Last Logs and First Fixes

The Pulmonaria in the woods start into flower

A nice, compact, portable, user friendly, post today as we are in that quiet time between all the excitement of recent posts, and the burst of activity which is Spring. I have done a bit of planting in the tunnel and we have been buying seeds but the main (outdoor) garden is developing an "Elephant in the Room" status. It is THE BIG JOB this year. Fighting back into control of the 25*100 foot patch of ridged soil which I shamefully lost control of in 2016. I keep looking at it but the frosty weather, the rain and today's bitter wintry showers have so far stopped me getting the knee pads on and making a start.

The last bit of black spruce from the 2016
felling project, finally gets dragged out of
the woods and sliced up. 

If I feel bad about that, then I have been doing some bits outside lately to balance the books. I broke out the chain saw today and went round finishing off some jobs that had been on the list for a while too long. The last piece of black spruce trunk left from the 2016 'trees-on-the-lawn' felling project finally got dragged out of the woods and sliced up. Various fallen branches which had been lying in the sheep field and used as scratching posts and 'mineral' nibbles (sheep will nibble tree bark and twiggy bits when grass is not sufficiently nutritious) were chopped up so that they can be barrowed home as logs.

An elder and its neighbour growing from our boundary
bank at 45º were starting to impede our progress round to
the tunnel. (Base stump arrowed)

There were also a few branches stashed under the log store that needed dealing with - the bits were too long to go into the range (16" maximum) and the last of the "telegraph pole" sections and some big gnarly bits which needed splitting (too big diameter).

The dogs enjoying their daily off-lead time

Finally there were a couple of big, overgrown elders in the hedge by the poly-tunnel which had grown out of the bank at 45º. Each year they delight us with flowers and berries at easy-pick heights BUT they had begun to impede the progress of anyone walking dogs round the 'estate' or trying to get to the tunnel. I took these 'lads' down foot by foot and generated another useful stack of barrow-able logs, all be it elder is not that good a species for firewood.

Kitchen electrics 'first-fix'

The only other news is that we had our new 'Sparks' round to first-fix the electrics in the kitchen. It's not a massive job - we only need a light in the ceiling and a couple of double sockets with the new worktop. Only the latter bit gave the guy pause for a while - the plan had been to run a spur off a Sitting Room socket by drilling through the back of that socket to emerge in the kitchen.

When our original Sparks tried this he had the modern 'SDS' drill but had to buy a 1m long bit to get through our 50 cm walls at a 30º upward angle - he was installing 'carriage lights' out front. Conferring with this guy we decided that rather than buy another bit, we would take our spur from the old kitchen and 'chase' it through at one end of the new. This is now done and K-Dub and I can now proceed with the slabbing etc.

One of the marmalades makes short work of a chunk of
roast chicken pelvis. 

That is pretty much it. If you are feeling deprived (ha!) and in need of more 'Care Brothers' waffle, then let me point you at the blog of my younger bro', Mark. If my version of the retirement dream was to buy the 'farm' and keep livestock, then his was definitely to travel the world. He is a keen writer about these missions and packs his 'travelogue' posts with plenty of lovely photo's of the places he and his good lady have visited.

Most recently they have done a 4-weeker in New Zealand in which they drew heavily on the advice of a 'consultant/guide' for the itinerary. They went pretty much EVERYwhere and did lots of different things, so they have a wealth of pictures - scenery, cities, restaurants and food, a cathedral hit by the recent earthquake, dolphins. albatrosses and sea lions, 4 x 4 driving on dirt roads over the mountains, kayaking, even dropping in on 'Hastings' the town named after our own birthplace. The highlight for me, though was when they managed to do a light-aircraft "Sky Safari" over a superbly beautiful range of snow-capped, glacier-iced 'alps' on what must have been the blue-est sky clear conditions you could only dream about.

Go take a look at http://caretowers.blogspot.ie/2017/01/new-zealand-2017-day-20-day-in-tekapo.html . Nice one Mark!

The Donegal Postman

The pond is brim-full and still the rain falls.

After having finally found a break in the weather and enjoyed a whole day today out of doors in the gardening catching up with some much needed weeding and pruning, it seems mean to still post this post. Disloyal, ungrateful, even 'moany' perhaps, but I had this one all set in my head and I need to unload it to make room for the next one. We have had so much rain through July and into the first 6 days of August that even the locals are complaining. We have felt like we did on some of those narrow-boating holidays when we were all cooped up in the 56' by 6' floating "tube"; 8 of us and three dogs all steaming up the windows, wishing we could move.

