Silver

I couldn't quite stay away. In particular, I couldn't let a major milestone like our 25th Wedding Anniversary slip by without a mention. 3rd November 2018, High Noon, as Elizabeth loves to point out.

Plan A had been to take the weekend off in Westport at a nice hotel, nice restaurant. We had Charlotte of the Mini Horses* lined up with time taken off work to cover the farm baby-sitting. Then I got sick and the hospital visit  and op were looming over us, threatening to scupper any plans we might have involving hotel bookings plus I'm on restricted fluid intake so I'd have been the one ordering quarter pints of Guinness!

We decided to rein it all in, stand Charlotte down and re-schedule a 25.5th  or 26th Anniversary when we are over this hump and we know where we are. Plan B was to be a home version of the fine dining, some wine and with the place set up as much like a hotel environment as we could manage - house gleaming like a spotless new pin., best table linen and fancy candlesticks, best china (I'm pretty sure the china is also 25 years old - it was surely a wedding present).

Near neighbour and local florist supplied these gorgeous
flowers.

It was a miserable, wet, cold day, so we also had fires going at both ends of the house and a goodly stack of logs on hand. I was set up to "cheat" a bit surreptitiously on the fluid volumes - saving myself (almost) enough cc on the water bottle that I could join Mrs C in 2 glasses of the fizz, a glass of the posh Beaujolais and a 'tint' of Teelings whiskey with the cheese.

The menu was as follows......

Salmon Fish Cakes with salsa of tomato and cucumber.

Steak with roast-on-the-vine cherry toms and duxelle (mushrooms)

Pear and chocolate tart

Cashel Blue cheese with slices of pear and water biscuits

'Fizz' - McGuigan's (Oz) frizzante

'Fleurie' Beaujolais from Francois Dubessy

Teelings whiskey

Nom Nommetty Nom!

Ooops. Looks a bit black in the pic but trust me, that's
just the mushrooms (Duxelle). Steak was deliciously rare
inside

It all added up to a superb, splendid day and evening and, for me, a lovely relaxing spoil. The Lady of the House, of course, was on duty for which I am so, so grateful, swapping between accessorising her floaty dress and pearls with a champagne coloured shawl and the kitchen apron, one minute 'Domestic Goddess', the next 'Domestic Help'.

Pear and chocolate tart to the right..

The steak had come from our good friends and local butchers, Ignatius (and Joe) Gannon down in Castlerea, who "deal with" our lambs when required. Joe had thrown a couple of burgers into the bag for good luck and both congratulated us on the 25 years.

When you can't have many cc of liquid in
the day, might as well make them count.

After a suitable rest (a 'trou Normande'?) to let the pear and chocolate tart settle (I love that combination of flavours) we segued into the Cashel Blue cheese and with that cleared away, we played a couple of games of Quixx (one to me, one drawn) and adjourned into the Sitting Room for a nice long evening of reading and total rest congratulating ourselves on a Celebration well planned and excellently executed.

We also thoroughly appreciated the blizzard of congratulations and good wishes that come to us via Facebook and Twitter whenever we have one of these family type things to 'announce', so if you are an FB-er or a Twitterer and happen to be reading this too, then thank you very very much if you supported us that way. Plenty of jokes about the "next 25 years" too of course - I'd be 86, which is quite do-able if I can get through the current hiatus. Who knows what the future holds. 

Ah well, just a couple of unrelated pics to use up. The 'pie' is my Turkey-Shepherd's pie. 

Deefer.

The picture of Deefer is one Elizabeth took of her asleep on my lap last night. Have a good weekend, all.

* Charlotte of the Mini Horses has pretty much handed the horses (Romeo, Bob and Cody) back to Mum and has branched out into 6 (at the last count) goats. Good luck with those, Char' ! 

A Visit From The Dans

Welcome aboard, Dan and Dan.

As promised, a post mainly about the current visit from Friends of the Blog, 'Dan and Dan(ielle)', a.k.a. "Mr and Mrs Dan". These two have been here before several times, but normally as a rest cure (though once Dan came alone, to write up a Masters thesis). This time they wanted to support us in our hour of need for volunteer labour, so were determined to be more like Help-X students than holiday makers. Most welcome and huge thanks, Dan and Dan. It had been lovely to see them again.

