Maternity Chaos

Hubbard chick at 2 days

The little list of birds currently keeping us waiting grows ever longer. There is turkey hen Barbara, of course, possibly still AWOL, out there in the fields sitting on eggs or possibly hatchlings and maybe, just maybe, planning to walk them all back up here to the farmstead at some stage. At the other end of the 'hope' scale, of course, there is no Barbara and the bones of the former Barbara are drying out in the midden heap outside some fox's lair. We can only wait and see but turkeys are famously mainly grass-grazers, so if she is out there somewhere in the lush Roscommon grass, dodging the hooves of clumsy cattle and teaching the young 'uns to eat grass, we could be waiting a while.

The broody geese, sharing the manger 'trough' and swapping eggs between the two nests each day are also devoid of fluffy goslings. Day 28 for the first eggs we knew about, was 16th May, so we are fast running out of 'late hatching' but regular readers will know that our goose 'breeding' is fairly chaotic and the sister birds have been happily dropping new eggs into the trough for the last few months. There will be eggs in there coming due every day from now till Heaven knows when.

Class of 2016. 18 Hubbard chicks.

We have three separate broody chickens on the go at the moment. One is a-top a 4-bale high pile of straw, wedged up into the door lintel. I suspected when she started that she was sitting on nothing and today she hopped off and confirmed this for me. She has sat for 28 days on fresh air and straw. Might be time to move her on and break the habit. I was toying with the idea if she even hatched ONE egg, of sneaking a few 'ringers' in there (of which more soon).

Gone broody in an old dustbin

One is, rather daftly, in an empty feed bin, 2 feet tall and only containing a few bits of rubbish plus any straw that has fallen in. I was using it as the shed dustbin. This nest has also been plagued by all manner of other poultry hopping in there, squeezing the 'clocker' aside and laying 'cuckoo' eggs in there for her to brood. She had 11 including some Guinea Fowl eggs last time I looked. But think it through, hen! Once they hatch, how do you get them out into the world? I can see me having to do some surreptitious tipping over of the bin at some stage. The 3rd broody hen is the only one doing it sensibly in an actual nest box in the actual coop. Yes, it happens occasionally.

Holding up the beekeeping jobs. Blue asleep in a commercial
'super' box. 

The antidote to all this failed Maternity Suite malarkey is, of course, the annual purchase of our day-old 'Hubbard' meat birds. Hubbards are our most delicious and fast growing (free range) meat bird of choice and we are generously included in the run made by friends Anne and Simon up to an industrial scale hatchery up by the N. Ireland border where they know the team and are allowed to buy small quantities of day-olds (as opposed to the 10,000 bird batches the 'factory' would normally supply to commercial growers.) We 'ordered' 18 this year and these arrived on Wednesday. We had the brooder box set up ready and the 'electric hen' heater plate running. The babies quickly settled in while we fed tea, cake and home-cured 'serrano/palma' style ham to Anne and Simon and chatted. as usual, poultry, gardening and small holdering in general.

Neat and tidy now with a 'super' box (dark
green) added to the top of the stack and
the roof straightened out. 

Meanwhile, outside of poultry and broody birds, I have been settling in the new bees - after a few days of just sitting, getting to know the area, we tidied up the new hive removing the straps and gaffer tape that we'd secured it with, adding an empty super to give them more space (trying to discourage swarming) and settling the roof straight. In the dark we'd not lowered it on quite right and it was a bit drunken looking.

Although I know of no proper 'bluebell
 woods' within our 365 patch, once you
get your eye in, there are plenty of small
patches in hedge bases etc. 

This manipulation also gave us a chance to see if any more work was needed to set it up for summer, and we found, as T McC had said, that the upper brood box (painted white in my pic, above the silver gaffer tape) had some dummy blank frames in it. These will need replacing with proper frames and wax foundation for honey comb next time we are delving around in there.

Lough Adreen, in Cloonargid (Silver Field)

I have been out and about some more on the 365 project photography and as this week is 'Bio-Diversity' week I have been asked to go get pics of flora, fauna and 'natural' stuff. I found myself exploring one of the local cutting bogs down south of Lisacul, in 'Cloonargid' (Silver Field) and found this lovely little lough - I'd known it was there from the map; it is called Lough Adreen (there's no real translation unless the "dreen" is one of those transliteration jobs from 'small oak' like for Ballaghadereen (Bealach an Doirín)). I am convinced that even after 366 days of photography, I will still not have seen the whole patch. Which is good.

