A Lucky Rooster

Puff balls

"At last!", I hear you cry, "A post devoid of Doctors, health, hospitals and medical stuff...... well except for here in this first sentence, anyway". September now, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and all thoughts turn to small-holder-ing, harvests and preparing for the Winter. Here that means a variety of meats - duck, chicken and pigs at the moment, plenty of fruit (mainly plums and apples), veg obviously and then. always taking us a bit by surprise, the puffball "pop-up-crop" out on the old muck heap behind the goose house.

Lamb shoulder cooked over a bed of veg which included
our puff balls. 

I spotted 2 nice new puff balls this time around and their delicious mushroominess has enhanced a number of dishes. Elizabeth included them in a lovely mushroom tortilla. I had a try at just cutting one into chips, and frying-pan frying them as part of breakfast, which was delicious, but the Main Chef used them as part of the bed of veg's under a roast lamb shoulder. This made for some delicious 'veg' to accompany the meat first time round, but then enhanced a superb shepherd's pie made with the left overs. Obviously you need to catch them young - don't wait till they are just a thin-skinned bag of dark green 'puffy' spores!

Plum jam. Needs another boil to improve the 'set'.

It has been a very good year for plums. All the heat wave weather ensured a good blossom and fruit set and the plums seemed to all survive the drought, unlike the cherries, quinces and pears which suffered a serious "June Drop". We picked a good 6 kg yesterday and I made 3 kg into plum jam.

Only a few figs this year but it is a very small and young tree.

This morning, though, I am not impressed by the set. I am never very good at setting jam; I never seem to boil it long or hard enough. This batch will go back into the big saucepan when I get the chance, for another good hour of rolling boil and reduction. It has also been a good year for apples but we are not so mad keen for apples in this house, so the pigs have been enjoying the lion's share of our Katy and Red Windsor bounty. Other varieties are more interesting but, this year, a lot lower cropping - 'Irish Peach', Egremont Russet, Braeburn, James Grieves and Bramley, plus cider apples Camelot, Dunkerton Early and Dabinet.

The 'bonhams' enjoying a water melon treat. There is nothing like
water melon for  shlurpy, juice-flying-everywhere, pig-saliva,
lip-smacking show of deliciousness. Happy pigs.

In the Meat Department we have now declared the two boy-pigs (bonhams) "ready". They have caught up well on the late Sister. I have booked them in to the butcher in town for Weds week (12th). That means we just have to do all that trailer-familiarisation malarkey on the Monday and Tuesday, but these guys already know the trailer from when we were doing it with their 'big sister' (Daisy - see earlier post). We will collect the carcasses on the following Monday (19th) to give them a chance to 'set' in Webb's cold store.

A nice clean drake carcass.

Meanwhile, our new ducks have now made their decisions on whether to be ducks or drakes and, unfortunately for them, the 5 babies proved to be 3 drakes and 2 females. This gave us a way out of balance ratio in the 'flock' (do ducks have 'flocks'?) of 4 males to 3 females. We need to 'off' all three of the new drakes to restore the balance, especially as any matings would almost certainly be brother x sister in-breedings. We will then be left with the Khaki Campbell as our drake. He is definitely NOT related to the ladies - he is a different variety.

Let a wet dog on your lap and they will autograph your knee.

The original Mum and 2 daughters will be our egg layers come next Spring. It's a shame that in Appleyards, as in the original mallards, the boys are the pretty and colourful ones. The females tend to be brown and flecked, well camouflaged, but can have a bit of white on their chests. So it goes.

The chickens, of course, have the same problem. Regular readers will know that we run here with a hen to rooster ratio of between 7:1 and 12:1 which gives us good cover (fertility) in the eggs but avoids any unwelcome harassment and rape. Sadly, like most species, baby chicks hatch as roosters and hens on a 50/50 basis; way too many boys. The day someone develops a chicken variety that yields 1:7 someone will make a lot of money.

