovering in the background. When Liz is around we seem to favour the bigger projects; we seem to be aware of the manhours available working as a pair; weeding the big bed, brush cutting and mowing, cleaning up that cattle race and so on. Liz is off to Silverwood-land again to help out with house-sitting while Mr and Mrs S head for the UK again on a family matter. 'Grandma' (Steak Lady) had been lined up to cover, but it's a complicated week which includes not only the eldest's 17th Birthday, but also her last 'Leaving Cert' exam - good luck with both of those, Em-J! Any parent will tell you that this is one big round of taxi-ing to activities - swimming, scouts, school runs etc, but Liz most recently reported that she was sitting there being fed chowder and steak. Times are hard and it's a tough job this niece-wrangling. I should quickly add that the Silverwood grown-ups have not abandoned their eldest daughter at this crucial time - they will be back for the Birthday and the post-exam.

Lily nicely tidied up.

My first 'tidy up' job was to re-shear the sheep Lily, of whom I had made such a dog's breakfast last time, my first ever go at shearing. She was a shaggy, sorry looking animal and Carolyn down the road had re-named her 'Polly Patch'. I was wary of letting her on the front lawn, in public view in case neighbours crashed their cars laughing. I had been trying to halter train her and had even made a rope halter and then bought to proper ones from the internet. The idea was that if I could get her to stand, calmly, tethered to the gate I could tidy her up upright, still on her feet, where she might feel more secure.

Halter training is, though, a slow old process on adult sheep. Lily has had 3 years of never feeling restrained in ropes around the head and neck, as she is big, heavy and strong enough to try to, should she feel the need, to buck, kick, pull and stampede to freedom. Gently, gently, over the days and weeks using short sessions of only a few minutes, I was getting her used to having the halter on her face, but I was not getting anywhere with restraining her and could see this tidy-up being so far away the rest of the wool on her body would have caught up.

She's not really two-tone. She'd just been rolling in the dust
on her right side. 

She needed to be shorn or risk the dreaded fly-strike (maggots burrowing into the flesh under daggy, thick, sweaty wool around sensitive areas). To cut a long story short, I decided to get stuck back in using as much 'upright' as I could (me straddling the sheep between my legs or leaning my knee into her shoulder against the gate while I worked on the rump) but then having to sit her down to finish the neck. We were all done in about 15 minutes, neither of us too traumatised (!) and she looks a whole lot more presentable, plus I have another bag of cleaner 'inner' wool for Carolyn. A daft part of my brain reminded me that I do indeed have a 'black sheep' and did produce '3 bags full' of wool. The sheep are on the front lawn today - I am proud of them again.

A row of the green-manure plant Phacelia
coming into flower conveniently close
to the hive

I've been needing to get a look into the hive to make sure that we were not bursting at the seams and in need of another honey-super (top box). If you let them run out of space they are more likely to swarm. On with the bee suit good and early this morning; it was about 07:30; the dogs and baby turkeys conspired to get me up at silly o'clock. I just needed to lift the hive lid and a cover board called the 'crown board' to see that, no, they were nowhere near filling the previous 'super'. They had drawn out the honey comb wax on a couple of frames, but there were still 8 frames of 'foundation' sheet available.

Lupins. Like sky-scrapers of colour for
the bees - mainly bumble bees. 

I am actually convincing myself here that the swarming season has come and gone without us - everyone we know round here had swarms a-plenty a couple of weeks back but our bees stayed put. This may be because having been moved here from Longford in April and given some new space then, they 'think' they have done the job already. Never say never, though. While I write this indoors on a Friday afternoon, all sorts might be going on out at the apiary.

This is my favourite of all our 'Granny's Bonnets'.
Most are reds and purples and this yellow makes a
nice change. 