Big Block of Cheese Day

The eponymous Big Block of Cheese

Fans of the US TV political drama 'West Wing' (one of our favourites) will recall the episode(s) in my title as they were funny and often bizarre. They referred to a day in the White House year when the staff resurrected an old tradition of inviting any madcap pressure group to come and be heard by the Administration and the staff would set up a huge block of cheese in the foyer for the visitors to cut bits off if they were hungry. Last time Liz was over in the UK, our good friend Mazy advised her to buy from local deli and farm shop 'Macknades', a house-brick sized block of a gorgeous vintage cheddar - 1.36 kg at about £13 (UK). I mention this because, Mazy, it has taken us this long to get through it. Not enough lunatics with outlandish pressure group requests, we guess. Thank you very very much.

Fruit scones

Not all good news this time, I am afraid. Hot on the heels of our 'loss' of the cat Pirate, came a call from Sue and Rob to say that the lovely ram, 'Rambo', whom we borrowed to service our three ewes. had died in the night. They'd had no warning and he appeared perfectly healthy on Saturday except for one 'symptom' which they think with hindsight, might have been significant - the lad standing still in the middle of the feild in the rain, when he is usually first in the queue for shelter under the trees. With Rambo dead in the morning Rob could see a little dark blood around the boy's anus and in the poo but we are at a loss. I have contacted our vet to see what she thinks and she is asking whether we vaccinate (e.g. with Heptavac P). I must admit we haven't, though we have wormed and fluke-drenched, so it is obviously something we should think about.

Pirate's grave site and memorial rock (grey lump
bottom right) under the beeches. 

Then there was another good friend, near neighbour and fellow (beginner) bee keeper, T McC. Poor T had that thing happen to him that all beginner beekeepers (incuding ourselves of course) are worried about - that you'll have a dramatic reaction to a bee sting. T was snugging down his bees a week or so ago and got stung, not for the first time but suddenly had "sweating, redness, itching, light headed, flashing lights and a slight constricting of the throat.  Had to lie down on the ground outside. Lucky it was sunny". He had to phone the ambulance and felt a bit silly by the time they arrived as he had recovered except for the big bump on the back of his head (the sting site) tingling.

Beekeepers know that they can react differently to stings and the intensity can also change with time/stings; You can have no problem for a while and then suddenly react, or you can 'get over' your sensitivity and have no more bad reactions after that. Poor T is now going through the tests with his doctor to see where he is, whether he'd be safe to carry on or whether (God forbid) bee keeping is not for him and he'd have to give up the hobby. On the bright side all his hives are snugged down now so he won't have to go near them till Spring. The doctor has a few months to do the tests and come to a decision.

Hallowe'en fare, Champ with pork chops. Our own spuds, kale,
pork and onions, of course.

On happier topics, Hallowe'en went really well for us. We had set up the 'Jack o'Lantern' on the gate pier and made a long "chain" of candles in jamjars all up the new fence, one on each post. We also hung our two posh gift lanterns on trees, so that the drive up to the house was nicely inviting and we were publically 'up for it' to any random passing groups of witches, ghosties and vampires. We had the obligatory big bowl of sweeties and we sat back to enjoy our own Hallowe'en fare, of 'champ' with pork chops.

The turkeys try out the pumpkin seeds. Bit of a mixed reaction
but they did all disappear eventually.

You never know round here, how many kiddies will come. We are out in the sticks and there are no children in walking distance, so they come carted round likely places by Mums in huge people-carriers and farm cars. Well, we had none till quarter to 8 which was nice because it meant we could eat our own supper in peace, but then a veritable army showed up and annihilated the sweeties in short order. The bowl now contains a lonely refresher bar and half a dozen tubes of tiny Parma Violets which we'll never eat, so we need to find a post-Hallowe'en victim for those.

Traditional unmolested Irish Stew after Theodora Fitzgibbon 

I am partially Liz-less at the moment (she's shuttling between Silverwoods and house/Dad sitting for part of each week and back up here for work the other part so I am King of the Kitchen temporarily and continuing to expand my range. Today that meant that my favourite Irish Recipe book, Theodora Fitzgibbon's "A Taste or Ireland (in food and in pictures)" (pub Pan 1968) was dusted off and cracked open. Irish Stew! I had a chunk of our own delicious lamb, our spuds, onions, parsley and thyme. Theodora tells me that "the pure flavour is spoiled if carrots, turnips or pearl barley are added, or if it is too liquid. A good Irish stew should be thick and creamy, not swimming in juice like soup". Well, I'm happy to report that it was delicious, but I do not know where the 'thick and creamy' comes from. There were no thickening ingredients on the list and my gravy was definitely 'wet'. Perhaps she uses a different kind of spud which breaks down better and solidifies the gravy for you.

