Tigger is Almost Done.

'Shtumpy' brings her 4 chicks out into the sunshine.

As we all sat down to supper tonight at about 7 pm the much-forecast end to the lovely heatwave was sounding very 'imminent'. Distant thunder rumbled ominously from the direction of Moyne (East, then), setting the dogs off barking and grumbling. Dark clouds had been gathering all evening and soon the distinct pitter-pat of rain drops hitting the big tarpaulin roof of the chicken house could be heard.

'Cool' haircut for a heatwave. #2 all over, please.

As we took our places this turned to the roar and hiss of proper rain and we could see the big drops bouncing back up off the sheep-fence. The sheep had taken cover under the trees - this would be the first thunderstorm the lambs had ever seen and the first heavy rain to hit the ewes since their shearing. I knew how they felt - I too had been down for my spring-time "shearing" (No. 2 all over please, guv) and I could feel the rain on scalp, rather than via the hair.

Promising looking new asparagus spears from the new babies.

We've all been loving the heat after the long cold, bitter winter and we were never going to be the first to complain, but some of our friends had started to comment that they "needed" rain for their plants or for the grazing grass growth. Many neighbours have raced a first cut of silage in from some fields, so they would be feeling happy but Elizabeth did see one farmer turning hay this morning despite the Orange-status weather warnings. Once you've cut it you are committed, really, so you might as well keep turning and hoping. The rain we got, did not actually amount to much. As I type this at 9 pm it is all over and we are back to a lovely sunset. It is cooler though.

A mesh 'porch' to keep those hens out of Donaldina's
broody house. 20 eggs is enough for anybody.

The hot weather has also meant that we could get on with garden stuff, assisted by our current, wonderful Help-X volunteer, Laura. She goes at every job I have given her with 100% commitment, focus and work-ethic. The place has never looked so tidy and well kept even when the heat has made some of the jobs quite unpleasant with sweat, dust with no breeze to clear it, still, hot air in buildings with corrugated roofs and the need to re-hydrate at breaks with copious quantities of  the house home-made cordials.

Laura in muck-out mode. 

While I have managed to get 'away' to build mesh covered frames to keep chickens off raised beds and unwanted egg-laying out of poor Donaldina(hen - see previous post)'s broody house, Laura has mowed the whole site a second time, gone round all the edges and young trees with shears, mucked out the long overdue chicken house including scraping/sweeping all the yard paths. Today, with me, she has then gone on to do the goose house and the feed store and brush-cut all the billowing cow-parsley in the lane verges.

Those 20 eggs which Donaldina is currently sitting on. 

Indoors, she has slotted in as very helpful around the kitchen, (un)loading the dishwasher, washing up, laying/clearing tables and even cooking more desserts. We have had a very creditable chocolate marbled cake and, tonight, partnered with The Woman of the House, chocolate brownies. Mid week, she came and tentatively asked whether, if she could not find a place for next week, she might stay a 3rd week here and we both agreed without hesitation. She has been a real 'find' and a joy.

Meanwhile, in the livestock department, everything has been chugging along equally nicely. Mr Fox has been mercifully absent. Cat Basket Lady (hen) has kept her 6 chicks alive and well and 'Shtumpy' (another hen) has now brought her four out into the sunshine. She looks like mothering them as well as she did the 2 broods she reared for us last year. Donaldina is sitting tight on her 20 (see last Tuesday's story) and now protected from any more 'cuckoo' hens by a mesh covered porch. A 4th hen has now gone broody in the corner of the Tígín under the work bench. 

It gets like 'Bake-Off' sometimes in the kitchen with three
of us all rattling off favourite recipes.

In the incubator, having briefly been sharing with the Cat Basket eggs, are the 14 duck eggs due to hatch today or tomorrow. I hope you have more patience than me - I am anxiously checking them several times a day looking for any signs of movement and listening for any cheeping. I cannot wait for them to get a move on.

