Outdoor Paddling Pool

With the geese now wing clipped I can construct them an outside run today without risk of them taking off into the wide blue yonder (in this case rather overcast and with light snow falling). I build a circular corral outside their door using an off-cut of sheep wire generously donated by our fencing guy, Paul M after the last job for use as tree guards against sheep.

The geese immediately come out to explore the new space and spend the afternoon coming in and out and splashing about in the crate of water, I have surrounded the crate (which I must stress is only a temporary pool pending them getting moved to their proper 'home', the sheep field / orchard) with logs and rocks to allow them to scramble up to the rim and climb in if they wish for a quick 'swim', all be it a rather space-restricted one.

So far they have only messed around on the edges but they love ducking their heads and necks and then throwing the water down their backs. In this way they are cleaning themselves really well and starting to look bright and white, rescued from their Rahara mud-farm 'Somme'. They can not get at any mud here (yet). They are also settling down well and do not run about in alarm as much when we appear or come near. We are delighted with them and we are sure we will enjoy their company as well as their eggs.

We also took the opportunity to introduce them to the dogs and vice versa. This had to be on the leads at first as the dogs would charge the fence and panic the birds. The geese do not yet know they are safe behind the wire. That gave me a nice chance to take a catch-up pic of the two pups at nearly 8 months, looking very shaggy and woolly bear here. Towser with his floppy ears is on the left. He will stay this way now - if he didn't prick his ears up in the first few weeks, then it's not going to happen, but we find him cute anyway and it certainly makes it easy to tell them apart even at a distance.

Meanwhile I was out with Bob today across his land with the tractor doing some more logging. He'd asked for my help, I thought to log up a tree already felled by our neighbours, the McG's, but in the event "that" was another tree and I had to fell 'ours' before we started. We did OK and spent a couple of hours at it, but my chain saw had started playing up and was refusing to idle. You could still cut the wood at high revs but stand back and 'lift off' and the saw sputtered to a halt. I was getting worn out with the number of times I had to re-start the thing by pulling on the starter cord.

About 11:30, Bob called a halt "for today" and suggested we go to see a man he knows 'out beyond Moyne' (a nearby village) who was good with chainsaws and would sort my machine out. We broke for tea and then piled into the 2CV (much to the delight and amusement of Bob, who'd never been in such a car) and headed out into the back woods. This man turned out to be an amazing 'find'. He is a real back-woods looking bloke with a bushy beard and a pony tail. He is chubby and speaks with a foreign (Dutch?) accent. Bob did find out his name once ("it's an unusual name") but has forgotten it.

His workshop and, indeed, his house are old and wooden and are in the middle of a grass-less wood running with chickens and ducks. His workshop is an Aladdin's cave of broken quad bikes and other equipment but his passion and knowledge on his subject was amazing. He immediately spotted that my saw was ex Lidl and knew that it had been €120 but said that they were a qood quality saw. He was interested in how I was getting on with it and delighted that I had been able to obtain extra chains and a sharpener. He gave every impression of being delighted and welcoming of this new bloke who loved his saw and tried to look after it. He gathered up my saw and had me write down my name and phone number. He is going to phone me back when it's done.

(Again) Meanwhile I have sneaked in a couple of pictures, one of the pathetic snow we woke up to this morning, more like a hard frost really, but we are being careful what we wish for! 2nd is a shot of the 'baby' chicks at 13 weeks, now looking very leggy and 'velociraptor'- ish. Their long thighs and high 'keel' have us convinced that these are both boys, so the coq-au-vin pot looms for them in March or April.

We are working our way steadily through the home made wine, in this case some bottled into a recycled Greek Brandy (Metaxa) bottle. It is so light and quaff-able that we are sometimes tempted to pile into the 2nd bottle when perhaps we shouldn't. In our defence, though, we are planning to take a break from the booze for the '40 Days and Nights' of Lent. This not for any religious reasons - it is just a nicely placed and sensibly long 'fast' which reassures us in the years when we do it, that we are not desperate alcoholics! The last drink we will take (all being well) is on Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day on February 12th, and we will then try to stay off it till Good Friday. That's our 'Lent' although it might not be recognised by any theologists. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we are not so virtuous.

No snow here but..

No snow here but plenty of rain. On this particular piece of ground at the end of this very wet year (last year, actually, I guess) any decent amount of overnight rain means we know we will wake up to some impressive puddles. My two pictures are of the pond garden; only the first is not meant to be actual pond. What we have, though, a-top our 75 m ridge between the valleys (and boggy land) of the Lough Feigh to the south and the River Lung to the north, are a good depth of lovely soil lying over clay. We are not convinced that the clay allows much downward drainage but we know that the soil layer allows good sideways drainage down the slopes either way so that when it stops raining, our puddles are generally gone by 12 hours later, certainly within 24 hours

The problem has been that in the very unusual year of 2012 (all the locals say "We've never known anything like it!") the puddles have barely drained away and the water table is still fairly high, before the next rains come and re-fill the puddles. Even in the summer, and the month of August when we had the Silverwoods up to stay for a week it did not really ever dry out to depth. They were able to camp and there was plenty of dry ground to play badminton on the front lawn etc, but nobody was kicking up any dust.

