Looking Forwards

With Christmas and the New Year all done, dusted and packed away we start to feel like we should be looking forward to the new season, Spring, new stock and all the fruit, flowers and veg leaping into action. In the previous post, I wrote that we were waiting on the splatter of tiny feet with a batch of 7 duck eggs in friend Sue's incubator. That has all now happened with three lovely healthy ducklings hatched over the 6th and 7th, collected by us on the 8th and now going through the first "brood box" week.

We use a semi-transparent plastic crate for this (well, a series of crates of increasing size to suit the growing babies) and our "electric hen" (warming plate) and we feed chick-crumb with plenty of water on the side (as these are ducks and they prefer their food dibbled in the wet) plus, for the first week, finely mashed hard boiled egg with the shell finely chopped and mixed back in.

Curiosity might not kill the cat in this case!

We are reminded each time we do this, that ducklings do not naturally creep under mother's skirts (if she is swimming, they'd submerge!) but climb instead onto her back. The ducklings are the same with the electric hen and you can generally find them all hopped up on top in a huddle. As I write this they are 3 days old and thriving. They have good appetites and have quickly learned about food, water and keeping themselves clean. You can not let them out onto the water properly till they are about 3 weeks old, as their preen-glands have not yet developed or started to produce the water-proofing oil for their feathers. In nature their mother would have oiled them up in the nest.

Hopefully the parents of this years piglets, pregnant sows
Iris and Plum.

I may also have mentioned that we had been in contact with our piglet-breeder, a guy called Adrian who farms over near the town of Boyle. You may recall that although last year's piglets came from a chap called Dermot in Wicklow, 3 hours drive away, we did not have to make that drive ourselves. Dermot was coming most of the way here and if we'd meet him in Boyle, we could get away with a half hour drive and a bit of piglet-wrangling in Boyle's market car park.

Half grown piglets at Adrian's place.
These are about 5 months old

The reason Dermot was up here was to collect a sow from Adrian and take it 'home' to get it pregnant by one of his boars. That sow and another have now produced a couple of litters each and are pregnant again (pig-people like to keep their sows in pig as much as possible because if you 'rest' them they can be a devil to get back on heat). One is due this month and the other in March. We hope to take 2 gilts from the January litter, which will be weaned after 8 weeks, in March. Sue is hoping for the same. Obviously it is all in the lap of the gods at present - as with humans there is no telling whether they will successfully 'farrow', or when or how many piglets might result and how many survive to weaning. Litters can be as big as 15 piglets or down in the 5s. All we can do at this stage is wish them all luck and pray hard.

Polly with last year's twin lambs in March (2016)

In the sheep department I had been getting a bit concerned at a stiffness or lameness I had seen on a couple of cold damp mornings in our oldest ewe, Polly. At 9 years old, Polly is at least 5 years older than any commercial 'serious' sheep farmer would keep a breeding ewe. They are allowed a couple of seasons and then generally turned into mutton at 4 years old. Well, every day is a school day with livestock and I now know a bit more about shepherding after seeking advice from Mayo Liz, the person who we are sure knows more about elderly sheep than anyone - she supplied us with Polly (and Lily and Myfanwy) in the first place aged 7 and still has some of her other ewes at 13 years old.

Mineral Lick for sheep.

Every time I see a lame sheep, I have been reaching for the foot-trimming shears and paring away any shaggy edges of 'toe-nail' I found. Well, apparently you should not always do this - restrict foot trimming to 1 or 2 times a year. Sheep get over most foot problems much faster untrimmed. Then, too, I have learned all about "The Mineral Bucket". This I possibly should have known because way back when I was a student doing a bit of milking, I remember the cattle had access to great big salt-blocks to lick. Also I know, in theory, that those goats you see creeping out along the sheer vertical walls of dams in Europe, clinging on by the edges of their toe-nails to the joints in the stone, are doing it to get to the salt deposits encrusted on the wall by water seeping through the dam.

Polly beats Myfanwy to the mineral lick. 

