A Visit From The Dans

Welcome aboard, Dan and Dan.

As promised, a post mainly about the current visit from Friends of the Blog, 'Dan and Dan(ielle)', a.k.a. "Mr and Mrs Dan". These two have been here before several times, but normally as a rest cure (though once Dan came alone, to write up a Masters thesis). This time they wanted to support us in our hour of need for volunteer labour, so were determined to be more like Help-X students than holiday makers. Most welcome and huge thanks, Dan and Dan. It had been lovely to see them again.

All three dogs adopt Danielle on the black sofa. Here, Deefer
seems to be doing a 'High 5'

They flew in to Knock on a very early flight on Wednesday having been woken up in Milton Keynes by an 0430 alarm. They hired a car at Knock; previously they have brought their own car across on the ferry but that loses them a whole day at either end, travelling.

Danielle on the mower. It was a bit random, but eventually the
mown patches got joined up.

I wasn't at all sure how the 'volunteering' would work out. They are city types with no garden and no experience of the physical jobs we might need doing round here on the small-holding; mowing, splitting logs and so on. Also, these two are family and good friends, so I did not want them to fail at anything or get upset, so I wondered if I might have to be a very gentle 'boss'.

Team effort alternating the mower pushing with the bag empties

In the event, I need not have worried. They are also enviably full of youth, strength and fitness, so they went at every task with enthusiasm, power and increasing skill and speed. They have LOADS done. Despite the early start and long travelling time, the first afternoon had them master the mower and mow the entire pond-garden.

Refreshments near Westport.

Day 2 and we all woke up to heavy drizzle, so mowing was off and the pair decided to go touristing, taking their hire car off to Westport, a look at Achill Island and some of the twisty, mountainy country roads of the "Wild Atlantic Way". They stopped, of course, at the odd pub for refreshments. Some of the pictures in this blog post are theirs, taken on their phones.

Dan getting tight into the edges by the living willow arch/tunnel

Today, then, back onto the treadmill with more work. They really got stuck in; Dan was still mowing at 5 pm! Other jobs today included breaking up the messy stack of old roof timbers from the chicken house into single clean lengths.

Attacking the pile of old roof beams.

This had been cut up as it stood, with all the 'A' shapes and 'T' joints intact, making for a very untidy pile. With Dan on the nail-bar and lump hammer and Danielle putting all the bits together like a giant jig-saw puzzle, the big random heap was quickly re-assembled as a neat efficient stack up on 'skids' out of the wet and flat of top for easy sheeting from the rain.

Dan goes lumberjack on the old hawthorn
hedge

One day I will be fit enough to zoom round it with the chain saw and reduce it to 16" lengths for the range. I pray! The chain saw is one piece of kit I do NOT let the volunteers play with.

The next job was unusual and, I suspect, a unique one locally. Friends of the Blog may recall that we have a decapitated hawthorn hedge up between the front lawn and the 'Primrose Path' and that we also have a ewe (Myfanwy) with an itchy patch in her middle back which we are just now starting to cure. Among the ewe's favourite scratching posts are some of the "overhanging" limbs of the old hedge which she can get right under and itch upwards.We want to put the sheep back on the front lawn (to save the mowing) but we needed to cut off all these offending limbs before we let Myfanwy anywhere near them, or she'd just open up all the nice new tender skin again.

Feast fit for a heart-patient? Don't worry, I
reined it in a bit!

Obviously, this was also a visit by cherished cousins, so the catering dept has also swung into full, 5-star, envelope pushing action. There has been duck in Guinness sauce followed by choc-cake and home made lemon ice cream. There has been a superb, creamy, cidery 'Somerset Pork'. There has been a gorgeous fish pie and a lunch time version of the full Irish (breakfast) fry. These have been well accompanied by interesting salads and side dishes.

Somerset Pork.

Danielle is a cider drinker, so she has been working her way through some local small-brewery, artisan type ciders and Dan loves the local "red ale" style beers, so he's been ranging around those.  I'm still on restricted fluids, so I get to taste these goodies but can only look at these pints getting poured and quaffed. One day......

