As Fit as a Butcher's Dog?

3 dogs with a burnin' yearnin' to get amongst those piggies.
Poppy (Poppea) is closest to camera. 

It is almost a standing joke that a lot of folk who own dogs the size of our Westies, let them get way over weight. Rotund little barrels of flab with a leg at each corner, they waddle along slowly, slack on their leads in front of little old ladies who are bimbling along equally slowly. They never get any real exercise and they are spoiled rotten by over-indulgent "parents" who see them as their babies. They cannot run and they certainly cannot turn round to lick themselves clean. They usually die fairly young (maybe 7 or 8 for a Westie which might otherwise manage 14 or 15). I am, of course, carefully not mentioning any weight issues for the human; I am a bit short on moral high-ground there.

Towser (sitting) and Poppy

We have always tried to keep our dogs a bit leaner and more fit and in this we are completely at one with friend, vet-skills trainee and experienced show-dog preparer, Charlotte. Charlotte is quite evangelical on getting definition into that 'waist' and being able to feel ribs through the sub-cutaneous fat and feeling spinal processes. She tells us that fertility in particular in dogs, falls away as weight increases. She is currently involved in an amusing 'battle' with a Dalamatian bitch owner who would get her dog into pup using the services of Charlotte's superbly fit stud-boy 'Pongo'. At the moment this is failing because the lady-dog is, to put it mildly, 'indulged' and Charlotte is patiently (and generously) letting the lady try and try again (normally you'd get one try and a follow-up for the stud fee) while trying to subtly get through to the lady at each visit, that if she could only get some weight off......

Deefer chilling.

Well, in our case, Towser and Deefer have always been fairly slim and fit, but young Poppy was always given to scrounging round the other dogs' bowls after they had eaten. Up till about 6 months ago we were feeding tinned food (the best brand round here seems to be "Brandy") but also a biscuit mixer. The dogs were not eating the whole bowl full, they were sometimes not interested at all and they were also given, as Westies can be, to squitty bums. Charlotte noticed the extra 'cover' on Poppy at one of the groomings and commented, only voicing what we already knew but had been letting slide. Time for a diet, then for all three. We took them off the biscuits entirely and reduced their ration to one third of a tin each morning and evening. They only get the smallest (dried meat) treats occasionally and very rarely get bones and never kitchen scraps or offerings from the table while we are eating.

Well, you can see from the pictures that the new regime has worked, especially on "the Popstar" and their new slim lines are revealed after their April 13th spring buzz-cut. That 2 inch fleece no longer hides a multitude of sins. We hope Charlotte will be pleased. The bad news from this is for Pirate the formerly emaciated stray cat. He has definitely piled on the weight since we 'rescued him' and Charlotte is now zeroing in on him for being covered in "rolls of blubber" so he too is now on reduced ration. 2/3 of a tin per day instead of the full tin. He's not happy and comes wailing for food if he hears us in the yard but, hey, he's a lucky rescue stray and does not need to be quite that rotund. Meanwhile, 'Poppy' is mainly Liz's dog and I have been instructed that Liz's prefered spelling is 'Poppea'. Who am I to argue. Poppea it is from now on.

These narcissi are following on nicely
from the big daff-shaped daffs. 

On a completely unrelated tack, a previous post had me noting that I had found hand-cut turf workings down at the Kiltybranks dog walk, and I put some pics up on here of the cut areas. By complete coincidence, a guy living near here was in Googling "Hand cut turf Kiltybranks" and was amazed and delighted to see my pics of his workings and got in touch. To cut a long story short, I met him down there (we'll call him Paul the Turf) on one of my dog walks and we got talking and comparing notes. It turns out he is also a Brit and has been over here just a few months more than we have.

One of our new hellebores.

He and his good lady actually looked at our house when they were house hunting but she didn't fancy it because it was 'spooky'. He remembers the old VW Golf in the bramble patch. They just fancied a chunk of turf cutting bog, so they bought a slice of Kiltybranks and he has been happily cutting and drying his own turf ever since. Lovely bloke and a good contact. He also has a lively rescue dog called Sam, a collie, who was more than happy to race around with my three while Paul and I chewed the fat.

