The Ploughman Homeward Plods.......

I have read that we 'artisan' bakers are meant to sign our work
with a trademark signature. I'm claiming this 'M' if no-one else
wants it.

With the boys from Help-X gone, the place settles back into a more sedate rate of progress, like Gray's 'Elegaic' ploughman (not sure if that is actually a word?). I love that poem and the homeward plodding ploughman image comes into my head often as I make my way back from any particularly wearying job or day.

Is this cat queue-ing up to get plucked next?

Main task this week has been 'plodding' through those Hubbard birds which we do by killing 2 early in the morning so that Liz can pluck and dress in the afternoon when they are completely bled out and the rigor mortis is leaving them. By now she is very good and skilled at this and the carcasses look very genuine, cleanly plucked and with no tears in the breast-skin. I have already given weights for the first half dozen, which made 2.2 to 2.9 kg. The last half dozen which we finished today stayed within that range. These birds are/were still not even 80 days old yet so we continue to be amazed at the growth rates of this strain.

The end of the rainbow is in the Hubbard run. No wonder we
get such good chickens. 

We now have a freezer well stocked with chicken portions and the raw materials for patés etc. It is a relief to get through this - it is quite hard work as well as the fact that I hate killing these birds. In some years we have done a 2nd batch starting about now and killing out just pre-Christmas but this year we will not need to do that. We currently have 22 small chicks/youngsters running around still undecided whether to grow up male or female.

Typical farm yard scene. I can see at least 12 poults here. We
have 22 now.

The Law of Averages tells us that 11 of these are likely to be roosters and will come to their moments of truth around Christmas. 12 Hubbards and 11 random 'coq's would surely be too much of a good thing. As it was Liz found she was wearing grooves in her hands pulling the bigger feathers and invested in some rubber-palm gardening gloves as protection.

Plum glut solutions (1). Plum vodka

As a nice coincidence (which also gave the chicken plucker a nice change of scene) our Victoria plum tree has come ready and is heavily laden with fruit. So laden in one case that a branch broke off under the weight of its bounty. We stripped over 4 kg fruit off that branch alone which had Liz scouring t'Internet for recipes.

Plum glut solutions (2). Preserved in syrup
and Chinese style Plum Sauce for those crispy
duck moments.

She made a plum vodka (like sloe gin), did a 'preserved in syrup' for dessert use and a Chinese style plum sauce for those crispy duck moments. The vodka should be ready, rather neatly, on 16th Dec. The remaining kgs left on the tree will probably become frozen halves or good aul' jam. We are almost out of jars, though, so we are looking for cheap sources of Kilners or honey jars before we dare start boiling.

Ooops. Sparrow-hawk 'snot'/blood and a feather on the kitchen
 window.

In a brief interlude, the well-used new kitchen nearly had a not-so-welcome (or careful) visitor. We were sitting in the Dining Room when a loud thump alerted us to a bird-strike.

Sparrowhawks are jink-between-the-trees ambush predators and this juvenile bird had obviously thought he could zoom in one window, shoot through the 20' kitchen and whistle out the other end into the yard, maybe catch a chaffinch napping. He came a real cropper on the new window and fell, stunned, to the path. We rushed up for leather gauntlets (and camera) ready to rescue him if need be but Liz was with him for only a minute before a curious hen wandered over and he came to, took off vertically and flapped away round the trees of our pig-pen. That was a relief but I would have liked a few pics.

The start of a new clump of Horse Radish.

I was on Twitter recently when I spotted that a friend had posted a pic of some horse-radish which she was digging for kitchen use. That is a plant we do not yet have, so I summoned up the cheek required and asked her if she might post me a root or two. She was happy to oblige and slipped some into the post that same day. It arrived safe and sound (Thank You 'An Post') yesterday and is already planted in a couple of tubs. Thank you Margaret G. She tells me that her plants actually started in Mayo and came to her (in Co. Meath) via a garden in Dublin. She says that she'll be very happy if I share it on in the future, a much travelled horse radish for sure.

Lidl Supermarket "cheapie" Glads

That is about it for this one. I will leave you with a few pics of flowers. The gladioli were from a bag of bulbs on offer in Lidl a few years back. They had long since out-grown their tub so I 'released' them into the edge of our woods where they are thriving.

They are so tall this year that they are getting knocked about a bit by the recent restless wind and rain. Like the rest of us they are probably longing for a snatch of 'proper' Summer but there does not seem to be any hint of that yet. Maybe the bog fires and forest fires of May were our Summer. Ah well. Till next time, then. Good Luck.

Very pale yellow hollyhock

Rudbeckia (Goldsturm)

Her Royal Honkiness

Our amazing dry spell continues all be it recently with a chill East wind taking the heat off unless you can find shelter. We are mud-less and puddle free and we are loving it but it is certainly too dry for some. The local forestry, bog-land and tracts of scrubby gorse are tinder-dry and wild fires burn across the hillsides for days, keeping the local fire crews busy. Here we are safe enough, being in the middle of a beef-grazing area (though we do have stands of trees and this house is pretty much surrounded by tall black spruce) but we see the big, wide-base plumes of dark smoke on the horizon. One fire was within 15 minutes drive, near Frenchpark. The wind will also be giving those guys problems.