On a lovely hot day recently, we let the baby turkeys out into an empty rabbit run in the yard so they could enjoy the sights and sounds (I thought), while I took the opportunity to swap out their baby-crate and the IR bulb, for a bigger brood box made out of two huge potato crisp boxes and using the new 'electric hen' heater plate. I had carried the birds down in a cat basket and left them in the run, still in the basket, with the basket door open. In fact, they are nervous little things and did not emerge from the basket all day even with food as temptation. However, they do like their new heater plate and we prefer that system to the IR bulbs which are lit 24/7 so the birds must never know when to sleep. They can now huddle down under 'Mum' as it gets dark and wake up with renewed vigour (and noisy demands for breakfast) as soon as it's light, which is about 05:30 round here at present. I wonder do they make electric hens with thick, blackout curtains.

Double flowered Granny's Bonnet

Our 'Hen with One Chick' is still doing a good job on the little one, who is now 4 and a half weeks old and well feathered. This morning I saw the pair of them in the grown-ups chicken house with Mum showing the baby how high are the top perches on the perching 'ladder'. The chick was a good 5 feet off the ground and must have got there by 3 hops up the ladder. It presumably got down safely as the pair were soon out in the garden again. You see it doing all the chicken behaviours in miniature - scratching, pecking, dust-bathing, nipping into the feeding melée to grab a treat, stretching up to flap its wings on tip-toe. Unfortunately this good news, new life story is balanced by a sad one. One of our old original Sussex Ponte hens who had been helping me garden and snatching worms not 15 minutes earlier, I found stood stock still looking very very sick - hunched over and with her back end sagged right down to the ground. Her eyes were shut. A quick inspection revealed that she'd had some kind of massive prolapse of either egg-duct or gut and had bled badly. There was no coming back from that so the kindest thing was to cull her quickly out. Then there were 2.

Enough mowing for today? The giants snooze under the
newest (empty) hive

Finally, I had been getting on with digging across the front of the house for our new flower bed. This bit was cut out from the lawn by the new sheep fence and is a strip 2.4m by 15m. It is due to be 'membrane'd, covered with pea-shingle and planted with (mainly) white flowers and spot-planted with roses. I'd been attacking it at an hour a day, which was enough to dig you from one fence post to the next. I put in an hour and a bit today to finish the job off. We have the membrane. Now we need to order the gravel - we need to get the terminology right in this "foreign" land. What I know as "pea shingle" from the UK is amber and goldie coloured, rounded stuff like small beach pebbles. I have seen that described here as 'drainage stone' and anything carrying the name "decorative stone" here is likely to get you green or blue glass 'beads' like you get round the graveyard. We are hoping that the contact name we have been given might let us come to his yard and choose from his stockpiles. It'll be grand.... it'll be fine... what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Springing the Niece

As 'spoilered' in my previous post, today we head for the 'Ghaeltacht' in Connemara to rescue niece Em-J from her 3 weeks of intensive Irish Language training, for a brief respite, picnic on the coast and a chance to talk to English speaking family for a couple of hours. My Irish readers will know all this, but for the benefit of the Brits, the Ghaeltacht (pronounce, roughly, "Gale-Toch-t") areas are the areas of Ireland where Irish is still the main language used and the vernacular used indoors. The first 'H' seems to be optional.

Em-J's house for 3 weeks. What a view!

The internet has it that, "The term ‘Gaeltacht’ is used to denote those areas in Ireland where the Irish language is, or was until the recent past, the main spoken language of a substantial number of the local population. The Gaeltacht areas are defined by Government order and every successive government has recognised the need for specific measures, structures and funding to ensure the maintenance of these communities.

The existence of areas where Irish lives as a community language is an important cornerstone in the building of a bilingual society in Ireland, and it provides an environment where the language can evolve naturally in a modern setting."

Picnic on the rocks.