In beekeeper land, I am still without my faithful 'colleague' (Liz is down in Silverwood till Tuesday) but our new 'oppo' T-McC was around this weekend and the weather was gorgeous on Friday, so we two decided to go ahead with the big job of moving the bees (and frames etc) from the 'new' hive to my old white boxes. This mostly went OK but (shhhhh) between you and me, I have to admit to a bit of a scary, messy, error which nearly undid us, in which we narrowly averted disaster and which served to remind us that we are yet only beginners at this art. I won't go into huge detail - that'd be interesting only to beekeepers, but basically we decided (on the hoof) that we needed the brood frames out first, as they would go into the bottom box of the new build. I would therefore crack off the whole 'super' (shallow top box = honey store) and lay it to one side while we lifted out the brood frames one by one.

Unfortunately the gift colony was set up as 'brood and a half', with nothing between the brood box and the super above, and the bees had done a good job of gluing the frames below to the ones above using 'wild' honey comb (brace comb). When I went to lift the super, which was really heavy with honey anyway, some of the brood frames below came with it leaving me with a seriously heavy chunk of hive which I could not put down to sort out, could not slot back in place without risking bad damage (including to bees and the queen) and could barely hold up. Big problem!

Liz and Mr SL visit on Friday to admire the piggies.

I managed to put it down at a jaunty angle to avoid squashing too many bees, but the gaps meant that bees were pouring out of the tower in huge numbers and T and I were at serious risk of getting attacked and stung. Well, this is the short version of the adventure, so suffice to say that we remained calm and  withdrew a few feet to let the bees all calm down and they amazed us by all starting to relax and go back inside the badly stacked hive boxes. We were able to go on with the job, briskly reverting to Plan A, which was to take out the super-frames one by one before starting on the brood box and, that way, we got it all moved and reassembled before barrowing away all the now redundant hive boxes and frames, retreating, pleased not to be followed by any bees who might still be upset with us. Within ten minutes the flying bees were all back round the entrance and queuing to go back indoors.

One problem remains. In our rush to rescue the situation we did not thoroughly search every frame for the queen, so we did not see her and there remains a risk that I have inadvertantly killed her in the bodged job. We know she is (wing) clipped and marked, so if she fell from any of the frames onto the grass, she would be lost and unable to fly back into the hive (some bee keepers believe in cutting off half the wings on one side to prevent queens flying off when it is swarming time). I will not know for sure that she is still with us until we can examine the hive again and either find her or find new laid eggs which would be evidence that she survived our abuse. We finished the day determined to leave well alone for at least a week to let everybody (including the bee keepers) get over the trauma. We learned a lot. There you have it, warts and all.

In one final 'story', before the bee task, I received a lovely visit on the Friday from Liz, who brought Mr SL and Mrs Silverwood up on a flying visit, mainly so that they could meet the piggies, lambs and the rest of the gang. The pigs came out and were charm itself for their guests, who were bribing them with slices of apple. We all adjourned to JD Bob's favourite eaterie, Durkin's in Ballaghaderreen for a spot of lunch. Very nice too.

You will be relieved to know that the bees are all calm now and spent Saturday coming and going from the hive as normal. I will let you know how Her Majesty is (or isn't) in a future post.

The Times they are a-Changing

Shallots become pickled onions

We were commenting only the other day on how much more the weather affects us in this life compared to our time working in Kent. Be it rain, hail, wind or stultifying heat out there, I 'saw' it only briefly on the run to work, sprinting from house door to car door, or multi-story car park space to the pedestrian 'bridge' into the depot. There after I was in an air conditioned office or one of the massive cold stores set to 1.5 degrees C. Just occasionally I'd feel the weather again when I had to visit network equipment outside this (roof voids, porta cabins or what have you) but really our only experience was to look up through an office window and comment "Would you look at that rain?" Clocks changing were even more so, largely an irrelevance.

Cassis under construction. Tastes good already!

