That's another Fine Mess....

Bacon and Cabbage - your only man for Paddy's Night. This
was actually bacon and mash with curly kale. 

Friends of the blog will probably know of my love of that favourite Irish traditional fare 'bacon and cabbage', compulsory on 'Paddy's Day' and Birthdays. How many, though, will know that this leads by a small margin, in close 2nd place, "corned beef". My brothers, Mark and Tom, and probably my Mum have all just read that and collapsed in a shocked heap! Corned Beef? Surely not.

Proper  corned beef (aka salt beef). A rolled slab of brisket
brined by us earlier gets some of the salt soaked out in clean
water over night. 

Brits from my generation and older will know of corned beef as a rather dubious, purple/brown, very fibrous "meat" which came in tins from Fray Bentos and was down there with such picnic delicacies as Spam and those oval tins of (?) Plumrose ham which came with a small metal key with which to unwind the strip of metal to open the tin. Fear not. I am not singing the praises of that aul' Uruguayan tackle here. No. In Ireland "corned beef" is what we Brits would call 'salt beef'.

Head for your local 'proper' butcher and acquire a decent sized slab of beef brisket. Drop this into your home-made recipe sweet cure (salt, sugar and spices) for however many days it says in the book (probably about 3). Lift out of brine, rinse off excess cure, pat dry, roll and tie. Freeze till required. The day before you need it, remove from freezer and allow to thaw out submerged in clean water over night. Cook as per recipe but if you are going to eat it cold as sliced meat, make sure you let it cool down still in its water. Tender, melt-in-the-mouth perfection.

The 45-odd tractors muster outside Liz's work ready for the off. 

With Paddy's Day done and all these lovely foods consumed, we had a bit of fun getting involved in a Tractor Run organised by the village 'Foróige' group. For my Brit chums, 'Foróige' is a nation-wide organisation of youth clubs mainly in rural areas. Technically the "National Youth Council of Ireland" it would be as well know as Young Farmers or the WI in Britain. Tractor Runs are a brilliant social event which everyone enjoys as much as I used to love a good 2CV convoy. Just heavier, noisier and full of hugely more expensive vehicles - these big new(ish) 4WD tractors can easily set you back €70k and be €40k as ten-year-old 2nd-hand trade-ins. One of my fellow-photographers looked at the line-up and commented wryly "...and they say there's no money in farming?"

Our local Foróige recently re-formed after a year 'out' and were determined to make the "We're Back" statement. They decided to do it as a charity fund-raiser for Arthritis Ireland and did a marvellous job of setting it up though never sure how many tractors they would get on the day. They had to liaise with the police, agree the route, organise the venue, make all the signage and buy in professional signs for the village cross-roads, do all the publicity and get themselves a set of the bright orange 'AI' tee-shirts. On the day, they had to register everybody and feed them any necessary refreshments and get them lined up ready for the off at around 1pm. Impressive effort, especially as some are quite young (11s and 12s).

First day of spring? Whatever.

I am delighted to say, it was all a huge success. They got 45 tractors on the day. The place was heaving. It's not a very wide road there but they got all the vehicles mustered and dozens of people came out to see the 'show'. Some tractors were driven by the youngsters themselves (you can get a licence at 16 or 17 here) but yet more were driven by 'Dad' with a bevvy of small children up in the 'cubby' seats up in the cab.

That's more spring-like. Our young
flowering cherry. 

Modern industry regs mean your tractor has to have good lights AND orange flashing lights on the roof. That makes for an exciting and impressive convoy, especially when they are all roaring along noisily at about 30 mph. When you saw them out you could tell they were all enjoying it immensely, everybody grinning, waving and thumbs up-ing, beeping horns in greeting whenever anyone waved back. Excellent noisy fun and fair play to Foróige boss Caroline and all her team. I took lots of pics but as most of them included children I would not, obviously, be allowed to use them on the Internet. I have sent them in to the Village committee and they will pass them to Foróige who can them use them as they see fit and are allowed with all the legal permissions pertaining. Some may appear on the village website soon. (LisaculInfo.ie).

Huge potential for mess. Old broken up
honeycomb.

The 'mess' in my title refers to our inevitably sticky and sordid attempts to extract any usable honey and beeswax from the dead hive. The honey was always going to be a problem as this was late in the season and therefore mainly ivy honey which sets hard in the comb. It still has enormous capacity to make everything sticky because there is always some parts of any comb which are blossom or 'run' honey.

Empty comb awaits 'washing'.

The wax is potentially even messier mainly because the wax melts at a bit above room temperature (62ºC) but if you clean the equipment with hot water and then it cools, everything but everything gets covered with a thin film of re-set wax. This includes your sink plumbing, sewer waste etc. You are better off cleaning it with cold water so that the gritty bits of wax stay solid.

Beeswax looking still very dark after only one wash.

The wax comes out of your hive a filthy dark brown - tens of thousands of bees have been walking all over it just back from outdoor sorties plus there is all the normal hive debris - dead bees and bits of bee, dead eggs and larvae, old pollen and unwelcome visitors like earwigs, slugs and centipedes. Outdoor dirt. To get it back to that pale sandy yellow we all expect you have to melt it with a similar volume of hot water, stir it about and hope that the grot is happy to fall out of the wax and dissolve (or at least suspend) in the water. Then you let it all cool down, the debris sinks and stays in the water while the wax floats to the top and sets like a sheet of ice on a pond. You lift off the wax disc, throw away the dirty water and repeat the melt process for around 4 'cycles', ending up with a nice clean disc of pristine yellow beeswax. It says here.

Just a supermarket 'cheapie' but this hellebore is doing well
for us a few years later. 