Be that as it may, Mayo-Liz always gives her sheep mineral licks in Winter because the quality of the grass falls away and they might lack minerals in their diet. This might be why Polly is getting stiffness in her joints, especially if she is starting to lose teeth through old age. The 'lick' is a mix of minerals and salts thickened up to a very stiff, clay-like consistency with molasses and is dark brown in colour. All the sheep love it and the older 3 (born at Mayo-Liz's) all piled in with delight. It was like an old friend! They lick and nibble and try to rasp away at the stuff goo with their lips, teeth and hard-pad (top jaw) trying to beat all the competition off till they have had enough. The bucket is now a stop on their endless circuits of the field. I THINK I can detect a new spring in Polly's step but that might just be fond imagination.

Not so chatty now, Mr Fox?

Finally a bit of fun to close off the fox story. We are fairly sure that we have solved that problem for now with our shooting of the boy-fox back in November and our new habits of keeping the birds in if we are both off site seems to have driven off the older girl (plus my man-with-shotgun from Jan 2015 has shot 2 other animals recently on his own place). Well, I thought it might be fun and cathartic to take a stuffed toy fox to our first archery club session on Sunday - we are for ever shooting at coffee cups, balloons and other bits of junk when we get bored with shooting at the official targets.

The only good fox?

So it was - we sat Brer Fox on a little wire hoop in the target at 40' range. I was actually the first to hit him and with a very lucky first arrow (right in the mouth) but he was soon getting peppered by all and sundry and starting to leak stuffing. Ah well. All good harmless fun. I should quickly re-assure my readers who do not know this story or about archery, we would not dream of taking a bow and arrows to the real thing. It is illegal throughout the British Isles to hunt any animal or bird with a bow and arrows. I am told you can still hunt that way in parts of Europe and USA but have to use the very powerful "compound" style bows and even then it has to be under license.

Towser.

So there you have it. 2017. Bring it on.

You are Kidding!

Flowering Cherry

When I 'went to press' on the last post, the last night of the village play was still going on and everyone was a bit anxious to give it their best shot and impress everybody. Well, I can happily tell you that like the other two nights, it went down a storm and was very well received by another sell-out audience. The cast and the whole team are delighted with it all and there has been lovely feedback and comment all about the place, so huge kudos in the village to all involved. They are all now wondering what they can do for next year and Liz fully intends to be part of that, possibly as "continuity" (that's what the programme said - she prefers just "prompt").

Half a dozen Khaki Campbell ducklings

We all needed a day to recover from the play and the new piggies, but that was all we got before the next bursts of excitement sploshed like pebbles into the calm mill-pond (ha!) of our small-holding life. A text from Sue early Sunday morning announced a "Clan Gathering" in her incubator - our duck eggs bought at Roscommon Poultry Sale a month back were all hatching. We needed to nip over and collect them and start the duck-owner phase of our lives. This also gave us a neat excuse to go admire the 6 (orphan?) baby lambs they have bought to bottle-feed, which includes a fine looking Suffolk lad who may well end up being our sire/tup/ram for this autumn.

Liz unpacks the precious cargo

We brought the ducklings home, cheeping away (yes, they do 'cheep' or at least 'pipe' at that age, rather than quacking) in a small expanded polystyrene box, quickly photographed them, and then let them loose in the baby chick's brooder where they could soon get warm by creeping under the 'electric hen' heat-plate. They got the same baby food as the chicks - finely mashed hard-boiled egg (incl. shell finely chopped) and commercial chick-crumb and they are thriving. They are little, very cute and utter charmers.

They quickly adopted the habit of climbing on top of the 'electric hen' instead of cosying down under it and the reason never occurred until Carolyn told me today. The electric hen works by having a warm plate facing downwards and running at broody-hen breast temperature (36ºC, I think). The top of the plate is plastic and well insulated from the hot plate so that birds can rest up there as extra space but only get mild benefit from the plate.

Of course (said Carolyn), ducklings have no instinct to burrow under Mum to get warm - Mum is generally swimming about on a cold pond with her feet underwater! That would NOT be a good plan for the babies. Instead they climb on her back and hide under a wing or the body feathers. Obvious once you have been told. Duck owners generally use the Infra-Red heat lamp option. It turns out that the Sitting Room is so warm here that the ducks are fine 'living' on the back of the 'hen' and only nipping down their with their chicken-cousins every now and then. I have even started feeding them their share of food up there.

