Where there is Livestock there is Dead Stock

Gandalf's end. The stock pot.

My title this week is that hackneyed old trope much used by we smallholders as a form of tough, fatalistic sympathy (not good to show too much emotion - these are not pets after all!) when we or colleagues lose an animal. We'd love to be able to keep them all alive and healthy for ever but, no, as Shakespeare would (nearly) have it,

"All the farm’s a stage,
And all the birds and animals merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances......."

New Sheriff in town..... "Lucky"

So on Monday 3rd Dec our lovely 'alpha' rooster, pure-bred Marans "Gandalf the Grey" died for no discernible reason. He was in the coop and fell off his perch in the afternoon, found stiff and flat on the ground (but not fully cold) by Elizabeth at 'supper' time. He'd be about 2 years old, hatched in July 2016 from eggs we bought from Mayo-Liz's farrier and has been a fine rooster, beautiful looking and an excellent minder of his ladies. He was also very fertile and his DNA is in most of this year's hatch babies.

This made us smile - a gift of 6 cushions depicting cats on bikes.

Ah well, he ended up in the stock pot and his replacement, as far as we can tell (for now anyway) is a honey-coloured 6 month old youngster whom we are calling 'Lucky". Now THERE is bird who deserves his name and has had a very interesting life. He is lucky to be still with us. We are fairly sure "it was him" anyway. Back in May (22nd or so) he hatched under the hen we were then calling 'Cat Basket Lady' but got left out of the nest one 'nap time' and could not hop over the lip back to Mum's warmth. We found him 9/10 dead and cold on the concrete. I cupped him in my hands to get some warmth back into him and over 10-15 minutes he slowly came to, kicking and wriggling with increasing strength till I thought he was back with us. I slipped him back in under Mum and he lived to fight another day.

Plenty fruit in the diet now.

Weeks later he managed to hop up into a bucket, half filled with water and then jumped down in. The water was too deep for him to touch bottom, so he couldn't jump out again and was doomed to tread water, squeaking pitifully till he got waterlogged and sank. When you have tiny chicks, never leave them able to access water deeper than about 2 inches. Luckily I happened to go into the yard and heard him so was able to save his little life again and put him back with Mum. Since then he has survived all the fox attacks and also our culls of excess roosters. So, here he is now, promoted to the New Sheriff. Big boots to fill, Lucky. No pressure. He may only be 6 months old but I saw him 'nail' a hen this morning so at least he understands that part of the job description.

The fruit for the Christmas cake sits overnight steeping in an odd
mix of booze. Mum-in-Law had had a de-clutter of the dog-ends
from her drinks cabinet from last year.

What else is new as we bimble gently in towards Christmas like ski-ers on the gentlest blue run? Stir-up Sunday finally arrived on the Tuesday and all those part-mixed bowls of goodness were moved on to become cooked pud or cake. The cake is sitting a few days to mature before I will get amongst it with marzipan and icing. I have a good idea for the design but I'm keeping that under my hat for now.

Village Christmas Party

There was a very successful Christmas Party for the villagers down at the Village 'Centre' (Memorial Hall). Everyone works really hard to make these happen. The hall is laid out magnificently with all the festive napkins and what-not and the ladies all bring along great bowls of the various foods. You pay for the food and (if you like) bring along your own booze and something to drink it out of. The place was satisfyingly packed and everybody was very happy with the evening. A good success.

Lisacul 2019 Calendar.

The 2019 Lisacul Village Calendar has also been designed and printed and is now being sold. Once again it is mainly based on photographs taken for the '365' project but this year has a nice refreshing theme running through it. Each month has a village scene but also an inset picture of some local refreshments - tea, cake, soup etc and the front cover says "Will you have a cup of tea while you're here?" It is a lovely thing to have. If you, dear reader(s) got one from us last year then, do not worry, you will get another this year. They are nearly in the post. If you would like one, the the Village website is the place.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/lisacultoday/posts/?ref=notif

Getting back into the sourdough making.