Good Night all.

Ah well. That is surely enough for this one. Dan and Dan are here with us tomorrow and then head off back for their flight home on Sunday, so more on the  visit in Tuesday's post. Good luck now.

Much Ado About Ernesto.

Friends of the blog will know that Elizabeth loves her Shakespeare. You get very little of that standard of culture performed round these parts, so when we saw advertised a performance of "Much Ado About Nothing" by a group called the Pilgrim Players, she mentally signed up immediately. This was to be an outdoor, bring a picnic, performance in the grounds of the former Bishop's Palace (Edmondstown House) just outside Ballaghaderreen. I must confess that I cried off, thinking that 4 hours sitting out of doors in a cooling evening might be beyond me at this stage. Mrs C, not discouraged, was determined to go on her own if necessary.

Storm Ernesto's predicted track

With terrible timing, the weather forecast told us of a surprise named storm, Storm Ernesto barging through on that Saturday night with yellow warnings for wind and heavy rain, so Elizabeth donned coat, hat and umbrella and made sure her picnic was in a waterproof bag and Tupperware pots. You have to respect that determination and commitment.

The birds have quickly adopted the new roof timbers as
perches.

Fair play to the venue organisers, the seating area was equipped with straw bales and chairs, and slung over with parachute silk to keep off any light weather. It also had a space at the front where the players could nip in under cover with the audience and say their lines from very close range if need be. When mozzies started to be a problem, Elizabeth bartered some biscuits and clementines for a lend of a nearby man's insect repellent spray.

Connie (arrowed)  has ended her marathon broody-session
and come back to join the flock.

So, they all sat down and enjoyed the start of what proved to be a really good performance as the rain started to fall in earnest, quickly, soaking through the parachute silk and drenching the audience. Ernesto was just too powerful and mean-spirited in the end and Elizabeth got very wet and cold, but the play was only 75 minutes long, so she stuck it out with the rest of the audience. They even got to chat with the cast out front at the end. She was soon back indoors, complete change of clothes into the 'onesie', gin and tonic in her hand. Shame for a hoped for lovely evening as well as for the others in the audience and the players. We've had three months of heat wave, drought and perfect outdoor Shakespeare conditions, so it as a real shame that this all collapsed on the evening 18th August. We heard great things about the other 'shows', matinée and evening. We hope the venue and players are not put off organising more such plays next year.

The digging of the raised bed almost complete. Rain stopped
play about half an hour from the end. 

On the Sunday, two very good friends of the blog had offered to come and help with the hard work, knowing of my 'light duties' status and our Help-X blow-out. Specifically the guy of this couple was offering to do some hours of the heavy digging across the raised flower bed, easily worth a good evening meal and an overnight stay. These good people actually ended up doing a couple of other jobs as well and Elizabeth was inspired to some superb cooking to reward everybody.

There are some interesting colour schemes among this
year's hatched birds.

The evening meal was our 'Parma' style ham with melon, with a superb roast lamb (ours)  as main course with cauliflower (ours) cheese and 'Boulangere' potatoes, then Sussex Pond Pudding. You get an extra thrill at the good food when you know that many  of the ingredients are grown just outside the door. We have done very well for herbs this year, so even the mint in the mint sauce was picked and chopped minutes before serving. The fruit jelly for the meat (I *think* crab apple and red currant) was also ours.

The Bumbles are now half grown adolescents and spend a good
bit of each day (and some nights) away from Mum

If you are not familiar with  Sussex Pond, then it is a sweet suet pud (our suet, naturally) flavoured just by an organic lemon or bits there-of and cubes of soft brown sugar. No actual filling; just the oozing, sugared lemony-ness of the inner suet crust. Cream is available to 'cut' its richness. Although I was born and raised in Sussex, I cannot actually recall being fed it as a kiddie. Pud Lady (Mum) may want to correct me on that one.