Part of the 'specific measures, structures and funding' are about support for the tourist industry to keep the cash flowing in (or these areas would depopulate and 'die') but also to provide many hundreds of language learning 'placements' where school students from all around the country can come and immerse themselves in the language for 3 weeks and bone up their Irish language skills, which is what Em-J is currently at. She is loving it. She has got in with a gang in a shared room in a house who are winning good Brownie points with the host-lady by keeping their room tidy. There are a couple of Irish language jokes around this with which she was regaling us. The hostesses who take in the students are known as "Bean an Tí" which is pronounced 'ban on tea', hence the joke, "Why do they all drink coffee in the Ghaeltacht?" - Because there's a Bean an Tí (how we laughed!). The rooms in houses are given room names - Room A, B. C and D etc. Em-J and her chums are in Room C. "Seomra C" (say it Shome-ra-See). Not the 'Living Room', you understand , The Irish for Living room is "Seomra Suigh" (pronounced the same). I guess you had to be there?

Em-J with the new bag.

We also scored major Uncle-and-Auntie points by turning up with a 16th Birthday present in the form of a unique, cool and funky hand-made bag. This from the stable of Carolyn of the mini horses who, as well as being same, is also the artistic mind and superbly skilled hands behind the internet company "Jelly Bean Design", makers of bags, one-off teddy bears, Christmas dec's and a host of stuff decorated with multi-coloured buttons. Carolyn was once (as well as being a fully qualified Royal Navy engineer (served on Ark Royal etc)) a demonstrator and trainer on sewing machines and now uses those skills to turn out horse-tack and these bags to a very high standard. Well, we scored a hit with Em-J who pronounced the bag really cool and 'savage' and I think Carolyn's status has now risen to the coolest grown-up in Em-J's circle. I should also say that the bag was made from a standing start in less than a day - we only asked for it yesterday dinnertime, and it was there, fully formed, for us to collect at 9 am today. Thank you so, so much, Carolyn.

So, other than the picnic, we used the time to pootle around in the car just letting the road take us to unknown and interesting places. We stopped to look at Em-J's house; we were not strictly speaking supposed to as the students are not meant to be at the houses during 'school hours' but , you know, silly old Uncles, blundering around in the bliss of ignorance! I was keeping an eye out for the trad sailing work-boats 'Galway Hookers' but there were none to be seen except on this pub name and in stone in someone's wall. It's a good 'icon' and they use it everywhere.

Galway Hooker created in stone in this wall.

Our route to and from had taken us through one of our favourite bits of Ireland, across West to Cong (location for most of John Wayne's "The Quiet Man" movie so crawling with American tourists!), on to Maum past Lough Corrib (where Liz unfortunately tangled with a gazillion lycra-clad racing cyclists on a charity ride pedaling along as they do in groups of 30 or so, 4 abreast at 25 mph oblivious of the queue of cars building up behind. The language was getting a bit blue in our car).

Em-J and Liz

On the way back we came across an old boy in the middle of nowhere hitching a lift. There is little or no public transport in these parts so hitching lives on as a method where it has pretty much died out (20-30 years ago!) in the UK. Not only was he an Irish speaker but he was also "with drink taken", so he slurred his words and lolled about. Liz had enough Irish to ascertain that he wanted dropping to a village 10 km away and on our route, so we were OK with that, but we were happy to get him back out of the car where he managed in very halting, accented English "Thank You Very Much" looking all delighted with himself at having used some English. I hope he got home OK, the aul' fella.

A rock-pool near to our picnic site. 

And so, home to a flurry of livestock checks and jobs, relieving dogs, feeding everyone else. It seems that the Goose Gods have given us a 2nd chance. You'll recall I accidentally allowed the dogs to kill the 2nd gosling "Very Junior", well today we have a 3rd hatched out ("Extremely Junior?" ) who looks very very tiny alongside the now strapping George Junior. To balance this good news we have had one of our guinea fowl keets go a bit wobbly - one of the silver ones was all moopy tonight, lying limply on the 'bedroom' floor and getting kicked around and walked over by his 10 active clutch mates. We have rescued him to back under the IR lamp and tried a little water and olive oil. Up to now he's still with us, but we don't hold out much hope for the morning. I'll keep you posted.

...and.... Relax....

