403 Points! Go Jorja!

Niece Jorja at her 'Debs' just before hearing her
'Leaving Cert' results. Looking good J-M!

Yes. Even before I mention our success in finishing "that shed" or the recent change in the weather that made us all delighted that we had, I must congratulate #2 Irish Niece, long term Friend of the Blog, Jorja on nailing the Leaving Cert exams (Brits think "A" Levels). Although the Exam Board tell you the breakdown of your result by subject (As, Bs etc) what everyone is interested in is THE POINTS - that is what gets you into the University, College, onto your course or into job that you seek. Jorja scored 403 which is a) brilliant and b) easily enough for her to proceed on her chosen path, so well done Jorja - formerly known in this blog as J-M.

Rudbeckia

So, all growed up now, a responsible adult, though to me she will always be the little swaddled up bundle that got handed to me in Maidstone Hospital, her tiny arms wrapped around close to her body like a straight-jacket. No-one else could stop the little mite from crying but when I took her she seemed to like the bass-y voice or something and went off to sleep like a light-switch being turned off. Elizabeth and the new Mum (Mrs Silverwood) could sneak off for some 'fresh air' knowing she was in safe hands.

The first new 'tin' going on on the yard-side (front) of the shed.

Meanwhile in Roscommon, we got a brilliant result too, in finishing our chicken house roof. K-Dub rocked up nice and early and we gave it the whole day round to about 4 pm. We had the purlins to fit (horizontal stringers which pick up the screws coming through the tin) and then 30 sheets of the 'tin' (corrugated iron) plus 2 transparent plastic ones recycled from the roof before. The tin itself was recycled anyway, having been carefully lifted from K-Dub's house roof in Sligo, when we did the rebuild/new roof on that a couple of years back (well covered in this blog); a very generous donation.

The back of the building. You can see the new front.

The gifted sheets of tin dictated to us where our middle purlin would go because the sheets already had the central screw-holes in them and it was better to re-use those holes than cut new ones and leave the roof leaking and in need of something to seal the old holes. They were also about a foot too long but we had a nifty solution once they were all on, garden string and a 'Sharpie' marker to create a line, then a thin disk angle grinder to create a neat 'fringe' that lined up with the bottoms of the transparent sheets. It worked well.

With all the sheets on, K-dub went aloft once more, 'riding' the new roof like a horse, while he pressed down and then screwed home our upside down 'V' section ridge pieces. The east end of the roof received two more of these 'ridge' pieces to make a capping wrapped round onto the gable end to stop any 'Beast from the East' winds getting in under the roof. The west end would get its tin tucked in under a re-instatement of the concrete "barge" capping. With those dark-painted ridge bits on, framing the whole thing and the tin trimmed to length it all looked very neat.

Trimmed, end-capped and ridged it all looks very neat

With the outside all complete, time to go inside and re-instate the electrics. I was delighted with the look of the place inside. All the wood is brand new and pale in colour and the underside of the tin is shiny 'galvanised' grey or silver instead of rusty red. Also, with the tarps now off, light streams in through the transparent plastic panels. I will barely need my electric lights!

Lovely new looking interior.

We have just one little de-snag to do. The metal "bent straps" which do a belt'n'braces job holding your wall plates down to the walls (so the whole roof cannot lift off in one piece) need fixing to the stone walls by screws/plugs drilled into the hard stones (some kind of very hard sandstone). K-Dub has a drill for this but had not bought the right kind of bits, so he will come back next week and finish this little job off. There we have it. A new roof. Time to adjourn indoors for a cup of tea and a chat. I am delighted with it. Huge thanks to K-Dub and Elizabeth for the massive effort.

Almost Biblical rain tests the new roof.

Just a quick follow-up on this story and some more thanks to give out. My friends from archery, Niamh and Con plus their current "Wwoof-er" (volunteer labour like our Help-X people, but from the "World-Wide Organization of Organic Farmers" (hence WWOOF)), Stefan. These good folk had planned a day of taking Con to nearby airfield for a Birthday Present light aircraft flight round Holy Mountain, Croagh Patrick, or "The Reek". Con and Niamh are mad into the pre-Christian / Druidic history of Ireland and The Reek is positively peppered with ancient sites, cairns and so on.

A friend in the village has a new Grand-child. The Knitter of
this House is joining the baby clothes and layette knitting
effort.

However, pretty much as we finished our roof, the weather took a turn for the worse and we have, we are told, another 'named storm' (Ernesto) coming through this weekend. The wind and rain in front of this storm grounded Con's pilot leaving Niamh and Stefan with a free afternoon. Knowing that my Help-X lad had blown out, Niamh decided to come here with her 'Wwoofer' and do us an hour's work. This was very generous, unnecessary and very welcome - we had the new roof up but the old roof scattered about in various piles of rusty tin, concrete, manky wood, nails, tarpaulins, tyres, string and wire. They all needed tidying off the yard so that was the job I gave N+S, with Elizabeth piling in to help. In a fast-moving hour we had the yard back. Thank you very much, all three.

Erigeron, now finally established in our gravel (we hope)

Which only leaves me with two bits of farm news and a quick 'health' update. Firstly, this back end (of week) was the most likely time for our AWOL Guinea-hen to complete her brooding and hatch out any keets out there in the hedges. We wondered whether she might walk them home all romantically like a little 'crocodile' of school children. No such fairy-tale ending so far. We just have the three 'boys' doing their fox-watch alarms and occasionally obsessing about a patch of East Field where 'she' might be. As time goes by, I guess we will have to accept that maybe Brer Fox intervened and this story did not end well.