Meanwhile, lest anyone forget that I am still soldiering on, a martyr to my suffering (OK I'm basically OK and pain-free but bear with me while I indulge myself in a couple of amusing 'sick' stories). Fluid retention. It's gone decidedly weird on me. This, you will recall is due to the general inefficiency of the current version of my heart (leaky valve) which is failing to move fluids properly around my body. When I was in hospital back in July, this was all about swollen ankles and we all watched with interest as they swelled or deflated day by day. Then a few weeks later this problem went away and it was all about knees. Now that version is also no longer in fashion and I have a taut band of 'swollen' around my gut but very high up; liver/diaphragm level. I have always had a bit of a 'beer belly' down in the standard place, bulging gently over my trouser waist-band, but this is like a high-up 10-pints a night thing. It seems most unfair given that I have not touched beer for months and am eating precious little. I offer up a fervent prayer that the heart surgery, once complete will sort all this out and move all this fluid (if such is what it is) on and out.

We are both impressed by this tin that
came around latest gin. We think that,
with the (plastic) lid off, it will make a nice
Christmas candle holder.

Finally I am mercifully nearly through my month of iron supplement tablets. I hate those things with a passion. They upset my system in too many ways. Everyone gets the unpleasant black sticky poo, I think, but I also suffer a month of farting, belching and feeling a continuous, low level nausea. It is just on the edge, there, of nearly but not quite starting to feel sick. I never have (vomited, I mean) though I've had a few episodes of dry-retching. It's all very unsettling and depressing of appetite. I approach every meal wondering whether it is wise to eat it. Ah well, only 5 more days to go on that one. I will then keep a low profile and hope that the GP does not remember she put me on it and needs to see whether it worked! :-). Not really - I will, of course follow all the medical advice as best I can.

Enough for this one. Till the next time. Good luck now.

Shannon's Cross Remembers

Western People from 9th July 1980

At one end of our lane lies the village of Lisacul. At the other is a crossroads which everyone local knows as "Shannon's Cross" (or Shannon Cross(ing)). It is just your basic junction, where the road from Lough Glynn to Ballaghaderreen meets our lane and a road off to the village of Moyne so it is very useful to us but very much anonymous.

Police car shot up at the scene.

You will find no sign saying Shannon Cross, or any road-signs pointing to it. The only map I have ever seen it on is the hand-painted "interpretive" map in the Garden of Remembrance in Lisacul. As far as we know it is named for the fact that the Shannon family owned the farm here and is nothing to do with the mighty River Shannon half an hour's drive away.

5 and a half tonne of Kilkenny rock. It is a very
fine Memorial Stone. 

This quiet cross roads was violently thrust into the spotlight of the national news here on the 8th July 1980 when some bank robbers trying to escape Ballaghaderren, where they had just held up a bank, rammed their car into a Garda (Police) car racing from Castlerea to try to intercept them and in the ensuing gun fight (Armelite rifles and pistols) two Officers were tragically shot and killed.

It is not my place to re-tell the story so I will provide a summary from the Internet. Wikipedia covers it well with... "Henry Byrne and John Morley, two officers of the Garda Síochána, the police force of Ireland, were murdered on 7 July 1980 by alleged members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) during a pursuit in the aftermath of a bank robbery near Loughglynn, County Roscommon. 

Flags for Roscommon, Sligo and Mayo plus
the Irish Tri-colour and the flag of the Garda
Síochána 

The officers' deaths provoked national outrage. Three men were apprehended, convicted and sentenced to death for capital murder. Two of the sentences were later reduced to 40 years imprisonment while the third was overturned....and...

Police Brass Band doing the honours

"On 7 July 1980 three armed and masked men raided the Bank of Ireland in Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon. The group held staff and customers at gunpoint before leaving with IR£35,000. Gardaí (Irish) police arrived on the scene but were unarmed and were unable to stop the armed men from escaping in a blue Ford Cortina.[1] The perpetrators were intercepted by a Garda patrol car from Castlerea station with four Gardaí, including Detective John Morley, who was armed with an Uzi submachine gun. The two cars collided at Shannon's Cross, Aghaderry, Loughglinn. One of the raiders jumped out of the Cortina and sprayed the patrol car with bullets, killing Garda Henry Byrne.

