It's Awful warm...Me Feet are Broke!

Love these lemon drop yellow snap-dragons.

"It's awful warm...Me feet are broke!" This from friend and neighbour, old boy down the road. He says it "warrr-um". He's spotted me walking the dogs early, avoiding the worst of today's heat, as he returns on a tractor from the other side of the village, loaded with empty pallets. He invites me in for a cup of tea and it's only when we're in the living room (turf fire glowing red in the grate) that he takes off his woolly jumper and his wellies (we're dry as dust here now, no mud for miles). It was good and welcome tea, though.

A spare suet pud from the freezer. Hard to beat!

We are having another mini heatwave here with temperatures down in the SE up towards 26-28ºC (UK is even hotter - I am hearing 31 and 33) so inevitably all those sheep owners who have not managed to get their animals sheared yet are starting to get anxious about 'fly-strike'. This is a horrible smelly affliction where the flies lay eggs down among the damp, warm fleece and the maggots eat their way down to and the into the sheep's skin. Not nice.

Supervising baby chicks with menaces?

The answer is to shear them in a timely manner, like in May, so that there is no fleece left for the flies to 'nest' in. However, smallholders have a problem, in that the 'proper' professional shearers get too busy working the large flocks and farms, hundreds or thousands of sheep and cannot be bothered to drive out to your isolated little spot and shear your 3, 4 or 5 sheep. Even if you have booked your man, he is still likely to let you down at the last moment leaving your sheep wilting in the heat.

Broad beans coming ready in the tunnel.

This is one of the reasons I decided to do my own. I am delighted that I love and enjoy this job and it now seems to be spreading, my own ewes first, then Sue and Rob's gang but now more recently a request from a Facebook friend and more to come. The FB chum was asking me to do a few for a friend of hers who was not on FB and who I'd never met, so I agreed to step in if she was stuck. I was passed a mobile phone number and the lady then also provided me with her Eir-code (post code).

New release pen for those Hubbards for
when they get moved to the big outdoors

Eir-codes are now the way we all find each other here - they have been added to the Google-Maps programme so you can ask for directions from Lisacul to, for example, F45E600 and up will come the map you need. Add in the 'Street-view' technology and you can "drive" there looking for landmarks before you make the real journey. No more need for 'directions'.

Southdowns. Oh those fully-woolly faces. Scary for the shearer.

So, there I was, then, headed for the tiny hamlet of Carrowbeg near to the village of Kilkelly over by Knock Airport early on Sunday morning. I was nervous, of course, hoping I'd do a good job for this new "customer" and that she'd be pleased.

One down, two to go.

I needn't have worried (I hope!), the lady turned out to be a real, genuine, salt of the earth East Ender here 10 years now but via Canvey in Essex and a big sheep farm in Cornwall. No nonsense though, so I knew she'd not want me being flippant or over friendly - I was nudged into full cool, professional, competent mode.

The ladies are a lot cooler.

I was desperate not to make any nicks or cuts in her animals so I was being really careful, especially as she told me a 'happy' anecdote about one shearer who had come to her and sliced the ear clean off a sheep. She can still remember the "plop" of it hitting the ground. She didn't get mad, she told me but I gather he didn't get paid or invited back. To add to my worries, these were not 'beginner's' type sheep, so it was not easy.

No damage to ears or eyes

They are Southdown breed, one of the two breeds familiar to we Sussex folk, the other being the Romney (Marsh). They have completely woolly faces with only their lips and nostrils and ear-tips showing. They also have shaggy wool all down their legs to their feet. I had only up to then, sheared sheep with the side-burns and top-knot of Hampshires, or the 'clean' faces and lower legs of Suffolks and Jacobs.  No need to put your clippers anywhere too near ears, eyes or those Achilles tendons.

Rambling Rector against the blue skies

Ah well. It went OK and we got through the 3 of them in about 2 hours with my new friend, whom we will call East Ender (EE) for these purposes), holding onto the dog-lead tied round a gate and trying to steady the rather nervous first-time girls (shearlings) from hopping about too much. Almost inevitably, I did have one faux-pas, maybe as a result of the dancing or just my beginner-ish incompetence, and nicked a small bloody hole in an armpit.