Seconds old, the kid gets a good licking

If I had thought that ducklings, more log splitting and another testing archery session were enough excitement for one day and I needed to relax, then the small-holder gods were definitely not listening. We almost had supper on the table, and I had laid same and it was 7 p.m. when suddenly Towser started kicking off barking upstairs in a determined fashion. Suspecting that our stray dog might be about, I quickly got my wellies on and went to check. I could hear all manner of pained groaning and moaning coming from the top of the East Field and could see Nanny Óg rolling on the ground looking in distress. I now know that this is what goats DO in labour and all was probably well but I was straight onto some goat expert advice to check.

Mum cleaning up in the first minutes.

By about 7:15 p.m I could see a small white tuft protruding from Nanny's vulva, looking for all the world like an extra tail. Before I could react, Nanny groaned loudly once more, rolled over again, squirted the baby kid out onto the grass and stood up all in one movement. Apparently fast labour is another goat thing. I now raced to get Liz - the supper was stew, so that was not going to spoil - and we watched Nanny give the kid a thorough licking (plus tidying up the 'surroundings') while we sipped our wine the other side of the fence, only yards away from the action.

This was our first ever goat-kid so we were fascinated watching it quickly try to get to its feet (back legs first!)  and then to suckle, all the time being thoroughly licked all over by Mum who was grunting and chuntering away to the baby all the time. We were also wondering, of course, whether there might be more as well as needing to text the real owners of the goat (Carolyn and Charlotte) with the great news. It was also getting dark. We watched for as long as we sensibly could while the kid got closer and closer to the teat but then decided to leave them be so in case they were distracted by our presence. We'd check on them in an hour - we dived indoors for our stew.

Struggling to its feet - back legs first.

Well, safe to say now that this kid (which is male and has been named "Henry Óg" by Carolyn's young son) was indeed the only one, it did get to its feet and suckled successfully. It is still with us, is now 48 hours old and is thriving. It has been duly admired by all the interested parties. There is only one minor issue with this and we have read that this can happen with singleton kids. They can tend to favour one side of the udder and ignore the other, so that you need to help the Mum's comfort by milking out the un-used side for a few days, till baby gets big enough to start needing output from both 'barrels'. Nanny is a bugger to catch when she is out loose in a field, even when limited by not wanting to abandon the baby kid, so I have not yet been able to catch her, single handed. That is maybe one for tomorrow.

That was definitely enough excitement for that day and we are quite glad that there are no more births or babies due now till one of the birds goes broody.

R.I.P. Theo

Theo at a family wedding a while ago. 

I start this post with the saddest of news, the passing away of Liz's Father, Theo C who has been a feature of this blog for as long as it has been up here. We knew him as 'Mr SL', being the husband of Liz's Mum, Steak Lady. Regular readers will know that he had not been well for a while now and that some of Liz's missions down to Silverwood land had been to look after him as he was in and out of short stays in hospital.

Enjoying the sunshine outside here with Liz this summer.

He passed away peacefully in that hospital yesterday afternoon surrounded by all the family. He had been very much part of the bedside chat as the clan gathered and had just had his lunch. He was 88. We will all miss him - he was the best of men. Certainly to me he was the best Father in Law I can imagine wishing for and he always had a lot of time for me; generous, loving, welcoming and kind. I laugh now at my worries when 'courting' (does anyone still use that word?) Liz and knew I was going to have to meet her Father, impress him and ask his permission for Liz's hand, with me being a 'foreigner' and him known to be a passionate expert on all things Irish History; me coming to take away his kith and kin to another country. The 'perfidious Albion'? He was, instead, the best of hospitality, immediately bringing me into the family circle like that old 'cliché', "gaining a son, not losing a daughter" and his "Father of the Bride" speech was a mix of history and olde Irish (Brehon) Law around how auspicious it was to be wedding in November (the Feast of Samhain) and the old dowry set-up for the family women, that I will never forget. Love you Theo and I will miss you a lot. RIP my Friend.

Pink's ewe lamb. 

But what of things more local? Most exciting, I think, are events over at Sue and Rob's (they of the piglet-wrangling) rain soaked establishment. The ewe 'Pink', who you might recall I sheared this year as my first sheep owned by "someone else" and was true wife of the ram we borrowed to service our own ewes (the late Rambo) surprised Rob two evenings ago by popping out two tiny lambs.