Finally, a sheep story and another report of generous help from our lovely friends and neighbours. This concerns our youngest bought-in ewe, Myfanwy, who is about 4 years old at this stage and who, alone, did not get pregnant last winter. Over the last 18 months or so, I had noticed that Myf' periodically seemed to get a Jungle Book style itch in the middle of her back, about a foot forward of her 'tail'.

Myfanwy's sore, itchy patch.

She would rub herself at this spot under any convenient piece of hedge, fence or their shelter. She would wear down through the wool and start to break the skin, so that she sometimes oozed a little blood and it looked angry. Then she seemed to get over it, stopped itching it so that it all dried up, healed over, grew new wool and we all forgot all about it till the next time. These gaps were often months long and only when you saw her doing it again did it occur that this was the same place as last time. The raw patches were only ever an inch or so across. I never found any fly strike or other skin problems while shearing.

Nobody gets to refuse the worm/fluke drench when Charlotte
is in charge. 

Suddenly this year, she is at it again and has itched a huge patch, a good 5 inches across. Some of this patch is healed over, but to its left edge, the red-raw is looking serious. Small flies are starting to show a keen interest and they will not be helping the healing by keep on making tiny, irritating bites. I have tried to contact our vet but she is so busy these days that she rarely replies. I put out a plea on the Facebook small holder groups but did not get anything useful back - plenty of old wives' tales (Stockholm Tar, used sump oil, sheep dip, old Ivermectin (parasite-icide) you might have lying about, etc).

Charlotte messin' with the lotions and potions

Luckily, very good old friend of the blog, respected stock-wrangler and near neighbour Charlotte (of the Mini Horses) read of my plight and volunteered to come round, look at the sheep and do any treatment within her power. I drove out to collect her this lunchtime. Like me, she could find no maggots or any signs of other parasites - lice, fleas, eggs, poo - and the skin away from the lesion was all pale pink and healthy deep down between the wool. These guys tend to gather at the warmest spots on the sheep, so spine, kidneys and shoulders.

The ducks and drakes are starting to sort themselves out by
their green heads and curly tail feathers. 

General discomfort and irritation at skin level can sometimes be caused by worms internally, so we decided to worm/fluke drench the whole flock and to lather Myfanwy's lesion in a thick, coconut-oil like cream (actually meant for humans) called Pinewood's "Emulsifying Ointment BP". This might sting a bit on the open wounds when it first went on but soon calmed down and is thick enough that even as it warmed up to skin temperature it would not run off or get washed off. The little flies would hate it and they did, immediately stopping their landings and exploratory walking across the wound.

Deefer

I must now watch the sheep closely for a while, and apply new cream every couple of days or after heavy rain (basically as soon as I see more flies). I must also look out for scour (diarrhoea) which is a sign that the sheep may well have been carrying worms and are now shedding them (dead). This can upset their systems and would mean we'd need to re-dose after 4 weeks to catch any stragglers.

Towser

Ah well. That is enough for this one. Still no sign of the AWOL cat or the AWOL Guinea Hen, so these may not get mentioned again unless we get firm news (preferably good!). Everybody else is bimbling along just fine. It occurs to me that you have not seen pics of the dogs lately, so I will leave you with pics of all three taken today.

Poppea.

Have a good week.

Like a Duck to Water.

Shearing the first ewe, helped by Charlotte

The main story today (certainly the freshest) was the shearing of the sheep. We were coming round to that time of year and the forecast spoke of a heatwave held back only by a Northerly air-stream which had been keeping our temperatures down in the 14ºC area. Sheep-folk begin to worry about heat and the dreaded fly-strike but we need 3 rainless days to make sure the sheep are dry.

Charlotte tackles Polly, our grey Jacob cross ewe.

Waterlogged fleeces and electric hand held clippers are not a good mixture even for we smallholders; the commercial boys worry more about the wet fleeces not being sale-able to the buyers as they are 'dishonestly' heavy. Our wool all ends up on the compost heap so that side of things does not worry us. This year I have ace sheep-wrangler and stock-person, Charlotte (of the mini-horses) back down from Dublin, working locally and keen to help with any shearing I do on her days off. Elizabeth is happy to step aside and we all benefit from the "shearer's chocolate cakes" which get baked while we shear.

