Spray Your Hands Purple.

Beautiful! Delicious too. 

We were hoping for better weather for Good Friday. This is the day when houses and barns get white washed. We assume it was always the case that this was the hired hands' only time off. We managed it two years ago in bright sunshine under blue skies and the bright white walls looked splendid. The plan was to re-paint every year and thereby gradually build up a good layer of the wash. There was a hitch last year and it never happened. I don't recall why, but we are determined to get back on that horse this year.

The new book cases are in and filled.

It was a shame then to wake up to splattering rain and the gusty last knockings of that major wind system that we have been troubling us for a few days. It is no weather to be up ladders with splashy, thin paint and it would not dry anyway, so the white washing has been postponed till we get some more pleasant conditions. It was good enough, though to put our sheep-wranging skills to the test.

A pedicure for Feste.

The 12 week old lamb has been a bit lame off and on favouring his front right and a week ago we inspected his feet, could find nothing specific wrong but did notice that the outside edges of his hooves, which grow quite fast like finger-nails, were a bit long. I bought the foot trimming 'shears' and a can of the purple footrot spray. They don't HAVE footrot, but this seems to be the advice - you spray the foot liberally with spray after trimming as a preventative. Since you always spray your hand too, this is apparently how shepherds recognise each other in the pub or at weddings so that they can start up a sheep conversation if it all goes a bit quiet in the snug. "So..... been foot trimming then?"

Like a pair of straight secateurs and just as
sharp. We were amused to note that the spray
is made in a place in Hoo Marina in Kent. 

Of course, by the time we got back to the lamb he was no longer lame but that was no excuse. I need the practice at sheep wrangling. Any shepherd will tell you that this, like shearing, is best accomplished with the sheep on its back with no feet on the ground - it can try to kick and struggle but cannot sprint off. Getting a sheep onto its butt is another technique which you must quickly learn if you don't want to risk your own back and injury doing it the idiot's way of grabbing the animal round the chest and lifting it off the ground, plonking it down on its bum like a small child lifting his baby brother.

Feste's left hind gets the purple treatment.

In short you trap the sheep against a gate with your knees and grab a handful of jaw in your left hand and a hand full of rump-wool (or the 'dock' (tail cut short) with your right. You then bring your hands together, like trying to fold the sheep in half, starting with the head and neck. The sheep collapses naturally on his left hind, sitting down and you can easily swing his top half upright between your legs. You then control him mainly with your thighs and knees but you can get to all four feet and you have not even tried to lift the weight of his body. Or her, of course.

Mum (Lily) gets the same

While Feste was in there under our control, I also inspected Mum (Lily). I knew I could invert a 12 week old lamb (all be it a big bruiser of a fella) but could I manage a full grown 'yow'? The answer was yes, the technique works for all shapes and sizes. We think now that the original lameness must have been where the lamb stood on a sharp object or thorn, or possibly took a whack (a 'puck' as they say here) from one of the grown-ups in a food-trough squabble. Maybe he had a stone caught in the mud under his pad which was then dislodged in our inspection last week. Anyway, he seems to be all sorted now and our foot trim and foot rot spray cannot have done anything but good.

Some poultry like a low perch. Min likes to be up among the roof
rafters and lighting. 

Meanwhile, in the poultry department the young Buffs have moved, one by one, into the proper chicken house, abandoning the young-bird box, their child hood home. Even The Captain has moved in despite his very 2nd-in-Command status relative to 'Sir Buffers'. He is even allowed onto the lower perches for the night. Sir Buffton seems happy to keep driving him off when he tries to mount one of 'his' ladies without feeling the need to kill him or hurt him. We have the amusing sight every now and then of one of the ladies sprinting for the main flock and the protection of Buffers. The Captain gives chase until he gets close to the boss but then slows down and strolls around nonchalantly, whistling innocently. Me? Chasing your women, Sir?

We have had a lovely result in the garden-buying department. Needing more asparagus crowns, I had decided to try out a new supplier, "English's Fruit Nursery" down in Wexford. These guys mainly do fruit trees and bushes (so we slung in a lingonberry bush) but we also found a green hop and the asparagus. I don't think I have ever seen such meaty, healthy, big crowns. These were €1 each but spread out to a foot diameter when put flat, with an inch-round centre and 10-30 long, plump roots spidering out, at least bootlace thick, and some as thick as an earthworm. The 20 (which turned out to be 24) sat as a hefty weight in a feed sack. I should have taken a picture but they are now planted in two beds and we have great hopes for them.

New Laptop for Liz. 

We end the day with no barns painted but 2 sheep pedicured and a goodly batch of hot cross buns baked, some eaten while still warm from the oven with hot butter spread on them. Fish on Friday this week, so a nice supper of fish and prawns, en croute, I think, but don't quote me on that one. The wine is a chilled rosé.

Happy Easter.

Blondie

If you could see what I can see.....

