Doris Raises The Roof

"Entry Wound"? Only 3 panels ripped off the front of this
out building. 

From an unpromising start, the latest 'named' storm, Doris, blew up to become our scariest and most damaging yet. She felled a tree, ripped a huge hole in the main hen-house, flung two jackdaw pots into our East Field and damaged the poly tunnel. But let me start the story a bit more gently than that while she was still only 'looming' and we were going to bed. We'd seen the weather warnings but by bed time we still only had light winds. I even left a window a-jar to let the cats in and out.

"Exit Wound"? Half the roof is missing this side!

Around midnight I'd been woken a couple of times by the rising wind noise but, you know, cosy warm under the duvet, safe in the nice strong house.... At around 3 a.m. the bedroom door slammed shut - not a normal occurrence. I was immediately awake and quickly aware that there was quite some storm blowing. The a-jar window had been blown fully open and I sprinted round battening down the hatches - pulling all the windows properly closed and closing vents.

We're not leaving the site till this tree is out of the way.
In the right side of the pic between the green and the grey
tree-trunks you can see the root-plate of the down one.

I couldn't stop the noise though and lay there wide awake listening to every blast and buffet, every flex and reaction of the house, every external noise and howl of the wind in the wires and chimneys. I was scared stiff imagining all manner of destruction and wrecking going on out in the dark, unable to do a single thing about it, offering up fervent prayers that surely it would soon be over and the gaps between gusts were surely getting longer.

More firewood. I cut a gap in the tree so that we could come
and go up the driveway.

We woke up at first light - around 7 a.m. to Poppea barking madly - we still do not know what she was hearing; there was plenty of choice once we started looking out and exploring. One of the medium sized trees in our 'woods' had fallen across the drive and was lying half way across the lawn and part buried in the fence. We could see 3 panels had been ripped off the chicken house on the yard side (front). Half the roof was missing from the back, with 8 foot long corrugated sheets and pieces of roof timber strewn across the East Field. One corner of the poly tunnel had been 'walked' sideways so that the door no longer fitted and had been twisted off the bottom hinge. 2 of the jackdaw pots had been flung down from the chimneys; one was half way across the field.

Chicken shed with temporary tarpaulin covers.

But that was it and the rest of the 'damage' was just superficial stuff - pots and an rabbit hutch over-turned. The fence. The garden strewn with blown bits of twig and tree. They were all manageable problems and some even had up-sides. We were just going to have a couple of busy days sorting stuff out. No humans or livestock had been killed or hurt in the storm. The only immediate cost was that I had no tarpaulin big enough to cover that hole at 6m by 6m - I managed to find a 6 x 8 one at €130 on the Internet. The supplier could get it to me by "tomorrow" on the excellent couriers that ply our roads.

Once I had sliced out my chunk of tree
the stump gently rocked itself back upright

3 good friends (Sue and Rob plus 'new' friend Jim B) heard of our plight and volunteered smaller, temporary tarpaulins and the man hours of help needed to rig them. They would also return today when I had my new, big, tarpaulin. Angels. I love that about small-holders. Helping each other in times of difficulty goes with the spirit of the thing.

The trunk appears to hover 3 feet above
the ground. 

Our tree proved to be a black spruce aged 53 years. It had been 22m (72 feet) tall and was 1.42m (4.6') circumference at chest height. It was easy enough to cut out the drive-way gap and the trunk is, amusingly, now suspended at about 3' from the ground sitting on its side-branches as if it was on the perfect saw-horse. The bottom ten feet or so of trunk gently rocked back upright pushed by the springiness of the huge roots and pulled by the weight of the root plate. When you are a rookie chain-saw man you learn that trees can do this violently and with a real whip-action as soon as you cut the heavy top-parts free of the base and if you are wise, you position yourself and saw accordingly.

Life under canvas for the chickens and ducks. 