Self conscious 'naked' sheep?

So, there we were, all organised from Tuesday and delighted at the lack of rain come this morning, so I raced out to Sligo to collect Charlotte and then we were all go. I love working with Charlotte and even now, 6 years in, I still learn from her. My shearing technique is to zoom up the sheep from dock to neck in long "blows" which can be fast but can leave the sheep striped like larch-lap fencing. Charlotte tends to scoop little blows out, rolling the cutting edge away from the sheep almost as soon as she has 'delved' into the fleece. It's a bit slower but very neat. The whole sheep has maybe a few mm more 'pile' left but there are none of my 'almost pink' patches or any stripes.

All done here. Charlotte is just practising her 'upside down'
technique on one of the lambs. 

We are both impressed by how much heat 'comes out' when we open up that fleece with the first 'blow' up the spine. On a sunny, windless day, the girls are living inside a 3" to 4" pile woolly overcoat and I am sure their skin temperature must be up there at blood heat. When you first glide the shears up the spine and 'unzip' the fleece, the sheep's skin is way, way hotter than your hand - probably 10-15ºC hotter.

Nobody wants the old fleeces so they
go on the compost. 

Healthy sheep have temperatures of around 38.5ºC. By the time you finish shearing, 30 minutes later, the whole animal has cooled down and the skin is more like human skin temperature. They get a whole new lease of life and go scampering round the field with relieved expressions.

The gang spent some time in the orchard prior to shearing.

The other thing we all love is the sudden change from spherical, broad-in-the-beam shaped sheep to tiny, thin, angular, goat-bony light-weights who look not that much bigger than their lambs. They were possibly rounder than normal this year because we'd been struggling to get some good grass into them to get some condition on after them lambing in the hard Winter, and we'd moved them into the orchard for a couple of days. My hope was that when we called them into the cattle race to be 'done' they'd not be so starving that the small amount of 'crunch' they'd get wouldn't leave them bleating piteously. That went OK.

The oak (left) before the ash? You decide. 

Friends of the Blog may also recall that the biggest ewe, Myfanwy, had not (yet) lambed, and I do not actually know whether she is pregnant. Back in February when we 'offed' the ram, Pedro, one of the reasons was that he had started attacking Myfanwy and I did not know whether this was just sex fore-play or annoyance at her rejecting him. In theory, as he was with us till Feb 5th, she might still lamb till 5th July. I was keen to get Charlotte's assessment once the ewe was sheared and we could all get a look at her shape and her udder. The consensus is that she's just big, having not needed to feed a lamb (or two). Ah well.

Hen with ridiculous hair (Donaldina (Trump)) goes broody
in the duck box.

Meanwhile, I am amused to note that our drakes, newly bereft of their last lady-duck have suddenly taken to going on the pond. For 2 years they have showed no interest and I have been delighted that they've left the pond alone with it's gin-clear water and healthy plants (and fauna). Back on Wednesday I may have been witness to the tiny, short, insignificant-looking event which changed all this. I had gone out to sit by the pond with the dogs all milling around harmlessly at my feet. A Guinea Fowl was calling from the 5 acre field behind me and then came zooming over to land on the grass nearby.

A new sight here - ducks on the pond. 

The dogs, excited by this flurry of movement took off at a run towards the Guinea which set one of the drakes off also flying about 2 feet from the grass. Quite by accident, I am sure, it touched down right near a dog and opted for a bounce and sidestep which pitched it into the pond for possible the first time in it's life. I watched with amusement at it's change of body language and facial expression as it went from "Oh crap! Now I'm in the pond!" via "Coo... I seem to be floating....perhaps this is not so bad after all" to finally "Mmmm... I LIKE this... look... I can paddle my feet and swim!".