Not so here. Here the weather  and the day length have a huge influence on what we are able to do and achieve. With the shortening day length I had got to the point where wake up time (which was around 08:15) had me doing my feed and release rounds before bringing Liz up her cup of tea. The sheep (and Cody) were getting a bit of supper at 5 pm after which I could chop wood and light a fire in a leisurely manner with a whole hour to spare before I needed to shepherd the geese home, give the dogs their half hour romp in the orchard. I'd then have a bit of a sit down till supper and either just before that or afterwards, start locking up chickens.

Now that we are on GMT, I wake at 07:15 so I have a chance to sneak back under the covers after releasing the birds and doing sheep breakfasts for a quick doze before proper getting up time, just like in summer. In the evening everything is now squashed together in a flurry of activity; feed sheep, light fire, shepherd geese, exercise dogs and lock up poultry all in one rush, after which there is now a gap till suppertime which is generally between 7 pm and 7:30.

Towsers back feet and legs get a trim.

It is also at about this time of year, I would clip the dogs for the last time, leaving them then to go shaggy through the cold winter months. This year we have an enthusiastic helper in this task our friend Charlotte from down the road, she of the miniature horses. Charlotte is now at college studying to be a Vet's Assistant and a part of this course is about grooming dogs, partly to give the students this useful skill should they choose to go that route, but also as a really good way of getting them used to handing other people's dogs.

Showing Charlotte how we are going to do ears.

We are, of course happy to oblige and our three Westies have taken to Charlotte anyway, so it seemed like a good solution to getting her lots of practise. Charlotte grew up with horses and loved the clipping and grooming side of showing them, so she is already familiar with the clippers and scissors; it was only the shape of a Westie which would be new to her. She got Towser as her first dog and I demo'd what I do on Deefer, so that Charlotte could reproduce this on Towser. I sketched out any detailed cuts and shaping on paper, so that she'd know what I was trying to achieve. I am in no way a professional quality groomer or highly skilled, but what I do works for me and, as I said to her, if she gets the practise in on my three, she can always fine tune it in her classes at college where the tutor is a regular dog-show breeder.

Poppy gets it in the neck!

In the event we had a great time, enjoying our clipping in parallel and passing the clippers back and forth as we swapped for scissors. She did a really good, impressive job on Towser, easily as accurate and tidy as I do and kept him calm and unfussed throughout. He seemed to love the gentle attention and looked quite soppily happy for the whole time. After we'd done Towser and Deefer in parallel, we stopped for tea and cake before Charlotte then clipped Poppy while I just sat back and watched, no need to intervene or supervise at all. All three dogs now look very neat and tidy and we are all 3 happy with the results.

Towser gets used to the idea.

In other news we have been getting on with our preserving and storing type tasks. The pea pod wine (made in early August) has fallen quite bright under its airlock, so I have racked that off into another demi-john and put it under a standard cork. We'll probably give that the full 6 months before we try it. We decided to make pickled onions with the shallots. They had been sitting in a paper bag because we were sure we'd find a Madhur Jaffrey recipe which might need them, but they are small and fiddly, so it is always easier to grab a 'proper' onion. Yesterday Rolo the cat, exploring the kitchen managed to get his head stuck through the (paper strap) handle of the bag and tipped the whole lot onto the floor, reminding us that we had not, in fact, used any yet! Pickled onions seemed like a good solution.

The cassis has also come ready for having its fruit strained out of it and the sugar added. Finally we managed to find a bargain bag (€1) of rather time expired chilli peppers and Liz decided to dry them for storage. They prove to be an extremely lively and hot version of pepper. I used the knife after Liz had finished preparing them, to cut my cheese for a lunchtime sandwich. I had given it a cursory wipe, but still got enough peppery 'zing' off the blade to pep up the cheese out of all proportion to its normal flavour. The chopping board had been washed, cleaned and put away by the time I went to make breakfast toast the next day, but managed to give a similar zing to the undersides of slices of buttered toast. That jar might need a 'Use with Extreme Care' warning label.

All your Birthdays at Once

Having all your birthdays at once usually means having such a good day that it feels as though all the treats from all your birthdays have arrived together. Here we have a different meaning. It so happens that last year, when we were looking to buy a pup, the pregnant Westie bitch who was going to supply us with him, Mrs Silverwood's "Lily" (by Maxwell), happened to whelp on the night of 2nd June into the morning of 3rd June 2012. Regular readers may recall that in the event we ended up with both the planned boy-pup, Towser on the right here, plus his sister and litter-mate, Poppy (left).

