Bank Holiday Sunshine

Cherry blossom against a beautiful blue
Mayday sky. 

In my previous post I wrote of the possible end of the road for the "Suzy's Six" batch of hopeful hens. We had hoped that at least some of these, if not all, would grow up female and be able to join our fox-depleted egg laying flock under the tutilege of our 2 roosters, Gandalf and Herme. Well, this was not to be and we managed, despite picking them out from Suzy's rearing batch for their 'hen-like' looks, to achieve the 1:128 odds of six roosters.

Nice clean carcasses but only achieving 1.1 to 1.3 kg oven
ready weights. 

We managed to find a home of one of these - he went off to lord it over the small flock of hens at our out-door archery venue, Con and Niamh's place. The other 5 were despatched, plucked and 'dressed' and have been either eaten or frozen.

The five new birds have landed and are getting used to
their new surroundings.

Our friend Sue cheerfully (and generously) offered to give us another batch to try, these more likely to be female as they were last year's birds and, in one case at least, already laying those tiny "Witch" or "Fairy" eggs. They currently have a mountain of eggs over there and think they have way too many chickens, so she'd be happy to sort us out some spares. So on the same run we made into "town" to drop the rooster off with Niamh, we diverted back to Sue's place and brought them home.

The new birds try a bit of free ranging

These birds look more convincing as hens than the last 6 ever did and they are a motley collection of cross breeds so they will fit in well here! 2 are red with dark tails so may have a bit of sussex in them. One is white with black hints so is probably a Sussex - this gives us a nice continuity from the recent loss of 'Enda'. One is grey and may be a Cuckoo Marans, The 5th looks mainly 'Araucana' and has a deformed foot, so has been named by Liz as 'Stumpy'. She gets around OK and even perches on the wall inside the coop. They will all do OK.

2 bunnies where there should not be any bunnies. Mutt and Jeff
in the yard.

Also new in the farmyard for this post are the 2 bunnies, Mutt and Jeff, bought for the express purpose of mowing the grass around the bee hives. These guys decided that they did not want to be out there on the periphery of our 2.5 acres and each escaped a number of times to come and take up residence in the farmyard and the chicken houses.

I have recaptured them and carried them back but they are quickly out again and I cannot see where or how they get out; maybe by flinging themselves over the 3' chicken wire like pole-vaulters. Ah well. The grass will not get grazed but they do not seem to be doing much damage so I guess they can stay for now.

Spot the cat.

With the Play and all the visitors done for now, we have been able to slot back into the relaxing routine of 'normal' life. This has, rather delightfully. coincided with a superb improvement in the weather. We have had dry days now for what seems like weeks and lately blue skies and no wind with a lovely hot sun.

One of our black spruces.

The May Bank Holiday weekend was especially kind. We have both been out in the garden weeding, topping off tall weeds (plantain, docks, nettles) in the orchard, brush-cutting the rough stuff in the 'woods' (ground elder, nettles, elder re-growth, cow parsley etc), rediscovering the caravan for use as garden shed. We have also been out (Liz in shorts!) just enjoying the balmy heat sitting in our 'Darby and Joan' chairs looking back across the pond to the house.

The new evergreen oak. That should get
away nicely. 

Tonight we have both been out - Liz off to Knitting Club and enjoying the fact that she did not have to race away from that to the next Play Rehearsal (till midnight). I have joined the Tidy Towns group so I have been out litter picking, cleaning signs and weeding in the Lady's Club flower bed in the Cemetery. I know. Rock and Roll.

When you leave the curry left overs with no lid and the cats
 decide to raid the saucepan in the night. 

May Day also saw my dear aul' Mum turn 90, entertained by my younger brother Mark and all his family down in Swindon. Happy Birthday, Mum (Pud Lady). Many more.

Mazy Lou and Airy Fox

Happy chickens out in the sunshine.

In celebration of the lifting of the avian flu restrictions, I bring you a post full of pictures of happy out-door birds, scratching in the dirt, pecking at the grass and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs. This is as it should be and in my humble opinion the Ministry's avian flu restrictions had absolutely zip, zero to do with the welfare of 'our' free range birds and was all about protecting the livelihoods of the commercial, factory-farming, (not very) free range boys.

Suzy's Six gather round the sheep feed trough.

In our own flock an interesting dynamic has developed. Friends of the Blog will know that we have been nurturing 6 youngsters since Storm Doris (24th Feb), given to us by our friends Sue and Rob. Back then we chose the 6 from one of her big rearing cages, trying to pick out the ones which looked like hens, though sexing birds before 21 weeks age is notoriously tricky. We had great hopes that all 6 might be female and that the new group, called "Suzy's Six", would neatly restock our depleted (by the fox) flock. Also that the two which are good Cuckoo Marans colouring would fill the gap left by the deaths of Bubble and Squawk.

