Lamb and Rabbit on the Menu

Those who do not like to know about our meat production, please look away now. You will not want to read this post.

We are progressing deliciously through our supply of lamb, with Liz trying out all manner of recipes and cooking methods which we have not, up to now tried. Liz has now developed a superb way with the chops, which get fried fast on the griddle with salt sprinkled into the (minimal) fat. She has also done a slow-roasted shoulder so meltingly tender that it needed no carving - you could honestly have picked up the bones and given them a good shake and you would have had a plateful of meat. What I actually did was lift out the blocks of meat from either side of the 'ridge' which runs down the length of the shoulder blade and that did us for that meal. The rest we dismantled into ribs and other bits for a 'Greek style' finger-food meal a couple of days later. Tonight we are having the cheapest 'breast' cuts (bits from around neck and in front of shoulder cut) done in the slow cooker.

We have also slaughtered our first 'crop' of young rabbits, these being the progeny of the formerly niece's doe rabbit Padfoot and the NZ White buck belonging to mentors Anne and Simon. Our three successfully 'hatched' baby bunnies came up to 3 months old as we came into January and were quickly outpacing our own buck (Rogers) for size and would also have been approaching sexual maturity. We are told that after three months they do not grow fast any more and tend to just get tougher, so we bit the bullet and slaughtered them. It goes without saying that we did this as quickly, quietly, calmly, respectfully and in a manner as stress free as we could manage, though I do appreciate that some of our readers will still think very dimly of us for it. So be it.

The rabbits had reached weights of, in fact 2340 g, and the three carcasses came out at 1144 g, 1074 g and 1206 g, way heavier than we have ever got from shot wild bunnies we used to buy in the UK. Liz has now cooked the first of these, casseroling the jointed meat in a creamy mustard sauce. We both agree that it was easily the most delicious and meaty rabbit we had ever experienced, and definitely something we will do again. Anne, though, advises us that we would be better using a 'proper, meat-breed, doe' instead of the 'pet rabbits', Ginny and Padfoot.

She has such a doe which we will be adopting, already mated to Peter, this spring. We are also only going to do this bunny-rearing in spring and summer so that they can eat mainly grass, rather than having to fatten up on the expensive 'muesli', easily the most expensive animal feed we use at €22 for 25kg. For this reason our buck, Rogers has now been separated from his women and is temporarily housed in the Maternity Unit (now the 'Bachelor Pad') pending me building him a run. Mind you, I am not 100% sure he has, or ever had, any romantic intentions towards Ginny and Padders and , come to think of it, might even be female himself. I will check him out when I next have him in my hands.

Kindergarten

The kindergarten grows from strength to strength. The pup, Towser, at 10 weeks has almost doubled in weight from his 7 week old arrival weight (1.2 kgs) to 2.2 kg now. The kittens, Blue and Rolo are now 1.2 kgs up from 700g or so and all have come on in leaps and bounds (literally) in terms of their mobility, stairs-climbing ability and pushing back the boundaries of the territory they explore when allowed out. The three of them all play well together, all be it, Towser sometimes gets a bit rough with Rolo, who seems to be his 'best mate'. I am slotting into 'Aunt' role very well, much to everyone's delight and while I never let anyone get tooooooo close (this first picture is a bit of a lie - Towser was in the bed first and this is me trying to 'cuckoo's nest' him out; I would never let him join me in bed if I was already in it!) I do tend and mind them all and occasionally let a bit of scampering play happen, especially if I can cuff the pup and bowl him ovber occasionally. This is just to show him I'm still bigger than he is.

Towser gets into a few scrapes like in the 2nd pic, where he was 'busted' by Dad breaking into the chicken run through a narrow gap under the door. Rolo nails his first shrew out in the yard and then runs around with it in his mouth growling very professionally at all comers including me, who wanted to get a look in. The three of them frequently accompany us out as far as the rabbit run now and here are some pics of various babies meeting Ginny and Padfoot. The buck rabbit 'Rogers' is still with us but manages to stay out of most of these pictures, leaving the camera time to his ladies.

They are all also generally on hand to assist with gardening jobs. We have a heap of soil in the bit of garden still called "The Bit We Don't Talk About" into which is mixed a decent supply of coal and anthracite after the mini digger driver scraped up a load of topsoil when clearing brambles and unknown to him, a rotten pallet of coal bags buried in the grass. This fuel is still useful so Mum and Dad decided to dig through the heap and liberate any useful sized coal lumps and anthracite 'nuts'. Towser decided to help and is pictured here in the bucket Mum was using to gather coal.