All three dogs adopt Danielle on the black sofa. Here, Deefer
seems to be doing a 'High 5'

They flew in to Knock on a very early flight on Wednesday having been woken up in Milton Keynes by an 0430 alarm. They hired a car at Knock; previously they have brought their own car across on the ferry but that loses them a whole day at either end, travelling.

Danielle on the mower. It was a bit random, but eventually the
mown patches got joined up.

I wasn't at all sure how the 'volunteering' would work out. They are city types with no garden and no experience of the physical jobs we might need doing round here on the small-holding; mowing, splitting logs and so on. Also, these two are family and good friends, so I did not want them to fail at anything or get upset, so I wondered if I might have to be a very gentle 'boss'.

Team effort alternating the mower pushing with the bag empties

In the event, I need not have worried. They are also enviably full of youth, strength and fitness, so they went at every task with enthusiasm, power and increasing skill and speed. They have LOADS done. Despite the early start and long travelling time, the first afternoon had them master the mower and mow the entire pond-garden.

Refreshments near Westport.

Day 2 and we all woke up to heavy drizzle, so mowing was off and the pair decided to go touristing, taking their hire car off to Westport, a look at Achill Island and some of the twisty, mountainy country roads of the "Wild Atlantic Way". They stopped, of course, at the odd pub for refreshments. Some of the pictures in this blog post are theirs, taken on their phones.

Dan getting tight into the edges by the living willow arch/tunnel

Today, then, back onto the treadmill with more work. They really got stuck in; Dan was still mowing at 5 pm! Other jobs today included breaking up the messy stack of old roof timbers from the chicken house into single clean lengths.

Attacking the pile of old roof beams.

This had been cut up as it stood, with all the 'A' shapes and 'T' joints intact, making for a very untidy pile. With Dan on the nail-bar and lump hammer and Danielle putting all the bits together like a giant jig-saw puzzle, the big random heap was quickly re-assembled as a neat efficient stack up on 'skids' out of the wet and flat of top for easy sheeting from the rain.

Dan goes lumberjack on the old hawthorn
hedge

One day I will be fit enough to zoom round it with the chain saw and reduce it to 16" lengths for the range. I pray! The chain saw is one piece of kit I do NOT let the volunteers play with.

The next job was unusual and, I suspect, a unique one locally. Friends of the Blog may recall that we have a decapitated hawthorn hedge up between the front lawn and the 'Primrose Path' and that we also have a ewe (Myfanwy) with an itchy patch in her middle back which we are just now starting to cure. Among the ewe's favourite scratching posts are some of the "overhanging" limbs of the old hedge which she can get right under and itch upwards.We want to put the sheep back on the front lawn (to save the mowing) but we needed to cut off all these offending limbs before we let Myfanwy anywhere near them, or she'd just open up all the nice new tender skin again.

Feast fit for a heart-patient? Don't worry, I
reined it in a bit!

Obviously, this was also a visit by cherished cousins, so the catering dept has also swung into full, 5-star, envelope pushing action. There has been duck in Guinness sauce followed by choc-cake and home made lemon ice cream. There has been a superb, creamy, cidery 'Somerset Pork'. There has been a gorgeous fish pie and a lunch time version of the full Irish (breakfast) fry. These have been well accompanied by interesting salads and side dishes.

Somerset Pork.

Danielle is a cider drinker, so she has been working her way through some local small-brewery, artisan type ciders and Dan loves the local "red ale" style beers, so he's been ranging around those.  I'm still on restricted fluids, so I get to taste these goodies but can only look at these pints getting poured and quaffed. One day......

Good Night all.

Ah well. That is surely enough for this one. Dan and Dan are here with us tomorrow and then head off back for their flight home on Sunday, so more on the  visit in Tuesday's post. Good luck now.

The 'Ros Go Rummage' easy stroll.

If Ros Go Run is not for you

Then we have something else to do

A gentle walk with clues to find

An easy test for eyes and mind

Give it a lash, you’re on a roll

The Ros Go Rummage easy stroll.