So with the drive clear, my crew turned up and Sue and Rob had brought spare old tyres (for weighing down the tarps) and a big reel of fencing cable to use as "guy-ropes". That was Thursday and Doris had not quite finished with us. It was still quite squally with some hail-storms so battling the tarps over the roof was quite challenging. It was a cold, wet gang who retreated indoors to welcome tea and buns laid on by the Lady of the House. The chooks were not too keen to re-enter their building - as well as having scared them half to death last night by falling apart while they slept, it was now semi-transparent and had a flappy roof.

That's more like it. Big new tough tarp well lashed down. 

By today my shiny new bigger tarpaulin had been delivered, so all my crew had told me to call them back for Round 2. By today the wind was mercifully almost gone and it had stopped raining and hailing. We made fairly short work of the big new tarp and the house looks like it could cope with a bit of weather again. The birds were much keener to go in on this 2nd day, even though it is now dark inside.

Rosy has been at the mineral lick again.
Note the brown nose and lips!

We are all praying that the next storm (Ewan) does not come along any time soon and that we will fairly soon be able to do a proper repair, replacing all this canvas with new corrugated. Friends of the Blog though, may find all this very reminiscent of the winter snug-down of the Cambria Sailing Barge - tarpaulins laced down with ropes, rubber tyres hung 'over the side' to protect you from damage to the paintwork against stone piers and wharves while you rode up and down on the tide at the moorings. We are very happy with this 'bodge' and reasonably confident of its ability to take some weather. The birds are snug inside. We will cope.

Still in the pet-carrier.

Finally a couple of pics of the new poults, our "Suzy's Six" mentioned in the last post but without a picture. Also a HUGE Thank You to my riggers who generously supplied tarps, tyres, 'string' and manhours, Sue and Rob plus Jim B, and to Liz of course for throwing ropes over the roof in between cooking up marvellous scones, dillisk biscuits, cake and tea. What a team.

Released into the covered rabbit run.

The Run Around

John Deere 5310 Tractor clutch

With John Deere Bob still tractor-less due to the clutch problem, I am by now, pretty much his own private driver. He needs to get down to check on his cattle each day and get to the shops and Post Office, the old boy, and he is also a fiercely independent type of bloke and must be going stir-crazy without his usual transport, so I am happy to help.  When Bob phones for a 'taxi' these runs normally go as advertised - "Could you take me to Lisacul?" and off we go to Lisacul. It's quick and of minimal inconvenience. But not yesterday. Yesterday a simple run turned into a Somerville and Ross style, farcical adventure worthy of a blog post, so I thought I would share it with you.

2 day old Hubbard Chick

Bob had taken a call from his repair man, Jim B which he understood to say that his tractor was fixed and he could come and collect it. I was half way through assembling my lunchtime sandwich but thought it would be so quick I'd take Bob to Jim's and leave the sandwich to complete on my return. Off we went, with Bob even saying that we needn't go 'lookering' first because he'd be able to do that in the repaired tractor. Something made me decide to stay with Bob till he had the keys in his hands and the tractor running, rather than just drop him and flee - he has no mobile, so would have been left stuck at Jim's if the tractor proved not to be ready.

The "Dirty Dozen" our new Hubbard chicks.

We could both see, as we walked in, that the tractor was still in bits, the front and rear halves separated and the 'guts' hanging out. No, said Jim, I didn't say the tractor was ready, only the clutch is ready and you can collect it from Brogan's in Ballintober, about 10 km beyond our nearby town of Castlerea. Now, a tractor clutch is not your simple disk and springs like you'd have in a car. It is a massive heavy assembly of casings, discs and sprung levers about 15 inches across, 6 inches 'deep' and weighing 30 kg or so. I could barely lift it. I am not sure how Jim thought Bob (70) was going to manage it, but that was now our mission. Oh, and it was going to cost €700 just for the part. Brogan's and Jim's labour would be on top of that, so we were going to need to find a bank.

As we approached Brogan's, Bob started looking nervously at his watch. Most garages, trades shops and the like have a genuine lunch hour in these places, shutting up shop from 1 pm to 2 pm. It was 13:03 as we pulled in to Brogan's yard and overalled mechanics were leaving in droves. We were looking at having to wait an hour in the road outside. BUT as we only needed to collect our bit and hand over €700, Mr Brogan was more than happy to do that before he closed. That was one plus-point in this tale. I lugged the cardboard box containing this mighty part to the car.