I was quite upset and apologetic and because I do not know EE at all, I *think* she was OK with it and will cope. It is frustrating to know that I will not find out till next year when I either get asked back or not! What ever the case she did not march me off the premises - she gave me a nice cup of tea and I met the rescue lurcher dogs, one of whom has a front leg amputated having been rescued in an appalling state. The nick will soon dry and heal over with or without EE's reaching for the herbal ointments or Vaseline. Ooops.

Daft 'selfie' with smoker.

So, that was EE and her three Southdowns. Next up came a request from my fox-shooting rifle man calling from Co. Sligo. Now they, I knew, have a lot more sheep (18 and a ram, it turns out) and I was seriously worried I'd not be able for it, with my 2 hours per three sheep work-rate. However, my man is in the lurch after having been let down by their 'proper' guy and is happy to work away at my 'method' over several sessions if need be. I can't remember exactly, but I think his sheep are bare-faced and bare legged ones, so we might get on faster than on the Southdowns.

Loving the hot weather and the sunny flowers.

I will let you know in the next post. Meanwhile, it seems to be all go here despite the absence of Mrs C who has now moved from the Cardiff 'AGM' base down to spend a few nights with our good friends Mazy Lou and Airy Fox in Bridport. She's back Wednesday. I will be the one lying there asleep in a pool of sweat and lanolin. It's awful warrr-um... me back is broke!

Road Trip(s)

'Golden Hornet' crab apples ripe for the picking. 

We do very little driving around for its own sake but since the last post I have found myself on two very different but equally remarkable road trips, one in an olde tractor and one in the 'normal' car. The tractor ride came about because a good friend of ours was having his little old 2 wheel drive John Deere fixed at a workshop down beyond Castlerea - only 28 km but that's a decent tarmac drive for a tractor, likely to take an hour and a half at least. He didn't fancy the job so when I volunteered he looked at me as if I must be mad but readily accepted.

A few more weeks and the pears will also be ripe.

All the serious farmers round here and the contractors have, by now, much bigger machines - big 4 wheel drive 100 hp+ with fancy sprung, air-con, sound proofed cabs, very comfortable seats, all automatic drive and gearing and assorted bells and whistles. It is only the old boys on the tiny farms who retain the smaller, simpler tractors which I would know; which I would have driven back in my farming days 40 years ago. Or the restoration/vintage enthusiasts, of course. This was one such - I was going to be bounced around and deafened all the way home but I have a kind of masochistic nostalgic delight in these rattle-buckets.

A '365' pic of the road down to the old graveyard.

I ran the route on Google Maps and wrote down the following figures, just for interest. The journey was only 28.3 km (17.6 miles) but took 1 hour and 50 minutes so I was able to average only 15.43 km/hr (9.58 mph). Total hearing loss was about 70% (Wha'...? Pardon?) and I was delighted to finally get the tractor home, 'strangle' the engine and park the hydraulics. For some of the route I was following the road markings painted down for the half marathon a few weeks back - 5m, 6m and so on. I actually FELT like a marathon man slowly creeping towards his finish and anticipating the cheers of the crowds.

Kilrooan old graveyard

The other road trip was a very different affair, my 2nd down to Co. Tipperary (I was down there for my pig training course 2+ years ago  http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2014/04/its-long-way-pig-school.html ) and our first to Cashel (as in "The Rock of.."). As the song goes - it is, indeed, a long way and we planned a 3 hour run down to the funeral (brother of friend) to be in time for the midday Funeral Mass. We made it and did the honours at church and then at the graveyard but ended up with no time at all to look round what looks like a beautiful town and the castle/rock itself.

The 'posh' shoes don't get many outings. I had to brush the
dust off for the funeral. 