It can happen. I have seen video of the turf 'harvesting' machines down on the peat bogs in summer kicking up clouds of dust as they move about so we are hopeful that 2013 might give us some proper summer heat. In 2012 I never had to water any plants. Having taken a bit of a ribbing from some quarters for "moving to a bog" we were relieved that the wet also included the UK, where those taking the mick 'enjoyed' conditions as wet as we were. Mercifully the whole winter where we were caravan-based and building the house, was mild and dry enough that we were never prevented from working. The week we chose to do the plastering was exceptionally mild and the guys were all working in polo-shirts and short sleeves. Messing with plaster and cement is not a lot of joy when there's a frost.

As to the pond, when I get a chance to complete the digging of it, the plan is to dig down the 2 spade depths of soil to expose the clay, and then puddle and draw up a clay layer from this to form a bowl. We hope this will save us using a liner. Even if the pond does not become waterproof, if it rains in 2013 like it did this year
we should have no problem keeping it full. I will just divert the car-port run off into it via the sheep drinker. In the next few posts you will learn that we are soon getting some geese. I am hoping that these guys, puddle-ducking in the unfinished pond, might be able to help with the "puddling" of the clay.

The existing animals, of course, will always find somewhere out of the rain, even when, as sometimes happens with the cats, they are outside the house as we lock up to go shopping. The picture is of Blue on his hay bale in the chicken house, keeping an eye on any local rodent incursions.

First Christmas Visitors

Christmas "Eve Eve" today if you like and we have started to receive visitors, ready or not, though we're not expecting the Silverwoods till tomorrow. Poor Mr S has to work on Christmas Eve (Ahh, how I remember those days, almost last man out, first man back in and all that) all be it possible working from home, so they will not be able to set out at a sensible hour. Mrs S, too, has her own packed pre-Christmas schedule what with children and Santa visits etc, but we're hoping to get her in the front door and then wait on her hand and foot, give a proper break and rest, feet up, force fed cups of tea and so on.

Our first visitors are our mentors, Anne and Simon who drop in for tea, mince pies and a good long chat. As is now the way of things, they come bearing gifts and go away with something or other in return. They have recently got into quail as a new form of live stock (http://anirishalternative.blogspot.ie/2012/12/chrismas-hype.html) starting with three hens and a cock who have only just arrived but are already settled down to the egg laying. Anne's gift to us was therefore these 10 lovely quail eggs which we will have fun using up. We are also now toying with the idea of doing quail ourselves. From us, they got a jar of our Blackberry and Apple jam and (don't ask) an ostrich feather duster.

We get chatting and with their encouragement, Liz starts to talk very positively about the possibility of us keeping pigs. I have always veered away a bit from pigs because I know nothing about them and worry about fencing and housing, but it occurs that the 'Secret Garden' might be the perfect place to 'do them' as it's under trees so there wouldn't be the sun-burn or weather problems. I need to go off and read around the subject (as ever!) but my mind's eye is toying with those lovely gingery Tamworth, long-snouted dudes strolling in the dappled sunlight under the spruces. Whoa! Let's research where to buy them and how to get them slaughtered first. Our man Ignatius is only licensed for cattle and sheep. (NB Pig pictures here blagged from the internet - we don't have any to photograph yet!)

Today we have Vendor Anna and Partner Paul drop by on their way to the Knock Airport - they are off to Kent to visit the Bexleyheath-based Sister (the three Sisters live in Carrick on Shannon, Dublin and Kent) so they call by us with a card (plus one for John Deere Bob) and gift and take tea and cake. In the course of this chat we find a lovely coincidence, in that one of Paul's cousins is also a friend of mine in the Thames Sailing Barge world but also Anna gets talking about geese and how we should keep them, fattening them up for Christmas. Pigs, Quails and now Geese all over the course of two days.

In terms of existing animals, all three dogs get a shampoo after their walk this morning, much to their disgust, mainly so that they do not 'ming' quite as badly for the guests over the break. This was not the pups' first ever bath but it was close. I've done them before in the Utility Room sink but we now find it easier to wrangle them in the big shower cubicle and use the power-shower on them. The three little clean faces here are, in order, Poppy with her pricked up ears, Towser with his floppy ears and Deefer still not quite dry.

The other picture, the view down into the bucket of oranges, onions etc is, of course, the turkey brining mixture prior to the turkey being dropped in and the brine being made up to cover the bird with water. The whole is now back out in the Tígín marinading gently in the coolth. We have turned our attention to blitzing the fridge, cleaning the leather sofa and so on.

Christmas Eve? Bring it on! We are nearly ready!