A good crowd for the unveiling.

One man left the Cortina and ran off while his two accomplices – wearing balaclavas – ran in the opposite direction. There was an exchange of shots in which Morley is believed to have wounded one of the men, but he himself was fatally wounded. Both of these men were later apprehended, while a third man - Peter Pringle- was arrested in the city of Galway almost two weeks later. The two other Gardaí - Sergeant Mick O'Malley and Garda Derek O'Kelly - survived the shootout".

The old original plaque on the wall of Castlerea Garda Station. 

There has been a Memorial plaque on the wall of the Castlerea Garda Station since the event, but the local people have now had erected a superb Memorial Stone on the crossroads and this was unveiled in a beautiful moving ceremony last week. There was a huge crowd, flags flying, politicians (4 from the 'lower' house, 2 including our friend Senator Frank Feighan from the upper) some giving speeches, a large group of Police including local 'top brass' and members of the Guards' families. 

A Memorial oak tree was planted by/for each
of the families at the Ceremony. 

Apart from the cross roads being a local junction, this blog can claim a couple of connections to the events of 1980 and to the Ceremony last week. First 'Civilian' on the scene after the shootings was none other than the Father and Son team who used to own and live at this house. Referred to in previous posts as the 'TK's they were father and brother to Friend of the Blog, 'Vendor Anna'. Dad was 70 at the time according to our old copy of Western People newspaper, son would have been (I think) 28. 

Manu (left) and Pedro (right)

They'd been shopping in Castlerea and were on their way home. Dad was a retired Guard. The paper tells that the killers "brandished guns at both and (Dad) struggled with one of them and knocked the gun from one before being overpowered". The killers then un-hitched Dad's trailer and hi-jacked his red VW Beetle to flee the scene. Dramatic stuff and very brave for an un-armed 70 year old retired 'cop' facing a man with an Armelite who had possibly already killed 2 Guards. More recently it has been some of Liz's work colleagues doing all the lovely stonework  for the Memorial, me taking a few pictures and Liz doing the Village website, Facebook and Twitter feeds advertising the event. It has been a lovely thing all together and the whole area has done the Guards and the families proud. The Memorial stone will be there for years to come. 

Manu in the 'gear'

In other news, we are continuing to enjoy and be impressed by our two Help-X lads, Manu and Pedro. They are working very hard and getting lots of good tidying, mowing, clearing and trimming done. We work solidly from 9 in the morning thru to 1 pm. They have settled in well and (regular readers will know we love this) are telling us that they feel very relaxed and at home. They are loving all the food and sleeping like logs. 

Tidying up the orchard. 

They are promising to cook for us (something Spanish) on Wednesday and Manu turns out to have an ability with the wood carving (totem poles etc!) so we have supplied him with a big tree-trunk and a set of chisels.  He will carve us "something to remember (them) by", he says. They have fallen in love with the pigs and now throw most of the cuttings/prunings in to the pigs rather than on the compost heap, so that they can say 'Hello' to the pigs and tickle them round the ears. The pigs are impressed too. More on these guys as their stay progresses.

Pedro's new 'best mate'? Pride.

2  minor dramas in the livestock section. One of the turkeys misjudges a leap from the 'patio' chair and gets his leg caught, leaving him half-hanging, chest on the ground but leg stranded 12 inches above him. I do not realise his distress for about an hour by which time his leg has gone numb. He is in the sick-bay now because his 'Brother' believes in kicking a man when he is down and was treading on him. Nice. He looks like he is getting the use back of his leg so we hope he will be better by morning. 

4 'minders' for the gosling. 

One of Beeb's 7 chicks, now 3 weeks old and quite well feathered, managed to get separated from the family by straying into the goose pen and incurring the wrath of Gorgeous George, the gander. The chick fled out the back of the pen and thus out of line of sight and sound of Mum. We tried to find her and re-unite them all but lost her in the long vegetation. We needn't have worried. She came back into the yard flying over a 3 foot wall, whirring wings like a pro! She landed close to Mum and scampered the rest of the way to a happy re-union. No mean flyer that baby. 