With the hugely clever and artistic ode above (cough), we introduced our newest project to the world. Well, our latest little bit of it, anyway. Friends of the Blog will know that we get involved each year, in the village's annual Half Marathon and 10 km runs, under the banner "Ros go Run". We join the roadside support, cheering the lonely runners on, man a watering-station and have painted a big bed-sheet sized encouraging sign which says "Downhill from here". Liz gets heavily involved in the admin, planning, publicity, links to sponsors and organising on the day. All good so far.

Buggy-rider Archie Naughten and his support team snatch a
quick "selfie" outside our gate. 

This year the committee liked the idea of doing something for the kids and non-running family who, having delivered their runners to the start at the local sports ground are left with little to do for the 2 hours+ it takes most of them to get round the half Marathon. They came up with an easy, child-friendly Treasure hunt or "rummage race" where they "runners" would have to progress round an easy loop of roads armed with a sheet of 10 clues in rhyming couplets, spotting signs or toys and things we had tied to the hedge or gateposts. 

Cousin Cathy gets cookery tips. 

The purple 'angry monster' pictured, for example, we tied to a tree which the farmer (presumably as part of his 'GLAS' (subsidies for greening / ecological stuff) efforts) had mounted three bat-boxes. Our clue was...

"An ash tree here has boxes three,

for bats to roost (and have some tea),

A scary monster guards the nest,

How would you describe him best?"

Not that hard then.... all the kids had versions of "angry purple monster" on their answer sheets. They all got lollipops as a prize. We were amused to find that some competitive parents entered with their kids and took over, wanting to run round and dragging the kids, who could barely keep up, round in their wake. 

Cathy experiments with flavourings in soft
goat's cheese, mustard, garlic and chives,
honey etc

Another good feature of this day was an entry by a team who are fund raising for a local family all of whose three boys have a genetic disorder, 'Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy'. DMD is incurable and, tragically, leaves the sufferer pretty much unable to walk by age 8 and not looking forward to a long life. The oldest boy, Archie Naughten is currently being 'prepared' for an attempt on the Dublin Marathon which he will do riding in a special buggy, pulled/pushed by a team of three athletic, fit support runners (Four in the full-length Dublin event. They are a lovely crew and the Ros go Run Team have very much taken them to heart. They got a massive welcome. They had the Archie team runners set off half an hour before the un-assisted runs started and there were gangs of supporters from, for example, the Under 11 GAA clubs with signs and cheering children etc. They were very grateful and posted numerous pics on the Facebook page. They all, and especially Archie, enjoyed their day.

Roast pork rack-of-chops and a nifty savoury flan

I just missed them here, coming out of the front door just in time to see them finish taking a 'selfie' with my sign as backdrop but then running on before I could get down the drive to hail them. Never mind. I spotted the selfie pic on Facebook and commented upon it, which got me into a nice conversation with one of the ladies who was still bubbling over at the welcome and the support they had received. She also gave me permission to use that pic on the blog. Good luck with the Dublin Marathon you guys. Ours was just a warm-up, I know.

Latest book by my
grew-up-living-on-a-sailing-barge friend
Nick Ardley. 

Because Cousin Cathy was around and visiting, she was inevitably press-ganged in to help and enjoyed going round setting out the clues and helping down at the GAA sports centre on the day. She came round again with me later to tidy up the rummage course. That was her final day with us (this time round!). Liz had to drop her to the airport on the Monday for a bit of a tearful 'goodbye', apparently. She had thoroughly enjoyed her little stay, which was a Birthday present from the family and promises to return soon. You're most welcome, Cathy.

Happy 6 month Birthday, Empress and
Pride! Enjoy your Guinness. 

On Tuesday, the piggies hit a landmark birthday, 6 months. Because we do not go with these pigs much past 7-8 months (and never the full year), we make a big fuss of them today and they get a can of Guinness poured over their meal.

No, I didn't steal any of their Guinness! 

These two have been brilliant. No trouble at all. They are, you may recall, variety "Oxford Sandy'n'Blacks" (OSBs) and were named Empress of Blandings and Pride of Matchingham after the PG Wodehouse fictional 'Heaviest Pig' Show entrants.