Pink with both lambs.

It was lashing rain (as is normally the case) and Rob was doing his evening rounds when he heard bleating which was way too young to be the adolescent ram-lamb still hanging around with Mum. Investigating that far corner of the field , he found Pink there surrounded by afterbirth and with two lambs, on their feet, suckling away like good 'uns. That rainy cold night with the snow still melting in the field, was no place for these tiny newcomers, so the family have been rounded up and penned in a dry barn on good hay. This not without difficulty, apparently because the lambs, carried by Rob did not make the usual protest noises which bring the ewe anxiously following you across the field. They were quiet, so Mum looked like staying in the field where she could smell the afterbirth and presumably 'knew there were lambs here somewhere'. They had to park the lambs in the car-boot temporarily while they manhandled Pink over to a happy re-union. All sorted now, though. One lamb is a ewe, the other a tiny ram.

Soldier just fits in the wooden fruit bowl. 

I nearly caused Liz to choke on her coffee by announcing this birth in a text message saying that they had been born to "Rambo's wife"; which she took to mean one of OUR ewes. No Lizzie - ours are not due till Valentine's Day. That same evening Sue also got a message that the boar and sow combination I helped load for their trip to new owners in Sligo (Rodney the boar, Cassandra the sow) have now also recorded a happy event, ten tiny plump, spotty little piglets, all thriving and suckling from Mumma's 'milk bar' to a band playing.

Potato cakes with a difference - these left overs were mixed
'spud' and 'yam' mashed. 

I nipped over to S+R's place to see the new lambs and managed to coincide with the task of docking tails and attempted castration of the little ram. I had not seen this done before so I am always keen to see and try it and hopefully learn. Sheep-folk commonly use a special pliers which stretch out tiny rubber rings while you slip the tail (or scrotum) through the opening and then allow the band to pull back tight cutting off the blood supply to the body-part 'downstream'. The tail or 'tackle' then shrivels up and drops off allegedly painlessly if you do it within the first 3 days of birth.

With the spud haulms cleared and tomato plants pulled up
the chickens are let in the poly tunnel for a clear up. It is the
driest place in the garden currently so dust baths are the order
of the day. 

We had no problem with the tails but hit problems with the ram's 'bits'. The tiny testes (sorry if you're having your tea) do not stay helpfully down in the 'sac' while you apply the band, the lamb can draw them right back up tight to his pubic bones. You try to hold them while you manipulate the pliers but then you are sure you feel them slip back out of the 'noose' and you are left banding a fold of empty scrotum. Both Sue and I had a number of attempts but ultimately failed. They may try again over the next day(s) to see if it gets easier, but my sheep 'bible' (Tim Tyne's "The Sheep Book for Smallholders") says (p106) "The elastrator can be used to castrate male lambs but you should ask yourself whether this is really necessary. Most people do not bother nowadays as the modern taste is for smaller cuts of meat - ram lambs will be slaughtered long before they become a nuisance. Entire (i.e. not castrated) lambs will produce a better confirmation carcass with more muscling and less fat". I may see how Sue gets on and then decide what to do with mine on the strength of that.

Love's young dream? Guinea cock-bird 'Apollo' is so firmly
bonded with our remaining turkey-hen that we worry about
killing the girl. 

Our other main task lately is killing the turkeys, 2 down, one of our own and a bought-in extra to go. Here we hit another 'welfare' issue. 'Left-over' Guinea cock-bird Apollo seems to have fallen deeply in love with the remaining turkey hen who is about 3 times his size. These turkeys were always going to be Christmas dinner, not 'keepers' but if I despatch this hen I will be left with a broken hearted Guinea fowl - exactly what we planned to NOT have when we got the two new Guineas hoping one of them would be male and would pair off  with widow-bird 'Min'. The answer might be to kill Apollo too but he's going to fun to catch - Guineas are way smarter than turkeys when it comes to evading me. Ah well, more on this after this weekend. I will let you know how it panned out.

Finally a funny human story. With Carolyn (of the mini-horses) currently car-less due to a dead alternator I have been doing 'taxi' off and on and this morning I was on school-run taking C and Henry (3) along to the local pre-school. Henry is normally madly in love with the young teacher and no trouble for Mum to get through the door but today he had what she describes as "a little wobble", didn't want to go in and announced that "This is the worst day of my LIFE!" Oh to be 3 again, when the worst thing that ever happened to you was having to go to school.