Heading back to Castlerea Bob voiced the need to find a bank and also said that the bank's lunch hour was 12:30 to 13:30, so we'd need to kill 20 minutes or so. He offered to treat me to lunch. Hester's, he suggested. This happens to be my favourite restaurant locally for my ideal Irish meal, 'bacon and cabbage'. 2nd plus point. We sprinted through a downpour from car to the Hotel and ate gratefully and hungrily - Bob has a hearty appetite too, and piled into his turkey and ham. Next to the bank where Bob drew out the extra money needed.

A first glimpse of Goldie's (rabbit) kittens at 3 days old.

From there 'home' to Jim's where we handed over the clutch only for Jim to heft it out of its box and declare, "You need to go back above, the PTO disc is not here!" (The local idiom is a bewildering mixture of 'over yonder', 'away above', 'beyond below' and other direction and elevation phrases which bear no relation to the longitude or altitude of destinations). Bob was a bit irritated by this and made the mistake, in his own calm, patient, quiet spoken way of suggesting that if he'd known he was going to get this much hassle he'd have had the job done in Brogan's. Unbeknownst to me he had already told Jim that our mutual friend 'Mike the Cows' had helpfully told Bob he could have done the job for €500. Jim had a melt down shouting and swearing, kicking cardboard boxes across the floor and letting fly a stream of invective which was mostly too fast and in such a powerful accent that I missed all bar the last three words which were "....so Fuck yeh!" as he stomped off from the garage and went round to his house. He was not happy. Bob tells me he is not generally like this and was "cross" because he must be having a bad day.

New 2 m 'tan' birch trees.

There was nothing for it but to head back to Ballintober and try to collect the part, both of us having fits of laughter at the theatrical anger of Jim. Bob kept referring to it in the car, rubbing his hands together and chuckling in his wheezy hissed laugh. We also had to go via Bob's so that he could change out of his wellies and into normal shoes. Oh, and could we also go check on the cows as he'd now need to do that from the car. From the cows then, to Bob's and back to Ballintober where Mr Brogan quickly found the missing part, the PTO disc (this one thankfully light and much smaller than the clutch itself). Mr B also had a laugh about Jim's meltdown, saying "He's a mean man today... It's thankful that he never grew up to be a big fella!" Back next towards Jim's but now Bob got cold feet about facing Jim's wrath and suggested that I drop him off at home and then drop the PTO disc to Jim's on my own. He even mischievously suggested that I stir Jim up by passing on Mr Brogan's message. No thank you, Bob. Well, Jim's beef had not been with me, so I guessed he'd be calmed down and, anyway, OK with me. So it proved. Jim tried a theatrical scowl as our Fiat pulled in to the yard again but his face split into a grin when he saw it was only me in the car. "Bob too scared to come back then?" he guessed.

So that was that. Jim had his part and had calmed down enough to laugh heartily at the fit he'd thrown. "He vexes me so!" said Jim, "He's on the phone every half an hour!" Ah well. No harm done. I had a nice chat with Jim telling him all about our rebuild of TK-Min's place and asking him about his garage and his work. He mainly does 4 wheel drive transmissions and big stuff like engine changes. We parted on the best of terms and it only remained for me to report back to Bob to let him know everybody was best friends again. Bob was still chuckling about the adventure today when we went out on today's mercifully short 'lookering' run.

Other than the clutch pic at the top of this post, the pictures today have nothing to do with Bob or his tractor parts. They are a quick way of saying that we have started another batch of Hubbard chicks, with big thanks to Anne and Simon for their pilgrimage up to the Border to collect ours as well as batches for other 'customers'. Secondly we have now seen a first glimpse of Goldie the rabbit's 'kittens' and thirdly we have now received from Carolyn and K-Dub a delivery of 'tan' birch trees which we have planted in the small copses we are starting around the pond garden.