Pigs at 6 months. Empress on left, Pride on right.

Readers who are uncomfortable with the idea of eating named (or indeed any) animals, may like to skip this paragraph. We have estimated their weights by the standard "Length x Bust squared" method and think they are live weights of around 70 kg today, so they are nearly 'finished' A couple more weeks and we will be booking them in for their final car-ride to Webb's in town and training them to run up into the trailer to get fed in there. That way, on their final morning, they are no trouble to load. I will miss them, but I am sure we will enjoy the pork, bacon, sausage meat, brawn, Christmas ham and 'Parma' style dry-cured legs and the dogs will enjoy the ear-flavoured dog treats.

Breaking up the curds from the latest batch of goat cheese.

I think that is about it for this one. Just a couple more pictures because I have them, so I might as well post them.

Confused Muscari. Why are these grape hyacinths leppin' into
action in September?

The two male turkeys explore the spud-patch in the tunnel.

Interesting yellow fungi growing in a dead hawthorn.

En Alabanza de Help-X

Pedro giving the hardcore yard a bit of
punishment. 

(In Praise of Help-X) In which we sadly come to the end of an epic, amazingly superb time, our 16 days of hosting our first ever Help-X volunteers, Manu and Pedro. If those two lads were typical, then the whole Help-X organisation from website to man-hours on the ground is praise-worthy indeed. They were THE BEST kind of guests (happy, friendly, easy going and very appreciative of our hospitality) as well as being brilliant, untiring workers for the "agreed" 4-5 hours a day. They also thoroughly enjoyed all the down time and leisure stuff, exploring, fishing, shopping and wood carving.

'Sparks' would be proud of us - measure
twice; cut once!

We are both delighted and impressed by how it has all gone and the place has never looked so good over all, all at once. Everywhere I look I see baize-short immaculate lawns, fields devoid of tall weeds, new woodwork and concrete scraped clean of invading grass.

New dog pen

It is quite a 'legacy' the lads have left behind, not only for the fancy bamboo pens and the lovely "Easter Island Man" totem pole head which they completed in the nick of time on their final day, yesterday. If I list it the old fashion "bullet point" way beloved of working life meetings, we have....

• A cattle race scraped clear of invasive grass
• The East Field devoid of tall weeds, mainly docks, rushes, nettles and thistles
• 'Back of the Goose House' razed nettle patch
• Huge veg patch back under control and 100 sq yards of it under plastic sheeting
• Hedges and big willow pruned behind same.
• Grass mowed everywhere, even into bits I have never mowed before AND all of it done with the grass-box on the back of the mower and the clippings carted away to composts or pigs (i.e. all better and tidier than I normally manage)
• Orchard scythed and brush-cuttered to within a few inches.
• The yard mowed. 
• 2 lovely anti-chicken cages now protecting 2 strawberry beds
• A lovely new 'picket' fence dog-pen leading off from the old back door.

The lads with their carved man. They think Liz
should knit him a little hat and scarf for the
winter. 

If I have forgotten any achievements, I will come back and edit them into the list. Either way it has been epic and the lads have also thoroughly enjoyed us and Roscommon and being out here in the West of Ireland. They have enjoyed a lot of new 'work' experiences and learned such skills as I could share with them around the livestock, gardening and woodwork. K-Dub will no doubt laugh at the thought of me teaching them scarf-joints and a love of DeWalt tool-ery.

The boys cook us 'cachopo', a recipe from Asturias (northern
Spain)

They enjoyed our good food and some local beers and took on a love of Guinness and, in Manu's case developed an addiction to whole-food style 'Meridian' peanut butter. They cooked for us twice, both excellent, and stretched Liz to the high notes of her cookery and provisioning. To finish with a 'bang', for example, our Last Supper was Hubbard chicken in BBQ sauce with a simple mushroom risotto, roasted toms and red peppers and an avocado-based salad. Pud was a rhubarb Pavlova and properly made Irish coffees to follow - black and white "like a little Guinness" in the words of the hugely impressed lads.

Miss Black with Manu-1 and Manu-2. Manu-3 appeared later.