A Suitable Suitor

Rambo goes nose to nose with Myfanwy.

Today was definitely all about the sheep. First job was to load the twin lambs Thelma and Louise and deliver them to the butcher-men and the 2nd was to collect our borrowed tup, 'Rambo' while we still had the trailer hitched on, bring him back here and introduce him to our girls ready for his romantic month's holiday in sunny Roscommon. The short version says that it all went OK and the twin lambs are no more while Rambo is relaxing with his new entourage. Would that it was that simple.

Rambo beats the bounds of his new patch. 

If you have read the previous post, you will know that our practise loading runs on the twins had not been going as well as hoped, so we were not entirely sure we'd get the twin lambs loaded and delivered for the booking. They are strong and energetic young things and Liz is a wee bit small to stop one at the charge (even I struggle) so we'd have had to catch one each, hang on tight and then manhandle them up the trailer ramp and hope they stayed in there for the few seconds it takes for us to step off the ramp and lift it shut. Thankfully and very generously and much appreciated by us, Sue (of the piglet wrangling) offered her services as third hand. We accepted, naturally and on the morning decided to wait Sue's arrival rather than try on our own. We didn't want to stir up the sheep in advance.

The tup moves in on the 'talent'.

In the event, Sue arrived with grown-up Grandson Lewis as well (dressed a bit smart as he was really off to college but Sue had made him bring wellies and spare trousers in case!) so we'd be mob handed and also arrived late due to some unforeseen problem with a toppled electric fence. These things happen with livestock but the butchers know this and the booking times are not rigid. It was the work of just 3 minutes or so to grab a twin each and persuade them into the trailer, with the third hand ready to shut the ramp-door and the 4th hand just blocking an exit in case anyone got any ideas. 15 minutes later they were delivered to Ignatius G and the paperwork all done, and we guess Lewis already delivered to college on time. The plan was then for both vehicles to run independently to Sue's for our rendezvous with the tup.

Rambo with (l to r) Dylan, Myfanwy, Polly and Lily

If it is possible, loading Rambo was even easier. He is a big solid lad but soft as butter, is trained to a head collar and will follow a bucket of food anywhere so between three of us, with Prada the St Bernard looking on as back-up we quickly extracted him from his field (where-in his other girlfriend and one son) and walked him to the trailer. Lob the bucket in and give the lad a nudge, and he was in there, happy as Larry. He didn't stay that way (happy) mind and objected quite hard to being caged and then moved behind the car - he was playing up a bit bouncing around, turning about and, if the car stopped, stamping his forefeet in rage enough that we could feel the dip transmitted through the tow hitch to the car. We could also hear him roaring but there was nothing for it but to carry on driving gently home. We hope he is not too traumatised by the journey that he will remember trailers and not want to play on the return journey.

Doing a 'bare necessities' scratch on the big tree.

The ewes (and lamb) were waiting for him on the front lawn so we had decided to unload him through the 2nd 'driveway' entrance (which now gives onto the lawn field). We can plug the trailer in there nice and tight so nobody can escape round the sides while you have the gate open. The change in Rambo's demeanor when he spotted the ewes was highly amusing. He had come down the ramp all "Harrumph! Bloody Trailers! The INDIGNITY of it!" but then his whole face and body language changed as he spotted the girls and his little face said, "Babes!" His head came up and he positively strutted out into the open posing like a pro.

A quick game of hide and seek, or possibly "hard to get"

As you'd expect the girls were a bit worried by this bulky new arrival and grouped together, then ran in circles trying to avoid him as he lumbered over. The run-around only lasted about half an hour (he'll be nice and fit, anyway) before they all seemed to relax and although none of the females are truly ready for him yet, they are allowing him close and to do a few exploratory sniffs of lady-bits. The young ram-lamb seems to be coping too. He just moves away when Rambo comes to chat up his mum. So now we have two new noises around the 'farm', the bassy grunts, 'barks' and low baa-ing of the ram and the jaunty tinkling of his sheep-bell. Sue has a tinkling bell on him as he can sometimes try a playful charge at anybody in his field, specialising in attack from the rear. He can 'have you over', warns Sue. The bell gives you a bit of warning to turn round and face him where-upon he deflates and strolls over to ask for food. Me? I wasn't going to charge you! Thought never crossed my mind, guv!