Finally just a few pics of babies because they are cute and fun. Enjoy!

Rogers sorted for now

This garden, (or more accurately the drives, terrace and ‘edge’ bits) grows excellent dandelions and Mum and Dad gather these and lob them into the rabbit run where they are enthusiastically received by the bunnies Ginny and Padfoot. The rabbits bite through the leaves and then gradually draw them into their mouths by chewing alternately left and right. The leaf gets shorter like a child sucking in spaghetti. Many a daft looking expression happens when interrupted mid-chew so that rabbit looks up with huge green 'tongue' protruding.

Concerned about Rogers's possibly getting beaten up by Ginny-the-Bully and or wet/cold from the omnipotent Roscommon Rainfall, Dad decided what he needed was one of those triangular 'arks' - little house-een at one end, mesh run at the other, the first foot of which would have transparent plastic sheeting to give him a bit of a porch as he stepped out the front door. Because this was all about keeping Ginny and Padfoot out, but not stopping Rogers coming out to commune with the girls in the wider run if he decided to, the run deliberately had baby-bun (coinin-ín?) gaps designed into it and was covered in 2 inch size chicken wire. Dad had a pile of spare wood, tar felt and chicken wire to hand so 2 hours later, working by eye and tape measure, making it up as he went along, “ark-ín” was built.

Mum was summonsed and we processed out to the big run armed with the ark and Rogers in his cat-basket. The house end of ark was filled with the hay given to us by Cerise Lizz, so that it might smell familiar and comforting to Rogers. Rogers promptly vanished inside and, like kids at a zoo in the rain, Mum and Dad and we dogs stood in the drizzle, watching the little doorway of his house in the forlorn hope he might scamper out and frolic in his new run laughing at the grown-up girls who could no longer get at him. Eventually we got bored waiting and gravitated inside.

In fact he did appear and so scamper late that evening, and the next morning at 06:30, as Dad had intended, he was out in the main run and scampered for the cover of his own ark as we approached to let Ginny and Padfoot out of the hutch.

Other than that, it’s been a case of sitting indoors watching the incessant rain try to turn our property into a bog.

Barns and Bunnies

And so to the 30^th and the first Anniversary of Dad’s giving up work. It was at 15:30 on 30^th June 2011 that Dad handed his security pass in to Hungarian Anna (tiniest Security Guard ever), walked across the pedestrian bridge and out through the turnstiles for the last time into the car-park. He has kept in touch with most of his chums from the old firm via Facebook, and it was on FB that they all had an amusing “virtual” celebratory drink at 15:30 on Saturday. There were invitations and people accepting or declining apologetically, good wishes, choosing of virtual “drinks” etc, even though everyone was actually in their own house or going about their own business. At 15:30, dad put the following out on Facebook

"Ahem!!! . Thank you, Thank You! Now then. Thank you all for being here today and for taking the time to come and support me in this small celebration. Some of you have, I know, come considerable distances, some even from the far side of the globe. I will not keep you long - do you all have a glass with something in it? Good. Please raise your glasses then and join me in a toast to "Brand New Life". May everybody who wants one get one! Cheers. "

Mad as a box of frogs!

Other than that it was a bit of a quiet-ish Saturday really in which we dodged the frequent bursts of heavy rain to get the shiny new, red painted stable-door(s) installed on the utility room. Very nice they look, too. Dad also made a batch of white bread rolls which were his best ever (all be it starting from a fairly low base!)

1^st July

When the rooster crows at the break of dawn (well, 06:30) to bright sunshine we were briefly optimistic that we might have put rain and wet behind us with the month of June. By 08:00 when Dad’s taking Mum's cup of tea upstairs, it's drizzling and these hopes are dashed.

Mum and Dad’s Plan A is dashed - a trip to a local vintage tractor fair - when we see from the website that it's postponed due to bad weather. However, there are gaps in the rain and in one of these Dad can get the final weather strips onto the 'stable' door he has fitted to the utility room and final touches of white undercoat or red gloss as appropriate. It looks very fine.

The rain generally, however induces a frustration and boredom. Dad is like a kid towards the end of the school holidays who wont be helped and rejects all suggestions with "But I'm BORED!" There's no pleasing him. He wants to get out onto the allotment and hoe but it's too wet. If you chop off grass roots in that damp soil, they just re-attach in the new location and grow there. You need a dry day where decapitated roots quickly wilt beyond redemption. The whole lot needs re-modelling into raised beds and sunken paths to help drainage but it'd just get smeared up and claggy at the moment.

Dad is pottering about with a hoe around some carrots when he sees Mum wander off towards the former hay-barn armed with 'his' bolt croppers. That looks like a much better offer. Dad and Mum (He’s in there like Flynn!) are going to dismantle the fallen west end of the barn which lies on the ground all overgrown with nettles and grass like some big metal roof of a fox den or vole city. We dogs can't wait to get under it, so are pawing, sniffing and digging round the sides as Mum and Dad work. This is proper work - crow bars, lump hammers, bolt croppers, work gloves, brute force and ignorance. Hour and a half and 2 coffee breaks later we have it dug out, broken up and the corrugated sheeting stacked, when rain again stops play. Mum and Dad retreat to the shops for wraps and salad to have with left over chilli. 

Afternoon is easy pottering and internetting while they wait for sun / yard-arm thing. Just done supper when John Deere Bob chugs round on his tractor. It's well late for him and we think he's feeling a bit lost and worried about his 4th Chemo tomorrow. We love the old boy, so we sit down and Mum and Dad chats with him while he takes tea and ginger biscuits. He tells us he's seen a weather report that gives a week of sunshine in July but, curiously, did not 'know' which week. He might be just teasing us. He's like that.

2^nd July

 Out to the left of our former hay-barn is a flat, earth 'parking area' with a short stretch of wall separating it from 'the woods'. Continuing the line of the wall was a rotted, half buried post and mesh fence with a couple of strands of barbed wire on it just for fun, the whole now well overgrown with goose-grass, brambles and nettles. Mum has a cunning plan to fell the few horrible trees at the top of the wood (Leylandii, elder etc) and remove the fence altogether, leaving us with an open space which encircles the rather nice wall. Yesterday's job, clad in waxed jackets, boots and hats was to rip out the fence and scythe down the weeds to remove the 'visual' barrier.

That brought us neatly (if a bit wetly and muddily) to 12:30 when Mum and Dad needed to be heading for the rabbit seller lady, known to us only as Lizz (2 zeds!) at that stage, from Donedeal.ie, Irish version of EBay / Classified ads site. "I'm down by Knock" says she - the town not the airport. Come as far as Knock and I'll give you directions. That's 'andy, 'Arry. Knock is not 30 minutes away. To an Englishman, Knock is one bizarre place, choc-a-block with tourists including busloads, featuring an enormous 'shrine' complex and numerous shops selling religious 'tat' - the usual icons and Virgin statues but also special bottles to collect your Holy Water in, any size you like from thimble full to Jerry Can, it seemed as well as posters (e.g. of Padré Pio) and no end of other stuff designed to make Dad curl at the edges. Lorks!

Anyway, Dad phoned Lizz and found the lane off the road to Kiltimagh, which turned out to be the entrance to the Mayo School of Musical Excellence (so we're guessing this bunny is going to more used to harmonious Mozart doodlings on the Baby Grand than our own home-brew of circular saw screeches and chain saw scream, hammering and banging on corrugated iron, dogs barking and William giving it "Cock a Doodle DOOOOO!" as he now does regularly throughout the day.). Mum and Dad were still 100 yards off when we spotted Lizz's superb bright CERISE hair! She was standing on a raised front lawn with another lass, by a small pen containing three tiny bunnies, 8 and 10 weeks old, palm-of-the-hand sized! 

Anyway, they all made friends, selected the 10-week boy, mainly to increase the chances of him not being clouted around by the girls, bid Cerise Lizz (and chum) farewell and headed home through an absolute downpour. They actually sat in the car when they got home while the rain eased off. Quick snack, then they put the bun in his cat-box in with the girl-rabbits. Padfoot said a quick hello and ignored him. Ginny was a bit more interested. Small boy rabbit (named Rogers by Mum (she claims, innocently, based on the fact that he's a buck, but hopefully his name being plural he'll feel less alone when he copes with G+P)). Ginny decided to whack him a couple of times sending him scampering away to crouch motionless for a few minutes. He recovered and hopped about some more but then she pounced again. That was all, and we hope it's just her showing him who's boss, but it reduced him from happy scamper to a crouching nervous boy. We left them be but then it started raining again and it looked like a) he wasn't going to be allowed in the hutch to get dry and b) his response to rain was going to be to crouch and hope it went away. Mum and Dad rescued him to the cat-box in the calf house for the evening and night. We will play bunnies again tomorrow.