Callum Comes a-Calling

Storm Callum

Named storm 'Callum' arrives heralded by the usual colourful wind maps and weather warnings from Met Éireann and (National broadcaster) RTE. He looks from the first predictions, that he will split up either side of the island's SW corner and will mainly be a coast problem. Co Roscommon is a land-locked county, so we only got a 'yellow' warning (for rain).

Upholstery "stuff" will need an official
storage place.

And so it turned out. We'd taken all the normal precautions (hives strapped down, lumps of concrete on hutch roofs etc) and we have our new chicken house roof, so we felt safe enough but no-one here was complacent and we all saw the sorry pictures of the devastation caused by Hurricane Michael which took out great tracts of Florida. I was woken by heavy rain at about 3 a.m. and then again at 6 a.m. and there were puddles but we got away with no damage.

Rooster Gandalf (right) minds a group of hens sunning them
selves and preening. 

We had even got away with a 2 day "Indian Summer" prior to Callum, with the south winds bringing unseasonably warm air up from Spain. We'd been able to sit outside, in my case with the camera, and take a few pics of the various birds relaxing in what might be their last warm days this year. For 2 days we did not light the range (I have now!). There was plenty of bee activity in both the hive and the swarm box.

Despite appearances, we think this may be a hen.

I noted in a recent post that we did not seem to be able to produce here, a white coloured hen despite having Sussex birds in the flock for all the 6 years we have done chickens here. All our white babies seemed to grow up into roosters, way outside the Law of Averages.

Rooster Gandalf has had enough of being magnificent and full
of breeding season glory. He goes for the moult.

Very recently we 'offed' the last youngster as it started to shout Cock-a-Doodle-Dooooo! and grew an impressive long tail and the big facial features (wattle, comb) of a cockerel. He also started trying to jump/rape women belonging to Gandalf and Herme and was getting a good kicking from those two boys. It was not going to end well.

Now, that lad was one of a small clutch of babies hatched in spring, a 2nd one of which was also white, and we watched anxiously as the two white "boys" both grew up, were seen play-fighting one another and seemed to be heading for similar tall stature. We were sure they were both roosters.

Pretty hen enjoying the sunshine

Then a month or 2 ago, the 2nd bird suddenly stopped growing and never developed the tall tail or big face, never crowed and did not start harassing the 'sisters'. She(?) is a bit rangey and long limbed so she will be a big bird but we think we might just have a hen, there.

Turkey hen, 'Deo' seems quite happy solo.

We have been keeping a close eye on the turkey hen, 'Deo' after we had to cull out the 'tom' ('Excelsis' - there was a bit of a Christmas theme developing there, for a while). Turkeys can form very close pair bonds and can pine away and die at the loss of their partner. Deo seems to be OK and happy enough hanging with the three Guinea Fowl cock-birds. So far so good anyway.

In line for some culling action, these two "spare" Appleyard
drakes.

Also in this inadvertent tale of culling and death we have 2 'spare' drakes quietly getting on with enjoying a bit of a stay of execution. They were due to go on their final journey back at the end of our Help-X visit by Sonja and Asbjörn but that was when the turkey-tom decided to lose the plot and attack me. He stepped into harm's way and the processing department had enough on its plate. Never mind, the Lady of the House will not be that busy for ever and their turn will come.

I can never see how this is comfortable.

Did I say 'busy'. Oh yes, I have not yet mentioned that that other big 'time-suck' that mops up our free time each year, is about to re-start..... The Village Play. The Lisacul Players wake up about now each year and start planning the next Easter's production. The 'wake up' meeting was on Wednesday and involved a big gang of them (13) reading one of the (3) plays short-listed by main man and Producer Tommy C. I went along as the reading started late enough that I had all the birds locked up safe from Mr Fox. I am sorry I did not make a note of the play or writer but it was by a well known and prolific local play-wright.

Plenty of bee activity round the swarm box in the warm days.

The Players have to try to find a play that suits their male/female cast balance and they also prefer plays where there is not just one major spoken part. We prefer well balanced 'ensemble' plays. The one we read was very good and very funny and may end up being "The Play", but the Players are going to read another one next week and another the week after, and then decide. I will keep you posted.

