Big Block of Cheese Day

The eponymous Big Block of Cheese

Fans of the US TV political drama 'West Wing' (one of our favourites) will recall the episode(s) in my title as they were funny and often bizarre. They referred to a day in the White House year when the staff resurrected an old tradition of inviting any madcap pressure group to come and be heard by the Administration and the staff would set up a huge block of cheese in the foyer for the visitors to cut bits off if they were hungry. Last time Liz was over in the UK, our good friend Mazy advised her to buy from local deli and farm shop 'Macknades', a house-brick sized block of a gorgeous vintage cheddar - 1.36 kg at about £13 (UK). I mention this because, Mazy, it has taken us this long to get through it. Not enough lunatics with outlandish pressure group requests, we guess. Thank you very very much.

Fruit scones

Not all good news this time, I am afraid. Hot on the heels of our 'loss' of the cat Pirate, came a call from Sue and Rob to say that the lovely ram, 'Rambo', whom we borrowed to service our three ewes. had died in the night. They'd had no warning and he appeared perfectly healthy on Saturday except for one 'symptom' which they think with hindsight, might have been significant - the lad standing still in the middle of the feild in the rain, when he is usually first in the queue for shelter under the trees. With Rambo dead in the morning Rob could see a little dark blood around the boy's anus and in the poo but we are at a loss. I have contacted our vet to see what she thinks and she is asking whether we vaccinate (e.g. with Heptavac P). I must admit we haven't, though we have wormed and fluke-drenched, so it is obviously something we should think about.

Pirate's grave site and memorial rock (grey lump
bottom right) under the beeches. 

Then there was another good friend, near neighbour and fellow (beginner) bee keeper, T McC. Poor T had that thing happen to him that all beginner beekeepers (incuding ourselves of course) are worried about - that you'll have a dramatic reaction to a bee sting. T was snugging down his bees a week or so ago and got stung, not for the first time but suddenly had "sweating, redness, itching, light headed, flashing lights and a slight constricting of the throat.  Had to lie down on the ground outside. Lucky it was sunny". He had to phone the ambulance and felt a bit silly by the time they arrived as he had recovered except for the big bump on the back of his head (the sting site) tingling.

Beekeepers know that they can react differently to stings and the intensity can also change with time/stings; You can have no problem for a while and then suddenly react, or you can 'get over' your sensitivity and have no more bad reactions after that. Poor T is now going through the tests with his doctor to see where he is, whether he'd be safe to carry on or whether (God forbid) bee keeping is not for him and he'd have to give up the hobby. On the bright side all his hives are snugged down now so he won't have to go near them till Spring. The doctor has a few months to do the tests and come to a decision.

Hallowe'en fare, Champ with pork chops. Our own spuds, kale,
pork and onions, of course.

On happier topics, Hallowe'en went really well for us. We had set up the 'Jack o'Lantern' on the gate pier and made a long "chain" of candles in jamjars all up the new fence, one on each post. We also hung our two posh gift lanterns on trees, so that the drive up to the house was nicely inviting and we were publically 'up for it' to any random passing groups of witches, ghosties and vampires. We had the obligatory big bowl of sweeties and we sat back to enjoy our own Hallowe'en fare, of 'champ' with pork chops.

The turkeys try out the pumpkin seeds. Bit of a mixed reaction
but they did all disappear eventually.

You never know round here, how many kiddies will come. We are out in the sticks and there are no children in walking distance, so they come carted round likely places by Mums in huge people-carriers and farm cars. Well, we had none till quarter to 8 which was nice because it meant we could eat our own supper in peace, but then a veritable army showed up and annihilated the sweeties in short order. The bowl now contains a lonely refresher bar and half a dozen tubes of tiny Parma Violets which we'll never eat, so we need to find a post-Hallowe'en victim for those.

Traditional unmolested Irish Stew after Theodora Fitzgibbon 

I am partially Liz-less at the moment (she's shuttling between Silverwoods and house/Dad sitting for part of each week and back up here for work the other part so I am King of the Kitchen temporarily and continuing to expand my range. Today that meant that my favourite Irish Recipe book, Theodora Fitzgibbon's "A Taste or Ireland (in food and in pictures)" (pub Pan 1968) was dusted off and cracked open. Irish Stew! I had a chunk of our own delicious lamb, our spuds, onions, parsley and thyme. Theodora tells me that "the pure flavour is spoiled if carrots, turnips or pearl barley are added, or if it is too liquid. A good Irish stew should be thick and creamy, not swimming in juice like soup". Well, I'm happy to report that it was delicious, but I do not know where the 'thick and creamy' comes from. There were no thickening ingredients on the list and my gravy was definitely 'wet'. Perhaps she uses a different kind of spud which breaks down better and solidifies the gravy for you.

Sheep hurdles assembled into a pen.

I have also been out spending the hard earned loot (I did clear this with the Chancellor of the Exchequer first), investing in some sheep bits, namely hurdles and dagging shears. The hurdles assemble into a 6 by 4 foot pen for containing sheep while you work on them, but I bought them for their handiness singly as temporary gates. I have posted before of the plan to install some new runs of fence to give the sheep a new bit to graze and tidy, but I need to leave 'holes' through which to push the trailer when moving pigs or just to move geese about. Rather than invest in 4 permanent gates, this was a cheaper (and more flexible) solution.

Dagging shears. 