Our 3 young lime trees are suddenly
covered in leaves.

There has been no holding that drake back since and he has now taken his brother on to the water to share the joy. The pair go every morning for a dabble, a swim and a water-borne preen and splash about. It remains to be seen how much damage they do and how long their welcome lasts.

Another wishbone for the car. €170 supplied and fitted
(incl. wheel alignment)

There have been just 3 other stories brewing. The car has had to go back to the garage (ker-ching €€€€€) to have to 'other' side wishbone changed and the steering re-aligned once more, for uneven tyre wear. "State of the roads round here," said the man, "I'd recommend to anyone to get alignments checked every 6 months" Never heard of that before in the UK, but there are many potholes here, plus savage 'sleeping policemen' and just general yumpy-bumpy bog roads.

In with the new, out with the old. Lidl's at Castlerea.

Our local and much loved Lidl supermarket is temporarily erased from the face of the earth. The new shop has been under construction 'next door' for a while but for 3 weeks the old has been shut while they make final changes and move all the trading across. I was impressed by how fast 'they' cleared the site. I had shopped in there on Tuesday 8th May. By the time I tried to shop again (Tuesday 15th) it was shut, demolished and cleared away as if it had never been. Impressive feat.

The pigs look great under the now fully in-leaf beech.

Finally, we are now expecting the arrival of our next Help-X volunteer, Laura D, our first try at having a helper of the female persuasion. She was booked in for Monday but has since asked if she might arrive on Saturday (tomorrow). We have no problem with that except that Elizabeth has the car down at Steak Lady's place (There's a Royal Wedding on, apparently and the Ladies are going to do it justice in their own Living room, sat around the TV with the fancy hats, party food and drinkies). I would not be able to nip and collect her from the railway/bus stations. So Laura, not to be put off, is going to try her 'travelling' skills out against the trains, buses, taxis and possibly hitch-hiker picker uppers and try to get here anyway. Good luck, Laura. Safe journey. See you soon. Just don't know HOW soon.

Rent a Reverser (?)

A first look for Tigger, at the soggy, puddle-strewn front lawn

At just a week old, newest lamb 'Tigger' is thriving. I have been getting him out of the Tígín (along with his Mum, Lily, of course) each day for a run around on the front lawn. He seems to love this, following his Mum around as she grazes but often charging away from her a few yards in a mad, bouncy 'pronking' tip-toes gait of a deer, and then zooming back to her side.

Staying close to Mum

I am 'doing' them alone on the front lawn for the moment because I am not 100% sure of the ram Pedro leaving him alone and because it makes the process of letting him out and getting him back in of an afternoon, a whole lot less complicated. Trying to extract them from the East Field while not letting the rest out to play is more risky a prospect than I need.

I am not sure about Pedro anyway - I have seen him chasing the big ewe Myfanwy about and butting her a bit too aggressively for my liking so, even though he has not had a go at me, we may part company soon one way or another. At the moment I have him up for sale on the Irish 'classified ads' website (DoneDeal.ie) but I have not even had a 'tickle' so he may end up in the freezer. We'll see. If his chasing of 'Myf' is due to her not being pregnant yet and now coming on heat, then that might see him forgiven, but nobody needs a ram trying to 'T-bone' their in-lamb ewes in the midriff.

A house favourite use for a sheet of belly-pork. Mini porchetta.

Talking of animals going to the butcher's, I was involved over the last 24 hours in our good friends Sue and Rob finally getting their 2017 pigs off to Webb's in Castlerea. Friends of the blog may recall that Sue and Rob came with us over to the breeder's place near Boyle on the day we went out to collect our own pigs, 10 week olds Pride and Empress. They chose much younger babies, maybe 6 weeks old, so they were already a month behind us on schedules.

Thanks very much 'Steak-Lady' for this framed print, latest
Paris-themed picture in our collection. 