Finally, we came to time for the big 'Parma' ham legs of pork to come out of their dry salt/sugar cure and to move on to the next phase: 4-18 months of air drying hanging up from the ceiling in a nice airy, well ventilated space. This change involves having to scrub off all the encrusted salt using cider vinegar (or the odd splash of hot water which you must quickly pat off once the salt is gone).

Legs scrubbed clean of salt

They get wrapped in a muslin sheath or a pillow case to deter the flies but they should not really need that, being so salty and vinegar-y by now on all the cut surfaces and skin. I could not actually find the muslin when I went to do this but pending a rescue, hung them up naked anyway and I have seen no flies on or around them, so we should be OK. They hang for 4-18 months gently drying out and maturing, and losing around 30% of their weight.

That must be about it for this post so I will wish you Good Luck and hope you all survived 'Callum' as painlessly as we did.

Oh - one last thing. We have had our first goose eggs of this season

'Tis the Season

No Turkeys! Out on that bank on our boundary, where Mr Fox
definitely comes patrolling, is NOT a good place to nest.

British Summer Time. Nice long evenings and the dogs waking me up a good hour later than they have been, driven as they are by their own light-level triggers. Spring is sprung and all that. 'Tis the season for procreational activities to break out all over, sometimes covertly.

Occupational hazard of fencing in these parts.

'Tis also the season for everyone to shore up those winter-damaged fences prior to letting the cattle out to the welcome grass. I got involved a bit in order to help a friend and came back with the usual lacerated forearms from the brambles, hawthorn and blackthorn. This was an early morning job, so Elizabeth found herself in charge of fox watch. The fox has never (yet) attacked in an early morning, so she thought she'd be safe enough snatching a rare 'lie-in' and covering the task sitting up in bed. The dogs were up there too so surely nothing could happen 'out there' which she'd not be aware of. Safe enough, you'd think.

Turkey eggs "hidden" in the scrub.

The morning's peaceful relaxing was shattered when the dogs suddenly started shouting and bouncing around on the windowsill. The Guinea fowl were also yelling and a quick look showed our fox-watch that at least one was up on a high perch. Jumping to the conclusion that Brer Fox was among us again, she raced down and outside, releasing the dogs to go do their thing.

The three ducks gave me a scare when the female fell asleep
on an dead clump of Lady's Mantle. She was so well matched
in colour, I thought we were down to 2 ducks.

A few minutes of retrieving Towser from the tarmac lane where he'd gone to round up the confused Guineas and the only reason for the shout seemed to be that 'tis also the season for roosters to start fighting and two of them were going hammer and tongs in the middle of the front lawn. Our dogs are, by now, pretty cool with 'ordinary' chickens but if they see a fight going on, fluttering and kicking, feathers flying the 'distressed prey animal / easy target' thing kicks in and they will as likely as not have a lunge.

So Mrs C was by now wide awake, of course and in her thorough search of the area, came across another 'Tis the Season' thing, a little clump of three turkey eggs hidden under some fine tree branches but right out by the bank over which Brer Fox comes when he does visit. Not a very sensible place to nest, Mrs Turk. (Gloria or Deo, we do not know whom yet.).

Some first "dandelions" for the bees. These
are coltsfoot, (Tussilago farfara)

Friends of the blog may recall that we lost our first turkey hen when she went right off site to go broody and never came back, presumably discovered by an earlier fox. We are pleased that this girl has at least nested on site and that we have found her. If we leave her a few eggs in the nest, she should keep laying there and not get upset and go off to find somewhere further afield to lay. If we let her build up a full clutch and go broody, we may be able to move her and the eggs to a safer place without making her desert.

Gandalf. King of the Hill.

So, as I said, 'tis also the season for roosters to start eyeing up their rivals 'women' covetously and even making the odd move on them. Our alpha-male, Gandalf is top dog here and it is his much smaller rival 'Herme' the Buff Orpington who is always looking to take over. We have two other much younger roo's, who run smaller gangs of peripheral hens, but they are not moving in on the top spot just yet. It was Gandalf and Herme who were doing the kick boxing display on the lawn that woke the dogs up.