Meanwhile, Liz had been looking to buy 2 kittens and we had found out that there was a friend of Mrs Silverwood's, living just around the corner who had a pregnant cat. The morning of the whelping we found out that this cat had also given birth on the same night to three kittens and that we could therefore have our 2 from that little gang. These turned out to be Rolo (pictured here stalking through the buttercups) and Blue (sleeping in the caravan, below).

So there we had it - 4 animals all with the same birthday. It makes remembering the date(s) easier. Our traditional birthday treat for dogs is raw pork ribs which are gnawed, ground and slurped with relish. The cats will get a treat of fish which they will also love.

So, Happy Birthday Towser, Poppy, Rolo and Blue. We nearly had all this batch of baby rabbits born on 3rd June too, but we are fairly sure these were yesterday or the day before.

Ward Round 25th.

Doctor's Ward Round Report 08:00 25th Jan. "The patient appears to have managed an almost full recovery and is bouncing around with the others like a mad thing this morning. We have walked the estate, she has poo'd and pee'd. She has eaten a hearty breakfast and the three have now been allowed upstairs to rest on Liz's bed (the morning treat). Poppy was maybe a little less sprightly going up the stairs, but she made it. I lifted her onto the bed. Today we buy short leads for pups before anyone goes out in the lane. The relief is immense". 

Thank You, Aoife (Rhymes with Deefer) the Vet for your prompt and skilled response. Poppy is on pain killers called Meloxidyl (Oral Suspension of 'Meloxicam') and may be floating around on a drug-induced fluffy cloud, but they seem to be working. I was thinking I'd have to leave her behind on walks for a couple of days and then dreading meeting the lady who she collided with in case the lady saw only 2 dogs and had a panic. I am now thinking that Poppy will not actually put up with being left behind, so I'll do a gentle, careful, recuperative walk with all three (on short leads). 

Meanwhile, in other species we have no more goose eggs yet but I am getting a fairly regular supply from the hen 'Lucy Long Drop' and from Wandering Wendy. Lucy Long Drop is our hen who gets caught short while still up on the 7 foot perch in the night and drops the egg onto the bedding of hay (and poo) below. They always survive this, cushioned by the hay and just need a quick wipe to remove any poo they may have picked up on impact. WW lays eggs which are slightly freckled with tiny blips of shell material which stand proud of the surface, just enough to feel them with your finger tips, as if the date code was written in braille. She mostly now lays hers in the nest boxes, but we do occasionally find them in the yard, on the front terrace, down the drive or in the cattle race. We think it's just the 2 girls in lay at present. Broody Betty has been off since her broody episode and the other chicken is just, we guess, fed up with all the rain and cold and is waiting for the humans to lay on some proper spring sunshine for her.

Two Labradors

There are suddenly two new dogs in our lives, both Golden Labradors, both very sweet and well behaved, one extremely welcome, the other not so welcome.

First up, 12 week old pup Tess, now owned by our mentors Anne and Simon, replacing a lovely but ancient black collie cross named Shannon whom they recently had to have put to sleep. Tess is just plain GORGEOUS, soft, sweet and gentle and apparently devoid of any bad traits. She likes and gets on well with all (9?) cats that live on that small holding, gets on well with the other older dog and shows no inclination to chase or harass the chickens, ducks and rabbits.

Anne and Simon brought her up here yesterday to meet our lot and she was the perfect guest. She got on immediately with our pups, Towser and Poppy and was great with the 'kittens' as well as with the humans. Regular readers will not be surprised to know that we had a minor issue with our occasionally grumpy-git Deefer but that was honestly all Deefer, none of Tess herself. Deefer sometimes reacts to visiting dogs by trying to get on my lap and then getting 'green-eye' jealousy if the dog comes near.

When down on the ground she is lovely with the other dog and will even join in the games that started between the three pups but she needs to 'own' the immediate airspace round her Dad. We have never been able to cure her of it. It is worse with Diamond's Patterdale cross 'Rags', much to Liz's, my and Diamond's frustration; Deefer has never learned to love the completely harmless playful, trying to be sociable, advances of Rags 6 years on.

