Repeal the 8th

Gorse to our North glowing in the morning
sun.

Any Irish person of around Elizabeth's age will tell you a similar story of the Irish education system's attempts to teach them all the Irish language. Irish schooling is famously identical throughout the land. There is only one 'examinations board' so every child from Cork to Donegal and from Galway to Dublin learns exactly the same syllabus from the same books and takes identical exams on identical dates and at the same times.

Apple Blossom

In the case of the Irish language which was taught very badly, in a dry and dusty fashion, 'by rote' and using some dire text books, this meant that those same people all have the same memories of hating having to learn Irish which they saw as a dead language and of no relevance to their 'modern'  70s and 80s lives. The main target of this loathing was a story of the life of one 'Peig Sayers' who lived a life of poverty, cold, damp and outright misery on a then almost uninhabited (and now uninhabited) lump of rock off the West coast, called Blasket Island.

More blossom

Elizabeth has shared many memories of having to read 'Peig' with many people she has met over the years since. It is like we Brits remembering how "bad" school dinners were. I have since read the book myself (in English, of course) and I can see what they mean.

That keyhole bed all restored and ready for use again.

Peig herself was allegedly quite a wonderful lady, a gripping and entertaining story teller much called upon locally for evening socials. She was old and blind by the time she came to 'tell all' and I have been told that the telling would have been well spiced up and peppered with 'naughty' bits, racy asides, dodgy anecdotes and other fun. Sadly she dictated it to a stodgy brother who wrote it all down but then only submitted a very clean, wholesome version for publication.

Hostas by the pond. The rather odd perspective because we are
looking down at a blue sky reflected in the water. 

Worse, says Elizabeth, was that Peig lived through all the "interesting" bits of recent Irish history including the Land War, the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War, the establishment of the Irish Free State AND the establishment, finally, of the Republic of Ireland WITHOUT MENTIONING ANY OF THEM. How, asks Elizabeth, did her 'story' ever become the Education Dept's choice of the best possible book in Irish about those times?

'Repeal the 8th' voting paperwork

But hey, Peig Schmeg. Where am I going with all this? Only here. Heaven forbid anyone is reading this in a hundred more years time and researching how life was for a newly arrived smallholder trying to get his head round Irish ways, and wondering how I failed to mention that the country went through two really traumatic, historic events at the time. In May 2015 there was a Referendum aimed (successfully) at changing the Constitution to allow same-sex marriage and this month there is to be another on a thorny abortion issue currently enshrined in the 8th Amendment of the document. .

Guinea Fowl

If you want to know what it is all about, then much has been discussed and printed on the subject and it would be quite wrong of me to pretend to be unbiased or knowledgeable. Suffice to say it is a deeply entrenched issue which has split the country and not on political party lines - it has divided families and friends and made people question long-held views. A lot of the divisions are (according to polling) between  young and old, city folk and rural dwellers, male and female, religious and not and rich and poor. Probably enough said on this one. The vote is on May 25th. Anxious moments as we wait for the day and the count.

Sometimes this is all you get when a duck is taken. Some flat
grass by the fence and a few feathers.

Meanwhile, I am sad to report that our fox came back and quietly took our final female duck. This happened at about 8:30 pm by which time the Guineas were tucked up in bed, so did not raise an alarm shout. Only when I went to shepherd home the ducks, did I spot the loss, and then, when I went searching I found the tell-tale flattened grass and a few feathers by the fence. We now have just 2 adult drakes, so no eggs for the moment, but we have 3 ducklings doing very well in the nursery and 12 eggs in the incubator. We'll be back.

Chinese style pork ribs. 

I have moved the fox trap down to that place on the fence and baited it but we've had that thing 2 months now and all it has ever caught is chickens and cats. I do not hold out much hope. Worse, I was out walking the dogs today and got chatting to old friend of the blog, Mike the Cows, who was fixing a fence down the road. He'd been topping off (mowing) rushes in a field down there and had 'flushed out' a group of 3 adult foxes with his noise and clatter. Also, he knew of a fox earth with a vixen and cubs "just below" a near neighbour's house. 4 adult foxes and some cubs, all within a mile of the place!

I'm amazed we are doing as well as we are. Till next time, then.

Ma Nature's Lyrical

Oh, the barnyard is busy, in a regular tizzy,

And the obvious reason is because of the season.