Puddles on the drive.

Normally well used to the wet and stoic through the wet days the Irish seem to have run out of 'sense of humour' and given up on praying through the official channels. They turn their rain-splashed faces to one Michael Gallagher. "Who he?" I hear you ask (and well you might). This meteorological Messiah is none other than a country postman in County Donegal who has acheived local fame (and now, briefly, National renown) for being "always right" and, in the middle of the soggy month of July, was dishing out hope in the form of a predicted hot August. He is reported to be a keen studier of nature, convinced that the birds and animals KNOW stuff. This is not quite the clichéd "cows lying down" or "crows flying clockwise round t'spire" but it is close.

The 'waxies' get a re-coat of the protective wax. 

"For instance cattle and sheep will hide deep in the mountains in search of shelter when a cold spell is on the way.

Michael also said that a cold May is a good omen and a sign that we are in for a hot summer.

The cry of the curlew bird is usually a sign that we are in for heavy downpours but the postman has noticed a lack of them recently.

He also said that the fact that animals are not venturing to the upper plains of Donegal means that the good weather could be here to stay".

A lovely dark Delphinium drips after the
latest shower. 

Yes, I know it is all a bit of silliness on a slow news day (This one was in the Irish Mirror) but they lap it up here and the story was everywhere including all over National radio and everyone (including us, of course) was commenting that it might be wet but "there was some postman from Donegal who is 'always right' (apparently) predicting a hot August". Last year it was the turn of a sage from New Zealand who had a pet theory about the moon and planets aligning and who publishes an almanac which (allegedly again) "all the farmers buy". We looked it up and it was €22 plus postage from NZ so I doubt they do!

Dark purple buddleia. The bees love it but I've not seen any
butterflies on it yet. 

Well, I guess Michael Gallagher has gone a bit quiet as July's rain was replaced by rain from 1st to 6th of August but fair play to him. We hope he got a few pints in the pub from journalists trying to get hold of the story. Never say never, of course. It has been glorious today so we might be onto something. Met Éireann might not know it all with their gloomy talk of more anticyclones and frontal rain.

Up to their trotters in muck and mire.

It has been ironic that the piggies in August are wading about in 4-6 inches of sloppy mud around the entrance gate. We deliberately timed them to start in the (wet) spring and finish in the dust of August this year. Last year's Tamworths arrived here in June and as they came up ready in October we were worried about getting the trailer up to the gate to load them. If it had turned wet, we might be slithering about trying to push trailer and 180 kg of piggies through a morass to reach the car which would be sticking to the hard standing. I had visions of having to borrow JD Bob's tractor to tow the trailer to the hard ground.

The bees found the buddleia at last.

In the event, we had no such worries - the weather stayed dry and the trailer was easy to wheel across the ground. We could even have backed the car across the grass to hitch it on. But the 'fear' was there, so we decided to buy our pigs from the first litters in March/April, and have them finish in the nice reliable dry month of August. How we are laughing now! Now, obviously with pigs you must expect some chopping up of the ground - some people get pigs mainly for that purpose. We luckily have a well drained piece of territory for Mary and Isabelle but they have chopped up the earth round the gateways quite impressively and I have taken to feeding them over the fence away from the gateway, rather than continue with my twice daily, wellie-clad wade through with them "snapping at my heels" to the old feeding station, trying not to lose a wellie in the muck and mire.

This (deliberately)  poor address still made it.

Finally, while we are on postmen there has been another bit of national 'silliness' following the fun and games with the new 'Eircodes' (post codes) system. People have been trying to test their postmen by writing very short or jokey versions of addresses to see would the mail still get through. Our friend 'Airy Fox' told of one where a student had addressed a letter to his friend (also in Donegal) with "Your man Henderson; that boy with the glasses who is doing the PhD up there at Queen's in Belfast, Buncrana, Co Donegal" The punchline was inside the envelope, with the sender ribbing his mate that if he got the letter then he must live in a village.

Hen and Two still go off to roost in the gap where they hatched.

We were joking around that we bet that even if an envelope was addressed to us as "your man with the three white dog-eens, near Lisacul, Co Roscommon, then local postie Ger' would find us. Unbeknownst to us, Airy did exactly that (well, nearly, she did put 'Matt and Lizzie' at the top) and, yes, it got here. We wonder whether you could now be found if you merely put your post-code and Ireland but we think that this 'fun' is a bit irresponsible and must waste some postman time, plus they may have had a flush of these and could by now be getting tired of them. Credit to An Post again, though, for getting this one and thanks to Airy for the fun and the lovely card contained there-in.