Still in full fleece (you don't shear the lambs), Tigger looks
nearly as big as his Mum. 4 and a half months old, he's nearly
'ready'

The pigs continue to thrive, but even closer to a visit to the butcher is our January-born ram lamb, Tigger. At nearly 5 months old and still in his full fleece (you don't shear the lambs in their first year) he looks as big as his Mum. He is still sneaking the occasional suckle but it will not be long now. We daren't leave him past 6 months - he is already 'playing' with his sisters/cousins and we cannot risk him getting Mum or an Auntie pregnant.

New shoots at last on the evergreen oak.

Ah well. That is surely enough for this one. I am off out to breathe a bit of that refreshed, cooler, evening air. Good Luck, now.

Brer Fox Comes Back for a Goose

Not a clean death - she was covered in puncture bite marks
and badly bruised. We think the neck wound was inflicted
when the fox tried to pull the carcass through the sheep wire. 

Our fox left us 10 days after taking the duck, in which to relax, start thinking he was a one-off and maybe drop our guard a little. Then he sneaked back at 4 pm on a Saturday. Luckily for him (or her, of course, foxes are almost impossible to sex on a fleeting glimpse) he chose a time when I was off site and Elizabeth was hoovering, so that she did not hear the Guinea Fowl alarm-call cacophony until it was too late.

A good old fashion (goose) stew with
dumplings. 

I was out at a gentle, afternoon, drinkless, family and friends gathering for the 60th birthday of my archery coach, Con, and heading home at half past 4. At roughly the same time, Elizabeth finished the hoovering, killed the noise and heard the Guinea Fowl clamour. She raced outside and found one GF high up a tree, giving out all manner of dog's abuse, which is never a good sign. Casting around she could find no cause for the racket but we know and trust these birds, so we keep looking for as long as it takes, or they stop the screaming.

Goosey Gumbo? This lovely soup (over rice) made a fitting
end to the fox's abandoned prize. 

Then she saw the sad white shape right at the bottom of the orchard against the fence. It was straight away obvious what had happened - the fox had got into the orchard, killed the goose and then dragged her to the fence. Unluckily for the fox, this was a big, 5-6 kg bird he had chosen, so he could not jump back out of the orchard with his prize.

The day after losing her 'sister', one of the
survivors gives us the first goose egg of
2018. 

He'd put it down by the fence, jumped the fence unladen, then tried to pull the goose through the fence. It was too big a goose to fit through, so he'd presumably spotted Elizabeth bearing down on it and fled the scene. She never actually saw the fox. She'd just about time to carry the body back to the shed and hang it up to bleed out a bit, and shepherd the survivors to safety, when I pulled in to the drive way and heard the sorry tale. We didn't know at that point, whether the victim was one of those females I'd been waiting to start laying eggs, or our belovéd gander, Gorgeous George. It was the former.

Still spoiled rotten and sleeping indoors at this stage, Lily and
the month old lamb, Tigger. 

The plucking took place that evening, when the bird proved to be so full of puncture holes and bite marks, that Liz decided to skin the bird instead, half way through plucking. This goose was going down the 'stew' route. At the gutting stage it turned out that the bird also had half a dozen part-formed eggs up her 'pipework', the largest of which was almost laying-size and could only have been a day away from our long awaited "First Egg of 2018".

Outdoors now - breakfast with Mum and Aunts on
Monday morning.

Long story short, the goose became a superb stew and dumplings, the gribbly bits went in the wheelie bin and a great pile of white feathers went on the compost heap. The latter fact is the most significant because our furry, bushy-tailed friend came back for his lost prize the next day (Sunday) at about half past eleven. This time we were both up and about when the Guineas kicked off, we raced outside, each via a different route and caught the lad in the act of sniffing the pile of feathers on the compost heap, right up by our cattle race. He scarpered, of course, when our 2 heads appeared round either end of his covering wall, galloping off and clearing the 3-4' sheep wire into the pig-pen without breaking stride. He paused briefly to see how serious we were and then shot off down the pig-pen and cleared to bottom fence the same way, vanishing off down the bog field below us.

A 2018 first, the new kitchen windows are
thrown open to let some warm air through
as the sun shines brightly outside. Spring
is here. 