As I sit and type this in on a beautifully sunny, blue sky Easter Monday (only the chilly stiff NE breeze stops it being perfect!), our newest recruit, the pale coloured, widowed Guinea fowl 'Blondie' is sitting on the dining room window sill not 4 feet from where Liz is working at the laptop. She (Blondie, not Liz) is standing erect, surveying the front lawn and uttering her repetitive 'Buckwheat buckwheat buckwheat' call which we think is her trying to call up her late 'husband', sadly killed in a car accident a few days ago.

Readers of my earlier posts will know that we agreed to re-home this poor tragic figure thinking that she might get over her grief and fall in love with our cock bird Henry, making up a neat trio, and that we took delivery of her on Good Friday. We have been bimbling through a kind of integration process but she has given us a bit of an emotional roller-coaster.

Our style here is generally one of minimal intervention. The birds (except our orchard-confined geese) are fully free range and not wing-clipped, they are almost 'guests' here by choice although we do try to keep them rounded up off the lane outside and try to stop any fights; we try to adhere to that high welfare mantra of allowing them to exhibit natural behaviour. We tend to contain any new bird for only a short while so that they can identify this place with its noises, skyline, smells and we humans, as home, and to ensure that none of the existing birds see red and try to attack the newcomer. Previously this has always worked. We then release them over a couple of days into bigger and bigger chunks of the place, till they have it all. You'll know from earlier posts that this did not go so well.

Blondie gets a dust bath in

Blondie, released from her rabbit run on day 2 wandered around for long enough for us to relax and then suddenly hit the road eastwards towards Una's place, threading her way across fields and through hedges with Liz tracking her and trying to keep up. Blondie proved to have a full set of wing feathers and is well able to fly like a pheasant. She will 'explode' up 8-12 feet into the air and then choose a direction and whirr away for tens of yards in a fast-flapping shallow glide, hit the ground running and zoom off in an ostrich-like, skirts up sprint across the grass. You'd never catch her. The genie was out of the bottle on this one and we were going to have to persuade her home rather than force her.

She loves high places like this gate pier.

That day we rounded her up and persuaded her home half a dozen times; we were exhausted from hopping over the eastern gate and nipping up the lane and then invading the gardens of the empty house next door and Una's, trying to shepherd her back. Steered in the right direction she had no problem flying over fences and hedges but we had to open the horse's gate a couple of times and drive her through. But last thing at night (9 pm) Henry, who had been trying to dominate and mount her had one last go and she whirred away east into the dusk. We looked but had no idea where she'd gone to roost, so our hearts sank. Had we failed to keep this bird safe for even the first 30-odd hours? We had even failed to show her that we feed you if you stay around. She had no reason to think we were a nice place to stay

Easter Monday's male Emperor Moth

Relief then, on day 3 (Easter Sunday) to be woken up by the sound of her 'buckwheat' shouts from the direction of Una's, loud enough that we worried she might be disturbing our very good friend and neighbour. I nipped round to shepherd her home. This time she sprinted down the lane and back in through the front gate, which was reassuring to see.

She spent the lion's share of Sunday on site, exploring, getting fed grain, bonding with the chickens, dust bathing with them and occasionally interacting with the Guineas Henry and Min. Min basically ignores her but H will at least run at her and try to mount. His technique, though, is hopeless. She willingly squats low with wings spread. He hops on but then seems to just slide off without doing anything. Or he chases her around clinging to her rump feathers with his beak. You'd not call it tender love or even passionate sex. Just once she wandered back round to Una's as if she thinks her late mate might be there. We had hopes that she'd find the pop hole and the chicken house and roost with us at last, This was not to be, and at dusk she once again whirred away across the East Field. We decided to leave her to it.

George likes to share a bath with Smudge

Today has been similar. She woke us with her 'buckwheat buckwheat' at 0600 over in the hedge and when I'd done my 0730 feed and release rounds I went to collect her. Spotting me from her nice high perch, she took off and whirred across the eats field towards home. I nipped back and into the East Field thinking I might have to show her the gate. Not a bit of it. She sensed that I was trying to move her towards the boundary and took off again, flew over the chicken house and landed in a group of hens in the cattle race.

Asparagus spear.

She has been around all day since then, with no more eastward exploring, staying round the house and, as I said, often sitting on window sills preening and looking in at us. She seems un-bothered by you being a few feet away as long as you are inside the glass. She has done plenty more exploring and running rings round the house but neither of us has actually seen her go in through the pop hole. We suspect that tonight she will do her eastward nip and find that reassuringly high perch in the hedge at our east boundary; it's a well overgrown hedge which includes mature ash and sycamore. She was about ten feet up this morning, so nice and fox/mink proof, we hope. Tomorrow, I may try leaving her to come 'home' by herself, rather than going over and rounding her up.

Damsel fly nymph case from the pond today. 

When I feed the chooks here I give a distinctive two-tone whistle and also tap the plastic beaker (I use as a feed measure) on a handy post. She has had this a few times now and immediately stops 'buckwheat-ing' and takes notice, coming running with the other chickens if she is hungry, so I may be able to bring her home from here. Wish me luck.

Ultimately we wish she'd get friendly properly with Henry and Min and also start to roost in our chicken house. We hope too that the grief which has her 'buckwheat-ing' so often dulls. It is a heart rending noise and one you can do nothing to relieve. Poor old Blondie.