Their pair came ready about a month after ours (end of October) but Sue and Rob had little space in their freezers, so decided to keep the pigs on till after Christmas. It was very wet and now the time came, they asked me for help extracting the pigs from their 'swamp' and getting them into their trailer. Also, Sue, by her own admission "cannot reverse the trailer for a toffee" (and Rob can't drive anyway) , so could I help out at the other end of the journey, reversing her 4x4 and the trailer into the tiny narrow 'slot' between buildings which is the butcher's answer to a "loading bay".

Paris scene

That all went swimmingly in the event. Rob had constructed a really good, pig-proof 'race' up from the swamp to the hard standing and those pigs had been kept hungry so that they would be suckers for the bribe of a rattled food bucket. Pigs never explore anywhere new fast - they just amble along with their noses to the ground, taking an occasional step. They will not be hurried and you are a fool if you try. If you did spook them and made them bolt, you are not going to stop 80 kg of charging pig, so the best bet is to let them amble along and just gently (but firmly) close the ground behind them by nudging up against their bums with a big board. By this method, Sue guided them up the 'race', and Rob and I nudged up behind them till they eventually went up the ramp and we could close the trailer on them.

Pig haulier's breakfast.

In the morning, I'd set the alarm for 7 so that I could meet Sue with the 'load' at the butcher's nice and early while there was not much traffic about for us to upset. It is a known bad manouvre - the narrow gap is at 90º to a narrow but busy main street in the town. The gap is only about 6 feet wide, so as you slot your trailer neatly and professionally in (ahh shucks!), don't go in past the kerb with the truck or you will not be able to open the doors and get out! We managed that OK with Sue seeing me back and then, with the pigs unloaded and safely into the lairage, Sue finished all the paperwork, I bought a pack of Webb's superb dry-cure rashers and we adjourned to local Deli, Benny's for a celebratory coffee. Job well done. I even grabbed some croissants and Danish pastries 'to go' so that Liz and I could have a nice breakfast back at the ranch.

My new favourite Irish author, currently filling the gap left in my
reading due to running out of Maeve Binchy books.

In other news, we have been quite deeply involved in a local funeral. No names, no pack drill for the usual reasons. I think if you ask any Brit who has moved over here, what is the biggest single difference in local village or community life that they noticed compared to the UK, it will be the Irish way of death. In 55 years in the UK I probably went to half a dozen funerals at most and all of them small, quiet affairs which involved you to attend for only a short time.

Comparatively, the Irish funeral is massive, especially in rural areas where everybody would know the family of the deceased especially if they have lived in the community for all their life. Hundreds of people will attend and the proceedings can easily take up the evening prior and all of the day of the actual burial. Family and friends who have long since left Ireland in search of work or what-ever will make the trip home to be part of it. The deceased may even be one of the 'diaspora' wishing to be laid to rest in the family plot back in the village of their birth.

I apologise hugely in advance if I have any of this wrong - please do comment and I will make corrections. The last thing I want to do is cause any offence to anyone involved in 'this' or any other funeral. The proceedings follow a sequence something like this, with every bit attended by a good many of the mourners. First is the 'reposing' where the deceased is laid in the coffin at the Funeral Parlour  - you queue outside for yards down the pavement to get in one door and you slowly process, shuffling forward to view the departed and then shake hands with the immediate family . It is good to have something to say to each - I have taken to using popular local expression "Sorry for your trouble". You then shuffle down the out-corridor to the exit, passing the book of condolences on the way. This stage takes a couple of hours to get everyone through. It is common for the coffin to be open at this stage, so that you see the deceased - I have not got used to that bit yet.

Next is the 'Removal', where the coffin is taken by hearse to the church, commonly followed by all those mourners in dozens of cars - an impressive cortege threading its way down the country lanes. The hearse may pause at the house where the deceased lived, or was born, letting the 'late' soul know that he is really home, I guess. This is followed by the Mass itself. Mass going is way more popular here than (taking Communion) in the UK and churches are packed every Sunday, so it is no surprise that all our mourners pack the church for this bit, likely to be the most familiar to mourners in the UK.

