A Good Sign?

You may be able just to make out 2 sheep shouting for their
breakfast through the snow. Another dire morning.

We may be finally seeing signs of coming out of the long, cold and dark Winter. In the last post, I alluded to some data suggesting that most of Northern Europe had experienced the darkest (least sunshine) winter on record. Today we saw confirmation that Ireland had been soaked by the wettest January since 1885 (yes, I DID say Eighteen Eighty Five!). Come on Met Éireann... enough's enough. We can all take a joke but.... I can hear the faint laughter of all those Kent friends muttering "Well, you DID move to Ireland"

Kato assists with the St Brigid's cross
assembly. 

Ah well, now that we are through the 1st of February, St Brigid's Day, Celtic / pre-Christian first day of Spring (Imbolc which translates as "in the belly" and refers, obviously, to all the new birth and fecundity). I promise you that today, in bright sunshine and no wind, I got a strong feeling that we might be drying out a little. The puddles have all but drained away, the concrete paths are that pale grey of dryness, not the shiny dark of wet or icy concrete. The mud underfoot, where we have mud, is now sticky, rather than sloppy. A good sign? There are people everywhere touching any wood they can lay their hands on and steeling themselves not to speak too soon.

Way more elabourate than mine, this St Brigid Cross was a gift
from our good friends Con and Niamh.

The output of eggs is definitely rising as the 2017 birds realise that there is (as they say here) a "grand old stretch in the evenings". They are now not taking themselves off to roost till half past five.

Last year's cross now all dried out and the new one. There
are various traditions regarding what to do with the old ones.

Today I collected 3 duck eggs (which is a 100% hit rate for them - we only have 3 females) and 13 hen eggs, which is a new site record. This is definitely enough hens for us - we don't want to be over-run with eggs. Still no action from the geese, though. In previous years they have come back in to lay in November but not this winter.

Spring busting out all over, at least in
the tubs dept. 

My good friend Miles (in Kent) says he goes with Valentine's Day but one of his geese started early this year, presenting him with an egg today. Like with all these things, we are in the lap of Mother Nature and we will have to preserve our souls in patience and wait and see.

Snowdrops down by the gate. 

In the plants dept, we have plenty of bulbs pushing up, especially in the pots and tubs. You expect these to be early because the tubs cool down quicker than the ground, so get frost-treated early, and then warm up faster to start the new season's growth. We have a good collection of daffs and tulips looking very promising this week and the snowdrops down by the gate are almost there.

That much heralded Blue Moon. This pic off the Internet.
We saw nothing of it due to cloud cover.

We had to smile ruefully at one 'casualty' of the wet. We alone in all the world seem to have been denied a view of the much talked-about and heralded full moon on 31st Jan which was going to be Blue and Super and even Blood in some parts of the globe. I was amused to see respected newspapers putting the 'blood' thing on their websites, possibly unaware that it was only going to be 'bloody' (eclipsed) in other parts of the globe, nowhere in UK or Ireland.

"Our" piglets at 18 days

Social Media was also chock-full of rather daft photo-shopped or double-exposed made up pics of the moon unfeasibly huge - filling half the frame as it rose through a city sky-line straddling several sky-scrapers or the whole width of rivers. What ever the case, we were not to see it at all on the 31st, due to the cloud cover. We saw it 24 hours prior and 24 hours post, though, so we will be happy with that.

The piglets look quite big till you see
them dwarfed by Mum's rump.  

Over in Boyle, half an hour's drive away, "our" piglets continue to thrive and grow on plentiful supplies of Mum's milk. Breeder, Adrian. generously sends me pics every now and then when ever we are in touch confirming quantities required and any friends we might have who also want them. The babies in these pics (which may end up being ours) were born on 15th Jan so, all being well, we can collect them on 12th March. Watch this space.

A pretty risotto under construction. 

I think that is probably about it for this one.

Rolled and tied shoulder cut.

I will talk to you again on Tuesday.

Taken on Liz's phone. I am joined by 3 dogs and
Soldier the cat as I read my book.

Have a good 'Imbolc' one and all.

Never Ending

Some local horses make the 365 album

With the coming and going of Hallowe'en (and All Souls' Day, I guess) we realised that we are now three quarters of the way through the 'Lisacul 365' photographic project. This year-in-the-life photographic record of all things within the 18 townlands, started on 1st Feb (that pic Liz took of our St Brigid's Cross seems a long way ago now) and runs through till 31st Jan 2017. It has (touch wood) not missed a day yet and has accumulated around 1000 pictures at this 9-month stage. There are roughly 85 more days to go.

A common sight locally. Abandoned farm buildings now
used (if at all) as barns. 

Regular readers will know that I function as 'back-stop' or 'safety net' committed to take at least 1 (normally 3) pic(s) each day so that on the days when none of the other 20 regular contributors take any, the show must go on. Hence as well as the 1000 pictures stored by Liz on the project website (awaiting final choice of THE ONE for each date), I have my own 1000-shot collection which overlaps to a degree.