Maternity Chaos

Hubbard chick at 2 days

The little list of birds currently keeping us waiting grows ever longer. There is turkey hen Barbara, of course, possibly still AWOL, out there in the fields sitting on eggs or possibly hatchlings and maybe, just maybe, planning to walk them all back up here to the farmstead at some stage. At the other end of the 'hope' scale, of course, there is no Barbara and the bones of the former Barbara are drying out in the midden heap outside some fox's lair. We can only wait and see but turkeys are famously mainly grass-grazers, so if she is out there somewhere in the lush Roscommon grass, dodging the hooves of clumsy cattle and teaching the young 'uns to eat grass, we could be waiting a while.

The broody geese, sharing the manger 'trough' and swapping eggs between the two nests each day are also devoid of fluffy goslings. Day 28 for the first eggs we knew about, was 16th May, so we are fast running out of 'late hatching' but regular readers will know that our goose 'breeding' is fairly chaotic and the sister birds have been happily dropping new eggs into the trough for the last few months. There will be eggs in there coming due every day from now till Heaven knows when.

Class of 2016. 18 Hubbard chicks.

We have three separate broody chickens on the go at the moment. One is a-top a 4-bale high pile of straw, wedged up into the door lintel. I suspected when she started that she was sitting on nothing and today she hopped off and confirmed this for me. She has sat for 28 days on fresh air and straw. Might be time to move her on and break the habit. I was toying with the idea if she even hatched ONE egg, of sneaking a few 'ringers' in there (of which more soon).

Gone broody in an old dustbin

One is, rather daftly, in an empty feed bin, 2 feet tall and only containing a few bits of rubbish plus any straw that has fallen in. I was using it as the shed dustbin. This nest has also been plagued by all manner of other poultry hopping in there, squeezing the 'clocker' aside and laying 'cuckoo' eggs in there for her to brood. She had 11 including some Guinea Fowl eggs last time I looked. But think it through, hen! Once they hatch, how do you get them out into the world? I can see me having to do some surreptitious tipping over of the bin at some stage. The 3rd broody hen is the only one doing it sensibly in an actual nest box in the actual coop. Yes, it happens occasionally.

Holding up the beekeeping jobs. Blue asleep in a commercial
'super' box. 

The antidote to all this failed Maternity Suite malarkey is, of course, the annual purchase of our day-old 'Hubbard' meat birds. Hubbards are our most delicious and fast growing (free range) meat bird of choice and we are generously included in the run made by friends Anne and Simon up to an industrial scale hatchery up by the N. Ireland border where they know the team and are allowed to buy small quantities of day-olds (as opposed to the 10,000 bird batches the 'factory' would normally supply to commercial growers.) We 'ordered' 18 this year and these arrived on Wednesday. We had the brooder box set up ready and the 'electric hen' heater plate running. The babies quickly settled in while we fed tea, cake and home-cured 'serrano/palma' style ham to Anne and Simon and chatted. as usual, poultry, gardening and small holdering in general.

Neat and tidy now with a 'super' box (dark
green) added to the top of the stack and
the roof straightened out. 

Meanwhile, outside of poultry and broody birds, I have been settling in the new bees - after a few days of just sitting, getting to know the area, we tidied up the new hive removing the straps and gaffer tape that we'd secured it with, adding an empty super to give them more space (trying to discourage swarming) and settling the roof straight. In the dark we'd not lowered it on quite right and it was a bit drunken looking.

Although I know of no proper 'bluebell
 woods' within our 365 patch, once you
get your eye in, there are plenty of small
patches in hedge bases etc. 

This manipulation also gave us a chance to see if any more work was needed to set it up for summer, and we found, as T McC had said, that the upper brood box (painted white in my pic, above the silver gaffer tape) had some dummy blank frames in it. These will need replacing with proper frames and wax foundation for honey comb next time we are delving around in there.