Battle scarred Herme.

We wish these boys had a stronger sense of 'self awareness' and copped on a bit quicker that they were losing this fight and should probably pull out and run away. Herme seems to have no such rationale and he keeps in trying even though he is getting 7 bells kicked out of him. He comes away with his facial bits (wattles, comb, beak) well blooded. Those are long, sharp spurs on Gandalf's legs and Herme has no such equipment. Ah well. The fights are fast and furious but always finish just before we need to intervene. It's nature's way and we have plenty of space for the boys to keep apart if they prefer to.

Mucking out the lambing pens and
dismantling them. I get my shed back!

'Tis also the season to be done with lambing and I get that lovely (well, I enjoy it!) seasonal landmark task of mucking out the lambing pen(s) and dismantling them. I get my shed back. This year we have a minor 'hang-over' of that lamb, Bábóg, who needs bottle feeding and will continue to need that till she is weaned off the milk.

Rosie and her twins. Bábóg is on the right.

She is now on full bottle (500 ml) feeds 4 times a day, all now out in the field where she lives happily with her Mum, brother and all the other sheep. Mum likes to keep her close but will not let her suckle. The final feed of each day, 10 pm, is now in the dark, obviously, so we have fun wandering about the field with the LED head torch looking for the reflections of eyes, then hear the excited bleat and watch one pair of eyes detach from the group and come bouncing across the field in the darkness, homing in unerringly on that bottle-teat.

All is now well on the laptop. The PC is destined for the WEEE
recycling.

What else is new? I am now settled into the laptop after causing only one quick wobble when I logged in as the owner and somehow changed her user account name to my email address. There were a couple of anxious hours while Mrs C worked out how to get admin rights and change the name back, plus to set me up an account where I could safely clomp about in my size 12 boots and not do any damage to 'her stuff'.

Finally. 'tis the season for baby chicks. These are Silvergirl's.

Finally, I just want to note the passing away of an English 'character' from this blog but way back in the Kent days, when life was all about the rebuild on the Thames sailing barge, SB Cambria. Two colleague-volunteers, Mark and Cathy Chapman had been on that project for years by the time I started and we had plenty of good times working with them. Cathy was English born (Edmonton) but unknown to me then, her roots were right here in Co Roscommon. Her Mum is still very much alive, but her Grandma was buried 20 minutes from here in the small town of Bellanagare. There are no other family here now, though some cousins live down in the SE, around Tallow. Cathy has since, sadly, died of cancer (aged 52) and expressed a wish that her ashes be brought 'home' to Grandma's gravesite for scattering or burial. So today a small dozen of us gathered at the graveside with a Priest to bury her ashes-urn and pay our final respects. Rest in Peace, Cathy and commiserations to Mark and to the rest of the family. Mark was delighted that he has an old friend reasonably near to his wife's grave who can "keep an eye on her".

The Good Gosling News or the Bad?

In the nick of time, a new baby gosling.

Regular readers may recall that back on 10th June I posted news and a picture of a new arrival; our first and only (at the time) new-hatched gosling. On the 13th I posted pics of his first exploration out of doors, being 'minded' by his bodyguard of Mum, Aunt(s) and Dad. Those readers may be wondering why they have not heard from him since. I have neglected to mention a small tragedy that happened here, the disappearance of this first gosling.

Our 2nd 2017 gosling - we hope he fares better than the first.

I discovered the loss on the first day of shearing those Texels (20th June). I had been out all morning at the sheep, so I had left the birds all shut up for the time I was absent, ever fearful of a repeat of our day-time fox-raid back in November. Everybody, including the gosling, had all gone to bed as normal on the evening before.

I'll just build a cage round these beans then,
to stop the chickens, shall I?

Only when I got back from the shearing and let them out, did I see the three adult geese come marching out as normal with not a bother on them but no gosling. I thought at first that he might be having a lie in, still in the nest with the still-broody 4th bird. Also pointing to this was the complete lack of excitement and separation-anxiety that parent geese show when momentarily separated from their babies.