Sheep hurdles assembled into a pen.

I have also been out spending the hard earned loot (I did clear this with the Chancellor of the Exchequer first), investing in some sheep bits, namely hurdles and dagging shears. The hurdles assemble into a 6 by 4 foot pen for containing sheep while you work on them, but I bought them for their handiness singly as temporary gates. I have posted before of the plan to install some new runs of fence to give the sheep a new bit to graze and tidy, but I need to leave 'holes' through which to push the trailer when moving pigs or just to move geese about. Rather than invest in 4 permanent gates, this was a cheaper (and more flexible) solution.

Dagging shears. 

While at the farm supplies 'co-op' I spotted a rather nifty pair of old-style (springy scissors) "dagging shears". One of our ewes (Myfanwy) came with full length tail (some mix up at her own birth) so she is prone to great chains of 'klingons' adhering to the underneath of her tail and around the bum, where the output cannot fall freely to the ground. These will sort that out and be good for any other small trim ups for example where I have missed bits on the shearing.

Definitely getting a bit TOO cheeky now!

Finally, I leave you with a brilliant local expression I picked up recently. This where the old boy involved had come into the building with me but nipped off for a quick wee while I made the tea for us. "Ah, you're as good as a bad woman" he said. Made me smile, anyway.

Goats and Votes

The white goat loaded.

Let me just set your mind at rest - we have not finished today owning any new species. We remain firmly in the 'No' camp regarding the goat species as a good plan. The billy-goats in these pics we were just moving for friends as we have a trailer. Phew. That was close.

Well, THAT was a big busy day for the trailer and even busier in other ways, too. We had three jobs for the beast today - collect pallets from JD Bob, move goats and then go shopping for hay and straw for our horse-rescuing chum, who we will call, for the purposes of this blog, for now, "Murphy's Mum". You may also know that it is voting day for the Referendum and, just to put some icing on an already rich cake, T McC's main hive decided to swarm so we got involved in that retrieval. It's all go.

Out frightening voters in Ballaghaderreen with
our new chum Tommy R. Canvassing.

For Lizzie, certainly, the vote was the main event and we were down at the Polling Station nice and early. The turn-out is reported to be very high but even then our tiny local Polling Station had been amazed to have had 48 people through by the time we got there. Liz had been out on the mean streets of Ballaghaderreen, canvassing with our new friends Steve F and Tommy R and I'd even joined them on the Tuesday after livestock lock-up. The feeling was that it was all a bit 50/50 on the doorsteps and we had a superb time at one where the household were even 'arguing' at the front door and using Liz as a referee. We don't know if a high turnout is a good thing for 'yes' or 'no' but it is surely a good thing from the point of view of democracy - the answer they come up with will be more representative of the national state of mind.

The geese may also be voting 'yes'.

The pallets were an easy one. These were some boards on which JD Bob's "bag manure" (as they call it here; it's basically pelletized NPK fertilizer) was delivered to his fields and he knows that we can always use an empty pallet. He can too, but he has an outbuilding full of them. We use them intact for fencing/hurdles, or we use the wood for scrap wood for making things, or in the end for kindling. I just needed to nip out to his field to collect them in the trailer.

Next up were the goats. Another family we are friendly with are selling up and moving back to the UK, so they are off loading as much 'livestock' as they can to make the journey home easier, plus the likely move they will have to make, short-term, into rented accommodation, where pets may not be allowed. We have inherited a new cat, Soldier, of whom more later, but today was all about collecting their two billy-goats, Jean-Paul 'Goat'ier and Sebastian Farquahar. These guys were a pair of boys originally rescued by our chums from the local forestry where they'd been abandoned and gone half-feral but then more recently kept tethered on their grazing to keep the rushes down. Being 2 boys they were kept a bit apart, so they'd not fight and each a bit spoiled with a make-shift weather proof shelter.

Safe at Carolyn's the boys catch up on some horn-clashing
head-banging, grudge-match pecking order stuff. 

Charlotte and Carolyn of the mini-horses are taking these guys. They are well equipped in the horn department and allegedly can be a bit spiteful but Charlotte, not willing to put up with any such nonsense, gave us a master-class in goat-wrangling. You don't need any of this tempting them with feed bowls and leading them - they have blooming great "handles" on their heads by which to grab them and yank them in the direction you want them to go. Something about being used to getting a 600 kg horse to do what it's told and not putting up with any argy from a 60 lb goat.