Lough Adreen, in Cloonargid (Silver Field)

I have been out and about some more on the 365 project photography and as this week is 'Bio-Diversity' week I have been asked to go get pics of flora, fauna and 'natural' stuff. I found myself exploring one of the local cutting bogs down south of Lisacul, in 'Cloonargid' (Silver Field) and found this lovely little lough - I'd known it was there from the map; it is called Lough Adreen (there's no real translation unless the "dreen" is one of those transliteration jobs from 'small oak' like for Ballaghadereen (Bealach an Doirín)). I am convinced that even after 366 days of photography, I will still not have seen the whole patch. Which is good.

The Loneliness Of......

Friends will know that neither Liz nor I have a whole lot to do with jogging, running, athletics or other sporty pursuits but today we managed to get involved a bit in a Half Marathon. We had no idea such an event was to puff, sore-legged and aching of lungs, past our front gate, till a red car pulled up and a lady hopped out to drop a letter into our post box (and set off the dogs a-barking). This note told us that the 'Ros go Run' Half Marathon and 10 km were happening today (Sunday) and subtly asked that we, the locals "ensure our pets are safe and secure during the run" which we took to mean "please don't let your doggies chase our runners!"

The note's writer also thought we might like to join 'Ros go Run' on the day as a participant (unlikely!), by cheering on the runners or by 'leaving out bottles of water'.  Naturally they had a Facebook presence and there was also a website where we could see the route and found that it passed us at nearly the 12 mile mark, almost home, and was going eastbound, so would crest the hill at Una's, just up the road, and then relax (comparatively) with the long down-slope to 'Shannon's Cross' junction. We decided we could have some fun setting up an impromptu water-station with a sign 20 yards out, our table full of cups of water, and then our wheelie bin for the spent cups a few yards further on.

I had a go at recreating the font of the logo and added 'Downhill from here'; green fence paint and red gloss on an old (unbleached organic cotton, no less!) duvet cover. We woke up and got organised on the day so that we could do all the morning jobs, walk the dogs and be through lunchtime sandwiches by the time the first runners, on their 11:30 am start were likely to pass (about 1 pm, in fact). We had lots of marshals and organisers 'bibbing' us up and throwing thumbs-up signs as they drove by and the Parish Priest even stopped to chat and to thank us for "such encouragement". Most of the 60 or so runners accepted a drink, some just up-ending the cup over their over-heated heads and many exchanged banter and joked with us as they jogged by. By the 12th mile they were well spread out so that we only had one or two in view at any one time and I could not take my hoped for 'knot of runners' picture. The loneliness of the long distance runner? Fair play to them; by the time they reached us they'd run about 11 miles more than I could manage, and were raising money for MS Ireland, the Éire Óg GAA Club and Lisacul Community Development ltd. We could hear the cheers and tannoy noise going on at the GAA Club just down the road as the runners started to pull in, their Half Marathons completed. Eventually, about 2 pm, the course closing car came through to tell us we had 'had them all now'.

At last, colour break on the beef toms

We enjoyed the event and we assume our little bit of volunteering was appreciated by the club and the locals; it certainly was by the thirsty runners. This was the first such run organised by the Ros go Run team and is described as 'inaugural' on the website. They were pleased with their 60 entry as the event clashed with a bigger run in Westport which was thought to have maybe drawn 'the Mayo lot' away, and today was also a huge day for the GAA sport 'hurling', with the All Ireland Senior Final happening in Dublin. Just in case they come this way again next year, we will keep the sign.

7.2 kg of blackberries in about an hour and a half.

In other news, John Deere Bob invited us down to pick the blackberries in his home fields. It's a job we both like and it was a lovely warm afternoon, so we wandered down and picked 7.196 kg between us in a leisurely hour and a half. In some places the berries were so close packed on the ends of branches that it looked like there was a 'super-berry' made up of a dozen or so berries and in others individual fruits were better separated but very big, approaching the size of the top of your thumb. Thanks you very much, Bob.