This 'spare' rooster got lucky

We are, as you know, over-run with 2018 hatch birds, a lot of which hatched around May, so they will be coming to "point of lay" (or not!) between now and Chri***as. We start to see the signs as young poults start to square up to one another, flaring their little baby 'capes' and bowing their heads. This can be from very young ages - 6 weeks even. There is no market for them as roosters, especially the mongrel cross breeds we produce.

The ducks playing on the pond. Much quacking, zooming about
swimming under water like penguins and splashing. 

Normally these guys get 'offed' before they start to cause a problem, but one here at the moment has got lucky. Our archery friends, Con and Niamh have just had their rooster and a couple of hens taken by the fox. The rooster was taken right outside the kitchen window - Niamh saw him bite through the poor fella's neck and then carry him off, limp, before she could get out there.

Sad slew of feathers. All you get to tell
you Brer Fox has been.

We thought our own fox might be leaving us alone - he'd not been (as far as we knew) for several weeks. But 2 days ago, he came by just before 9 o'clock in the morning to invite a Buff Orpington hen to breakfast. My bad. I was downstairs and had just shut the dogs up for yapping at a magpie, lest they wake up Elizabeth. When they started yapping again I assumed it was just more magpie and did not respond properly. The fox had come onto the front lawn in bright sunshine and snatched a hen from the flock out there. Elizabeth spotted the sad slew of feathers on the lawn and a couple more where Foxy had adjusted his grip on his way out through fences etc.

Leaf fall.

Meanwhile, we are now set up for a few visits. The first, today, was by Mum-in-Law (Steak Lady on here) accompanied by her friend/neighbour/minder/factotum, Michelle. MiL had recently broken her wrist and had had it in plaster, so no driving for her. The plaster cast is now off but this would be a first chance for MiL to show off our place (largely built by her son, 'Sparks', of course!) to Michelle and also for them to check up on my recovery. We would catch up on the chat over tea, enjoy a bit of lunch, and then the ladies were off for an afternoon at the lovely Strokestown House (The house, the National Famine Museum and a lovely old walled garden).

Lovely poster from Michelle.

They came (as they say) bearing gifts including a very thoughtful and generous present from Michelle. She has a friend in the printing business and she had had him make up a couple of posters from the newspaper article which featured our garden back in December 2017. See also my previous post on

https://deefer-dawg.blogspot.com/2017/12/too-much-bio-diversity.html

The poster had the article in the middle, surrounded by some more recent pictures extracted from this blog. We are very grateful and delighted. The ladies even brought a poster-frame for the item. We are spoiled.

Geese and their reflections

Tomorrow, it is the turn of  'The Dans' (Dan and Danielle), long term Friends of the Blog. Cousin Danielle, in particular, was deeply distressed (well... OK) that I had sneakily gone sick without very quickly calling on them to come and help, and they have been meaning to get over and support us ever since. We really have the best and most generous friends.  More of that visit in the next post.

All for now. Good Luck.

April Showers

Back to the roots? This house was formerly owned
by Steak Lady and Theo.

My last post saw Australian cousins Dee and Luke head off from here on the final leg of their family-finding tour of this island. They were headed from here via Strokestown House and the Famine Museum to visit 'Sparks' and Kim, from there up to north of Dublin to call in on Auntie Mary, back to Dublin for some hotel-based exploring and then the lengthy flight home on Thursday (19th).

Good egg yields at present.

It has been good to be able to follow some of their adventures on Facebook where they regularly post pictures and update stories. Last time I looked there were 247 pics of the "Ireland Family" in an album. One bit I did enjoy was Dee and Luke's little diversion to try to look up a street in Dublin where both families lived in the 60s just prior to the emigration. Dee's family lived in house No.1, Elizabeth's family in No. 3.

Scrambled eggs don't come much yellower. Elizabeth had been
making meringues and there were 4 yolks left over. I added two
'whole' eggs to thin it out a bit. 

All the kids' playing was done out in the street in those days but it was a cul-de-sac and you were only allowed "down" as far as the line in the tarmac where it changed from the cul-de-sac to the MAIN road and all the Mums (or probably all the grown ups) were allowed to clip the ear of any child who strayed, no matter who 'owned' the child, and send it back up to the permitted area.

April Showers brewing up.