The journey home was a little longer but we broke it with a small diversion into Mum's place for soup, tea and cake. That was a long old day. It was also the day of the 'All Ireland' GAA football final between Mayo and 'the Dubs' (they drew) so Liz (outbound driver) picked up some traffic reminiscent of our Kent days on what are normally empty roads, with all the Mayo lads heading up to the capital.

Nice harvest moon - this would be a 'Hopping Moon' in Kent
(from the hop-picking)

In other news, young Deefer, our oldest dog made her 10th birthday (17th Sept) and the Guinea hen (Min) may have gone broody. She went AWOL Sunday and Monday nights and was not there at lock-up. We had a quick patrol but not with any hope of success as it was getting dark. We reckoned that as we have seen no mating behaviour or eggs for months, she might be doing a sneaky stash somewhere and on Monday we kept a bead on the 'boys'.

An early breakfast for the ewes on Funeral Day. 

When they were both loitering with intent, looking guilty. next day between the caravan and the 'Mad Max' vehicle, we deduced that she might well be among the old rafters slid under the caravan, where she might be quite safe as it would be a tight squeeze for Mr Fox (if not the mink) and, anyway, we'd not be able to extract her. Subsequently she has been off the eggs and wandering round with the boys enough to make us doubt her commitment to this broody thing but we keep and open mind since so many hens we have doubted have, in the event, produced the goods. Tonight, though, she is back roosting in the coop up in the rafters with her beau, so that might be that. I will keep you posted.

Existing tiny 8' square kitchen, looking at
the window which will  soon be a bigger
opening.

Finally a start soon on a house project which has been on the cards for a while, the kitchen extension. We have put up with the old floor plan since our rebuild. This includes a 50's "council style" extension to the back of the house which holds the kitchen downstairs and a flat-roof bathroom upstairs. The kitchen is only 8 feet square which dictates that a lot of stuff (fridge, freezers, crockery and cutlery) end up in other parts of the house and pretty much fixes the design options (path up the middle, oven one side, sink the other)

The 'Pottery' and that window from the
outside

Ours, however, came with a tempting opportunity to expand with a lean-to or conservatory style (ish) extension. The west facing window looks out over a bit of concrete 'path' between the exterior house wall and the out-building we call the Tígín (wee housey), an area we optimistically named the 'Pottery'. It was going to be a garden for pots, planters and tubs but hey, the best laid plans etc. It never happened and it exists merely as a pad of concrete where the chickens come to scrounge cat food through the open window. It is an 8 feet wide and 11 feet long blank bit of wasted space inches away from the poor over-crowded chef who is crying out for more elbow room and storage area. Well, not for much longer. More on this soon.

A Soft Day

Well, there was a nice surprise. Here in Ireland we all woke up on a Monday a couple of weeks back to find we all now had shiny new post-codes. We'd known it was on the cards, of course, but I assumed it was way off. Not so. Liz turned on the phone that morning and fired up Twitter to find notification - it was all switched on, websites running, messages all over social media and a lot of our friends logging in to find out theirs and what it was all about.

The best strawberries I have ever grown.

It is an impressive and cunning system and seems a bit ahead of the UK system we had all been used to 'over there'. Most importantly the 'Eircodes', which are made up of 7 alpha-numerics starting with a letter-number-number for the region (ours is F45) are unique to each building where as in the UK your post code was shared up one side of a street and could include dozens of houses. This makes them compatible with sat-nav systems and internet mapping (eg Google Maps) software if they need to be so that Mr Postie can pull up right outside your house and know he is at the correct place, even in this land of few road signs and fewer house numbers. There is also an 'app' (application) which will run on smart-phones which can generate directions from one address to another.

The turkeys did leave us a few currants. The raspberries and
strawberries are safely out of their thieving ways.

I am told that the last 4 digits, being numbers or letters allow for city housing densities throughout so that in the unlikely event that someone wants to build a 2nd capital of Ireland in Roscommon, they could actually accommodate all the houses and buildings without having to re-shuffle the codes round and about. Anyway, we have sent ours to everyone we could think of who might need it; if you are ever likely to write us a 'snail mail' letter then email, PM or text us for the code.