Onions tied into ropes in the car port

Pirate the Cat is settling well now in his 'compromise' accommodation, our Utility Room. Although not part of the indoors, it is an indoor style room with dry-lined and plastered walls, lighting and a central heating radiator. It is also warmed by the 'exhaust' from the three freezers one of which, at least, will be extracting the heat from all those blackberries. We have pegged the cat flap half-open and he is happy nipping in and out through that. He does not like the cat flap to be closed as he bonks his nose on it, failing to see the transparent flap.

One of our apples and a slice of Liz's apple cake.

Now that we know him better, we are sure he has only around 25% of normal sight and walks into things which he does not know or realise are there. He will come in through the front door and then try to walk out through it even though it has been closed - it is dark red so we think he assumes the opening is still there for him. If I move the bits of sheep wire around to manage sheep movements, he will walk into any new barriers I create - sheep wire is fairly thick gauge but a 4-6 inch square mesh so I guess does not cast much of a profile on clouded cat-eye retinas. However, the Utility Room will stay unchanged for the foreseeable future, so he will get to know where his bed and food bowl are and the access 'hole' so he will be safe and sound, as well as warm and dry.

101 uses for an old barn roof. Shoring up the pig defences.

Finally, those who predicted I might need electric fence for the pigs might have a smile at this paragraph. Although the sheep wire with its ground level strand of barbed, has worked everywhere else, down in the ditch/wallow I have not been so sure of it. The ditch started as a nice 'V' shaped 4 feet deep cut, about 6 feet wide with the East Field fence a good 2 feet from the edge of the ditch. But the piggies have enjoyed the wallow and have expanded the width of it by rootling into (and undercutting) the banks, so that it is more like an 8 feet wide 'U' shape, with the edge now creeping up on the bottom of the fence. I am in the UK soon for a short while and I did not want the pigs to decide to break out while Liz was in charge, so I have shored up the bank with some of the curved corrugated sheets which came off the hay barn (see, sometimes we 'hoarders of junk who keep old scrap because it might come in useful some day' get it right!)  so that the pigs cannot rootle any further into my banks and pop up, butter-wouldn't-melt, among the sheep!

Stop Turning!

Silage making breaks out in Lisacul after our recent surprise (and very pleasant) succession of hot sunny days. Any animals or birds on the lane had better watch out, because these guys do not hang about and the machines are the big, heavy selection from what's available - big heavy tractors, mowing machines, balers and wrappers, bale trailers and then the slurry tankers to spread the stuff on the aftermath trying to ensure a good second cut in ten weeks or so. They are keen to get on and snatch the 'harvest' before the next rain front comes through so you hear engines roaring, balers grinding and clanging and the spreaders churning away up and down our ridge. This is the time when we were sure our cock-bird Guinea Fowl would 'get it' if he hadn't before now, sitting as he did, out in the lane watching over his egg-laying 'wife'. Sadly, you'll know, he was hit a while back and she has since kept clear of the lane, so we hope none of our lot are hit. We have only seen two road-kill casualties so far, a big hedgehog and then, yesterday, somebody's white cat which Liz stopped to pick up and move to the roadside ditch. Good harvest you silagers!

Candling Guinea Fowl eggs at Day 24

Today is day 24 for the 16 Guinea Fowl eggs in the incubator, so tomorrow, according to our book of words, we have to stop turning them and top up the humidifiers, then sit back and wait. They've been turned 4 or 5 times a day for these 24 days, you have to do this to ensure good development. I can remember learning in biology at school from some teacher who obviously knew how to catch his students' attention why you do this.

Hubbard chick at day 33. Enormous legs!

Apparently, in nature the mother bird is for ever rolling and shifting them and this means that not only do they all get a turn at the warmest centre of the clutch, but also that the embryo on the yolk, suspended on the spiral strands (chalazae) gets rolled around in the 'middle', not touching the outer membranes. If it is not rolled the embryo sags against the membranes and can grow welded to the membrane or in among it, leading to deformed and not properly grown chicks. Yoiks. Or maybe the teacher was just having us on. Strange things get lodged in your brain when you are a ghoulish school-boy! Anyway, I decided to candle a few of them again at this stage and held them to my ear. I am no expert at this but I think we are still OK. I swear I even saw twitching movement in one, not just the flopping about of dark debris, and also that I heard a tiny 'cheep' in one, but I'm not putting any money on the latter.