So, here he is anyway, our tup, with us for a month or so hoping to get all three girls into lamb. Thank you very very much, Sue for the loan there-of and for your help loading today. We all hope for a happy ending come February.

I'll Leave You Beyond.

JD Bob's link-box, here full of logs.

For today's post you'll need to know of a very basic chunk of farm equipment, the 'Link-Box'. This is basically a metal tray which mounts on the 3-point linkage on the back of the tractor (hence the name) with, if you're lucky, a rear panel or tailgate. Useful for moving bags of feed, bales, fencing gear and so on around, it is. Comfortable, safe passenger accommodation it is not. There is no suspension except the bounce in the mighty V-Tread tyres, no soft place ot sit, no smooth edges to save you if you lose your footing, no protection from the weather and a clear line of shot for the rooster-tails of gritty road-water arching across the sides of the box from those same tyres. I cannot imagine it is even remotely legal to give or accept lifts in one. We will draw a veil over our proudly displayed (free) "Farm Safety" stickers.

Mrs Silverwood in the Starsky jacket.

Friday then, lashing rain all day from a warm front which inched slowly across the country from 'wesht' to east aligned pretty much north/south. An early call from Bob caught me just as I was about to walk down to his place (it's only 600 yards but no car that day as Liz was in Silverwood-land) and told me it is too wet to walk, so he'd bring the tractor up. I thought he meant he'd then give me the tractor to go do the feeding while he sat indoors here drinking tay and minding the place. Oh no. His plan was to collect me and bring me to his in the link-box. Thanks Bob, that was real luxury! I had wellies, hat and coat and there was only me, so I was at least able to squat centrally and both the rooster-tails of muddy water missed me. I clung to the top link and gritted my teeth.

Very late but at last some decent crop from the tunnel -
4.8 kg of toms today.

Lesson learned - link-box passengering is one of those exceptions to the rule that "even third class riding is better than first class walking". Saturday dawned sunny so I out-manouvred Bob by setting out early, walking, and was into the tractor, loaded and gone before Bob even knew I was about. Not completely though. He invited me in for tea (as usual) and then said that he wanted to come up to the next feed-station with me so that he could check the water-barrels and afterwards, take the tractor off to the village for shopping.

Also later than I have ever grown them - nice young tender
broad beans in September!

We have been out 'wesht' here for a few years now and we have got the measure of most local turns of phrase and expressions but one still defeats me with its tortuous randomness. This is the way they describe the location of somewhere which is at a distance, a village or farm, say, or a pub which is a few villages away. They use a random combination of up, down, over, away, beyond, above and below which seems, to me, irrespective of whether the place is futher up/down the map, more/less elevated in the hills, close or distant or at any compass point from 'here'. The place is "above beyond" or "away below" or "over above" and you just have to hope there might be more clues in the directions... "above beyond by Creaton's pub" or similar.

All food should be clearly labeled, don't you agree?

With the jobs done yesterday and the sun still shining, Bob got me with a classic one of these when he announced "I'll leave you beyond" (he says it "lave" as in "slave"). My blank look had him repeat as if to an idiot. "I'll leave you BEYOND" I worked out that what he was saying was that he'd "run me home" or "drop you to the garden gate" and it would have been churlish to refuse another link-box ride. I was nabbed! At least this time there was no rain and wet to contend with but Bob, who normally goes everywhere in that thing at idling speed, chose this one to cane it a bit on the throttle slider and that road is not flat. I was bounced around like a child on a Thelwell cartoon pony. Shaken but not stirred? Now, at least, Liz and the car are back, so today's feed run was in the comfort of a Fiat Panda driver's seat.

Supper for one in the absence of Liz. An individual cottage pie,
broad beans and (Oh Joy) a favourite beer now for sale locally.

Back at the 'ranch' we finally have a decent tomato crop. I picked 4.8 kg on Saturday which Liz will convert into tomato sauce/passata. She is also after me for some fruit for a new discovery for us 'chilli tomato jam' which we made for the first time last year inspired by a gift and recipe from Mazy or 'red tomato jam'. What I am glad we don't need to make is green tomato chutney, that back-stop for crops that you fail to ripen. All well and good and delicious in small quantities but we have jars of the stuff from earlier years before we learned that plug-plants are the only method that seems to work here.