In a surprising parallel to Sue and Rob's garden-fox mentioned in a previous post (10th Feb), to get to the compost, the fox must have come in over the fences again but through the gangs of surviving geese and ducks, ignoring them. My guess is that he came first to the piece of fence where he'd left the goose in such a hurry, and once there, could either see or smell the "dead one" (he wouldn't have know it was only a pile of feathers) 40 yards away on the compost. I assume that had we not disturbed him, he'd have quickly worked out that he needed to kill another bird and done that (or more) on the way out.

Naturally we are back on high alert, Fox-Watch for all the hours that the birds are out of their sheds and free ranging. We have also abandoned all our optimistic foolish ideas that this might be a one-off, fox, a 2017 youngster turfed out of the home earth and roaming around looking for a territory to call his own. He came on the 2nd Jan, took the duck on 8th Feb, and has now come back on the 17th and 18th. He is now a local and regular visitor, though he didn't come back on Monday or today. While he is all unpredictable and careful, there is little we can do about this except keep watch and listen to what those Guinea Fowl tell us. However, if he starts to get regular, predictable and a bit complacent, then we have some options. Wish us luck.

Briefly chaotic Living Room scene, books
everywhere. 

It is never ALL bad news though. The next day, one of the other geese laid her first egg of 2018 so we are back in that 'game' and the waiting is over. The ewe Lily refused to come 'home' that evening to her indoor pen in the Tígín as we've done happily for 4 weeks now and seemed to want to go, instead, into the East Field where her 'sisters' have been all along. I let her in and closed the gate on her happy re-union. It was a warm evening, so I decided that she was all done on the 'Intensive Care', indoor housed thing. Tigger is a big, bouncing, plump, chunky lad at this stage and no more likely to die of his sister's hypothermia that is his fully-fleeced Mum. They have slept out ever since (all be it they actually sleep in the shelter with the other girls) and I have been able to muck out the pen ready for the next mum+lamb. This looks like it might be first-timer Rosie, from the 'bagging up' evidence, or Polly, from the 'I want to be alone' sleeping behaviour.

One of the book walls!

Finally, Elizabeth finally made it to IKEA in Dublin to buy 2 more of their excellent, full height, 80 cm wide, flat packed "Billy" book cases. There are, obviously, a gazillion books here and the cases we have have been double stacked and overflowing for too many months. Liz finally cracked, girded her loins and went to do battle with IKEA. The boxes, although almost 7 feet long, fit neatly into our little Fiat Panda with all the doors shut; you just post them in the back hatch and slide them down into the passenger side foot-well. Brilliant. Well, now they are assembled (by the Flat-pack Queen) and full of books after a massive, day-long sort-out. We are so tidy, we won't know ourselves.

Slow News Day

Horse Chestnut bud still firm closed

Another short and sweet post, I'm afraid. We are in an event gap between the funeral which took up most of the last weekend, the piggy movements which followed it and the coming weekend for which the calendar is also blank. It has been raining too much for anything but cursory tidying outside and a bit of photography of signs of spring. 

Burns Night came along on Thursday giving us a minor excuse for a wee celebration. I had kept a bit of Scotch back from Christmas (Elizabeth had won it in a raffle) for the day and we had made, as usual, our own haggis from our own lambs.

This gets done as a tray-bake, sitting in the oven with a butter paper covering the top so that it does not dry out, rather than trying to obtain some natural gut to stuff. 

Another named storm tracked through - Storm Georgina - but this one came with only 'Yellow' status warnings and did us no damage - it just re-filled all the puddles. That has been the way of recent weather - we get a dry day when most of the surface water drains away but then it rains like mad at night and we are back to sloppy surface mud again. All yard and livestock jobs are done in wellies.

Rosie and Polly keeping me waiting. 

The new lamb (Tigger) continues to thrive and we are now in a daily rhythm of shepherding the family out of the shed mid morning, once Lily has had her breakfast, and round to the front lawn.

