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.

Telling Them Apart

Mapp delicately samples a small wedge of apple.

When our pigs arrived, apart from being totally unfamiliar (our first ever pigs), they seemed as alike as two peas in a pod. We wondered whether we would ever tell them apart. Even the ear tag numbers (371 and 372) are not visible from the front, so are no use when a piglet is nervously checking you out face to face. 9 days on we are starting to get to know them better and they are getting a bit used to us. I spotted that although Mapp (371) has a full 'pelt' of bristles across her shoulders, her sister (Lucia (372) has a bit of a threadbare patch between her shoulder blades.

Sometimes all you can see is two ginger backs
among the buttercups and grass!

Once separated, we could start to see differences in their little personalities, especially as they started to come up and eat food near to us. They are currently on a commercial pig-ration ("pig nuts") which they quickly recognised as edible, and we are introducing new things to try them out; so far mainly apple and tomato. Banana, carrot and pear were all declined.  We started with them sharing a bowl but they started to squabble over food, so we've moved up to separate bowls.

'Greens' for the keets - chopped grass and cucumber.

Mapp seems to love her fruit and piles in to that first, leaving the pig nuts till she does not have a scrap of apple or tomato left. Lucia, in total contrast, concentrates on the nuts and leaves the fruit till last. If I'd had my camera with me this morning I'd have taken a clear picture of this - ten minutes in you could see the shiny, nut-free bottom of Lucia's bowl and 8 intact wedges of fruit, while Mapps had no fruit and a complete layer of pig nuts. Sometimes, Mapp will suss that Lucia may have fruit left and abandons her 'ration' to try to a sneaky bit of piracy but Lucia, who is possibly slightly 'alpha' will usually butt her away. She's not that bright and sometimes will grab the one slice of apple and dart away as if saying "No! It's MINE!" leaving the bowl, of course, completely undefended. Mapp is then in there like Flynn!.

The roses are doing well in Liz's "Rose Walk".

As I said, they are slowly getting more used to us. I sat in there on the grass for a while yesterday and one of them came right up and butted my shoe, but then sprang away nervously. I have not yet got to being able scratch their ears and backs yet. Patience is the thing, obviously. We are, as I said, only 9 days in and these are still very small and nervous babies. They have met the dogs through the orchard fence and were happy to graze 6-8 feet away from the 3 whimpering, excited, bouncing, tail-wagging, would-be-hunters. They seemed unconcerned, but were not taking any chances with closeness.

They got me again - one gooseberry bush defoliated by
gooseberry saw-fly larvae. 2 others untouched.

No such differentiation is possible between the Hubbard youngsters, 'poults' now rather than 'chicks'. They are all white and fully feathered. The only differences are that 3 or 4 of them are developing the bigger, redder wattles that make us think 'rooster' rather then 'hen' and we have seen pairs of them squaring up to one another. They are on day 45 today and all growing well. Our friend Simon tells me that he has found the same as us, they seem to be a far healthier group this year than last, as if some work has been done to improve the strain. We had no lameness this year and the legs seem sounder all round. I am sure they are gaining weight faster too, but I did not take any detailed records last year. These birds are hand-reared. Last years were under our 'clocker' Broody Betty. Hen or 'roo' does not actually matter this year, they all face the same fate come July or August.

Does Min 'know' these are her babies? She is quite often
hanging around, pacing up and down and peering in.

In the guinea fowl keets we have 3 distinct colour types and one poor little soul who is very easy to tell apart with his/her unfortunate scrunched up toes. My experts on the web forum tell me that our hen bird 'Min' would be called 'Lavender' for the purple tint in her cape feathers. Henry was "Pied", with his white chest and underside, so the babies, still in chick-fluff and just starting to feather up are either fully brown and stripey (They will be the Lavenders), brown-stripey with white chests and neck-fronts (Pied) or fully silver-grey. The latter (2) will presumably come out white like our brief resident "Blondie".

Last year's lambs continue to yield well -this huge leg of
'16A' - a big lad, fondly remembered!

In the lovely sunny weather we have been letting them out to feel the grass under foot and the sun on their backs and on one warm night, even to let them sleep outside, shut into the 'bedroom' bit of the rabbit run. On cooler rainy days we rescue them to indoors, the crate and the Infra Red light, all be it the latter is so far up above them it must feel like a distant sun! They are doing well and we are very pleased with them. They have a very amusing way of zooming up and down the run, flapping their tiny wings and managing short flights 3-4 inches above the grass. I need to build them their big aviary. Apart from anything else we will need the rabbit run for Goldie's "kits" - 5 weeks old now and soon needing to be taken off Mum as she stops lactation.

Pulmonaria (lungwort)

Soon something a bit different. We are off to 'spring' niece Em-J from her 3 week session in the Irish speaking Connemara, just to take her out for a picnic. She could not have chosen a more remote bit of Ireland if she'd tried - she is in Baile Lar, way down in the bottom left hand corner of Galway, on a headland surrounded by Atlantic.

Well done Lidl! One of my favourite
'foreign' beers is on special offer!

I am secretly hoping that it is the kind of Atlantic that might have the trad wooden sailing work-boats 'Galway Hookers' nipping about but whatever, we will surely enjoy the time with Em-J and the beautiful scenery. More on that when we're done and back.