Lovely clean onions. Not huge, but again the golden variety
did best, with the white-skin and red onions way behind on size.

I also have now good quantities of mange-tout peas, black kale, chard and, at last, a very late crop of young, tender broad beans. I love my broad beans but Liz only enjoys them young. Once they are starting to do that greyish skin thing, then she double-skins them and uses just the inner cotyledons, very nicely, I should add with garlic butter or some such. We crop hard while the pods are still young. I am also using onions straight off the ground. I will not have too many to ripen this year, a good thing in this very late season and the month of September. We are getting plenty of potatoes too but again, for now, I leave them in the ground and harvest as required.

We're all happy to put 2 feet on the ramp but 4? Not on your Nellie

We have 2 lambs now ready and booked in this week for their final journey so over this weekend I have been trying to familiarise them with the concept of 'trailer'. Regular readers will know that we have found this to be a breeze with pigs. Always greedy, a pig will follow a trail of chopped apple or cherry tomatoes anywhere and within minutes will have weighed up the pros (food) and cons (possible trap in trailer) and come to the decision that this bouncy, wheeled wooden box is just another food bowl. The sheep are proving to be a lot more wary and, despite a couple of practise runs, I fear they will not be 'trained' by tomorrow morning. They have all sneaked one or two front feet onto the ramp, craning forwards to reach the bowls of food IN the trailer, but so far no-one has gone all the way in.

Bizarre digital photo effect on this ordinary coalite and turf
fire in the range. This purple flame was not there in "real life"
but is there on all the digital pics. The camera does not lie?

There is the added complication that we only want 2 to load, the twin ewe lambs, so at some stage we must separate the twins from the rest as we may not be able to persuade 2 sheep up the ramp and 4 not to go up. Sheep, as everyone knows, group together when under "attack", so we will either load 6 or none! In practise, we have had a nice offer of help loading from Sue, so we may have enough manpower on hand to grab our required two and man-handle them, out of the flock and up the ramp. Not an ideal situation but at least they get a more comfortable ride than this 'shepherd' does in that link-box. More on this story in the next post.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch....

The only 'Med' pic I have so far - Methana (Greece)

With Liz currently out in "the foreign" on her rather sad mission (see last post) to square away Diane's loose ends but also concurrently suffering 'techie' problems on her Apple i-phone I am a bit short on Mediterranean updates. I have just the two pics so far from the beleaguered phone which she can only occasionally get to find the internet (e.g. while on a modern inter-island ferry with free wi-fi), this one of Methana on the southernmost mainland peninsula and one of a rather disappointing scone she was fed on a ferry. We have been in contact, though, via old fashioned voice telephone (remember those?) so I know she is having a rather emotional time of it but has worked her way round most of the people she needed to meet. More on that when she's back (Friday).

Carolyn finishes assembly on my latest jumper for the reward
of a Lizzie-bake honey, orange and polenta cake.
Thanks you knitters and bakers.

So this post is, of necessity, a "meanwhile, back at the ranch" catch up of the burbling along livestock routine and sundry contact with humans. I have been doing the rounds a bit and receiving some nice welcome visits, plus crossing paths with new friend Sue while we were both out and about, me walking dogs, she trying not to run us over in the big 4x4, with their gorgeous St Bernard in the back. I've been down to Carolyn's to pass over a cake Liz had baked, and collect a jumper.

Pretty as a picture - Vendor Anna's
new pup, Bella at 4 months.

I have today nipped over to Vendor Anna in Carrick to meet her new dog, Bella, a lovely little soft haired shih-tzu pup, 4 months old. Anna was a bit anxious about Bella's eating or lack of it but I think (I hope, Anna!) she's sorted now. Good luck with her, anyway. She is a lovely dog and we've agreed that we should meet up, 3 westies onto one tiny shih-tzu. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? Don't worry, Anna, we will keep a careful control on it; we know what we are at. Actually while we are on that subject, we have now successfully integrated the new cat, Soldier, into the indoor family and even got as far as Soldier being able to sleep, curled up on the chair with one of the Westies, Poppea.