So, we had a lovely visit and the dogs played and we chatted.

Labrador No 2 is a huge, handsome, beautiful boy who we are calling, for the moment, Mutley. He first appeared about a week ago, frightening Liz half to death by arriving while she was cooking late one dark evening  with the lights on in the kitchen and the yard light on. Facing the cooker she noticed movement in her peripheral vision and jumped 6 feet in the air. "There's a bloody great dog in the yard!" she yelled, and so there was. Mutley had arrived!

He was very friendly and seemed to be courting us, even rearing up on his hind legs to get a better view of Liz. We wondered if he was a lost stray and were even thinking of trying to collar him, get the phone number off his dog tag (ha!) and phoning his owners.

It slowly dawned on us that he wasn't an innocent stray seeking human company, he was a randy suitor with the scent of Poppy on heat in his nostrils. She's been on heat a couple of weeks now and I have been naively walking her up and down the lane outside laying trails of pheromones which lead straight back to this house, in a land where we KNOW most dogs are allowed free roam, off the lead and rarely with name-tag IDs on them, especially 'in the country'. Yes I should have known better. I feel very stupid, and it's a lesson learned.

This all sunk in today when I went my usual walk down to Feigh bridge and on the way back, while we were still 20 minutes from home, we suddenly had Mutley with us. He must live down that way and had seen or smelt us go by. He closed in on us and suddenly I had three dogs all excited and barking, trying to pull backwards to 'engage' with Mutley. Towser, bless him, was doing his level best to defend 'his sister's virtue' (loudly), Poppy just wanted to say 'Hello' and Deefer was trying to walk alongside me, to heel, on her best behaviour but was going to have a go if Mutley started anything.

In this noisy procession we made our way home and Mutley came all the way with us, past all the neighbours who were, mercifully, out or at least not looking. Mutley is big enough that he can just jump the front wall, so he came all across the lawn and I shuffled my dogs indoors. Liz and I have then spent the rest of the afternoon variously out there with him trying to persuade him to leave, or indoors trying to ignore him while he patrols outside and stalks us at each exit. He is, unfortunately not quite so good with cats as Tess and had a bit of a chase at one stage with a very surprised and upset Rolo, who escaped, hissing, up a tree, but to our immense relief Mutley does not seem to have any bad feelings towards our free range chickens or to the rabbits. The rabbits are in a run which is Westie proof, but I would not like to put it to the test with a Labrador nearly as big as Liz. As I type this at ten past 6, it is dark outside and the hens are, at least shut up safe. Mutley is taking it in turns to admire Liz through the 3 kitchen windows and just occasionally the Westies become aware of him and set off barking (again). We don't know whether he will be there all night, lying in wait, but he has no name tag, so we can't even contact his owners, who might be worried for him.

Big Day All Round

December 3rd (tomorrow) is like an alignment of the planets round here with everything seeming to happen at once. All being well the sheep are off on their final journey but I'll cover that story in a post of its own so that anyone who doesn't want to know about that can easily avoid it

On the same day all the kindergarten reach 6 months of age, with both the Silverwood puppies and the Tommo-the-Builder kittens all being born overnight 2nd/3rd June. The picture here is of Towser using Rolo as a pillow. These two seem to have paired off for daytime snoozing purposes and Blue has paired off with Poppy. Just "Auntie Deefer" prefers to sleep alone and tends to grump a bit if anyone strays into her air-space.

Also on that date, Donna and CJ, the baby chicks reach the magic 6-weeks-old figure and, now that they are fully feathered, assuming tomorrow is anything like for weather, they can join the main flock. Even better, so can their Mum, Broody Betty who has definitely had more than enough of the Maternity Unit hutch. We never did get around to organising a bigger run; we were going to borrow a 6 by 4 foot run from Mentor Anne but it needs our trailer to haul it and you'll know that the 2CV (with the tow hitch for the trailer) has not yet passed its NCT. Poor old BB must be feeling a bit like a battery hen by now, all be it she has streets more space than those poor creatures. This pic is Donna at 5 weeks. I will publish some more up to date ones as soon as everyone is released and the babies are running with the herd.