Next we move to the graveyard. Depending on distance this might be all back in the cars or walking. This is the 'Burial' and can involve, again, a big group of mourners gathered round while more prayers are said and the coffin lowered into the grave. Some of these graveyards can be on quite bleak, windy hilltops, so the wise mourner equips with a warm coat, hat and gloves. We then adjourn, if invited, to a suitable location for 'Refreshments' - in the case of my Father in Law (Theo), this was a nearby pub for drinks (obviously), welcome hot soup and bread, with sandwiches or even a full 3-course meal, maybe stew and veg and a dessert. This stage can go on as long as you want - there will often be live music and happy chatter as family members and friends who may not have seen each other since the last funeral catch up on gossip and each others lives.

You Brits can see that this all adds up to quite a day, an impressive event. More amazing (to us) is that this all happens generally within days of the passing away of the person, the whole 'machine' fires up and all the stages are organised and slotted into place. In the UK, that is normally the work of weeks - we hear that person X has died and maybe 3 weeks later we find out the arrangements for the funeral. They KNOW that this is all a bit special here and there have been some excellent (including funny in some cases) books written and TV programmes made explaining the process. I hesitate to compete with those, but thought my UK friends might like a small flavour of what it means when someone here says "There was a funeral".

Additional reading - Try the book "How to be Irish" by David Slattery

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Irish-Uncovering-Curiosities-Behaviour/dp/1871305241

Silas the Tiny (and Blue)

Travelling First Class - Silas arrives in Sue's car.

"Holy Apostle", Silas you may recall from your Sunday School days, was one of Paul's merry men from the adventures preaching to assorted Thessalonians, Corinthians, Antioch and the like. Or you can look him up in Google, the same way I had to! Well, to us, now, he is much more recent and way less holy - Silas is this year's 'tup' or ram-lamb, staying here for 5 weeks or so while he works his way round our 4 ewes getting them all into lamb. Possibly. I say 'possibly' because the lad is still rather small. The name comes from a white cross on his face when he was a young one.

Larruping the gooey blue 'raddle' grease onto Silas's chest

Born this year he has not grown anything like as fast as our lambs and was about a month later coming into the world. His size is probably something to do with the fact that he was an orphan or 'sock' lamb and had to be hand-reared with no real ewe's milk to go at. No matter, we are going to give him a try out and he will no doubt enjoy the practise this year and whether or not he 'scores' we are fairly relaxed about how many lambs we get in 2017. We will have him back next year (all being well) as an 18 month old, bigger and more experienced chap.

Sue leads Silas out to meet his new 'women'

Because we want to know if and when he does manage to mount the ewes (so that we can do the 5-month calculation on the calendar), we have 'raddled' him; in this case bright blue. For the uninitiated, raddle is a coloured oily mess you slap onto and massage into his chest and lower neck so that, when he mounts the ewe he cannot avoid 'painting' her rump with the stuff. You buy it as a tub of 450 g of blue (or other colours) "chalk" powder and mix it to a sloppy paste with ordinary vegetable oil. You can, if you prefer, and have more money than we do, buy it as a fancy wax 'crayon' which fits into a leather harness which holds it in position under the boy's chest. You can even buy it in 'hot weather' and 'cold weather' versions to adjust its 'painting ability' to the frost and sunshine. Yeah right.

Please don't leave me behind.....

We had Sue deliver him while he was still wearing his head collar and lead, so that she could keep a hold of him while I smeared him blue and then lead him in to meet the ladies. He was a bit nervous when faced with these 4 bigger sheep and none of us could shake off the impression that he was a small child being taken to 'big school' by his Mum on that first day. He clung to Sue a bit and didn't really want to be left behind.

It's only vegetable oil - it washes off (I was relieved to find!)