Soldier has gone AWOL

New to the AWOL list, our black and white (rescue) cat, Soldier, seems to have gone missing. He has always been an outdoor boy and does not very much enjoy being grumped at by big floofy cat 'Blue', so he may have gone to live somewhere where he is more 'welcome'. We have no reason to think he is dead, he just has not been home for a couple of days. We will keep you posted.

Hen and chicks in the orchard.

So, last but not least, my good self. I am still moseying along in my 'probationary' period, 4 weeks back out of the hospital, sticking to the liquid intake limits and taking the meds, seeing if I can stabilize. This with a review clinic at Sligo hospital set for the 4 weeks when I get reviewed by my 2 consultants, with possible decisions being made about the heart valve replacement surgery. It's going OK but I think I am slowly congesting up again. I am sneaking a bit of that weight back on, my ankles are starting to swell again and most of my nights are interrupted by 'productive' ticklish coughing. We will find out the response to all this on my clinic dates, which have now been advised to me. Wish us luck.

Barns and Outbuildings.

Friday 11th, a beautiful day for a change, sees us out doors sorting out barns and outbuildings. The out building we call milking shed and calf house has, from the start had old, perished, broken transparent corrugated panels as its 'roof lights'. These let in the rain and short-term, Dad had just patched them up with metal sheets and planks, but now was the time to do a proper job, getting up on the roof and pulling out the twist-nails and washers holding the remains of the old panels in place. The roof is not particularly strong, with some dodgy rafters and some rotted out horizontals (battens or 'nailers') but the ridge is OK and the walls are the usual poured concrete with rocks, so Sparks and Dad figured that if the hung a ladder over the ridge and didn't put any weight on the corrugated sheeting, they'd be safe. They wore Hi-Viz coats, too as they are known to keep you safe! What could possibly go wrong? They had bought the transparent panels and a roll of bitumen tape. The existing corrugated iron panels, although reasonable, did have a few rust holes which would need patching. Working like this, they were quickly able to replace the transparent panels, with the chickens looking up at Sparks curiously from below, and Sparks slowly falling in love with the chickens, which are indeed, very watchable and intriguing beasties. Mum and Dad could sit and watch them for hours as they bimble about making little 'bwook-bwook' noises. They moved on to the tape patching. The tape, which came from LIDL as a special, turns out to be good stuff, which adheres well to even rusty sheeting. They patched all the holes they could see, then sent Dad inside the barns to look up at the roof to look for tell tale spots of sunlight shining in, mainly at nail-holes. Then it was time to move on to the hay barn. The big tall "3-Bay Hay Barn" as advertised in the Estate Agent's particulars rapidly turned into 'useless, tumble-down piece of scrap metal' at the first viewing, way back in Autumn 2011. The side walls are reasonably strong (and Thank God for that because...) the curved roof has collapsed and the curved panels hang on at the gutter facings only, flapping around in every breeze. The western end wall is gone completely, lying in a heap inside the barn. The end nearest the house we had thought was OK and indeed we have been parking cars near it and walking to and from under it confidently. Dad even leant the lengths of skirting board against it to dry once they'd been painted with sanding-sealer. Over the winter one of two sheets of currugated had come adrift and Dad had gone up a ladder to free up the remaining nail so that they fell safely to the ground and could no longer fall on someone, causing bad injury. Today, though, Sparks decided to bite the bullet and go up there with his angle-grinder, with Dad holding the bottom of the ladder. Sparks quickly realised, once he was aloft, that the top rail (the gutter facing) was not attached at either end and was held up only because it was nailed to the wall panels. He quickly came down a few feet and rested the ladder on a safer beam. Now he could cut away 2 panels and a block of three which brought him to the end of the barn nearest the house. Climbing the ladder again he saw to his horror that the barn end, a structure 25 feet long by about 10 feet tall, all 8 feet above the ground, was held to the side walls only by a piece of what looked like thick trellis wire and a nail or two. As he freed the last panel the vertical on which he was leaning moved 3 inches and the barn end with it. He shouted "You better MOVE THE CARS! This is coming down! RUN!" Dad rapidly moved the Fiat and then managed to flood the carburettor of the 2CV, so they shoved this bodily backwards free-wheeling!. Sparks moved his ladder to a safer place and the last wire on that end un-pinged, allowing the barn end to slowly swing out like an enormous gate, hinged on the other corner. It must weigh half a tonne. This was decidedly dangerous. Sparks moved the ladder round to the 'hinge' end of this new 'gate' and started to explore how to get the thing down, very aware that when the weight was released his end might buck and throw him off the ladder, but also that any wires or fixings might whip back and catch him that way. Mum was called to stand by with camera to catch the drama. With great care Sparks started to hacksaw the few remaining nails and wire, not quite able to believe how this barn stayed up through the winter winds. Then almost silently and calmly the great mass of timber and sheet steel came away and sagged to the ground, falling flat on its face. Mum retreated indoors to cook supper and open the wine. The boys decided to leave the south wall sheeting for another time. 19:20pm, after a full and tiring day, is no time to start a 2-hour, dangerous, barn-wrangling job. It is rather a time to square away tools and to chase Mum indoors before she necks too much of the wine. Deefs