Shaggy Ink Cap

By now I have pictured most of the area - I have shot scenery, farm buildings, ruins, flowers, trees, animals, birds and other 'bio-diversity', people where I could, highways and bye-ways, the weather, sunsets and sunrises. night time pictures, food and drink, events and seasonal stuff. It seems never ending. I am not trying to impress anyone here (go look at the pics and then decide), rather explaining why I am running out of steam a bit and will be relieved when it is all over. I can see myself putting the camera down on 31st Jan 2017, determined to give it a rest for a while.

These babies blundered into the 365 project when they escaped
their field and went for a stroll on the tarmac. Their Mum was
giving them hell from the field to my left but they hadn't a bother
on them. 

We will all be immensely proud, of course, of having stuck it out and 'landed' the thing but now that we are through the 'autumn colours' blaze of photo-genicity, I am looking down the barrel of 80+ days of grey skies, rain-swept muddy fields, no new plants, baby chicks or lambs. I am feeling a bit uninspired. Still, no-one said it was easy and, if it was, then we'd all be less proud of it.

Pond frozen for the first time this winter
on Monday 7th Nov

Also in the 'Going on for ages and now finally nearly done' Dept is THAT election in America. Liz has, you will know, always been a fan but I am only this time finding myself drawn into the drama and intrigue, listening to pod-casts and punditry on the Internet. Well, they all went to the polls today and I am reverting to my less-interested 'tell me in the morning' mode while Liz is about to pull one of her all-nighters, simultaneously watching news feeds, Twitter hash-tags, Facebook and her own private chat-forum groups. Tomorrow has, of course, already been taken off work as a holiday.

Snookered today by having to wait while the People exercise their democratic right, she was reduced to ironing, going to Knitting Club and Drama Group and, very nicely, feeding K-Dub and I tea and buns whenever we took a break from 'doing' the new kitchen wall. When she returns from drama-ing (about 11 pm) the polls will have closed in US-time and things might be starting to move for her night-owl surfing. By my next post, presumably, it will all have been decided, the winner 'crowned' President and the loser, just maybe, conceded with good grace.

Tell-tale blue turf smoke. 

Meanwhile, Monday saw us with a first frosty morning of this winter and the pond frozen over. I am not 100% sure, but I think that ram-lamb Silas, may have been having a little go with our Jacob-cross ewe, Polly. I think she has the faintest waft of smokey blue colour across her rump. What we need is a great wet slapped dollop of the stuff so that we would know for sure, but this might be an early teen-age fumbling. Polly's wool is quite dark anyway and can appear a blue-ish grey in some lights, so you'd not swear that it was raddle-grease on her but we remain hopeful.

St Brigid's Cross

Here in the West of Ireland, today, the 1st of February is the traditional First Day of Spring and is therefore the day we all rush out and make the traditional square crosses associated with St Brigid, one of Ireland's major saints. Well, the crosses looked fairly simple to us and are made of rushes. Rushes are one thing we are definitely not short of - we have an acre and a half of the things just outside the back door in the "pasture" we call our East Field.  We decided to give it a go, entering into the spirit of local traditions and all that.

We had a quick look on the internet and soon found some simple instructions. It is a bit like the corn-dolly making which I used to do and was quite good at. You'd have laughed at my rush-harvesting efforts. Liz had gone up for her shower this morning and I nipped out to get a few rushes but I was still dressed in my dark brown toweling dressing-gown and had slipped on a pair of sandals. I grabbed my hand-scythe ("swap hook")  and hopped through the cattle fence trying to avoid the puddles. At that point it started raining. Anyone looking would have thought there was some mad monk out in the field - scythe, cassock, sandals, rushes - must have looked like Brother Cadfael!

Saint Brigid seems to be famous for two main things. The crosses come from a story where she was asked to go and comfort a (Pagan) Regional King who is raving with a fever on his deathbed. She decides there is no talking to him in that state. In those days the floors were strewn with rushes, so she sat by his bedside, picked up a few rushes and quietly sat and wove a cross out of them. Calmed down, the King starts to express an interest in this girl and the cross she is making. She tells him the stories or Jesus and the Cross and he converts to Christianity there and then. I do not know if he then dies of the fever anyway, or recovers, but what ever the case, the crosses have been made 'ever since' in memory of this.

The second story has Brigid healing another King and asking her what she wants as a payment. Brigid asks for some land on which to build a nunnery. The King is a mean old git and poo-poos this, saying she can have anything that she can cover with her mantle (cape). She spreads her cape on the ground and, Lo! By the power of all the best religious miracles, her cape is suddenly the size of the Curragh in Kildare. The Curragh, you may know is a huge chunk of land near Dublin which currently houses not only the famous race course, but also the Army camp and training ground (similar to Salisbury Plain in the UK). Traditionally none of this can now be ploughed up.

I think I have this right, but feel free to jump in any 'real' Catholic Scholars (or Saints) and correct me. Anyway, our crosses are complete. Mine looks a bit rustic with its ends tied with more rushes; Liz's looks a bit neater and more even. I asked what happens now. I am told they just stay there, wedged behind pictures or (in my case) propped up in the wire, chicken-shaped egg basket, round till next year, when you throw them away and make new ones.

Happy First Day of Spring, everyone.