Geranium 'Orion'

This is also P-minus-3 day; we collect our pigs on Thursday. That will be quite an adventure. The farm, near Ballymount, Colbinstown, County Kildare, is two and a half hours away on Google Maps and our friend and rabbit-mentor, Charlotte wants to come along for the ride. We had to 'practise' getting the three of us into the little car with the pig (actually dog) crate to make sure we'd all fit. Charlotte will be a bit cosy in the back there along with Mapp and Lucia, but at least the little weaners will not be lonely. Liz is also promising to construct a picnic for the way down.

Sweet rocket. 

I have been reading up my 'National Pig Identification and Tracing System' documents to make sure I know what I am doing with the journey/movement paperwork, though I expect the seller will help me out if I get 'lost'. I have to contact a 'central agency' by (lo-call) phone to tell them about my new arrivals within 24 hours, quoting herd number and a secret 'PIN' code. Wish us luck. I hope to be able to post on Thursday that we have successfully completed this mission.

Lupins from Vendor Anna's seed

One other small drama and sad tale to report. We now have, as you know, one successful gosling back with his Dad, George and either Mum or Aunt, now out in the orchard each day, feeding well and growing like a Hubbard chick. The other goose stayed home to sit on the later eggs which we left her, for which we have no accurate dates so we are by no means certain when to expect hatches. Well, we had a hatch three days ago and woke up to a little, apparently happy, cheeping form in the nest along with the two female geese and George (Junior). But the broody seems to have a focus problem - she's mad keen on anything egg shaped but doesn't give a tinker's cuss about anything yellow and fluffy that might come out of the eggs, so the new chick was allowed to wander off and never an attempt to guide it back to the nest.

Beekeeping Federation magazine. Very professional.

There was no beak-to-beak nuzzling or any kind of recognition. I let George, Black Feather and the bigger gosling back 'home' from the orchard early thinking that BF might adopt it, or GJ might go and talk to it. It was a warm night, so we decided to not rescue it till morning if it still looked lost and abandoned. Sadly, the little mite never made it that far and it was a dead, cold, stiff gosling I had to gather up.

Deefer.

We will never know if this was bad parenting or something wrong with the chick causing them to instinctively ignore it, or a result of its rather on/off incubation period, or our bad husbandry. Possibly geese need a 'mass hatch' of the majority of eggs in one go, to trigger the change from 'incubate eggs' to 'rear chicks'. If there are any more and they look like being left, we will rescue sooner and give the baby a few days in the brooder under the lamp and then try a re-introduction. It's never boring.

Yellow flag iris in the pond.

Oh and then tomorrow, of course, is Happy Birthday to 4 of our animals - Towser and Poppy, Blue and Rolo all make it to 2 years old tomorrow, though if they shout me awake at ten to 6 again it might be a very short celebration.

The Golden 'Mile'

Widow 'Min' hanging with the 'hins' now

Big News! I am almost certain that we have had a goose hatching event! No pictures yet and I have not actually seen any fluffy gosling heads poking up through Black Feather's immaculate white feathers, but today she seemed more than normally protective of her spot and I am 99% sure I heard the thin weedy 'wick week week' noises  of new-hatch goslings coming from under her. I heard them a couple of times but (don't you know it?) when I went in there to 'show' Liz, all was innocent silence and Black Feather looking at us as if to say "Yeah? What?". More patience required on this one. Tomorrow I hope to see some gos-fluff and I will probably put some food down in case 'anyone' should be feeling a bit more adventurous than today.

One of ten Goldie x Kiwi bunnies at 16 days.