Guilty as Charged

On the morning of the 16th, with Liz still in England, we have a near disaster. It is breakfast time and all the animals are fed, the chickens are out free ranging and the dogs are doing what they do. I walk through to the kitchen looking to make my porridge, and I see through the kitchen window, white feathers all over the yard. In the middle of all this eye-catching whiteness a white blur of activity which I quickly see is the rooster being bundled around by the two pups one at each end. The rooster is on the ground helpless.

I dash for the door screaming blue murder. Both pups look up and I am relieved to see the rooster jump to his feet and scuttle off through the gate round to the coop, but the flutter and scrabble sets the pups off in pursuit so I am hot on their heels, yelling all the way. I catch and grab Towser before he makes the coop 'pop' hole but Poppy dives inside probably by now thinking the Hounds of Hell are on her tail. Luckily she re-thinks her escape route and nips back out where upon I can scruff her too and the two pups are hauled back to the house, thrown into the living room and the door slammed on them. I never actually hit them but I think they got the message that they had done wrong.

Back outside I could see that there were a lot of feathers and some had blood on the quill ends, so I feared the worst and went to check on William. He was in a sorry state, filthy from being bundled in the wet gravel of the yard, disheveled and very miserable, head down and poked into a hole in the wall, hunched on the floor just inside the pop hole. I've only seen him look as miserable as that once before and that was when he was young and the Lovely Girls were bullying him as a new-comer.

I went in there quietly and talked gently to him so that he eventually raised his head and walked through to where the perches are, and hopped up on one. At least nothing seemed to be broken and I thought him not too injured, no bad bleeding anyway. The Girls were a distance away across the field, so may have been scattered by the attack. I am told that in a fox attack it is usually your rooster who cops it because he heroically dives in to the line of fire to protect his women, so this might have been William being heroic. Anyway, the Girls talked him down and within an hour he was back out free ranging again and preening himself back to a presentable state.

I got hold of him a bit later and gave him a good but gentle look over and could find no broken skin or open wounds and he has since made a full recovery.

The pups were left in the Living Room for the hour while I did 'Sheep Watch', to give them a chance to reflect on their sins. I don't actually think they attacked William with any malice or killer instinct. It was probably more like the kind of game they play with the cat-kittens or each other, boisterous grabbing and rolling around, mouthing up chunks of fur, only being a rooster, these were feathers which came out in mouthfuls and no doubt the distress of the rooster became, to them, an interesting new reaction and game. They probably did not intend to kill but that is what would have happened, I sure, had I not intervened.

Anyway, there was a rapid text conversation between Liz and I and, as Liz put it succinctly, "we have not given them any boundaries". So, they now find themselves grounded during 'chicken daylight' (about 0800 to 1630) allowed out only on collars and leads. They were not used to this and didn't like it much (especially Poppy!) but after a few days at three or four 'walks' a day, they are learning to love it even if only for the chance to get walked and not confined indoors. If we encounter William out with the Ladies on one of these walks he tends to take avoiding action but I think he's basically OK. There's a relief.

Big scary rooster....

Big scary rooster; poor defenceless sheep?

These days we let the sheep out for an hour morning and afternoon from their run (where the grass is almost grazed off) to the front lawn, woods and hedgerows for a graze and browse; where there's still plenty of grass etc. At the same time the chooks are out free ranging, wandering about as a group. Each hen takes her turn to peel away from the group to nip back to the coop to lay her egg and, when she's done wanders back to find the gang and William (The rooster). William is delighted to see them back and charges towards them making his throaty growly noise, racing up to the returning female and doing his little stompy dance, which seems to translate as "Yay hay! Can we make lurve now?"

This morning the 'gang' were in the woods and the 3 sheep grazing away just outside the woods, all with their heads down so that they'd not have been able to see the hens over the long grass and brambles at the wood's edge. Returning hen appears on lawn from far side, so sheep are between hen and gang. William spots her and charges through the undergrowth, 'exploding' out into the open just by the sheep, who freak and shy, stampeding away! Dad nearly splurged his coffee laughing. Not sure if sheep can look embarrassed, but ours came pretty close.