Cuckoo Marans, but are they female?

Well, no such luck, it seems and our success with sexing birds has taken a thorough knock - we think that almost certainly five, and possibly all 6 are roosters. As they come of age, various of them have crowed, squared up to one another with capes flared, grown upright, iridescent greenish tails and started strutting around like lads. More recently they have taken to trying to jump Galdalf's ladies, sometimes more than one at once. Enough, we say! Time for a rooster cull. Good for the freezer but not a lot of fun.

Herme, our 'sex change' hen/rooster. 

One rooster my be given a stay of execution. Our friends Con and Niamh from archery are in need of a rooster and rather fancy one of our "grey" ones (the Cuckoo Marans. The other "grey" is the chicken we hope is a hen - 'she' has quite yellow legs which can be a sign that the bird is starting to build up yolk proteins in her body prior to laying eggs. Ah well. It will all come out in the wash, I guess.

Our five ducks.

Our existing hens, who now number only 7 fit and well, will certainly be relieved. 7 on 7 is not a good ratio. Hens like their 'manly' attention diluted down to about 1 on 7. We are also pleased that the restrictions have been lifted because that means the local poultry sale is also now back in action and we might be able to go and buy some genuine hens. We hope there are either Buff Orpington or Cuckoo Marans available.

Left to tight, LIz, Mazy and Airy

You may recall from my previous post that we were 'between visitors' awaiting the arrival on the Friday of our most excellent chums from the UK, long term Friends of the Blog, Mazy-Lou and Airy-Fox. Originally Internet friends, these ladies have been part of our story for almost as long as this blog has been running. They currently live in Dorset and this would only be their 2nd visit each.

Rhubarb Pavlova

It was, as expected, a lovely visit and we thoroughly enjoyed the company and 'doing' the hospitality. Liz created marvellous food with, on the second night, the help of Mazy who is also a brilliant cook.  First was a superbly tender roast pork - it was actually "steamed" over a shallow bath of beer under a little tin-foil "hood" to keep the flavour in.

Gifts from Dorset - local cheese and a jar of, new one
on me, "bacon jam". A delicious relish. 

The joint-effort second night was a chicken-based curry with a rather good dahl (lentil) and sag (spinach) veg course plus a cooling bowl of mixed yogurt, cucumber, mint and coriander-seed. The chicken was boneless, skinless, cubed up breast which had been marinaded 24 hours in spiced up yogurt. The whole was served with poppadoms and flat breads. It was all really good. Huge thanks to both chefs.

Naturally a little drink was consumed (only a little. We are very sensible these days) and the chat flowed the way it does in such lovely companionship. One little aspect which amused us was that Airy voiced that she would rather like a dog, specifically a Beagle. Mazy is currently holding hard to the 'No Dog' line but her guard may be beginning to crack. At one stage she asked 'how many' dogs should one have if dogs were, after all, to be part of the picture? We have 3, of course.

We DEFINITELY don't want dogs.

Of course, our dogs were happy to get their wooden spoons out and stir this brew on Airy's behalf, climbing onto her lap and schmoozing Mazy up shamelessly. Time will tell on that one. It may take a while. The girls departed Thursday morning headed for Dublin Airport, where they needed to drop off the hire car by 1 pm. The remainder of their tour they will do sans car. Good luck you two and safe home. It was lovely having you.

That was it for visits in this burst. We now have a bit of a break till mid May when we get three more 'sets' of guests.

Doris Raises The Roof

"Entry Wound"? Only 3 panels ripped off the front of this
out building. 

From an unpromising start, the latest 'named' storm, Doris, blew up to become our scariest and most damaging yet. She felled a tree, ripped a huge hole in the main hen-house, flung two jackdaw pots into our East Field and damaged the poly tunnel. But let me start the story a bit more gently than that while she was still only 'looming' and we were going to bed. We'd seen the weather warnings but by bed time we still only had light winds. I even left a window a-jar to let the cats in and out.

"Exit Wound"? Half the roof is missing this side!

Around midnight I'd been woken a couple of times by the rising wind noise but, you know, cosy warm under the duvet, safe in the nice strong house.... At around 3 a.m. the bedroom door slammed shut - not a normal occurrence. I was immediately awake and quickly aware that there was quite some storm blowing. The a-jar window had been blown fully open and I sprinted round battening down the hatches - pulling all the windows properly closed and closing vents.

We're not leaving the site till this tree is out of the way.
In the right side of the pic between the green and the grey
tree-trunks you can see the root-plate of the down one.

