This Little Piggy...

The huge bulk of Iris alongside the five
tiny new-borns

Nice progress in the 2017 piggy project. I hear today from breeder, Adrian, that Iris has done her thing and given birth to 5 lovely plump piglets. Pigs are born tiny - about the size of a guinea pig and cannot be sexed just yet but they all look so cute and baby-ish that we don't mind. Obviously, no-one is relaxing just yet - they are also very vulnerable at this age to all manner of  harm and ailments but we are happy that they are now on the road to weaning and we wish them 8 weeks of drinking loads of Mum's milk, staying warm and safe and not getting into harm's way.

Only hours old here. 

As to sex, with only 5 in the litter we, and Sue and Rob would be lucky to come out with our preferred 2-females-each result but if we get boys this year then we'd be happy with that. Adrian gets all his non-breeder boars castrated anyway so no danger of any brother/sister shenanigans or of the elusive and frequently doubted but much feared boar-taint in the meat. Adrian has said we can come and visit in a couple of weeks when first time Mum Iris will have got over her stresses and the gang have started exploring beyond the birth nest. We will then, all being well, be able to collect our piglets at the end of April, 8 weeks old and weaned.

Some first primroses at our eastern boundary.

Progress too in the task of introducing young birds to their adult equivalent. We were going to do chicken-poults into the main 'grown up' coop at the same time as the young ducks met the 'parent birds' and all got herded in there together. It didn't go well and we relented on the poults for now, while the new 5-duck group has a few evenings to get into the routine. Once the ducks are cool and calm, we will call in the removal men for the poults. Then I can put 2 rabbit runs back into dry store.

The scarlet elf-cup fungi are much bigger than usual this year
- see biro for scale. I wonder if all the rain is responsible. 

Nothing else to report except an archery failure - we all made a complete Horlicks of organising our session on Sunday and failed spectacularly to shoot at all. I'd had a busy morning and after looking into the computer first thing and finding no notice of the meeting, I hadn't got back in. I was fully expecting the usual "Start at 13:45" post and made sure I was ready accordingly, racing through the jobs in order to be able to leave here at 13:30. I had to nip down for milk for a neighbour who is currently without transport, walk the dogs and scurry over to Sligo to collect an offered bucket of frog spawn (of which more later).

Doris's tree starts to fill the log store.  

Our roofer-guy turned up at that stage to replace the jackdaw pots but I left him to it while I snatched a lunchtime sandwich. At that point my mobile phone battery also died. Liz, meanwhile had generously knocked up a batch of fruit scones for the archers. If I'd wait around till 13:27 I could take them, still cooling, in a Tupperware box, along with butter and jam. I was just packing those and my bow and arrows into the car when another visitor showed up but he mainly wanted Liz, so I was free to shout a welcome in passing as I leapt into the car.

Much-travelled scones.

So when I arrived at The Hub, I was surprised to find the place choc-a-block with boxers and their cars, parents etc. All the Hub carparks were full and all the surrounding roads and neighbouring hard-standing too. There were track-suited boxing club logo'd lads everywhere, even practise sparring in the corridors, so that you had to creep by carefully and hope that they were fairly accurate with the flying fists. Obviously, there was some sort of tournament on. Our hall and bits were all locked up, dark and abandoned and there was not a single archer to be seen. I waited around for a while but in the end, decided that there must have been some kind of cancellation post on Facebook, which I had not seen and, phoneless, I could not call anyone to check. So I bailed and took my lovely scones back home.

We had seen enough mud trailed into
the house. All the dogs got their 'skirts'
leg 'feathering' shaved off and a good
bath. Poppea is Not Happy here. 

The story, I am told, went like this. There had, in fact been a post, telling us the start time of 2pm by which time the coach had turned up and one other guy arrived at 3 minutes past 2. But the owner of the Hub who was supposed to leave us the key had gone off with it in his pocket, hence all locked up and dark. The hapless archers who did show also had to admit defeat and they left at half past 2 promising to get it together more successfully next week. An all round dog's breakfast. At least I got the scones. I hope the boxers had a successful time beating the cr*p out of each other.

Our cheating, import Sligo frog spawn

The frog spawn? The best eco-advice is that all this business of bringing frog spawn home to your new pond to 'help' is BAD. You are meant to leave your new pond alone to go through a NATURAL succession, gradually building up an eco system by species of plant through what arrives naturally.

No sneaking off to your garden centre and buying water lilies and aquatics for that 'instant gratification' make-over effect. The reasons for this are partly about moving disease and undesirable (invasive) species about but more importantly about giving the slower natural colonisers their share of the cake. Their 15 minutes of fame. If you 'leapfrog' (ooops pun) over these simpler species and fast-forward to the bigger herbivores, carnivores and more complex plants the early-adopters never get a chance to do their thing.