It occurs to me that we have not reported a visit yet by Steak Lady, Mr SL and Auntie Mary, the Nun (85). 29th September was the date, to nearly coincide with Mary's Birthday but they were mainly here to show Mary around. We have always been close friends with Auntie Mary, who has called Mum her "Little Princess" since a very young age, but who spent most of her life Missionary-ing in Africa. For a tiny, petite, soft spoken 'little ol' lady' she has probably seen more of horrific real life than any of us are likely to see and can quietly relate stories which make your hair stand on end - whole African villages wiped out by AIDS, persecution of Christian villagers, war, turmoil and strife, starvation and hardship. She is a fascinating person to talk to. The picture is left to right, Mum, Steak Lady, The Nun and Mr SL, with Towser sneaking in at SL's feet and Poppy just getting her nose in shot bottom right. The visit went well and they all love the place. They piled into Mum's food, loved what we'd done with Steak Lady's garden cuttings and admired the sheep.


We have also been on a visit down to the Silverwoods, birthplace of Towser and Poppy (and their 5 brothers and sisters). This was to have been so that Dad could see and get photo's of the children's new activity, horse riding lessons, which happens on Sundays with the two eldest and the two youngsters alternating weekends. In the event it got moved to the Friday so that we could babysit little R (4) while Mr and Mrs S took M (6) off to Dublin for an appointment. We could collect R from school and hand her over to Aoife the Social Worker who was to take her on a visit to her natural family, and we could also collect J-M from school in the rain. We took the pups along so that they could experience their first proper car ride and re-acquaint with Silverwood and the S's. So it was a good fun visit with lots of coming and going but never really got going as a whole family event or a meal because everybody was there in snatches in between zooming off on 'things' - even J-M was on a French lesson as soon as she got back from school and Em-J now does homework / study after school till gone 6 p.m, so we never saw her at all. 

Dad's 2CV is now being readied for her NCT test (=MOT). We have finally got the windscreen we needed and she is now in the garage where they are sorting out her ignition and mixture. She's lost the ability to idle, which meant a quick pull on the choke to keep the engine going at every T junction. The garage have tried changing points and capacitor in case it was an ignition problem but have then found the car is leaking air round the carburettor. We are waiting for Monday when the garage will let us know what we need to do about this - is it a new 'carb' or just the gaskets around it. Luckily we have 2CV Llew to call on at the other end of the phone, with a stack of old carbs stripped off dead 2CVs, so we won't have to spend £££s either way. We just need to get Llew to actually put one in the post, which has been, in the past, not anything you can hurry! We love Llew madly but he's nobody's version of 'urgent'. We'll see.


That's about for this one. 

Deefer

Kindergarten at 3 Months.

On 3rd September the pups and kittens all make it to 3 months so this is an un-ashamed excuse to publish a few cute pup and kitten pictures. I can also include Buck Rogers in this group as he is nearly as young. He is developing bizarre tufts of fur on his cheeks and his head. We have heard of a type of rabbit called a 'lion' variety, so we wonder whether this is maybe what that is all about. Buck is a bit small yet to be looking after his ladies, so Dad is taking Anne and Simon up on an offer to allow their bigger, meat-breed buck, Peter to do the deed first time round. Peter is a Californian White, a breed commonly used in rabbits-for-meat enterprises.


Also 'we' successfully fledged a family of three baby swallows from the nest in the Tígín. They flew around an returned a couple of nights but now seem to have left the nest for good and may be among the birds wheeling around and gathering in our telegraph wires preparatory to the long migration to Africa.

In the two pup pictures, Poppy has the sticky-up ears, Towser's are still a bit floppy. Nobody minds this. They may stand up eventually (His Father's (Maxwell's) apparently took and age) but Dad thinks he looks quite cute anyway and we can easily tell the bu**ers apart, anyway! Mrs Silverwood is rather meanly calling them Poppy and "Floppy" on Facebook. Poor devil will probably end up with a complex.