Good chard and calabrese coming off the Kitchen Garden

Well, later in the day the 4th bird came off and no sign of the gosling. I have had a good look round and can find no little carcass or fluff or any sign of him. He could not have got out of the house so my best guess is that either a predator (rat? mink?) has come in through one of the small above-ground holes) and taken him, or he has nipped out from the goose-bit into the wider coop and been either nabbed there or got himself wedged in a tight spot between tools, the wood pile or what ever. If the latter then he must have been dead by that lunchtime because all was silent; no baby goslings screaming for release. When the geese finally finish with the nest (more of that later!) I will have a complete de-clutter and deep clean in there and may find his little dried up form but I don't hold out much hope.

Tubs and Toms out front

Since the 20th, our always-chaotic goose-breeding 'system' has involved just waiting for the #4 adult, who had stayed on the nest, to get bored and decide that the ancient eggs on which she sat were never going to hatch. By last weekend we were running out of patience, Liz had started asking when I would be able to deep-clean that shed and I was thinking I would wait till the goose went out for a 'toilet break', close the door on her and clean it all out from "under her", as it were.

Stumpy and her 5 chicks.

Well, just to prove that sometimes the sitting bird knows best, I went out to shepherd them home on Sunday 9th July and behold! There was a tiny new hatched gosling out on the grass with them. A nice surprise and #4 bird has earned herself a stay of execution. I will give her another good week before the bedders move in to change the sheets and make the beds. I will also be on tenterhooks and not wanting to leave them in of a morning for a week or so, in case the "safe from foxes" jinx strikes twice.

Big Red and her 4

While I'm on birds, I was witness to a very sweet "Mother and Toddler Group" meeting a few days back, when all 3 'yard' hens and their baby chicks wandered round through the cattle race and into the kitchen garden where 'Beebs', our mint-patch hen, is still minding her 7. So I had, briefly all 4 Mums and 19 chicks milling about, mingling a bit. The three visitors were quite cool with this liaison but Beebs was chuntering a bit at the 'encroachment' onto HER territory and called for her gang to gather close. Eventually our big sex-change rooster, Herme wandered over curious as to what all the excitement was about and then all 4 Mums gathered their tribes and melted away. Meeting over.

Glut of chard leaves? Liz makes this lovely "Tourtes aux Blettes"
See text. 

Meanwhile, in the kitchen we have both been busy based on the very successful harvest of our first blackcurrants - 3 kg already from our few bushes, some good calabrese, courgettes, an armful of chard leaves and the arrival of my 'banneton'. The latter is a special ridged bowl for making your sour-dough finish its final prove in a professional shape.

A 'banneton'. A fancy proving bowl for your sour dough.

The black currants have mainly gone into the freezer as we have a great stash of jam from previous years and need no more. Some have re-appeared as a dessert tart and more as home-grown 'Ribena'. More will be re-incarnated as Creme de Cassis which we love mixing with fizz to make Kir (Royale). The calabrese just got steamed that night with our roast chicken and fresher, darker, squeakier veg you would struggle to find. Gorgeous.

Sour dough loaf ex the new banneton. 

The chard gets split stems from leaf blades and the blades, Liz tried out in a new (to us) recipe, Tourtes aux Blettes. "Chard Pie?" I hear you squeak dubiously. Well this one is from Mediterranean cookery and was a revelation. It is quite sweet and the filling includes the chard leaves for body but also raisins soaked in brandy overnight, pine nuts, grated apple, eggs and sugar. The pastry is extra-short and includes icing sugar. Unusual but delicious. If you have a chard glut, then give it a try. Recipes are all over the Internet.

You saw that focaccia in the last post, still raw. This is the same
cooked to golden perfection. I was impressed. 

My banneton sourdough proving-bowl was a great success. It is a very lightweight thing, apparently made from paper like that used in egg boxes, so you'd never want to get it wet washing it up. You dust it well (with rice flour in this case) to stop the dough sticking, then when you tip the finished dough-ball out, give the bowl a sharp tap to shake off excess dusting flour. Mazy, I know, has a rattan/wicker one.

Finally a couple of pictures of that focaccia which I had not yet put into the oven as I went to press last time. Here it is now cooked to golden perfection. It was gorgeous and has earned it's place in our "keepers" recipe files.