By mid afternoon, Lily has done with wandering round on the damp, almost non-existent grass and is back at the gate, baa-ing her pleas to be allowed back into the warm, dry straw of the shed. I grab a bucket of 'grub' and lead her home, with Tigger running along close at heel.

My first 'Irish' lapwings. 59 birds in this pic but I think around
75 in the flock down by the local lough.  

Lily's sisters are keeping me waiting on the lambing progress. Polly, we know, was tupped on 5th October, so she is not due till 5th March, but the other two (Myfanwy and Rosie) did not give me any such clues.

A tiny self-seed holly from Mum in Law.

I am reduced to checking their nethers every day and looking for any signs of bagging up. It is perfectly possible, of course, that they are not pregnant at all, but they do have that look, matching Lily (as was) and Polly in girth and shape. Either way, Ram 'Pedro' will not be around long. His days are numbered. I have had no interest from my attempt to sell him via Done Deal, so he is booked in for his final journey in 2 weeks. His aggressive butting of the ewe Myfanwy, has sealed his fate.

That's about it on this slow news day.

Pussy Willow.

Rent a Reverser (?)

A first look for Tigger, at the soggy, puddle-strewn front lawn

At just a week old, newest lamb 'Tigger' is thriving. I have been getting him out of the Tígín (along with his Mum, Lily, of course) each day for a run around on the front lawn. He seems to love this, following his Mum around as she grazes but often charging away from her a few yards in a mad, bouncy 'pronking' tip-toes gait of a deer, and then zooming back to her side.

Staying close to Mum

I am 'doing' them alone on the front lawn for the moment because I am not 100% sure of the ram Pedro leaving him alone and because it makes the process of letting him out and getting him back in of an afternoon, a whole lot less complicated. Trying to extract them from the East Field while not letting the rest out to play is more risky a prospect than I need.

I am not sure about Pedro anyway - I have seen him chasing the big ewe Myfanwy about and butting her a bit too aggressively for my liking so, even though he has not had a go at me, we may part company soon one way or another. At the moment I have him up for sale on the Irish 'classified ads' website (DoneDeal.ie) but I have not even had a 'tickle' so he may end up in the freezer. We'll see. If his chasing of 'Myf' is due to her not being pregnant yet and now coming on heat, then that might see him forgiven, but nobody needs a ram trying to 'T-bone' their in-lamb ewes in the midriff.

A house favourite use for a sheet of belly-pork. Mini porchetta.

Talking of animals going to the butcher's, I was involved over the last 24 hours in our good friends Sue and Rob finally getting their 2017 pigs off to Webb's in Castlerea. Friends of the blog may recall that Sue and Rob came with us over to the breeder's place near Boyle on the day we went out to collect our own pigs, 10 week olds Pride and Empress. They chose much younger babies, maybe 6 weeks old, so they were already a month behind us on schedules.

Thanks very much 'Steak-Lady' for this framed print, latest
Paris-themed picture in our collection. 

Their pair came ready about a month after ours (end of October) but Sue and Rob had little space in their freezers, so decided to keep the pigs on till after Christmas. It was very wet and now the time came, they asked me for help extracting the pigs from their 'swamp' and getting them into their trailer. Also, Sue, by her own admission "cannot reverse the trailer for a toffee" (and Rob can't drive anyway) , so could I help out at the other end of the journey, reversing her 4x4 and the trailer into the tiny narrow 'slot' between buildings which is the butcher's answer to a "loading bay".

Paris scene

That all went swimmingly in the event. Rob had constructed a really good, pig-proof 'race' up from the swamp to the hard standing and those pigs had been kept hungry so that they would be suckers for the bribe of a rattled food bucket. Pigs never explore anywhere new fast - they just amble along with their noses to the ground, taking an occasional step. They will not be hurried and you are a fool if you try. If you did spook them and made them bolt, you are not going to stop 80 kg of charging pig, so the best bet is to let them amble along and just gently (but firmly) close the ground behind them by nudging up against their bums with a big board. By this method, Sue guided them up the 'race', and Rob and I nudged up behind them till they eventually went up the ramp and we could close the trailer on them.