It turns out the street and the houses are still standing, although No. 1, being on the end, has seen some major extending. Dee was able to stand on the ground where she had once played and even spoke to the owner of No. 3 (The nicest garden in the street!) who had bought the place from Steak Lady and Theo all those 48+ years ago when they had sold up to move to the 'new estate' in Portmarnock (N. County Dublin). Top roots-chasing Dee and Luke!

Bottoms up.

Dee and Luke actually managed to time their visit here to perfection in terms of finding a gap between the wet bits. As they arrived we'd enjoyed a good week of drying weather after a very wet March and April, so they were able to explore and meet the livestock with minimal wellies involvement. As they left another huge Atlantic storm brewed up with all the associated warnings for rain all up the coast. This storm was subsequently named 'Irene' though not till after it had passed dumping huge amounts of rain on us, joining up all our puddles again. One heavy shower today even had the ducks running for shelter, which was a new one on me.

Luke found some good beers in his travels. I'd not met the stout
version of Galway Hooker, or this superbly labelled 'Hairy Goat'

None the less, we still believe in Spring. Our first swallow turned up on the 9th and I have since seen them in threes and fours every day diving about between the rain drops and wind gusts, fuelling up on flying insects. They don't usually nest here since our cats became too athletic and too good at snatching them from the air as they dived from the bright sunshine into a shaded barn (and were briefly blinded, presumably). I also saw today that the local pair of coal-tits have come back to their nest hole in the gable end of the goose house.

Light reading for the Birthday Boy.

Not too much else happening except that, having got through the family visits, we have re-opened the humble abode to the Help-X volunteer students. We were advised that to increase the chances of your 'farm' being spotted on the website by prospective helpers, you should update your sales pitch. The website apparently brings fresher updates to the top of its look-up queues. As ours has said for the last 6 months, we are "closed for Winter", the simplest update seemed to be just to change that to "now emerging from Winter" and we are suddenly of interest to a German lass, an older couple of bee keepers from Canada, a French lad who fancies August, and a German lad who wishes to come this month. More on these as and when they work out.

Oxford Sandy and Black Pig Group 'merch'.

I think I will leave it at that for now. Talk to you again when we have dried out a bit.

Only those Hubbards....

The Hubbard chicks at 1 week get a first chance to feel the
warm Roscommon sun on their backs. It's the hottest day of
the year so far  and they will come to no harm. 

Another week passes and there is still no sign of our AWOL turkey hen, Barbara so, naturally, we are becoming convinced that Brer Fox has had the pleasure. Yes, she MAY still be out there, rearing her chicks in the (now) cattle fields and a miracle may happen and she'll stroll back in with a little 'crocodile' of adolescents. Ah well. It does not matter physically for the moment as we will not be deciding whether or not to replace the turkeys any time soon. Emotionally, of course, we will miss them - they were an intriguing and fascinating couple to have wandering about and liked to home in on us if either of us were out gardening or sitting by the pond.

Misty morning across the bog to our North

No babies either yet for the geese or any of the chickens. For our fix of chicks, then, we only have those Hubbards, 7 days old today. We are always impressed by their speed of growth and development - if you want photo's of that clichéd image of the spherical ball of fluff body with two legs at the bottom and a head at the top, then you really do have to get there in the first 3 days. By day 4 and certainly by day 7 they are already growing taller, with an obvious neck and pin feathers are sprouting to give them definite wings among their side-fluff.

The Captain's table? Our former rooster re-appears coated with
a rough and ready BBQ sauce but even though we slow-cook
him, we'd both admit that he was a tough aul' bird. 

Of course, in commercial terms, they are not fast growing at all. Free range, they take a good 100-120 days to reach good carcass weights. Commercial broiler birds housed indoors and grown on a diet of growth promoters under controlled day-length can be harvested at more like 40 days, still covered in chick-fluff. As I understand it (and I'm no expert), those would not be Hubbards - our Hubbards are bred (designed?) to do well under commercial scale free range or organic conditions. We are actually slowing them down by giving them fully free range conditions, too much exercise and a diet supplemented by worms and grubs scratched from the ground.