That fabulous beef rib roast from the last post

Our only experience of it so far is that it may work too well. I foolishly sent off a pre-paid letter containing a survey result and wrote the 'sender' address on the back including the new post code. The next day this envelope arrived back in our letter box instead of having gone to the survey company! I can only assume that either someone is being a dunce, or the OCR software spotted my Eircode on the back of the envelope and, not having one on the real address, let it prioritise mine. The envelope went back into the post office with a white jam-jar sticker over my sender address (and didn't come 'home a second time!).

There is plenty of colour in the garden just now, so we can
assemble a pretty table decoration.

There is an Irish expression which most Brits know even if they think it is just another piece of cod-Oirish along with 'to be sure, to be sure' and 'Be Jay-zus' and that is "A soft day". I reckon most think that this just means 'wet' and is merely the Irish being colourful and flamboyant in their speaking. Not so, again. A soft day is a day in which the rain is of a uniquely Irish type which I never experienced in the UK - continuous heavy drizzle. You get drizzle in the UK and, of course you get light rain and heavy rain, but heavy drizzle is a seeping, silent, insidious thing which sneaks up on you and wets you through without any of the violence of a good downpour. Without even the hiss or roar of proper raindrops.

Cherries splitting badly from the wet July while still unripe.

It seems to fall all day, evenly from a uniform grey sky, as if an uninterupted, wall to wall layer of cloud was just at tipping point. There are no threatening black patches, no funny lighting effects, no patches of blue and no fluffy, cauliflower-like billowings on a true soft day. The grey can be dark or even quite bright and thin, as if the sun is about to break through and the drizzle can ease (for minutes) and return (for hours) just to tease you but you will be tempted to go out in not your most waterproof coat (ahhh, it doesn't look THAT bad!) and you will suddenly realise that your hair is sopping wet and the wet has got down your neck and is all across your shoulders without you having felt any rain drops hitting your skin or scalp.

Greek thyme.

Why am I telling you this? It rains in Ireland, so what? Only that we had an absolute classic 'soft' day yesterday and even the Irish were commenting on it. It will have been a fairly wet July over all by the time the month ends - I have cherries splitting on the trees as a result of it. Ah well, we'll no doubt survive. Oh and I did once hear an Irishman actually say 'to be sure, to be sure, to be sure' - he was our Estate Agent, John (Sean) Callaghan and we were making small talk in the jungle that used to be the front lawn. Liz spotted me about to react and gave me a swift kick in the shins.

Greek wild mountain thyme

So if we've wanted sun this month, we've had to dream it up and mentally import it from sunnier climes. When Liz was over in Poros (Greece) last month, she was lucky enough to come home via a friend's place in Athens  and was driven about by the friend. They headed for the mountains outside Athens where there was a smallholding owned by another friend and Liz was presented with a small bundle of the local wild thyme plus instructions to dry it in a paper bag and then seperate the leaves from stems. She could then use the leaves as herbs for eating, or to scent a room in a pot-pourri or whatever. That thyme came up to the 'threshing' stage recently; basically you rub the leafy ends between your hands and all the leaves fall away. You pick out the few twiggy bits which try to get threshed out too and, lo!, a beautiful scented handful. An interesting smell, says Liz, like a mix of thyme and mint... quite pine-y. Very evocative of Greek sunshine too.

Like a couple of Greek fishermen mending their nets?

Then, like a couple of old Greek fishermen mending our nets in one of the rainless periods we had the job of sorting through the yards of fruit cage netting I had taken off the big keet run (now vacant for the moment). This is under the black spruce trees, so in 2 years the fruit cage mesh had accumulated quite a few dead twigs and 'pine' cones and we wanted to disentangle all these and clean up the netting before we rolled it up to pack it away for some future use (turkeys and fruit comes to mind!). We sat down with the net spread out in front of us and gradually walked through it with our fingers, teasing out the twigs and letting it fall between us clean. We were just amused by the look of the job - more Greek memories for Liz as antidote to the 'soft' weather here.