I have already posted that when we collected the new lambs, we named the ram 'Pedro' after one of the boys. Then, to make sure the other lad didn't feel left out I told him that we had a black hen sitting on eggs, due to hatch on their (then) last day, Thursday 10th. We would name any successful hatches, Manu 1, Manu 2 etc.

Miss Black brings the babies out. They are so tiny; they are like
little bumble bees after we have got used to the previous clutches
of chicks which are now at least 6 weeks old. 

Good girl, Miss Black did the honours right on time, Day 21. Manu was able to see Manu 1 just after breakfast and later that day #2 and #3. The boys actually extended their stay till today, so they have also been able to enjoy the hen bringing the babies off the nest and out into the sunshine. Everyone's a winner.

Aughalustia Bridge, just south of Ballaghaderreen.

The boys also got into the fishing and finally started catching stuff. We had all been joking that this Irish fishing holiday thing was all a big con, the Lough Glynn Fishing Club was just a money-laundering scheme and that, in fact, there were fewer fish than snakes in Ireland. Having spent several fruitless hours at Lough Glynn, they moved to the beautiful Aughalustia Bridge up by Ballaghaderreen. At least there they'd be in easy pedalling range of the town's take-aways for a change of supper venue. The Bridge yielded no fish that time.

Teaching the Roscommon worms to swim.

Almost giving up on the angling thing Manu and Pedro biked down to the little local bridge as a last ditch effort and, Bingo! , started landing some roach. They caught more the 2nd day and then on Weds 9th, all encouraged, went back to Aughalustia Bridge to try again. They hauled out 3 more.

The lads are bottom right in this shot. It is a very scenic place
to fish. 

At that site there is a lovely wooden 'decking' platform with duck-board walkways etc where you are, we guess, "meant" to fish, but the lads found it all so weedy just off shore, they were frequently tangling their hooks in the submerged vegetation, so they moved along the bank to a less official place and we lent them two tripod "shooting seats". Hours of cheap fun for our budget travellers.

So, that was pretty much that. We fed them a breakfast this morning, retrieved all their dry laundry from our Utility Room and I ran them down to Castlerea station for their quarter to eleven train to Dublin. The 2nd fortnight of their tour is staying with a Help-X host farm with horses, somewhere over by Blessington, just outside Dublin, on the shore of the enormous 'Pollaphuca' Reservoir with its hydro-electric scheme and its water supply for the capital. If they can't find fish in there, we told them, then they are not trying hard enough!

We have joked with them that they will always be welcome back here so if they don't like it at Blessington, they will have to re-appear here under cover of darkness, tails between their legs. Please feed us, Lizzie, we want to come ba-ack! We didn't like it in Dublin. They didn't have Meridian peanut butter!

Seriously though, guys. You REALLY WILL be always welcome here, Help-X or not. If you are ever back this way then do get in touch and drop by.

Con the Archery Coach turns out to be a highly skilled exponent
of the mini-digger. 

What else is new? Only that in between all that I was over at archery coach, Con's place recently, when I was probably better off resting my damaged knee (almost better now, by the way), answering a call to come and help lay a land-drain.

Low point in my career. Down in the ditch trying not to lose
 a wellie.

He had hired a mini digger and had to give it back that evening, and they had all got a bit behind. So, out there for me, splodging about in wellies in a muddy ditch, trying not to lose my footwear, shovelling the drain 'fall' smooth, then building protective 'castles' out of salvaged blocks to protect the plumbing while Con back-filled the drain over the new pipe. Nice and restful on the knee, then? Maybe should have taken Pedro and Manu out there.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

Yoiks! Not a howling success then, that 'hard' cheese. 

I have always tried 'on here' to report our story. like Cromwell's portrait, warts and all. Thankfully embarrassing howlers are infrequent and most readers' comments focus on the good stories with happy outcomes - "living the dream" and all that jazz. I think you can probably place my latest cheese making attempt and my first try at hard-ish cheese, firmly in the 'warts' camp. I have definitely missed a stage in the process and the lovely white, semi-hard cheese I hung up in a muslin bag to ripen started showing very dark through the cloth within a couple of weeks. I have, it seems, hung a lovely moist, nutritious chunk of fungus-food up at air temperature in a non-sterile bag in a non-sterile air flow. Spores must have been queueing up to come to this party. It seemed like a good idea at the time and I can't quite believe how stupid that sounds now. Back to square one - I will go read some more book and talk to our goat-milk supplier and (now) successful cheese-making mentor (Hi Sue! Congrats on your "promotion"!).