Breakfast in the early morning sun. 

Meanwhile in other 'babies', our little gilts continue to charm and delight us. They are almost 4 months old now and suddenly seem to twice as long as the day they arrived. We were delighted recently to be visited by the couple who did my pig-training down in Tipperary 3 years back and with whom we have stayed in touch and would now call firm friends.

I love the light under new beech leaves. This is in the pig run.

They were in the area, by coincidence, to collect a puppy and recognised the name of the village as being one I had mentioned. I was delighted to show them around the place and particularly to show the two pigs to Alfie. He pronounced them fit, well and a credit to us. "I love to see HAPPY pigs" he said as the our pair scampered round our feet deciding whose footwear to chew first.

This lovely foal and mare combo (plus the
other filly behind) have moved in next
door as lawn mowers. 

I should add that it's not all sweet perfection, however and a nasty incident between dogs and pigs soured relations between these species for a while.The 3 westies were enjoying their half hour off-lead exercise and gazing through the fence as the piglets wandered over to sniff the dogs.

This pigmy shrew was only slightly chewed by the cat.
Liz rescued him and I got a quick chance to take his pic
before we released him to the safety of a log stack.

Faster than I could react, a pig had got too close, a dog had thrust his head through the sheep wire and grabbed a chunk of pigs ear. The hullabaloo of squealing and barking had me sprint over adding my own roar to the cacophony. The dog let go the pig and the pigs both ran off to hide in their ark while I reprimanded the dogs. I went in to console the pigs and was relieved to find that the ear was only a bit bitten, not actually torn, though it was bleeding quite impressively. First-aid for piggies, anyone? Luckily, no lasting damage done though I note the pigs stay well clear of the fence now when the dogs are about.

Small white (?) on dandelion. 

The 365 photo project chugs on coming to the end of its 4th month. Last week the 'Tidy Towns' group in the village wanted to take part in the (national) Bio-Diversity week, so the 365 photographers were asked to specialise in wildlife related stuff. I have had some fun trying to give them a good choice of subjects and not just the cute and fluffy - slugs, snails, dead wood and so on have all featured. I am not sure I am 'allowed' to be pleased that Blue the cat caught a timely shrew which Liz rescued and then, while it was still frozen in shock and a-trembling, take its picture before it suddenly came to, realised its good fortune and scampered for cover. Sensible shrew.

The long border at Strokestown, still a bit
'early summer' and green. Pic by Liz. 

In the extra-curricular area, we found out about a plant sale happening in our favourite guest-visit destination, Strokestown House. This was not Strokestown selling stuff from their brilliant walled garden, but merely acting as host to a dozen or so traders. However the traders were excellent and the plants were in gorgeous condition and very reasonably priced and, included in the €5 entry fee to the 'fair', was a chance to walk round the walled garden. Despite showers, that was us sorted for a very enjoyable Sunday morning.

Strokestown House walled garden.

For not too much of a dent in the wallet, we came away with a good haul thanks, mainly, to one of the traders doing a "6 plants for €20" deal. All perennials needed (and longed for for a while - Ireland is not a natural gardeners' country and the Garden Centres are few and far between and not well stocked with unusual stuff) for our big raised bed. Some inspired by the lovely plants growing in big drifts in the walled garden - the blue Centaurea particularly.

Admiring the old equipment in the restored working area.
This a lovely old Allen Scythe

We shipped a couple of tall clump-forming grasses, that blue centaurea, a nepeta (cat mint), a sedum, salvia, Solomon's seal, a hemerocallis (day lily) and a frothy-flowered thalictrum (I think) with granny bonnet leaves (aquilegifolia). With all this haul home we go into designer mode placing them out on the bed in their prospective positions to see if it works.

The gardener - muddy knees to prove it!

We are still enjoying the fact that this is not our overcrowded garden in Faversham. By the time we'd finished there we had no space to plant things we'd buy so they sat in pots for too long, or some other plant was evicted to make room. Here, we have 2.5 acres, so we can still buy 'thugs' that will take over space - mint, the Solomon's seal etc or will happily self-seed. We'll get there.