That's enough for this post. A pic of the clean wax in the next post. Spring Equinox today even though we were woken by a massive hail storm at about 0600 and then woke up to light snow falling at around half 7. First day of spring? Maybe not. The forecast has minus 4ºC tonight. Stay warm.

'365' Project

Village web page advertising the 365 Project

From Monday (1st Feb) for the next 12 months, Liz has a 'new baby'. This baby is named Lisacul 365 (Lisacul is the name of our nearby village) and the mission is to promote the village and its environs. The plan is to get anyone who lives here or visits, to take photographs within the 18 townlands so that we can save one taken each day for all of the 365 (actually 366 as this is a Leap Year) days between 1st Feb 2016 and 31st Jan 2017.

The Twitter feed on the same website helps.

If only one gets submitted for any given day, then it is simple and I am the 'backstop' trying to ensure there are no blank days, but if there are many pics, then a selection committee sits to choose which one goes up to represent that day. You are not 'allowed' to sneak in an unselected one from the day before. It should be great fun and a lovely way of getting all the community to share in something - pictures can be of anything and anyone (with usual rules of permission and security allowing) within the 'patch', doing anything (or even NOT doing anything!). The collection of 366 pictures can then be used in exhibitions or promotions as well as being saved on file as part of the history of the village, a piece of heritage.

These are just old pics from this blog so would not be eligible
but they are the sort of thing that could well go in.

We first saw this done in Faversham in Kent where we used to live. There it was 'invented' by a good friend of ours, French lady pro-photographer and artist, Nathalie Banaigs. Faversham, having a more beefy budget than we do, were able to put on a big public exhibition of the winning pictures, all printed in glossy and framed, where they also had feedback sheets and a popular vote so that the public could pick their favourites. They also sold glossy colour books of all 365 photos. Lisacul is not in that market, but will make them all readily available on the internet and for digital 'slide-shows'. Faversham have continued to do these collections in some (all?) of the years since that first year and the project has also grown to include more towns and villages.

Liz had a quick consultation with Nathalie prior to this project and she immediately gave Lisacul permission and her blessing (Thanks, Nath') for Liz to launch Lisacul 365, the FIRST EVER 365 project in Ireland. Exciting times. For Liz, of course, a whole new lump of busy-busy getting it off the ground. There had to be a website and emails able to cope with it and the usual social media stuff (Facebook and Twitter). She needed a basic statement which could be read out at any event over the winter where people from the patch would gather.

There was a proper Press Release to go to all the local and regional papers and radio stations. There was a printed flyer to be displayed in all local shops, libraries, churches, tourist info offices etc. She has also lined up a number of visits to groups to present the project and garner some interest - the local School, the Ballaghaderreen Camera Club and (tonight, even as I type this) the village 'Foróige' Youth Club/Group.

Out of the Press Release came an invitation to be interviewed on Regional radio station "MidWest Radio" by morning presenter Tommy Marren - that had Liz out of bed super-early and dressed for work, seated at our table with all her paperwork and equipment spread around taking a call from an assistant first and then going 'live' for real. My part in that was a doddle. Get out of here with the dogs! Anyone who has been here will know the dogs' unpredictable triggers to start the game of chase-the-cat-up-the-stairs, which involves some very loud scrabbling for grip on the wooden treads. We couldn't risk that in the back ground of a live radio interview. Anyway, I wanted to hear the thing 'properly' through the radio, so that means the car-radio on this 'farm'. In the event it went really well. It was a lovely interview in which Liz came over loud and clear as chatty, friendly, enthusiastic and well informed, the project got a superb airing and even some 'plugs' for other village events were slid in. That is not just me saying that - the boss and work colleague(s) were all very impressed and all the feedback from many listeners to the programme has been positive.

This work will go on all around the year as the photographs start to flow in (we hope) - possibly encouraging the flow, possibly organising these 'selection' committees, but definitely answering all the emails and saving the pictures up to the ever-building gallery on the website. We are both very excited about this and I know Liz will definitely be having a few kittens on Monday 1st February, launch day. There are some nice daffs coming into flower in this garden which Liz has CLAIMED for her first photograph. Hands Off!

If that has been the main focus recently, then what else have 'we' been up to? We were involved in a rather sad duty on the Tuesday, that of 'helping' a friend to have a dog put down. This was an elderly Labrador which had been in the family for a decade so it was never going to be easy, but we were asked to be there at the end ('Mum' couldn't bear it) with vet Aoife, to discretely remove the body and to bury it in the garden of another friend where the dog's playmate of old was already interred. A size-able dog, obviously, so a biggish hole. Very sad.

On a happier (but in one case wetter) note I have been out helping with the buildering in Sligo. On the Thursday the weather was building up to our next named storm, Gertrude (bless her and all who drown in her) and we were outside finishing the fancy stonework around the front porch. It bucketed down, the sort of rain which doesn't take too long to find its way through even a good hi-viz coat and before that, is running off the coat and drenching the trousers, socks and so on. 3 hours in I was just miserable and called it a day. I needed to get home to a complete change of clothes, a hot shower and a commando raid on the contents of the fridge. Anyone for re-fried left over Burns Night neeps and tatties? Couple of fried eggs? Toast and ketch-up? TAY? Carb-loaded, I was beginning to feel human again and I slept comfortably through that night while Gertrude raged outside among the tree tops. Today, of course, not a cloud in the sky so, 100% dry, we carried on with the stonework and then transferred our attention to carpentry - fancy end rafters and architrave on the gable ends and the wooden valley 'trenches' on the roof which these days get fibreglass lining instead of tar-felt or lead flashing.

Also, of course, looking around the place for likely pictures to submit to Lisacul 365 this coming week, month and year. Good Luck Lisacul and Lizzie.