Our dark buddliea. Not a butterfly in sight on these rainy
windy July days. Ah well.

Most of it disappeared as a sauce-dipping bread in a pasta I cooked a couple of days back with a bacon, mushroom, onion and tomato cream sauce. Perfect.

And that's about it for this one.

Bank Holiday Sunshine

Cherry blossom against a beautiful blue
Mayday sky. 

In my previous post I wrote of the possible end of the road for the "Suzy's Six" batch of hopeful hens. We had hoped that at least some of these, if not all, would grow up female and be able to join our fox-depleted egg laying flock under the tutilege of our 2 roosters, Gandalf and Herme. Well, this was not to be and we managed, despite picking them out from Suzy's rearing batch for their 'hen-like' looks, to achieve the 1:128 odds of six roosters.

Nice clean carcasses but only achieving 1.1 to 1.3 kg oven
ready weights. 

We managed to find a home of one of these - he went off to lord it over the small flock of hens at our out-door archery venue, Con and Niamh's place. The other 5 were despatched, plucked and 'dressed' and have been either eaten or frozen.

The five new birds have landed and are getting used to
their new surroundings.

Our friend Sue cheerfully (and generously) offered to give us another batch to try, these more likely to be female as they were last year's birds and, in one case at least, already laying those tiny "Witch" or "Fairy" eggs. They currently have a mountain of eggs over there and think they have way too many chickens, so she'd be happy to sort us out some spares. So on the same run we made into "town" to drop the rooster off with Niamh, we diverted back to Sue's place and brought them home.

The new birds try a bit of free ranging

These birds look more convincing as hens than the last 6 ever did and they are a motley collection of cross breeds so they will fit in well here! 2 are red with dark tails so may have a bit of sussex in them. One is white with black hints so is probably a Sussex - this gives us a nice continuity from the recent loss of 'Enda'. One is grey and may be a Cuckoo Marans, The 5th looks mainly 'Araucana' and has a deformed foot, so has been named by Liz as 'Stumpy'. She gets around OK and even perches on the wall inside the coop. They will all do OK.

2 bunnies where there should not be any bunnies. Mutt and Jeff
in the yard.

Also new in the farmyard for this post are the 2 bunnies, Mutt and Jeff, bought for the express purpose of mowing the grass around the bee hives. These guys decided that they did not want to be out there on the periphery of our 2.5 acres and each escaped a number of times to come and take up residence in the farmyard and the chicken houses.

I have recaptured them and carried them back but they are quickly out again and I cannot see where or how they get out; maybe by flinging themselves over the 3' chicken wire like pole-vaulters. Ah well. The grass will not get grazed but they do not seem to be doing much damage so I guess they can stay for now.

Spot the cat.

With the Play and all the visitors done for now, we have been able to slot back into the relaxing routine of 'normal' life. This has, rather delightfully. coincided with a superb improvement in the weather. We have had dry days now for what seems like weeks and lately blue skies and no wind with a lovely hot sun.

One of our black spruces.

The May Bank Holiday weekend was especially kind. We have both been out in the garden weeding, topping off tall weeds (plantain, docks, nettles) in the orchard, brush-cutting the rough stuff in the 'woods' (ground elder, nettles, elder re-growth, cow parsley etc), rediscovering the caravan for use as garden shed. We have also been out (Liz in shorts!) just enjoying the balmy heat sitting in our 'Darby and Joan' chairs looking back across the pond to the house.

The new evergreen oak. That should get
away nicely. 

Tonight we have both been out - Liz off to Knitting Club and enjoying the fact that she did not have to race away from that to the next Play Rehearsal (till midnight). I have joined the Tidy Towns group so I have been out litter picking, cleaning signs and weeding in the Lady's Club flower bed in the Cemetery. I know. Rock and Roll.

When you leave the curry left overs with no lid and the cats
 decide to raid the saucepan in the night. 

May Day also saw my dear aul' Mum turn 90, entertained by my younger brother Mark and all his family down in Swindon. Happy Birthday, Mum (Pud Lady). Many more.