OK, I'm Ready Now....

Our heatwave has been running now since at least the 6th and Liz tells me that we are officially back in drought mode after the required 19 days without any rain. When it started there were the usual round of people complaining about the heat and other people telling them not to complain as it had only just got hot after them moaning about the cold and wet. We went along with this not daring to complain about the sweltering heat, not praying for rain and avoiding any funny walk that might be interpreted as a rain dance just in case we pulled down upon ourselves another rain drenched wash out of a season like 2012.

As you know, many local farmers not only have silage cut and baled away but many have managed to get good cuts of quality, dry hay; the previous post shows that we were out there too, enjoying the chance to get some hay in for the mini horses and our own stock. All over Ireland peat-turf for the winter fuel has been cut, and now dried in stacks and, much to everyone's amazement also now safely gathered into barns. Compare that to last year when our own John Deere Bob could not get his dry enough at all and had to wait round till spring of this year before he dared collect it and bring it home.

All the English vegetable growing expert books tell you that when your onions are ready and the leafy tops have sagged to the ground, lift them out of the soil to break the roots and leave them on the surface in the sun to ripen. Renowned local organic grower (he has a place in Co Leitrim, just next door to Roscommon) and writer, Klaus Laitenburger poo-pooh all that saying, quite truthfully, that this method won't work in Ireland and your onions will just lie there in the rain going rotten. You need to put them in a greenhouse or poly tunnel to ripen. 'Out in the sunshine' is no good. Well, this year we have been able to do just that and I see from a picture on Mentor Anne's blog that Simon is doing the same.

'Flavour of the month' in meteorological circles in Ireland this year is a New Zealand writer, Ken Ring who advocates studying phases of the moon and the 'tides' in the atmospheric air and publishes an Almanac each year giving long term forecasts for NZ and Australia and, this year, Ireland where the local farmers are snapping them up despite the €33 cost of the book and postage from NZ. Well, so far he's right for this year - the dry July which looks like collapsing into rain in the last few days and the prospect of a hot August so he's been all over the Irish papers and radio where he rather rudely tells home-grown meteorologists, Met Éireann to 'stick to what they know and what they've been trained to do, which is the day to day stuff'.

Fair play to him if he has found an answer and I hope he sells plenty of books while he's in fashion but I can't help hearing my old Dad's voice in the back of my head. Dad (Stamp Man) was an old school Geography teacher and he used to say that even with the best Met Office computers in the world, there are so many unpredictable variables in British Isles weather that the forecasts could be 75% correct at 24 hours range, 50% at 2 days, 25% at 3 days and after that you might as well toss coins. Ken Ring would see him as one who should "stick to what they know". We'll wait and see.

Me? I've had enough of the heat and the stultifying inability to get on with jobs now and I am happy to wish for rain out loud. I don't mind if I do bring down a torrent upon myself. The garden needs it badly, the veg need water to fatten up properly (and to stop bolting away in the case of chard, calabrese and even a few of the onions) and the pond could do with a top up. No, I am not using mains water! The East Field, now being rested from the horses, could use a good soak to give us grass for the lambs arriving in a month. I have bought and, yesterday, installed our 2nd 1000 litre bulk water butt. This one is to be the reservoir for the sheep drinker. I'm ready now for some rain - may it come and fill my two tanks and the pond. Ken Ring can go back to being right after we've had a wet week.

The other pictures here are of a supper Liz prepared last night which we were proud to declare included almost entirely our own produce - we supplied the lamb, the French beans, lettuce, chard, calabrese, beetroot and mini-turnips, even the redcurrants. We are not quite there with the new spuds yet but they won't be long. The geese and goslings are by now looking like a group of 8 geese, with the big tall lanky babies now almost fully feathered, and Charlotte warning us that we might need to wing-clip them soon or we'll be watching Christmas dinner rising up into the sky and heading for the watery expanses of Lough Feigh and Lough Glynn. Perhaps if we pack enough milled barley into them they will get too fat to fly, faster than they get fully feathered. Huge leg muscles and puny chests!

Ah well, cloudy today and even Met Éireann saying some chance of rain showers late evening or in the night. Liz has just nipped down to the shops and brought me back a mint and choc Cornetto ice cream. Signing off now!