The tabby kitten, Blue has grown some rather fetching ear tufts and has in the past also had nice long whiskers but these are currently a bit short due, we think, to his keenness to get onto the dining table and wander close to the candles. This is a battle Mum and Dad are determined to win (they won eventually with a previous cat 'Utsire'). He climbs onto the table and is ejected by the scruff. He climbs back on and gets ejected again. After a couple more warnings he is scruffed into the living room and gets to spend the meal behind that closed door. He'll learn. In the lower picture he fails to notice that a robin has landed on the wall beside him. Dad only sees this as it flies off but it's there in the shot when we go back to look.

Next up is the tortoiseshell kitten Rolo who may not have the fancy ear tufts of his brother but at least he has intact whiskers. And finally let us not forget William the Conqueror, now a magnificent, manly, brave and fearless Rooster with the start of a tail. When he arrived he was fresh out of a large pen in which he lived with 150 'hins' all of whom must have been taking a peck out of his tail as he passed. No respect some hens. He had a rather sore, pink parsons nose from which sprouted two broken feather bases sticking straight up. Now he is a bit meaner and ruffty tuffty and doesn't take any such nonsense from his new ladies, it has started to grow back in a gorgeous iridescent dark green, almost black. It is about 3 inches long now but should form a proud arching 'rooster tail' like on the Cornflakes packet. He hopes. He is doing a good job now marshaling and protecting his ladies and utters low growls at any threat and charges with ruff expanded, chest spread and wings out to make him look as big as possible. He even tries it on Dad but kinda goes off the idea as Dad looks him in the eye!

Hallowe'en

Hallowe'en Night and we have the Jack'o'Lantern deployed in the front garden and a big tub of chocs for the hoards of kiddies when they show up, attracted by the pumpkin. But we've eaten our supper, lit a fire, sat back and relaxed and we have had a grand total of 1 party of kiddies, and it's 20 past 6. We (well, the humans anyway) are going to be left, as ever, with a mountain of chocolates to use up.

Dad was down at SB Cambria today doing his usual stint as a volunteer with oppo Richard, showing the public around, so he got back at three and raced round to lay a fire, feed the wild birds, carve the pumpkin and walk us. We head through the cemetery and back via the Rec where we meet everyone - our own doggy Hallowe'en party. Ben the collie cross is out there, and Mum's colleagues Cairn terrier cross Caspar (crossed, says owner, with another Cairn terrier!). There are two new westies we've not met before, called Poppy and Puffy. We all have a good charge around. Caspar is a ball-chaser. I try to out-run him but he's a fast little nipper and he always gets the ball.

Happy Hallowe'en
Deefski

Pigs' Trotters

Someone at Dad's work swears by giving their dogs raw pigs' trotters in lieu of bones, so spotting some at the "Goods Shed" most excellent farm shop in Canterbury (see also http://www.thegoodsshed.net/ ) Dad bought us one each.

To be honest we were none of us that impressed. I buried mine staright away in the greenhouse (never a good idea as mean old Dad tends to keep watch, suss me, un-bury the stash, and take it off me on the basis that I'll leave it rot a few days and then bring in back indoors all maggotty and skank-some). The H and Meggie gave theirs a brief desultory chew on the cartilege-y end and then abandonned them, so they were also retrieved by Dad.

Being a Dublin city-centre gal, Mum has had them before well boiled down and/or roasted as a gelatinous, soft "delicacy" (in the jellied eels, pie and mash tradition), so she is going to boil them for us and try them again.

My other pics here are just for a bit of fun. We loved the colours on the poppy one and if you look carefully you can just see a bee flying in over the top of the flower. top centre of the picture. The sparrows too, were a bit of fun - just as Dad was about to pull the trigger, a third sparrow tried to fly in and land on their feeder ports, and both these boys look like they're saying "Oy! Find yer own feeder!"

Lovely sunny warm weekend.

Deefski

Poppy's in da House

Ah well, here she is at last, the

little brindly girl! I suppose the face does look a bit westie-pup shaped, but then I've never seen a Sheltie pup so only time, I guess, will tell what the final dog looks like. She is still enjoying herself and settling in well, and reportedly "too active to photograph well".

You go girl!

Deefski