As Mrs S pulled up in the car for this latest visit, she joked "Stand by to repel boarders!" We finally managed it at around 2 pm yesterday, bidding a fond farewell to all the Silverwoods till next time. We love them all dearly but Mrs S will not mind me saying we also like the quiet bits in between. They are always easier in the event than in my worried forebodings. I see 4 'children' arriving and I worry about noisy mayhem, doors left open so that livestock escapes or is got at by dogs, livestock harassed by small hands and running legs wanting to do the 'petting zoo' thing, stuff damaged in high spirited play and so on - probably all the things that 'farmer', childless Uncles and Aunts all worry over.

In the event everyone is sensible and careful, no damage is done and all the livestock are unscathed and all my fears prove groundless. The 'children' are, of course, always older now than I remember; children I first knew at aged 4 tend to stay 4 in my head for years, till someone points out that they now have degrees and jobs and 4 year olds of their own! The 'girls' are now teenagers, happy to do 'cool' stuff, hanging out in the caravan, reading, watching movies and so on, and only sometimes reveal a younger side, J-M happy for hours to scratch up worms for Broody Betty and the ducklings with a piece of stick in the raised bed, Em-J sitting cross-legged by the pond identifying water beetles etc.

They are still young ones, though and it does get a bit loud and riotous as games of snap get tense and having your 'man' in Ludo knocked back to the start by your sister is more than a 7-year old boy can bear!

So, we loved having them and everybody had a ball, it was a brilliant family holiday a bit like the gatherings we used to do on the 8-10 berth narrow boats and Liz loves doing all the cooking and 'galley slave' stuff. We like to challenge the young taste buds a bit so they get given mainly the stuff we eat and have them try it rather than pandering to 'kids' food' like chips; we know that Mrs S does the same. We don't want to be like those Uncles and Aunts who fill the kids with sweeties and E-numbers and then hand them back all a-buzz. The young ones love to get involved in the picking of veg - we had an army of helpers stripping peas from the 'vine' and shelling the peas. They also get to keep, at Mrs S's insistence their 'chores', so most of the table laying, clearing, washing up, drying and putting away is done around us.

But now we're done and the Silverwoods have driven off down the lane and peace has returned to the small holding for a while. Bless them all, on their final morning, after breakfast Mrs S had them all doing a special blitz on the house - She had them stripping beds and clearing the caravan and moving stuff to the car while she whizzed a broom around the house. There is far less for us to do in turning the house around ready for the next guests, than there would have been. Tomorrow two friends from my 'Thames Barge' life arrive for the week, Dave and Julie B. We relaxed (and, in fact, gonked out) yesterday afternoon but today we are back in busy busy mode, especially Liz who is a whirlwind of cleaning, dusting and ironing. These two stay their week, then we have a week off followed fairly quickly by an overnight from Sparks's family again (and possibly Steak Lady and Theo), and then a visit from Diamond, John and Mazy. August is not going to be an easy month for us. Well, says Liz, we did buy a nice place in the country!

Miniature Groomers

After yesterday's 11 2cvGB visitors, then a dash of John Deere Bob and then Carolyn and Charlotte in the evening, you'd have thought we'd have had enough of host(ess)ing. Not a bit of it. Today we entertain the Silverwoods where Em-J and J-M have been hungry to get their hands, curry-combs and horse grooming gear round Carolyn and Charlotte's miniature horses since we first posted about them a few weeks back.

Robbedy (6) was also keen to get in on the act so, as it's a Bank Holiday in Ireland this weekend, the whole family decided to make a day of it. Alarms were set. The 'smalls' were dragged out of their beds still in their PJs and loaded into the car to continue their sleep for the 2 hours of the journey and breakfast was planned for here when they arrived at 09:00.

Em-J and J-M are keen enough on the horses that they now help out at the riding school when it is not 'their week' (The Silverwoods do 2 children every other week so that the older ones could help out training the smaller ones, but now that less supervision is needed as their skills improve, the older ones slope off to groom spare horses and have now bought their own grooming brushes). It was these brushes that they brought along to  tackle some of the Miniatures' left over winter coat.