Pig haulier's breakfast.

In the morning, I'd set the alarm for 7 so that I could meet Sue with the 'load' at the butcher's nice and early while there was not much traffic about for us to upset. It is a known bad manouvre - the narrow gap is at 90º to a narrow but busy main street in the town. The gap is only about 6 feet wide, so as you slot your trailer neatly and professionally in (ahh shucks!), don't go in past the kerb with the truck or you will not be able to open the doors and get out! We managed that OK with Sue seeing me back and then, with the pigs unloaded and safely into the lairage, Sue finished all the paperwork, I bought a pack of Webb's superb dry-cure rashers and we adjourned to local Deli, Benny's for a celebratory coffee. Job well done. I even grabbed some croissants and Danish pastries 'to go' so that Liz and I could have a nice breakfast back at the ranch.

My new favourite Irish author, currently filling the gap left in my
reading due to running out of Maeve Binchy books.

In other news, we have been quite deeply involved in a local funeral. No names, no pack drill for the usual reasons. I think if you ask any Brit who has moved over here, what is the biggest single difference in local village or community life that they noticed compared to the UK, it will be the Irish way of death. In 55 years in the UK I probably went to half a dozen funerals at most and all of them small, quiet affairs which involved you to attend for only a short time.

Comparatively, the Irish funeral is massive, especially in rural areas where everybody would know the family of the deceased especially if they have lived in the community for all their life. Hundreds of people will attend and the proceedings can easily take up the evening prior and all of the day of the actual burial. Family and friends who have long since left Ireland in search of work or what-ever will make the trip home to be part of it. The deceased may even be one of the 'diaspora' wishing to be laid to rest in the family plot back in the village of their birth.

I apologise hugely in advance if I have any of this wrong - please do comment and I will make corrections. The last thing I want to do is cause any offence to anyone involved in 'this' or any other funeral. The proceedings follow a sequence something like this, with every bit attended by a good many of the mourners. First is the 'reposing' where the deceased is laid in the coffin at the Funeral Parlour  - you queue outside for yards down the pavement to get in one door and you slowly process, shuffling forward to view the departed and then shake hands with the immediate family . It is good to have something to say to each - I have taken to using popular local expression "Sorry for your trouble". You then shuffle down the out-corridor to the exit, passing the book of condolences on the way. This stage takes a couple of hours to get everyone through. It is common for the coffin to be open at this stage, so that you see the deceased - I have not got used to that bit yet.

Next is the 'Removal', where the coffin is taken by hearse to the church, commonly followed by all those mourners in dozens of cars - an impressive cortege threading its way down the country lanes. The hearse may pause at the house where the deceased lived, or was born, letting the 'late' soul know that he is really home, I guess. This is followed by the Mass itself. Mass going is way more popular here than (taking Communion) in the UK and churches are packed every Sunday, so it is no surprise that all our mourners pack the church for this bit, likely to be the most familiar to mourners in the UK.

Next we move to the graveyard. Depending on distance this might be all back in the cars or walking. This is the 'Burial' and can involve, again, a big group of mourners gathered round while more prayers are said and the coffin lowered into the grave. Some of these graveyards can be on quite bleak, windy hilltops, so the wise mourner equips with a warm coat, hat and gloves. We then adjourn, if invited, to a suitable location for 'Refreshments' - in the case of my Father in Law (Theo), this was a nearby pub for drinks (obviously), welcome hot soup and bread, with sandwiches or even a full 3-course meal, maybe stew and veg and a dessert. This stage can go on as long as you want - there will often be live music and happy chatter as family members and friends who may not have seen each other since the last funeral catch up on gossip and each others lives.

You Brits can see that this all adds up to quite a day, an impressive event. More amazing (to us) is that this all happens generally within days of the passing away of the person, the whole 'machine' fires up and all the stages are organised and slotted into place. In the UK, that is normally the work of weeks - we hear that person X has died and maybe 3 weeks later we find out the arrangements for the funeral. They KNOW that this is all a bit special here and there have been some excellent (including funny in some cases) books written and TV programmes made explaining the process. I hesitate to compete with those, but thought my UK friends might like a small flavour of what it means when someone here says "There was a funeral".