Ouch. Yellow arrow shows where the girl's sting went in. The
big red patch was the itchy, alarming result but I am still here
to tell the tale.

Then I was just off to enjoy a bit of archery on Sunday and took the opportunity to water the courgettes growing in the polytunnel. I leaned over my water tank wielding my watering can, then stood up and flexed my arm to lift the can just as a wasp zoomed up from the tank and through the crook of my elbow. Bang. I half-crushed Miss Wasp and she reacted as wasps do, zapping me before I could flick her off. She fell into the water and a less merciful soul would have wished her good luck.

I am currently feeding these lads for a neighbour. Grub's up.

I am silly enough that I rescued her with the spout of my watering can and, as far as I know, she lives to sting again. I was alone in the house at that stage and could only wait the few minutes to see if, like my Mother, I am allergic to wasp venom and there would be anaphyllactic shock dramatics, ambulances and paramedics. Fortunately, no. A tiny white pimple with a fan-shaped red patch below it was my only injury. It itched like fury and 'Nurse Lizzie' administered Piriton and a chilling 'Wasp-Eze' spray but I was able to go to archery and lash the required number of arrows down the hall as if nothing had happened.

Yes, I know we have a bowl each. but....

With Thursday came the piggies' 6-Month Birthday. Local tradition (all be it only 3 years old as an event) has it that the pigs get an extra meal that day at lunchtime which includes Guinness poured into their barley. It is very simple as kiddies' parties go; there's no jelly or crisps trodden into the carpet, no disappointing magician or balloon-animal guy, no party bags and no tears before bedtime, but we like it and so do the pigs. They can't believe their luck - an extra meal! And beer in it - which they have never tasted before (and won't again). I also got them some banana and cherry tomatoes (both on special offer from Lidl; I wonder if their marketing bods know that their special offers are the must-have fruit choices for 6 month old gilts party fodder?)

A Birthday back-scratch. All pigs love a good, hard,
dig-your-finger-nails-in, rake-over. Get that dandruff flying!

The Guinness was almost a story in itself. I'd bought 2 cans and was only going to give the 'babies' one between them, but I took the other can (the pigman's share?) in with me to make a better photo. I put it down while I messed with bowls and barley but Ross took a shine to this new object and promptly gave it a good chomp. She pierced the thin can with her teeth and set the whole thing off with a spray of beer like a fire extinguisher. Rather than waste it I glugged the rest into the bowls and the pigs got a can each.

Two very happy little piggies schlurrrrped up the beer-soaked mixture and the fruit with more gusto (and saliva) than normal and then did a good job of cleaning the ground around the bowls. No waste there, then. At that point they pretty much headed for the ark and a mission to sleep off the full bellies on the straw. Later I was barrowing in some shredded wood to 'repair' the poached up muddy bits and it was only at the 2nd barrow that two bleary eyed pigs woke up to investigate, shaking strands of straw from their noses as they wandered over.

Of course, we have now probably spoiled them rotten and they were 'asking' for more barley and beer at lunchtime today but I only gave them a couple of chopped up apples to shut them up. Over feeding was the mistake I made on the Tamworths in 2014, handing them food every time they squealed. That way madness lies (and pork chops where 30% of the weight is the skin and subcutaneous fat!). I am pleased to say that my pics of these ladies at 6 months, posted to Facebook yesterday, have been complimented by our breeder/supplier who says they look "perfect".

On that subject, too, on the day we went to collect these pigs, the breeder passed me the phone number of another customer of his, who is now a breeder of 'Oxford Sandy and Black' pigs only half an hour's drive away. I contacted that guy yesterday to see how that project was going and the man was delighted to talk to me and have me as a likely future buyer of his piglets along with our friends Sue and Rob, who are also looking to get back into the pig game with a couple of these. More on that next year, probably.

Happy Birthday, Somerville and Ross.