We inherited this very smart, young cat, 'Soldier' and now
need to settle him in to cope with the dogs. 

We quickly and efficiently got them loaded and home where we steered them by the 'handles' into a bit of Charlotte's yard. No sooner were they in there than they decided they needed to settle all those grudges they had built up by being tethered 30 yards apart in their field, so we all watched an impressive head-butt fight which Charlotte assured us would not last long; they would quickly establish who was boss. I'll take her word for it - they seemed fairly evenly matched to me but it was an impressive battle. The boys would rear up on their hind legs then smash together, often bouncing their back legs off the ground at impact. An impressive noise. They must have very hard skulls!

Soldier

From there, the car and trailer came home briefly but then had to head for our horse-rescue lady friend's place to go buying hay and straw for the big, impressive Irish Cob gelding (Murphy) she rescued, who is now in a nearby livery/racing stable. At this point there was a brief hiatus when a phone call from T McC told us that he "thought he had a swarm". This from his biggest hive, which we'd actually cracked open yesterday. We'd found queen-cells but had been unable to locate the queen. At the time of his call he'd been imspecting a different hive and had suddenly noticed that the air was full of flying bees - the swarm was on! Now, 'Murphy's Mum' is quite keen to get into bees, so I wondered would she like to come along, out of curiosity, to watch the action, en route to the hay-shop. We ended up being given bee-veils by T McC (and, in my case the video camera) so we rather nervously (aware of our bare arms etc) watched and video'd as he got to work. By now the swarm had coalesced around the queen in a nearby hawthorn tree so we watched (and filmed) a pretty impressive loppering of bush and gathering up of the swarm in a basket, then T walked across to a hive he had ready and tipped the basket full of bees into the hive. We both may be inept beginners who happily laugh at our clumsy blundering efforts but this time it seems he got the queen and the bees in the basket/hive were straight way "fanning". When the workers have landed and are happy with their location they fan off volatile 'pheromones' (scents and chemical hormones) to call all the other bees 'home'. In this case they fanned both their own smell and some queen pheromone (9-ODA) out into the air and quickly gathered all the flying bees and the ones still left milling in the hawthorn bush to them and in an hour or so, seemed to be settled in the new hive, so that T could make his way happily to Dublin to do his own voting. I am going round tomorrow just to check on the new hive and make sure there are bees coming and going. Job Done.

Hay for Horses? Murphy's Mum is just finished working.
The posh tweed coat and strappy pink sandals may not be
the most sensible attire - open toes that close to Murphy's
great big hooves!

From there, off to the hay-shop with Murphy's Mum and then round to the local livery stables to meet the famous 'Murphy', a huge Irish Cob she rescued. Poor MM was just out of work and still in her posh dress, coat and strappy sandals, so it might have been a bit unfair to take her off swarm-wrangling and then horse attending but Murphy is a calm lad with a quiet power and does not skitter about stomping on people's feet uninvited. We got him out to the sand-school, delivered the hay, changed his bedding and stabled him up again without drama.

Meanwhile we are having some fun bedding in the new cat. The three terriers are still in 'mink' mode and think that any slinky black furry creature is game for a three-dog assault, so we are keeping 'Soldier' in a separate (locked) room for now and doing the rehabilition in a series of controlled sessions with dogs on leads or (singly) with grab-able collars. The cat has been no problem - Blue and he are now the best of friends and play like Blue used to with the late Rolo, but Soldier has not yet learned of the need to get up somewhere high when the dogs get a bit feisty. It will work, but it's not going to be a quick fix.

Getting into some Greek food care of a Lidl promo.
Clockwise from top, Squid, green beans in tomato sauce,
 filo parcels with feta and spinach, 'dolmades' (rice wrapped
in vine leaves) and garlic mushrooms.

The broody Buff Orpington in the Tígín has had her hatch(es). We have seen her off the nest with one chick and suspect that she may have another under her skirts. Unfortunately she hopped off with these (?) two during the night and the remaining eggs were well chilled by the morning, so that might be it. Still, the one we have definitely seen looks like a pure-bred Buff, so it will be quite charming to watch mother and daughter(s).

The count on the Referendum does not start till 10:00 tomorrow and the results are expected by about midday, so at least we can get a good night's sleep after all this drama and Liz only needs to be glued to the internet and TV for the morning.