Our biggest and possibly 'alpha' ewe Myfanwy came over and gave him a good sniffing including that lift-the-upper-lip thing they do when chatting each other up. We took that as a good sign. Myf' also gave him a couple of play butts just to make sure he knew she was boss and our new this year ewe-lamb (Rosie) also showed an interest. So, there he was. He's in there now and looks OK. He certainly has a strong appetite for our good grass and fiercely defends his corner of the breakfast (crunch) trough. As of tonight he has not 'scored' yet (no blue rumps, so far) but that would be normal. The ewes would expect to come into heat in the presence of a male, and may take some days. They may not have been anywhere near ready, living in the ladies-only flock as they were up till yesterday. Patience is the thing.

An interesting use for left over Dabinette cider apples. Liz
made this apple, lemon and star-anise jelly. 

In an amusingly related story, I was over in Sligo yesterday morning helping K-Dub build another stone wall when an old boy pulled up outside in a lovely vintage red MF tractor which was, in turn, pulling an equally vintage stock trailer. We didn't know the fella - he was just "generic weather-beaten, leathery Sligo farmer bloke". He strolled over and asked did 'we' have a Billy Goat (presumably knowing full well that 'we' (actually Charlotte) did - you can see the goats from the road. He had his Nanny goat in the trailer, he said, and she was on heat, so might he put her to the Billy.

The new calendars start to leave the country

We called C out from the house and she, obviously amused, took man and goat out to meet the boy. Billy was well up for any action and came racing down the field but our (human) ladies could immediately tell that the goat was nothing like on heat (no swollen vulva, no tail wagging) so there was to be no mounting and Sligo-farmer had to lead his charge off un-impregnated. C found out that he wants the goat 'in-kid' so that she comes into milk and he can put orphan lambs to her. The Billy he normally uses is locked in a "cage" he said on a farm where you can never get hold of the farmer. It is in a cage because it is "so fierce!", he said. C has invited him to try again next week and has also put in a bid for the goat-kid(s) which he presumably disposes of if he's feeding the nanny-milk to his lambs. The tractor, he protested, is not some lovingly restored 'vintage' machine - just his own, long-loved work-a-day farm machine.

Then there was Hallowe'en. We are not sure very much Hallowe'en happened down this lane before we arrived, there not being many kiddies down here of the right age. We arrived fresh from the UK and also filled with enthusiasm gained by association with the Silverwoods crowd and the mad party of armies of Estate children, squillions of Euro spent on sweeties and more still on dry ice, special effects, electronic ghosties and ghoulies and sound effects. In our first year we decided to put a rather tentative pumpkin lantern on the gate pier down in the lane and a few more small lights up the drive, bought ourselves a modest stash of chocs and wondered whether our 'advert' (open for business, up for some Trick-or-Treat kids?) would attract anyone.

We got one family, as I recall - near neighbours. Mum in Hi-viz and driving people carrier. Kids all costumed up. We've done it ever since. In the 2nd year it was lashing rain and I think we got no-one, but since then the word seems to have been spreading that you can go to 'that place down the lane'. This year we had a visit from K-Dub and co (OK, I admit I had invited them) but then in quick succession 4 very nice families finishing up with a crowd of 8 or so which included the little ones from 4 years ago. They descended upon our sweeties like a plague of locusts, 16 little hands scrabbling for the chocs and lollipops. They cleaned us out. They had lovely costumes - there was even a Donald Trump!

It was late enough by then, though, that we decided we could safely shut up shop to save having to disappoint any other families, so I whizzed round retrieving the pumpkins and blowing out lanterns. I'm not sure what the going rate is for the 'Trick' part of Trick or Treat - what happens to you if you cannot give the kids any sweets (or you just don't). I hear some houses get 'egged' (fresh raw eggs thrown at the front door). Our local kids do not seem to be that cynical and are, anyway, being driven round by parents, so I'd hope do not run to those Hallowe'en horrors. We got away with it anyway. One of the Dads told me today that he had hidden himself in a field while the children came up to our door and then sneaked along the lane behind them in the field before jumping out of the hedge at them in the dark, scaring them half to death before giving them a bucket of sweets.  Good Night Kiddies. Don't have nightmares now! See you next year. I will have to buy more sweeties.