Meanwhile, you'll just have to make do with some cute baby bunny pictures. This heroic litter of 10 'kittens' by Charlotte's 'Kiwi' out of the doe 'Goldie' we got from Anne are doing really well. You may recall that we had all sorts of problems last year with bunnies fading and dying for no apparent reason; we just kept finding a new one dead each morning. Later on we started post-mortem-ing them and were surprised to find them dead with full, bloated bladders but we never got to the bottom of whether this might be an infection passed on from Goldie, a 'first litter' problem, bad husbandry on our (inexperienced) part, or something genetic. So far we have had no problems with dead 'uns and long may this continue. These ten seem pretty vigorous to us anyway.

6 white and 4 'Goldie' coloured. 

We know we are lucky enough to live in a lovely part of the world but we were delighted last week to 'discover' a breathtakingly beautiful walk within a stone's throw of the house. We had heard about 'The Golden Mile'  from the promotional village book produced by Lisacul as part of the tourism promo "The Gathering 2013" and knew from what Carolyn had told us that it was quite close to her house but on the other side of the River (Lung) and 'through' the forestry at the back of her house. To get to it you have to go into the village, cross the River, and come out again the south bank.

Then we got talking to John Deere Bob after his little 'dust up' with Jim B ( see my earlier post http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2014/05/the-run-around.html ) and it turns out the Golden Mile is just a bit further down the lane (Ball Court Lane) in which Jim has his yard and workshop, starting and finishing at the 'Old Kiltooan Graveyard'. The old graveyard, now out of use and replaced by the spick and span modern graveyard in the village, was where the villages went to hold their services and bury their dead. There is even an old track to it from the village called 'Dead Man's Lane', the route trodden by the pall bearers in those times.

Old Kiltooan Graveyard

Many of JD Bob's older ancestors are buried there. There are graves investigated by the Irish Archaeologists Society which date from the 1600's but most now are weathered into illegibility. The site and all paths to and from had been overtaken by decay and undergrowth, buried among chest-high brambles, fallen old ash tress and collapsed walls. About 8 years ago, the village (Lisacul) got involved in an environmental project designed to promote and inform people about old hedgerows. As we understand it they utilised labour from the Government quango "FÁS" (pronounced 'Foss or (almost) 'Force'), the (then) "Irish National Training and Employment Agency" (since dissolved).

The Golden Mile

These were young lads on training courses who needed practical experience with landscaping, gardening and forestry equipment. Who better to put to work clearing fallen trees and undergrowth, opening up old pathways and tidying up an old graveyard? Well, they created a marvelous thing - a beautiful walk in sunken paths which starts with a skirt around the graveyard (though you can walk through it if you choose), heads off into the paths between fields and loops back round on some newer tarmac lanes, back to the graveyard. It is buzzing with insects and  green with hedgerow herbs, wild strawberry, cranesbill, violets, hart's tongue ferns and the like, way more species than I am able to identify.

Stone steps into the graveyard, over
the wall.

There is a nice interpretive board at the start telling the newcomer what he/she might expect, though it is not well way-marked, so that you could easily take a wrong turn at some of the junctions. As we had expressed an interest, Bob himself offered to show us round the route and show us his family plot within the graveyard. Bob is not the fit young man he once was and can get a bit breathless but we needn't have worried. The whole 'Mile' is, in fact, only 1.03 km and almost flat, so he was well able for it. He only admitted to us, rather shame-faced afterwards, that although he knew the area, he had not actually done the full walk himself in its 8 years in existence! I have already posted that I have joined the bumblebee survey group, which involves walking set 'transepts' on a monthly basis and recording bees seen. The Golden Mile is now one such walk, and today, in the warm sunshine, I was happy to record my first score in double figures. Go the bees!.

Hubbard chicks at 14 days enjoy the sunshine

Meanwhile, back at home, we are now regularly putting the Hubbard chicks outside. Today's forecast had Roscommon up to 17 to 19 degrees in the sunshine, so the babies were outside for most of the day, but the night time temps were due to drop down towards 6, so they are not yet staying out overnight. You can see from the picture that their wings are well feathered and the new paint brush feathers 'in pin' are coming on their legs, chests and around their vents (bums!).

Hubbard Chick at 14 days.

It will not be long before we declare them 'fully feathered' and able to spend warmer nights out in the 'hutch'.