Ma Nature's lyrical, with her yearly miracle,

Spring, Spring, Spring.

All the hen-folk are hatchin' while their men-folk are scratchin'

To ensure the survival of each brand new arrival.

Each nest is twitterin', they're all baby-sitterin',

Spring, Spring, Spring.

It's a beehive of buddin'....(and so on in the words of Johnny Mercer's song in Seven Brides)

Well, the East wind might still be blowing and the heavy frosts have all the bud-break and tulip growth on hold for the minute, but our reliable broody hen, Broody Betty, has decided that it is spring and, even if she only has rubber eggs to sit on, sit on them she will. We had just scratched around ourselves to find half a dozen eggs to give to our 2CV visitors, John and Carol and BB's sisters have not all come into lay yet, so we could only manage 5 eggs to put under a hen who is more than capable of covering a dozen. 

We decided that this might be a nice chance to diversify away from our original Sussex Ponte, mainly-white hens, and contacted Mentor Anne who we knew might have an egg glut. We asked what she thought might be suitable and she has generously provided us with a further 7 eggs. Three are of the well known variety, "Buff Orpington", three more from the big black breed "Jersey Giant" and another is a rather uncertain cross of the Jersey, possibly with the renowned French table bird "La Bresse". These 12 eggs were all slid into BB's nest on Thursday 4th, so now we must wait to see does BB stay the distance, 21 days give or take, and then do the babies survive and do they grow up as hens to bolster up our flock, or boys for the table. Watch this space.

We are both delighted that the Irish language is enjoying something of a resurgence in recent decades. Liz was taught it as a dry and dusty museum piece with little use, by rote and using some dire old books like the infamous 'Peig Sayers', a relentless tale of woe, death and hunger from the almost uninhabited, windswept rocks of the Blaskett Islands off our west coast. Children dreaded being 'sent away' to the Gaelic speaking areas (the "Gaeltacht") to live in cottages with little ol' ladies and forced to speak no English. Irish has been compulsory in schools since the state was founded but is now taught as a modern language with fun reading books, it is promoted by the Gaelic speaking societies in a 10 day event each year and there are Gaelic speaking radio stations and papers, and snatches of Gaelic in everyday life. The modern attitude seems to be use what you can cobble together, enjoy it, and don't get too precious about precise grammar and vocab. Be proud of it! 

So we loved that Irish favourite potato crisp brand 'Tayto' with which everyone grew up in the same way as all my UK peers would know Smiths Ready Salted, now do an Irish Language version of their famous packet. Amusingly, the nutritional details on the back still seem to have to be in English, and the little packet held up by the potato man in the standard logo is in English.

The cat Blue is turning out to be our best ratter. His Brother, Rolo, who started well (and youngest) has not caught anything lately that we know about and looks on enviously as Blue plays with this decent sized young adult which he nailed a couple of days back. This is A GOOD THING especially with our hen gone broody. Rats will happily steal eggs from under hens, and the hens, which will happily peck a mouse to death, just seem to grumble quietly and let the rat get on with it. Rats will also steal baby chicks and drag them off. Well, this fella may have been caught napping by the change of light since we painted the barns (of which more in another post) but his days of nicking chicks are over.

Finally, I enjoyed a genuine 'Irish' day today, down on neighbour John Deere Bob's hot, dusty turf bog. There were 4 of us and in 8 hours we collected 7 good trailer loads of nice dry turf, maybe 17.5 tonnes total creating a massive pile in Bob's barn. I ached and was grimy from the black 'dusht' ; I also ached from laughing at the happy banter between the three local lads. This turf should have been 'winnable' back last September but rain set in in August and quickly made the bog un-driveable. I can't quite believe we were dry enough on 5th April in County Roscommon. This rather poor picture was taken using my phone - I did not have my camera. I picked up some lovely local turns of phrase in the process - "This'll tighten us" (This is going to be hard work). "Ah - Sean-een! He was a one for the Whish-key allright! He certainly shifted plenty. He was a bit-een mad" (Sean-een is like 'Little Shawn'). And on the subject of driving tractors over bog-peat without getting stuck, "The secret is, once you are moving,keep it moving.... You'd want to keep it lit alright!"

It was a brilliant day. That barn painting in the next post.