With breakfasts done we rounded up the horses and gave a head collar and lunge-rein to each of the older girls. I kept hold of Romeo. Horses were led out to today's tethering, mowing zone. You can see in the pics how long the grass is here; it wasn't that long by 5 pm! Then all 4 children  with Mum there to help and supervise, got stuck in, rubbing down flanks and rumps, combing through manes and tails and even plaiting a tail in J-M's case. I think everyone enjoyed it and then the horses were just left there to graze till their bellies were so full they needed a lie-down.

The Silverwoods were here from about 09:00 to 19:00, making a good old day of it, enjoying the space, the geese and goslings, the 5 week old chickens and the grown up chickens, plus Liz's roast pork lunch. Charlotte also arrived with baby bro' Henry at one stage and joined in the fun. Mrs S has posted an amusing picture of the children wiped out in the back of the car on the way home. All that fresh air and exercise! We loved having you, Silverwoods, as always and please come back as soon as you can. The girls are booked to help out at the 'real' riding stables tomorrow and Stef, the main lady was anxious that they'd still have some energy!

Meanwhile the pond has been sitting there with its tiny puddle in the bottom since we emptied the bulk tank (1010 litres) into it but the sun came out and all rain stopped. I had been determined to try to let it fill with rain-water being suspicious of the 'chemical soup' that is Roscommon mains water. There is, though, another hot dry week forecast and we could see the little water we had evapourating away and the poor geese and goslings looking hungrily at it but despairing of the steep banks and gosling hazards they represented. We decided to bite the bullet, buy a garden hose and fill it that way. This involves about 15-20,000 litres but, hey, we paid €1600 for the right to connect up so we reckon we can take a wee dram off the pipes. . We nipped out to Connacht Gold for a hose and turned on the flow at about 11 am. We have been watching it slowly slowly fill ever since. It has taken 7 hours or so to fill the 'deep end' and is now expanded out to the full size as the 'tide' came in on the shallow end. We will leave the tap running all night but I do not expect it to be really full till mid morning. I will update you and supply pictures tomorrow. We have also created the flat-stone 'beach' on the orchard side.

Em-J goes sailing

We're excited to learn via a comment from Mr Silverwood, that Em-J has now taken up sailing too, possibly inspired by all these tales of water-bourne adventures from Mum, Dad, 2CV Llew and Derek. Tantalisingly few details at this stage - come on Mr S; Dad's been out in "Lark" class dinghies but there's all sorts - "Mirrors", "Optimists", GP14's etc etc, so we need to know what manner of tub the beginners are let loose in!

Also, tell us more. Lough Derg? That's on the Shannon, right? Was it a school trip? How many went? How did she get on? Was she allowed out single handed? Is she now sold on sailoring?

Here's a pic, just for a taster of a bit-bigger-than-a-dinghy, boat - the "Bonzer", our 30-footer from last Friday. Maybe Em-J will come out as 4th-hand?

Meanwhile, we're all off on our own adventure today, so we'll tell you all about that when we get back. Look after yourselves.

Deefs

Em-J

Diamond Update : Diamond is through her most recent crisis, and sitting up in bed able to joke and argue with all the visitors. Relief all round, although we are by no means out of the woods. Hang in there, Diamond - everyone is rooting for you.

Mum disappears over to Ireland, to collect our neice Em-J (Silverwood) and bring her back over here for a treat. She will live with us for a week, and Mum will attempt to turn her into an elegant Lady. (I'm no one to judge, having had to have a bath this morning due to rolling in some skank out on the Rec, but my new boyfriend Jasper loves me!) .

We have to say that Mum managed to be delayed both on the way out and on the way back. The outbound plane got into Dublin at 02:00, and Mum was met by night-owl friend Teresa, so there was not going too much sleep had that night. Portmarnock supplied an irish fried breakfast and pink champagne (uh huh?) , before Mum rounded up Em-J and headed back to the airport. Am I allowed to say she lost her car in the car park Em ? (Shhhhh - OK we'll keep it as a secret between us then).

Have a great weekend
Deefski