While at the farm supplies 'co-op' I spotted a rather nifty pair of old-style (springy scissors) "dagging shears". One of our ewes (Myfanwy) came with full length tail (some mix up at her own birth) so she is prone to great chains of 'klingons' adhering to the underneath of her tail and around the bum, where the output cannot fall freely to the ground. These will sort that out and be good for any other small trim ups for example where I have missed bits on the shearing.

Definitely getting a bit TOO cheeky now!

Finally, I leave you with a brilliant local expression I picked up recently. This where the old boy involved had come into the building with me but nipped off for a quick wee while I made the tea for us. "Ah, you're as good as a bad woman" he said. Made me smile, anyway.

Weather Bomb?

A nice seasonal ale from Wychwood, the
makers of Hobgoblin.

We had our forecast first big storm of the winter, with strong winds  from Tuesday afternoon, through Wednesday and into Thursday morning. There were some impressive weather maps on line, particularly one of wave energy or 'swell energy' which is a factor beloved of the surfers who try to ride the big Atlantic waves up on our NW coasts. This had a dramatic black patch in our corner of the Ocean (black being for wave energies of over 25,000 KJ per metre of wave height per wave) surrounded by vivid red rings fading through orange to the calmer colours. There were, too, some impressive graphs of wave height, with double deck buses on for comparison; they got 21 metre waves off Donegal. Possibly for these dramatic reasons, the media seemed to adopt this storm system keenly and christened it a "Weather Bomb!" and naming the bad day Black Wednesday to allow for eye catching dramatic headlines. I wonder what me aul' Dad, a lifelong teacher of geography and lover of meteorology would have made of all that. What's wrong with 'significant anticyclone' or 'deep depression' I can hear him asking, or even big storm or gale force winds.

We may only have a small kitchen but Liz
was always going to find room for one of
these bad boys - the new dish washer.

Anyway, we got our 'Yellow Warning' from Met Éireann so we battened down the hatches and listened nervously to the wind roaring through our big trees and the rain splattering against the windows, watching nervously in case the out-building roof(s) might move about but we survived both nights and I could report back to Liz after my first-thing patrol and dog-walk that everyone and everything were still where they should be. We had survived the 'Weather Bomb(!)' and Black Wednesday. Windswept and interesting. These systems then tend to move off across the Scotland, or nip round Ireland's SE coast and hit Wales and England and we feel sorry for our friends in those places who are reporting their own storm damage a day after we've been in the thick of it.

A light freeze after the 'Weather Bomb', proper ice on the
 pond for the first time this winter and some rime on the
grass.

Temporary disappointment in the sheep department; I must preserve my soul in patience a while longer. I was hoping to collect the girls this weekend and therefore be able to report some sheep on site in this year's census. But these things do not always go to plan, and my friend Mayo-Liz has been called to do some extra shifts and 'the boys' who need to help separate my ewes from the flock and move them up from the lower fields are not available either, so the ewes get to spend a few more days in Mayo. They are reported in good health, though and almost certainly 'with child' plus they have been given their Heptavac P jabs ( "For the active immunisation of sheep as an aid in the control of lamb dysentery, pulpy kidney, struck, tetanus, braxy, blackleg, black disease and clostridial metritis caused by (assorted Clostridia types)". So says MSD Health, the maker of this widely used sheep medicine. When Mayo-Liz gets a chance she will do the separation and bring my ewes up to her barn, then phone me to come and get them. These things can't be helped especially around Christmas and with livestock

The bees have not been seen outside the hive since December began, so we hope they are nice and safe in their football sized winter cluster. There was white rime on the hive roof this morning but deep inside they will be maintaining the temperature of the small amount of live brood which they keep going through the winter, buzzing their flight muscles to generate heat, or fanning their wings to get more air flow. They may still fly on warm days (over about ten degrees)  but one of the adaptations of the local subspecies to the local conditions is a higher than average ability to retain 'poo' in the gut. They need to fly to get rid of this to keep the hive hygienic and so that they do not suffer from dysentery, so they do better if Met Éireann give them a warmer day every couple of weeks so that they can do a few "cleansing" flights, but they can go months without if need be.

The electricity pole is finally swapped over
and the old one felled.

In the poultry department we may have some light at the end of the egg-less tunnel. Last week was our worst ever with just one egg from 9 hens, but today I got 2 eggs AND the Guinea Hen has re-started her annoying and incessant 'buck-wheat buck-wheat' mating calls. This is a relief - we have been buying eggs and Lidl's Connell Farm Organic eggs may be "freshly laid by hens with freedom to roam freely on organic pastures" but they are, to us, spoiled as we are by our own eggs, insipid and pale yolked things.

ESB (the Electricity Supply Board) finally showed up to swap our power lines across to the new pole and to delicately drop the old pole into our garden, neatly missing all my young trees. I enjoyed watching them - they do not use ladders, it seems, to shinny up these poles, but strap-on leg irons which hook round the pole and grip it, but then give each foot a cantilevered platform to stand on. The man then has a strap round his waist and round the pole and by shuffling his weight from foot to foot to waist he was up and down and round and round the pole doing up all his cables and iron work with the ease and grace of a monkey up a tree, with both hands free to use the tools hooked to his belt. He takes up with him a block and tackle to  so that his man on the ground can hoist bigger tools up and down to him without him having to come down for them. Very efficient. Power was only off for 2 hours and we slotted our shopping into that gap so that we now have our Christmas tree and a batch of white wine ready for our house guest, plus the almonds for the marzipan for the cake.