We have had the pond now for 4 years and we have seen a few frogs come and go and even (last year) got a few small clumps of spawn laid in naturally, but all the taddies were eaten by the water-beetles, dragon fly nymphs and even chickens and we have never seen a population start to build. In theory we are happy to have our newts and we know that newts, too, will eat tadpoles, but it would still be nice to have a patch of thick vegetation where frogs would thrive. I was offered some spawn from Sligo where the water-filled tractor-rut in which the spawn had been laid, was being drained, so I reckon we were OK breaking the rules this time. We are 'rescuing' this spawn, re-homing it to keep it safe. Forgive us.  

A 50-Pound Pull

Nothing to do with us - just a superb Birthday Cake picture
posted to Twitter, made for a lad called Jake who is 6. I'm not
100% comfortable with encouraging the love of chainsaws
by 6-year olds but they probably have it under control. 

Rain, rain and more rain. It has not stopped all day. Everything is dripping including the coat I wore to walk the dogs at lunchtime (dog towels for them and a complete change of clothes and a shower for me!). Everywhere depressed has puddles and everywhere else the ground under foot has that sloppy, spongy first half inch. Deep joy. The ducks, ducklings and geese are, of course, loving it while all the other birds are happy to cower indoors in the various sheds, car-port and the wood store. It drains away fast enough as soon as it stops raining but it's a nuisance while it is so wet.

We have re-started archery after our February 'recess'. No, not some political 'holiday', but the owners of our hall/venue ("The Hub" in Castlerea) take the whole complex back for 3 weeks while the town's Am-Drams stage an elaborate musical and make a pot of money. This year it is the famous show "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and the players need 2 weeks to construct the set and rehearse on the proper stage and then a week to perform it.

Fly true you arrows

We got the venue back in time for our 19th Feb session. The session included dragging all the gear (big target butts, straw roundels etc) back out of the hidey hole we had put it in for the 'Scoundrels'. That may have contributed but, Boy! how I ached across the chest and shoulders that night. It is quite vigorous stuff, this archery and my bow is a '50-pound' draw.

I got one in the right place, anyway!
Centre-bull, 10 points!

With your right arm (in my case) extended out straight holding the bow, you then pull the string back to level with your mouth with a force of 50 lbs. We lash off 3 arrows at each of 12 targets per round and 2 rounds in the 2 hours. It's not breathlessly exhausting in any kind of 'aerobic' way but it warms up all those muscle blocks and tones you up really well - you know you've been there and over the weeks you build up some power. I shouldn't have been surprised that I went so 'rusty' on the three weeks off but I did and I was. Ah well, back to it now weekly to get all that tone back.

If you are impressed by the 50 lb draw thing, then don't be too in awe. Back in Medieval times everyone in the village would have been obliged to practise their archery every Sunday and the elite long-bow men who did such a good job at, e.g. Agincourt would have been pulling 120 lbs+ (historians think up towards 200 lbs) - those guys had a range (all be it not hugely accurate) getting up towards a mile and would have 2 more arrows in the air by the time the first hail of arrows was falling on the enemy ranks. Archaeologists have found skeletal remains on some of these battle sites where the chests and shoulders of the men seemed all deformed and non-symmetrical. Archers, of course, doing it every week of their lives since they were about 6 years old and developing a frame to cope with the massive forces. Makes our 50 lb pull and lashing arrows 60 feet down a Badminton hall seem quite puny!

A nice change yesterday in the supper menu as Liz took us back to her youth and the time spent in France, doing au-pair to a size-able family down by Toulouse. "I just fancied a bit of boiled fowl" she opined and re-created a trad French 'Pot-au-Feu' supper from one of our frozen Hubbard birds. This would have been standard family filling food belovéd of the thrifty housewife and I could see why. In brief it is a single-pot, chicken 'stew' where the whole carcass, intact, gets slow-cooked in stock and veg for several hours. It would have been some tough old rooster back in the day and all they could afford. You serve it, though, as a three course meal. First comes the 'soup' - the stock eaten as a soup with a chunk of crusty bread and cheese floated in it to mop up the delicious 'grease'. This would have used up the last of that day's bread, bread being bought fresh daily in those parts. Next you would get a plate full of the vegetables and finally the meat would be brought to the table so that you could (easily) pull off a thigh or what ever and a dollop of home-made mayonnaise. Three very satisfying courses from one pot and one chicken. Bon appetite!

My only other news concerns a social visit to our small holdering friends, Sue and Rob. My plan was just to meet up, catch up on the gossip, admire their new-born goat kids and maybe scrounge a cup of coffee and a slice of fruit cake. S+R had other ideas. Sue seems to have a decent sized incubator running right round the year so always has "too many" chickens and geese. At the moment, there are a gazillion roosters running about the place so she tried to ply me with one but Friends of the Blog will know that we have our own issues with roosters just now so I had to decline. Not to be denied, she then tempted me with some nice young poults who (if they are female) will make splendid replacements for our fox-losses. I came home with 6. She also gave me half a dozen unfertilized duck eggs in exchange for fertilized ones not yet laid by our birds (yes, for the incubator, of course!). Thanks so much for those, Sue and Rob and for the rest of the hospitality and farm-tour. You are salt of the earth.