Soldier out and about.

We are delighted. The three together can make up a fearsome attacking pack, as found out by the mink a few weeks back (as can any three dogs no matter what the owner might tell you about them being really gentle and not harming a fly). Soldier is also now able to come and go happily through doors and windows which is excellent news as he can now do his 'business' outside and we can take up the horrible, smelly, cat litter-tray (one of my pet hates). My other inbound visit today was  from the Mum and 2 daughters of the family who used to own this cat, so I was pleased to be able to show off their cat living among us and not torn to pieces.

Poppea and Soldier asleep on a chair.

The girls especially love to see round the 'petting zoo', feed apples to the pigs etc, but we were all amused (except the poor girl herself) by the middle daughter's not coping very well with her first meeting with a full grown turkey. This was Tom, of course, who decided that these intruders needed the full on, red-face, tail up, wings down display and it was all too much for Niamh (who plans to become an RSPCA inspector) who couldn't get away fast enough! We tried to persuade her that Tom was just displaying and does not attack people but she was not convinced. Hope she doesn't meet too many turkey farmers in the vet/RSPCA training!

Feste at 5 months

Our first born lamb, Feste (of the 12th Night, middle of the field, rainy night surprise birth), is now coming up on 5 months and looking splendidly chunky. He's off on his final journey on Tuesday next (9th). We were all wondering how long it is since this 'farm' last produced lambs, and the concensus seems to be "the eighties". Back in the day, most farms would have had a mixture of animals and Michael McG tells me that he can certainly remember his father keeping about 30 which they would shear by hand with those spring-steel "scissors" style shears. JD Bob thinks TK Max would have had sheep here till the eighties, and Vendor Anna (who grew up here) tells us that it was her job as a youngster (early 70's maybe?) to run round first thing before school gathering up any new-borns who needed bringing indoors. She can remember them being dried and warmed up in the bottom 'oven' of the Rayburn, the range which was still there when we moved in. Once she was in her teens, she says, she stopped all that, you couldn't be a 'cool' teenager if you went to school smelling of sheep's wool lanolin and birth-related mess.

A forest of sweet cicely, but what do you do with it?

I did my bust/length pig-weight estimate yesterday (see also the post at http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2014/07/bust-squared-x-length-x-693.html ) and came up with Isabelle and Mary at 29 and 31 kg respectively at the 15 week mark. This is a slightly slower rate of weight gain than last year's Tamworths but that is fine with us and is deliberate. I am more closely controlling the food intake because we do not want that three quarter inch layer of fat under the skin that the Tams put on, it just gets wasted (or (shhhhh) fed to the birds) and it has all cost money at yay amount per bag of pig nuts.

In safe hands. Broody-Buff steps out with the single chick

In the poultry department, Miss Broody-Buff is doing a fine job of rearing the single chick and the Hubbard poults are steaming ahead in their free range mode. They are close outside the front door, and we find that we can not appear in the front garden without an 11-bird charge towards our feet. We have to be careful if we have the dogs (on leads, obviously) as they will even sprint towards the amazed threesome, veering away only when they realise that there is a definite risk to their being fed. I have to nip out with the chick-crumb first, to focus them on eating, and then squeeze out past with the dogs on a tight rein. The turkey eggs are still just cooking in the incubator but we have good hopes because our friend Sue managed at 4/5 hatch from the batch we gave her.

Bank Holiday Ireland vanishes under the coloured rainbelts
of a powerful 'Low' on this AA Weatherwatch rainfall radar map.

Finally, we are hoping that Liz will bring some 'day-cent' weather back with her from Greece. The wind and rain have battled on through the end of May and joined us for the June Bank Holiday Monday and now, the wind is sharing the Tuesday too. I have been able to get out into the garden off and on but not much is growing outside and all my new seeds seem to be sulking under ground. At least the brassicas get away well when transplanted from the polytunnel, and do not spend that familiar three days lying limply on the new ground before they spring up and get cracking.

Dog watching garb on the Bank Holiday. 

Here, they seem to be able to get vertical by that evening or never sag in the first place. Better weather is forecast, but I guess I will believe that when it arrives.

Blue smoke from a chimney round these parts generally means
a good turf fire against the winter cold.... but on 31st May?