Additional reading - Try the book "How to be Irish" by David Slattery

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Irish-Uncovering-Curiosities-Behaviour/dp/1871305241

Bouncing around like Tigger

Elizabeth heads off to work through the snow.

The plan for this morning was to lead the ewe, Lily, and the surviving lamb out to the front lawn for a look at some first grass, fresh air and exercise. By Day 3 the lamb is bouncing around like Tigger and looking very much like he needs more space than the 20-odd square feet of the hurdle pen. Mum is looking a bit fed up too with this mean old diet of hay and 'crunch' ( a mix of grains etc with a dash of molasses for energy ) even though I have brought in the odd, blown down 'branch' of ivy as greenery.

Please let me out. I want to run around on the grass. 

However, we woke up to a keen, frosty wind, an inch of snow on the grass and more wet snow falling, so the family had to stay indoors today, as they will, in fact, tomorrow with us being involved in a local funeral for most of the day. We will try again on Sunday, praying that the warming-up forecast will come to pass.

Lamb #1 gets some intensive care. 

But "Whoa!", I hear you cry, "Did you say 'surviving' lamb?" Yes, I am afraid I did, dear reader. We have a tragedy to report - one of Lily's twin lambs only just made it through the first 24 hours, fading and dying at around midday on the 2nd day. Readers of the previous post will know that this lamb was born outside - the pictures of her are in that post - and for this reason, and the weather, many have commented that she died of hypothermia (including vet Aoife (rhymes with Deefer)) but I am not so sure.

Last moments for the ewe lamb. 

The story goes something like this. The lamb was born outside onto wet ground in a bitter wind but was efficiently licked clean by Mum and was up and suckling in minutes (no more than 10) . Mum very soon passed the afterbirth so, thinking that this was all, we rescued the ewe and lamb into a shed within an hour of the first ewe being born.

Mum and 'Tigger'. The pen now has extra
draught-proofing. 

This is when the first sign of trouble was seen and both of us were a little concerned for the lamb - I put her down into the pen with Mum but she lay there on her side either shivering or spasm-ing. "That's not good" said Nurse Elizabeth. I picked her up and rubbed and massaged the baby for a while, seeming to help her so that she could stand OK and at that point we went inside for a cup of tea, thinking no more about it.

The 'Easter Island Man' gets a woolly hat.

My previous post shows that the p.m. went fine with the 2nd lamb being born and both then sharing the suckling and seen several times up and about or curled up together as twin lambs will in a 'yin and yang' pair. We all went off to bed thinking all was well and certainly I had no thoughts of the lambs suffering hypothermia.

By morning at first checks, it was clear that all was not well. The ewe lamb was lying flat on her 'tummy' like a frog (which no lamb normally does) and when I tickled her rump she pushed that up in the air with her back legs but her chest and chin stayed put. When I lifted her, her head flopped right round onto her shoulder and she seemed way too floppy, lethargic and sleepy. I started to vigorously massage her to try to get some oomph back into her, and texted Nurse Elizabeth that all was not well.

We took the baby indoors and had a morning of trying everything we knew to warm her plus phoning the vet and Mayo-Liz (our sheep supplier and guru). I whizzed out to buy colostrum formula-powder and a bottle and we tried dribbling some of that across her tongue but she didn't even try to swallow that. Occasionally she would seem to spasm some more, kicking out with all 4 feet as if trying to struggle upright, or she'd bleat loudly and give us a flash of hope. Sadly, these were just spasms and the general direction was downwards. We worked this out at about 11:45 and put her to die in peace, wrapped in a warm coat. She slipped away just after Mid-day. We think she was just not a do-er who probably would have died anyway. It was a sad and crappy day.

Sorry about the dark pic, but it was taken on the pig breeder's
phone. These are the first batch of 'possibly ours' piglets. 

Happily, that was the low point and things have been picking up ever since. The 2nd lamb, the ram, is thriving and risks being named 'