The 'Ros Go Rummage' easy stroll.

If Ros Go Run is not for you

Then we have something else to do

A gentle walk with clues to find

An easy test for eyes and mind

Give it a lash, you’re on a roll

The Ros Go Rummage easy stroll.

With the hugely clever and artistic ode above (cough), we introduced our newest project to the world. Well, our latest little bit of it, anyway. Friends of the Blog will know that we get involved each year, in the village's annual Half Marathon and 10 km runs, under the banner "Ros go Run". We join the roadside support, cheering the lonely runners on, man a watering-station and have painted a big bed-sheet sized encouraging sign which says "Downhill from here". Liz gets heavily involved in the admin, planning, publicity, links to sponsors and organising on the day. All good so far.

Buggy-rider Archie Naughten and his support team snatch a
quick "selfie" outside our gate. 

This year the committee liked the idea of doing something for the kids and non-running family who, having delivered their runners to the start at the local sports ground are left with little to do for the 2 hours+ it takes most of them to get round the half Marathon. They came up with an easy, child-friendly Treasure hunt or "rummage race" where they "runners" would have to progress round an easy loop of roads armed with a sheet of 10 clues in rhyming couplets, spotting signs or toys and things we had tied to the hedge or gateposts. 

Cousin Cathy gets cookery tips. 

The purple 'angry monster' pictured, for example, we tied to a tree which the farmer (presumably as part of his 'GLAS' (subsidies for greening / ecological stuff) efforts) had mounted three bat-boxes. Our clue was...

"An ash tree here has boxes three,

for bats to roost (and have some tea),

A scary monster guards the nest,

How would you describe him best?"

Not that hard then.... all the kids had versions of "angry purple monster" on their answer sheets. They all got lollipops as a prize. We were amused to find that some competitive parents entered with their kids and took over, wanting to run round and dragging the kids, who could barely keep up, round in their wake. 

Cathy experiments with flavourings in soft
goat's cheese, mustard, garlic and chives,
honey etc

Another good feature of this day was an entry by a team who are fund raising for a local family all of whose three boys have a genetic disorder, 'Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy'. DMD is incurable and, tragically, leaves the sufferer pretty much unable to walk by age 8 and not looking forward to a long life. The oldest boy, Archie Naughten is currently being 'prepared' for an attempt on the Dublin Marathon which he will do riding in a special buggy, pulled/pushed by a team of three athletic, fit support runners (Four in the full-length Dublin event. They are a lovely crew and the Ros go Run Team have very much taken them to heart. They got a massive welcome. They had the Archie team runners set off half an hour before the un-assisted runs started and there were gangs of supporters from, for example, the Under 11 GAA clubs with signs and cheering children etc. They were very grateful and posted numerous pics on the Facebook page. They all, and especially Archie, enjoyed their day.

Roast pork rack-of-chops and a nifty savoury flan

I just missed them here, coming out of the front door just in time to see them finish taking a 'selfie' with my sign as backdrop but then running on before I could get down the drive to hail them. Never mind. I spotted the selfie pic on Facebook and commented upon it, which got me into a nice conversation with one of the ladies who was still bubbling over at the welcome and the support they had received. She also gave me permission to use that pic on the blog. Good luck with the Dublin Marathon you guys. Ours was just a warm-up, I know.

Latest book by my
grew-up-living-on-a-sailing-barge friend
Nick Ardley. 

Because Cousin Cathy was around and visiting, she was inevitably press-ganged in to help and enjoyed going round setting out the clues and helping down at the GAA sports centre on the day. She came round again with me later to tidy up the rummage course. That was her final day with us (this time round!). Liz had to drop her to the airport on the Monday for a bit of a tearful 'goodbye', apparently. She had thoroughly enjoyed her little stay, which was a Birthday present from the family and promises to return soon. You're most welcome, Cathy.

Happy 6 month Birthday, Empress and
Pride! Enjoy your Guinness. 

On Tuesday, the piggies hit a landmark birthday, 6 months. Because we do not go with these pigs much past 7-8 months (and never the full year), we make a big fuss of them today and they get a can of Guinness poured over their meal.

No, I didn't steal any of their Guinness! 

These two have been brilliant. No trouble at all. They are, you may recall, variety "Oxford Sandy'n'Blacks" (OSBs) and were named Empress of Blandings and Pride of Matchingham after the PG Wodehouse fictional 'Heaviest Pig' Show entrants.

Pigs at 6 months. Empress on left, Pride on right.

Readers who are uncomfortable with the idea of eating named (or indeed any) animals, may like to skip this paragraph. We have estimated their weights by the standard "Length x Bust squared" method and think they are live weights of around 70 kg today, so they are nearly 'finished' A couple more weeks and we will be booking them in for their final car-ride to Webb's in town and training them to run up into the trailer to get fed in there. That way, on their final morning, they are no trouble to load. I will miss them, but I am sure we will enjoy the pork, bacon, sausage meat, brawn, Christmas ham and 'Parma' style dry-cured legs and the dogs will enjoy the ear-flavoured dog treats.

Breaking up the curds from the latest batch of goat cheese.

I think that is about it for this one. Just a couple more pictures because I have them, so I might as well post them.

Confused Muscari. Why are these grape hyacinths leppin' into
action in September?

The two male turkeys explore the spud-patch in the tunnel.

Interesting yellow fungi growing in a dead hawthorn.

Mud Pies for Grown Ups

Lime plaster with hemp fibres

We are sopping wet. It has been raining pretty much all day as we 'enjoy' the back end of the skirts and train of Hurricane Gert. A big vigorous frontal system sits just off the NW coast aligned SW to NE and sliding slowly along that line. For most of the day it has been a heavy drizzle but occasionally it gets all inspired to downpours of almost Biblical proportions.

Lime-plastering the wall behind me the 'old' way.

As I was leaving SuperValu in Castlerea this morning I was not so much hopping between the puddles but walking with very flat feet across a sheet of water hoping that nowhere would the depth exceed the vent-hole 'draft' of my Crocs (about 18 mm if you're interested). Don't usually need wellies for Supermarket shopping here but that would not have been a bad choice today.

Smear a 'patty' on with the palm/heel of your hand and try to
level the lumps and bumps of the pointed stonework. This was
just the first "coat". 

I have been feeding the birds indoors today (the layers' pellet in particular turns to mush on contact with water and the birds will not touch it), in the sheds with the lights on. The pigs have long since mushed up the dirt inside the bit of fence over which I was passing food, so we have moved along a bit to dryer ground and moved along again this evening. The half apples would just plop into a foot-print and vanish, tho' I dare say the pigs' powerful noses would soon root them back out again, truffling-style.

Pinned down by the rain and feeling a bit 'meh' a blog post on "mud pies" seemed appropriate. Archery coach, Con and his good lady (Niamh) are doing up an out building like our Tígín and as part of this, they are plastering the inside with a trad old mix of white lime mortar and hemp fibres. They are doing this by encouraging the likes of me along by organising a free 'workshop' where the volunteers get to learn and try out the skills and hear all about the history in exchange for all that fascinating info, the fun of it and an epic salad for lunch.

First coat applied to one wall. The plaster is finished by applying
 a thinner, smoother coat and finally polishing it, when nearly dry,
with the heel of your hand in little circular motions.

I had seen the results of this method and material before (much of Con's place is plastered like this and Anne and Simon have a straw-building lined with at least the lime, if not the hemp fibres), but had never met it as a wet building material and a technique. It arrives as a 350 kg pile of lumps in a plastic-lined bulk builder bag, in this case from Monaghan.

A least the thoughtful cats leave their mice neatly stacked
among the china on a shelf. Thanks Blue!

It looks like very pale grey mud flecked with the (very short) pieces of hemp fibre, like "wholemeal" mud, if you like. It is pre-mixed (as a powder?) by the company, then wetted a bit and left for weeks, months or years to 'make'. Our job was to soften it in the cement mixer to roughly the consistency of sticky sausage meat (no lumps!). This involved a fair amount of stopping the machine and slicing through the bigger lumps with a pointing trowel. (Health Warning for the new builder - NEVER put your hand, arm or tools into a cement mixer when it is going. It will happily twist your arm off).

Does my bum look big in this? Lizzie tries
out the three cat-power insulation for bum and
back of legs while curled up on the sofa.

I was singled out (OK, I volunteered) for cement mixer duty as we also needed standard cement/sand mortar for some of the pointing etc and the machine had to be cleaned spotlessly between each of the 4 mixes as we didn't want nasty grey cement in our lovely white lime, or vice versa.

At 8 and a half weeks, Connie's 3 "chicks" are well grown and
fully feathered. More like half-scale hens than babies now. 

The plaster now at suitable wet consistency (you squish some 'patties' of it in your hands to check for no dry, hard lumps) it is time to stick it to the wall. First the wall gets wetted with a watered down slurry of the mix. The technique for applying the actual stuff is to scoop up a palm-full and smear it onto the wall with the heel of your hand, flattening your palm as you push. You try to leave it thicker over the dents (and squished into any cracks) and thinner over the peaks where stones stick out proud. It needs to be fairly flat, though it will be rough textured. The 2nd coat will sort that and finish with a rather more 'polished' (all be it rough to the touch) outer surface.

Back in the Feta cheese game. These the curds
from 8 litres fresh goat's milk, a gift from Sue
and Rob.

I love all this stuff and the old techniques anyway, but it was a superb day working with my co-volunteers, Ivan and Paul, swapping stories and banter and at one point breaking off completely to hear a 45 minute Master-Class (by Con) on the history of the material(s) and their use including all the history of hemp as a source of fibre ("retting" and the like), later as a chill-out weed (so all the fascinating chemistry of cannabinols and stuff) and most recently as a possible alternative to 'chemo' in cancer treatments - I will let the reader look for those him/her-self if interested enough). An epic salad lunch followed. Thank you very much Con and Niamh for sharing you knowledge, skills and food with us. I can't wait for Lesson 2 (Top Coat).

Rather sponge-y curds. It looked to have 'risen' better than
my bread!

Other than that we have been plodding along with everyday life. We received a nice gift of goat's milk from Sue and Rob which we have tried to turn into Feta cheese. For some reason this formed excellent curds but then stayed a bit sponge-y, like last week's puff-ball fungus. Still, we went with it, did the dry-cure and have now drowned it in 15% brine for 3 months shelf-life. When we use it, we dunk it for a while in clean water to soak off the worst of the saltiness.

TOPP left-overing! Sausage meat, bacon and apple PIE. 

I've been carrying on with the bread making. Liz has been building slowly to her involvement in the 'Ros go Run' half marathon etc (Sept 3rd) which this year will include for the first time a little Treasure Hunt / 'forage' walk for the kiddies; clues tied to gateposts etc. Should be great fun. We are thinking we will do rhyming couplets for the clues. We have also had another promising 'tickle'  on the Help-X website so we may be getting another volunteer but more on that when it is really happening. Good Luck now.

Legal 'Beagle's

Doggie Documentation

This is another rather short blog post as befits the relative lack of 'stuff' going on.

Our three dogs are so flippin' legal as of today that they were last heard of combing the Internet for a doggie lawyer in case they should need representation the next time they are caught chasing the kittens. In Ireland domestic dogs not only need to be licenced, they also need to be radio-chipped; one of those tiny grain-of-rice sized smart-tags injected under the skin between the shoulder blades.

The Ros go Run Committee pick up their sponsorship
cheque from Drury Oils.

The chipping is a one-off which we did last year, but the licencing works on an annual reminder - you trot along to your local post office with €20 cash per dog in your little paw. This year we had thought we might have got away with it, forgotten in the battle to get everyone chipped. The reminders normally come in December and we had made it through that month and January with ne'ery a whisper. Perhaps it was not happening? No such luck and the three reminder postcards hit the post-box with a resounding 'thunk' on Monday. I've been down today to pay up, tidying up the Postmistress's pad of forms in the process with documents number  599 and 600.

Buffers in process.

I mentioned in the last post that our #2 rooster, the Buff Orpington lad, 'Buffers' had started to attack us when we were trying to feed the birds or what ever, and was likely to need sorting. He persisted despite us warning him  so he is now 'late'. I went out after dark to collect him quietly from his perch (the least stressful way) and he is now  a rather lovely and extremely tender Coq-au-vin. He was a beautifully clean bird, completely lacking parasites or any damage and very, very well feathered, especially around the big, fluffy, Buff-Orp 'pantaloons'. He weighed 2.94 kg oven-ready.

Kato decides to help the plucking process by using the
sink full of fluff as a feather bed. 

He was plucked and then portioned up with all the easy bits (thighs, wings, breast, drumsticks etc) going into the Coq-au-vin via a 24 hour marinade in red wine - a whole bottle! The big remaining chunks (back, pelvis, neck) got boiled as stock and the meat stripped off the boiled bones for the dogs. The 'gribbly bits' (liver, gizzard, heart) went to the cats.

24 hours submerged in some generic Bordeaux softened
him up beautifully. 

It turned out a very successful 'processing' and Buffers should know that he did not die in vain. He went into the slow cooker yesterday afternoon but we judged that he was not really 'done' by supper time. We juggled the menu and decided to eat him tonight, so he got all that evening (6 hours) and then most of today (8 hours) in the crock-pot. You will probably guess he was fall-off-the-bone tender and seriously delicious. Without doubt the best cull-rooster meal I have ever had. That Lizzie is surely a genius in the kitchen.

The young ducks get some closely supervised 'out' while they
meet Mum and Dad. 

Meanwhile, on birds, the 'ducklings' are now almost 6 weeks old and quickly out-growing their little 2m x 1m rabbit run. Today we started the process of introducing them to the adult duck and drake (Mary and William) who are actually their biological parents (and sole duck survivors of the fox attack in November). Of course, the Drake does not know this and has no reason to be particularly nice to them - they are just unknown birds invading his patch and needing telling who is boss. We have to supervise to make sure this stays within decent bounds and nobody gets hurt. Ducks can be quite the violent bullies/rapists if that is how the mood takes them.

I am interested to see how the sexes work out on these three youngsters. The adult birds, as I said, are the 2 survivors from our original group of 6 which were 2 drakes and 4 females and which we noticed had what looked like sex-linked colour patterns. All 4 females had big splashes of white feathers down throat and chest, where the drakes both had solid dark heads and necks and brown bodies. They also had that mallard-style green iridescence on their heads.

We do not know whether white chested females is a Khaki-Campbell breed trait or possibly just true for this family/strain but the three new 'babies' all have this white throat/chest thing (see photo). I am hopeful that all three will be females, bringing our egg-laying number straight back up to the 2016 pre-fox level (4) without any wasteful drake appetites slowing me down. Too much to ask? Maybe not.

Field of Dreams?

If I play my cards right, this should be one of my most carefully worded blog posts ever.

View from our '2nd' gate, across the lane to
the field opposite

Regular readers will recall that when we bought this place we bought the house and the 1.5 acres around its south, west and north but then put in a (successful) plea for the 1 acre field to our east, thereby getting a nice square chunk of land with the house and buildings at its centre. The total buy was just a tad over the hectare (1.03 hectares or some such). The family kept hold of the rest of the holding (28 more acres) at that stage. Those readers will also recall that we have since dreamed of buying the field opposite (1.5 acres) so that we could keep a Dexter cow and calf having first fenced it properly and put up a shelter for the animals which would also collect rainwater into a couple of those 1000 litre butts (IBCs). So far so good.

That field from its SW corner. You can just see the new gate
centre left. 

All of that is already 'out there' in the public domain. Newly 'out there' comes word that the family have now decided to sell the property via local auctioneer "Callaghan Auctioneering" as 3 options - all of it both sides of the road (28 acres) or, separately, the 1.5 acres opposite us and the 26.5 acres to our west and north. This is crunch time. If we want to buy it, then we need to make up our minds now and get cracking. Once 'our field' is sold it is unlikely to come up available again.

All of which pitches us into the murky waters of "Private Treaty" wherein, if you are wise, you play your cards very close to your chest lest you prejudice your or anyone else's moves. Buyers must bid for the property in a closed-bid auction, sealed envelopes discretely delivered to the auctioneer. You don't know what anyone else has bid or even who has done so for the very good reason that no-one wants anyone else to know their business or their worth. They might share a pint in the local pub, but they are, of course, rival businesses, farmers who might have to try to out-do their neighbour next time they buy or sell animals. It's a cut throat, hard nosed business, farming, especially since the crash. If someone is going under then you don't want it to be you.

Another 'flavour' of livestock feed in bulk;
another silly cartoon on a dustbin lid!

Obviously, in this fog of 'smoke and mirrors' a good few of them are also "experts" with fixed opinions on who has bid and how much. "Ah.... surely he will have bid", " Oooh, about €70 grand, I expect", "Ah yes, but he's just spent a load of money on xxx" and so on. Fevered conjecture with not a fact to base any of it on! A dream for gossip and village politics and mainly harmless fun.

Maybe I'll just buy a tractor instead. Love this local one.

Hence me being so careful about what I know and what I may or may not have done about it. Will we bid? How much should we bid - what price would secure the land (or how little could we get away with!)? When do we bid - smack one in early or bide our time and wait right to the wire. Do we have that kind of money? Can we winkle it out of dusty-laden reserves or should we start doing the lottery? Don't hold your breath waiting for these answers. A guy in the pub told me it'll be at least 2 months....... OK, not really.

Deefer loving the new bed. The old 2nd hand cushions were
well past their sell by date.

Meanwhile, as if all this fevered speculation was not enough Lizzie has been trying to commit suicide by excess committee work and is only now starting to see some light at the end of a very packed tunnel - committees on organising the local Half Marathon/10 k runs (she looks after the publicity and has introduced them to the world of websites and social media), on what play the drama group should do next, on the future use of the Village Hall (actually the "Community Resource Centre", no less) as well as establishing yoga sessions, restarting the pre-school and Active age groups. Then there is knitting (and now crochet lessons), plus we have had visitors and we are due some more.

Half Marathon-ers pull away from the start line. 

It is a real relief to 'finish' some of these projects and lay them to rest for another year and, this weekend just gone, 'we' (the village) landed the 10k and Half Marathon. It went like a dream and, on the day, there was no more publicity to be done, so 'we' (mainly Liz) were able to swan around the start enjoying the well organised chaos and busy-ness, talking to some of the runners (incl. one from Miami!) taking pictures, see the runs set off and then zoom back to our place to set up and run our watering station while we waited for the Half Marathon to power round the first 12 miles.

The front of the pack are the highly trained and motivated runners who tend to decline your offers of water; they stay focused on the steps, the times, their heart rates and so on, but you start to get 'customers' for your water from further down the field. Some grab your water, others even stop for a breather and a chat. "I have nothing left to give" they say before sprinting on over the crest and down to the finish. There's a fair amount of waiting around between runners and Liz filled it this time with a bit of crocheting, working her way round and round an ever increasing square. One lady ran by who we knew and joked that "It's nice that some of us have time to knit!" Quick as a flash, Liz countered with "It's crochet and, anyway, you've only been round once - I've been round this twice!"

Our MEP Luke (Ming) Flanagan does the 10K with a buggy!

As an aside, we also saw local MEP Luke (Ming) Flanagan set off at the back of the 10K course jogging but pushing a push chair with sleeping baby. I photographed him passing and later sent the pic to him via Twitter. He said that the girl in the buggy always seems to beat him over the line. Did she sleep all the way round? All 10K, said Ming. We can see her in a few years in the playground swanking it up... "10K? Call that a distance? I used to do those in my sleep!"

Back on the 'farm' a couple of less happy events. Our two ewe lambs 'for meat' came to the end of their journey and were deemed big enough to go on that car-ride to destiny (well, trailer ride). I was down today to collect the offal and the slaughterman amazed me by  saying that these were the best 2 lambs we had ever given him. He is sometimes a bit of a one for the tease or a curmudgeonly comment (too fat, too big, wrong sex (he 'hates' doing rams, he says), black wool (never as good allegedly)) so I take that as praise indeed. The same day as we took our two down, Sue asked us to take 3 (tiny ram lambs) for her to the 'other' butcher (which she uses) because Rob has allegedly chained their trailer to a concrete block and then gone on a trip to UK without knowing where the key is. Allegedly.

September is here, then.

It's a job you have to do, but it's never easy and it always feels like a bad betrayal of both the trusting lambs, and the Mum (in this case Myfanwy) from whom you have 'stolen' the children. Poor Myf' called for them through the gate for most of the afternoon. Then, as if the bloodthirsty gods had not given me enough angst, the now full-grown gosling who had already lost the use of one leg (see a previous post) and was coping OK, today lost use of the other leaving him/her helplessly stuck in one bit of field. That is the end of the road in these cases, so her end came tonight when she failed to make it home to the goose-house at lock-up. Again, not a fun job but a necessary one.

On a happier note, to finish, I received a gift from a lad in the lane, of a bucket of rather green windfall apples for the pigs. I was doubtful, thinking I might give them belly ache so I started gently (a few apples, rapidly hoovered up) and then dished out a dozen per lunchtime. They looked to be enjoying it. Sobering then to see poor old Somerville stagger out for her supper in a very moopy state and play with her food while Ross guzzled hers with the usual gusto. Poor girl did not look well at all - quite a scare for me as I have never had a pig go sick before. I was fairly sure she'd just got your standard kid's belly ache and the advice on the pig groups was consistent with that. Keep an eye, they said. She will probably recover overnight. Anxious morning rounds this morning, then, till I was delighted and relieved to see that familiar sandy coloured shape sprinting up and down the fence with her sister yelling for breakfast. Anyone would think she'd missed a meal.... oh yes, so she had!

Butchery and Buildery

Saturday saw us back involved in the butchering of pigs, specifically the split carcasses of two full grown sows for our friends Sue and Rob. These girls were actually the mums of the piglets we moved in an earlier post and the  helped catch and load on Wednesday evening (Sept 2nd). I find I love this work and thoroughly enjoy taking pride in trying to produce good looking cuts of meat, presentable racks of rib, sheets of spare rib and in knowing my way round a carcass. I should quickly add that I am no expert but I am learning fast with every side I cut up, so I was delighted to be invited over to help out.

Rob, I know, would have loved to have been there and wants to get involved in the next one, but this time, the issues loading the animals last week pushed the butchery back into a week when he had already booked on a flight home to visit Mum, so he missed it and just had to watch the pictures go up on Facebook. He'll be back for the sausage making though and for the onward processing of all the many joints which ended up in buckets of brine or dry salt cure.

A spot of belladonna to cure what ails ye?

He will also be there for the eating. I was joking with JD Bob about Sue's bulging freezer and he was rubbing his hands with glee and joking that "there'll be some ate-ing in that house this winter! The pan'll be frying!...." Thanks then Sue, for letting us 'play'. Being full grown sows they were HUGE compared to our little 6-month old Berkshire gilts. We think about 60 kg a side, so nearly a quarter ton of meat. We actually had to cut all the legs (except one for dry cure) into several pieces just to make manageable joints for cooking for three appetites. I now find myself looking at pictures of carcasses and starting to plan where I would make my cuts and where I'd saw through bones.

Old Arklow pottery

We were also able to get back into the buildering in a small way, a lovely nostagic job to take us right back to our own demolition-ing of 2011/12. No names, locations or pack-drill on this one as it is rightly someone else's story to tell and those who need to know are already enjoying the Facebook feed and pics, but I hope the owner of this tale will not mind me telling our little sub-tale of treasures found and historic interest. This is an old property bought by a family of friends we know just across the county boundary, which they will 'do up' over the coming months (years?) but which they bought, like we did, in an abandoned state still well stocked with old "stuff" - furniture, crockery, cutlery and so on.

A government pamphlet on coping with a nuclear
accident from the 60s and a pack of pills to help
with radiation sickness from year 2002.

The place was formerly owned by a little old lady who lived to over a hundred (she eventually died in a nursing home) but who seemed to have kept everything, certainly Birthday and Christmas cards, letters and notes going back decades, hand-written, pre-decimal financial records and the like. Now Lizzie, you will know, LOVES her history and gets expecially fascinated by the history of the ordinary people, rather than Kings, Queens and politicians, so this was like treasure trove to her, a veritable gold mine.

An old but intact clay pipe and this lovely
brass hand-bell were among the finds.

The friends invited us over to help with some of the early stages once they had gained access and for Liz that meant a chance to root through the 'stuff' a bit while clearing what she described as "30 years of old clothes and mouldy rugs" out towards a fire pit they had going. I was put to work lump-hammering render off the outside of what is now beautiful stonework, which will be properly pointed up with old fashioned lime-mortar (the lump hammer does less damage to the stone faces than would an electric 'kango' hammer-drill). Liz carried big rubbish out, barrowed the shovel-up smaller stuff out, and dived in to rescue interesting finds with the daughter of the house.

Some of this the friends did not want, so we have it, but other bits we are cleaning up for them to create a mini-museum display of treasures from the house. Mazy will be amused to know that Liz has therefore spent her afternoon up to her armpits in brown sauce and brasso (the sauce is the perfect combination of sticky and acid for "marinading" the tarnish off metal cuttlery; rinse, dry, elbow grease and polish. Bob's your Uncle). There was a small collection of silver and silver-ish cuttlery and a lovely brass hand-bell. There was an intact old clay-pipe and a broken one. There was a small amount of surviving pottery from the Arklow pottery, Ireland's "Staffordshire" back in the day. There were assorted bottles of booze - rum, armagnac, whiskey and others. All the family drugs were there including, we noted, a belladonna based one for stomach problems which we guess has been superceded by now (!). The drugs have, of course, been safely parceled up for sensible disposal.

Brush cutting long grass in autumn here has you discovering
stashes of free-range eggs - these are 16 guinea fowl eggs

One of the most fascinating things from my point of view was a government pamphlet posted out to all the citizens in the 60s explaining the new threat of nuclear accident and fall-out. The one Liz found is specifically aimed at farmers (I assume there was an urban version) and how they should go about protecting stock, crops and grass from the effects of fall out. With it she also found a government issued pack of Potassium Iodate tablets against radiation sickness but we have looked both items up and the tablets are much more recent. They were issued in 2002 after a political scandal when one TD (Irish MP) was accusing another of not having done anything about protecting the public etc etc..... The pills are use by 2005 so must be among the last things our old lady stashed away for safe keeping.

Our water station for the "Ros Go Run" half marathon. 

The only other thing to report is our involvement, once again, in setting up a watering-point for the thirsty (half) marathon runners of the 'Ros Go Run' fun-run. The runners lope past our front gate almost at the end of their efforts, in the 12th mile, so we set up a table and bottled water which we can pass to them as they whizz by, not breaking their stride (or they are happy to stop and chat for a rest if they are almost done in!). Last year the planners had badly timed the run so that it clashed with a run in the nearby big town (Westport, I recall) so they were disappointed to only get 67 runners and were hoping for more this year. We were ready. I do not yet know what went wrong with this but on the day there was a tiny turn-out, with only 21 runners doing the course and, because there were almost as many water-stations round the course as runners, I only actually gave out 6 cups of water. I suppose it is quite possible that the organisers will call it a day and there may not be a 'Ros Go Run' next year. We did our bit, anyway.