Topp Hosting

Liz rests between courses with (l to r) Dan, Danielle and Keith

I may have mentioned in here that three of the gang who were at the funeral which took Liz to the UK last weekend, were due to follow her back hot on her heels to stay with us this most recent weekend. 2 of them (Dan and Danielle) have been before, last year when they famously drove from here, through Connemara to Galway pausing by a lake for Dan to propose to Danielle. Ahhhhh. Keith is a Dublin cousin, actually son of my Best Man. We 'knew' him properly back then but as a 7 year old (!) and we had lost contact when we were back doing 'married' in the UK. He is one of those who Facebook has brought back into our circle. FB is good for that. It would be his first visit.

Roast duck with Guinness and honey

We love these chances to do hosting and Liz, in particular gets focused and creates lists and menus of special foods and other stuff not normally stocked here. These people will get fed and will get fed WELL and memorably. As I sit here after the event the list, which was fixed to the kitchen dry-wipe board by a magnetic strip has been tidied away, but if memory serves it had on it such goodies as, for Saturday lunch, Asparagus and Gruyere Tart, a pie of sausage meat, black pudding and caramelised apple and a salad of tomatoes, goats cheese and finely sliced onions.

Asparagus and Gruyere Tart

Supper was a genteel soup of bacon and leek (no bread - pace yourself, guys!) followed by mains of Roast Duck in Guinness and Honey (with just noodles and steamed spinach) and a dessert of either/or rhubarb and cream meringue or banana bread. The "cheese course" was Liz's speciality chilli, cheese and bacon biscuits. Breakfast was the expected 'dippy' goose eggs, a keen request from Danielle remembered from last time.

The guests were here, as well as the food, very much for the livestock - we are like a petting-zoo for them all and they love the chance to meet, feed, pet and cuddle as many species as they can get to co-operate (pretty much everybody except the geese!). The pigs were a real hit here, being now 13 weeks old, so small enough to have bouncing around on your lap like a pup and trying to mouth everything. Somerville particularly likes to be rubbed and fussed all over - between her ears, her back, flanks and tummy and under her chin. Ross is not quite so keen but Danielle just saw that as a challenge and was determined to 'tame' her by Sunday dinnertime!

Danielle meets the piggies

The lambs are a bit heavier now (Rosie is ten weeks) but are well used to being handled. Both Danielle and Keith managed to get the guest-goat Nanny-Óg to eat some crunch out of their hands and then went off round the field doing a little happy dance. Then there are the ducklings and the little chicken poults and Tom the Turkey who is currently missing his good lady (out in the fields somewhere (we hope) sitting on eggs) and seems more approachable, let them stroke his knobbly head. A great time was had by all on the food rounds and interim communing.

Thank you so much for the lovely
flowers (also wines, beers and
Hendricks gin). You shouldn't have!

In short, it was a lovely successful visit and much enjoyed by everyone. Our FB 'lot' will have seen a blizzard of pics on FB; I have used just a few of them on here (Thanks D+D). You are welcome back any time, guys.

The ducklings meet Tom and some other residents

The gang headed back to Dublin and their flight home via a visit with 'Sparks'. Liz headed off for a well earned lie-down and I headed for Castlerea and what was planned to be a session out of doors with the archery club setting up the outdoor shoot (targets, marquee etc) followed by a bit of out door shooting. I, for one, was pleased that this was rained off and we adjourned back to the badminton courts of Castlerea's "The Hub". This meant that I could get my new bow set up indoors by instructor 'Con' and learn to use it in the familiar indoor environment. Long story short, that went well and I love the new gear. More on that in a future post.

Poults feathering up well

The Bank Holiday weather proved better than expected and gave us a chance, at last, to release the ducklings and poults for a quick explore of the 'free range' potential of this place. In practise these youngsters are always a bit nervous on their first sessions and never go far. We watch over them mainly in case of inappropriate interest by either cat (they are too big now to be of any use to crows, magpies and the sparrowhawk) and soon they get tired and return home, where upon we shut them back in till tomorrow. It works well. We then increase the time and reduce the supervision each day till they are out all day with everybody else. I can't wait for the ducklings to find the big pond, but I am not going to hurry them and they have not yet tried to get beyond the main yard. The only water they know is the cat litter trays, ridiculously shallow now for these long legged, tall "babies".

I just passed Danielle the lamb, Rosie. Bit of a lump! Keith
seems to be in deep conversation with #3 ewe, Myfanwy.

Ah well, I will leave you with Liz away in Silverwood-land with a bitter sweet task ahead of her. With Mum, bro (Sparks) and sis (Mrs S) the family must choose a head stone for their late Father's grave and decide what should be engraved there-upon. Mum wanted everybody to be there so that the decisions could be family ones. There was also to be a lunch. Liz is not back yet so I have no idea how that went for the moment but I cannot imagine it was a barrel of laughs.

A rather unkind pic of Danielle deciding whether yet another
portion of rhubarb Pavlova would be a good idea! 

...and that is enough for this one.