I couldn't stop the noise though and lay there wide awake listening to every blast and buffet, every flex and reaction of the house, every external noise and howl of the wind in the wires and chimneys. I was scared stiff imagining all manner of destruction and wrecking going on out in the dark, unable to do a single thing about it, offering up fervent prayers that surely it would soon be over and the gaps between gusts were surely getting longer.

More firewood. I cut a gap in the tree so that we could come
and go up the driveway.

We woke up at first light - around 7 a.m. to Poppea barking madly - we still do not know what she was hearing; there was plenty of choice once we started looking out and exploring. One of the medium sized trees in our 'woods' had fallen across the drive and was lying half way across the lawn and part buried in the fence. We could see 3 panels had been ripped off the chicken house on the yard side (front). Half the roof was missing from the back, with 8 foot long corrugated sheets and pieces of roof timber strewn across the East Field. One corner of the poly tunnel had been 'walked' sideways so that the door no longer fitted and had been twisted off the bottom hinge. 2 of the jackdaw pots had been flung down from the chimneys; one was half way across the field.

Chicken shed with temporary tarpaulin covers.

But that was it and the rest of the 'damage' was just superficial stuff - pots and an rabbit hutch over-turned. The fence. The garden strewn with blown bits of twig and tree. They were all manageable problems and some even had up-sides. We were just going to have a couple of busy days sorting stuff out. No humans or livestock had been killed or hurt in the storm. The only immediate cost was that I had no tarpaulin big enough to cover that hole at 6m by 6m - I managed to find a 6 x 8 one at €130 on the Internet. The supplier could get it to me by "tomorrow" on the excellent couriers that ply our roads.

Once I had sliced out my chunk of tree
the stump gently rocked itself back upright

3 good friends (Sue and Rob plus 'new' friend Jim B) heard of our plight and volunteered smaller, temporary tarpaulins and the man hours of help needed to rig them. They would also return today when I had my new, big, tarpaulin. Angels. I love that about small-holders. Helping each other in times of difficulty goes with the spirit of the thing.

The trunk appears to hover 3 feet above
the ground. 

Our tree proved to be a black spruce aged 53 years. It had been 22m (72 feet) tall and was 1.42m (4.6') circumference at chest height. It was easy enough to cut out the drive-way gap and the trunk is, amusingly, now suspended at about 3' from the ground sitting on its side-branches as if it was on the perfect saw-horse. The bottom ten feet or so of trunk gently rocked back upright pushed by the springiness of the huge roots and pulled by the weight of the root plate. When you are a rookie chain-saw man you learn that trees can do this violently and with a real whip-action as soon as you cut the heavy top-parts free of the base and if you are wise, you position yourself and saw accordingly.

Life under canvas for the chickens and ducks. 

So with the drive clear, my crew turned up and Sue and Rob had brought spare old tyres (for weighing down the tarps) and a big reel of fencing cable to use as "guy-ropes". That was Thursday and Doris had not quite finished with us. It was still quite squally with some hail-storms so battling the tarps over the roof was quite challenging. It was a cold, wet gang who retreated indoors to welcome tea and buns laid on by the Lady of the House. The chooks were not too keen to re-enter their building - as well as having scared them half to death last night by falling apart while they slept, it was now semi-transparent and had a flappy roof.

That's more like it. Big new tough tarp well lashed down. 

By today my shiny new bigger tarpaulin had been delivered, so all my crew had told me to call them back for Round 2. By today the wind was mercifully almost gone and it had stopped raining and hailing. We made fairly short work of the big new tarp and the house looks like it could cope with a bit of weather again. The birds were much keener to go in on this 2nd day, even though it is now dark inside.

Rosy has been at the mineral lick again.
Note the brown nose and lips!

We are all praying that the next storm (Ewan) does not come along any time soon and that we will fairly soon be able to do a proper repair, replacing all this canvas with new corrugated. Friends of the Blog though, may find all this very reminiscent of the winter snug-down of the Cambria Sailing Barge - tarpaulins laced down with ropes, rubber tyres hung 'over the side' to protect you from damage to the paintwork against stone piers and wharves while you rode up and down on the tide at the moorings. We are very happy with this 'bodge' and reasonably confident of its ability to take some weather. The birds are snug inside. We will cope.

Still in the pet-carrier.

Finally a couple of pics of the new poults, our "Suzy's Six" mentioned in the last post but without a picture. Also a HUGE Thank You to my riggers who generously supplied tarps, tyres, 'string' and manhours, Sue and Rob plus Jim B, and to Liz of course for throwing ropes over the roof in between cooking up marvellous scones, dillisk biscuits, cake and tea. What a team.

Released into the covered rabbit run.