Meanwhile, back here, a post full of miscellaneous jottings across a variety of subjects. First up, with the pigs arriving on Tuesday, I finally got round to creating the little nameplate I do every year so that their ark begins to resemble a much-won trophy with each year's plate attached. This year we have gone with names from literature, being the Empress of Blandings and the Pride of Matchingham.

Literary-minded readers will know that these were two Berkshire pigs competing for the local livestock show "Fattest Pig" prize in the PG Wodehouse books. PGW being, of course, he who wrote about Bertie Wooster and his manservant, Jeeves. Well, these pigs are not Berkshires (They are OSBs again) and neither are they both sows. Nor will they be overly fat but I like the names, so Empress and Pride they will be.

Plenty of blossom on our James Grieves, mainly a pollinator tree

The other sign in my pic is one I was asked to do by a good friend (Hi, Margaret G) when she saw a pic of my last year's ones. Her pigs are long-standing, breeding age beasts. "Honky" from "Her Royal Honkiness" is self explanatory but I always smile at 'Parker'. Parker was the long suffering, nasal-speaking manservant/chauffeur to Lady Penelope in the Thunderbirds series when I was little. "Yes..... Be-Lady" and from Margaret's feed on Twitter, it sounds like Parker is always having to give way to Honks as she claims the lion's share of new warm bedding, any new ark, food or pretty much ANY resource that a lady-pig could monopolise!

This week saw us at the end of this goose-egg season. The ladies in that frame have now gone broody, so they are keeping any more eggs well hidden under their skirts and we are happy to let them. They started laying on 14th November and we have had goose eggs continuously since then. I haven't counted them up yet but if we can't spare them a few to go 'Mumsy' on then we are not doing the welfare "Freedom to express natural behaviours" thing properly in my view.

Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled (swarming) masses yearning to
(come and live in a nice hive).

I have also deployed our honey bee swarm lure/box in the big ash tree just coinciding with the very warm (swarms a possibility) weather turning to our present bitingly cold Easterly breeze (swarming unlikely). We caught no swarm last year and I don't really expect to this year as at least 2 local bee keepers have come out of bees and there are very few apiaries where our box would be within scout-bee range.

Our first 2017 asparagus puts in an appearance.

Even so, I have baited the box as advised with old frames, a bit of honey and some sprigs of lemon balm. It is possible that if our own hive swarms and I can't get at the swarm (too high up, vanishes over a hedge while I'm not paying attention etc), the scout bees from that might find my box during their "house-hunt" phase and helpfully come nearly home again. Possible, but not very likely. 'First Prize' would be if I am there on the day they swarm, and they adjourn to a nice, low-hanging bit of hedge nearby where I can scoop them up.

Some gardening course output

Other than that, our main 'excitement' has been a gardening course offered to the Village for free, funded by local Training body "GRETB" (Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board) so accepted by Liz in her role at the Centre, publicised and marketed widely. Liz and I would know quite a lot about gardening, of course, but there is always more to learn and we also wanted to support the endeavour.

A very old, tumble-down apple tree at the bottom of our land
manages to show lots of blossom despite always looking as
if it is on its last legs.

Even while the play was on we made sure there was at least one of us present. It has been (it's still running) a very enjoyable course. The guy, Richard, is a lovely bloke full of neat tricks-of-the-trade and also very generous with his training materials - plants grown in his nursery, peat bought in bulk, even tubs and pots. We have had a great time and learned lots. We have been able to bring home no end of seeds sown, trays and tubs planted up. Liz has also had a wealth of 'stories' to keep the website fresh.

An old pile of brushwood with nettles growing through it?
Yes but dead centre, the dark hole is a sneaky chicken nest
hole - another secret outdoor stash discovered.

So where does that leave us? Pigs are just around the corner. The orchard is pretty with blossom and I spotted some first asparagus breaking surface today. I have been walking the dogs away from here in my car-ride sites, Kilrooan and Kiltybranks. At Kiltybranks this morning I not only saw a hare, but also 'found' a colony of sand martins digging nest-burrows into the vertical face of some newly dug peat.

Sweet chestnut.

The big diggers cut the blocks of turf out from a 3m "cliff" moving across the ground dropping the ground-level as they horizontally go. In this case the 'cliff' backs a dug out 'sump' full of water so the martins presumably think they are on a river bank. The peat is lovely and dry after our weeks of no rain and now drying East wind so must be easy digging. I do worry that Digger-man might come back and take another bite out of the cliff nests and all, sending the birds down through the hopper, extruded like toothpaste and laid out to dry for burning this coming winter. Stay safe you sand martins.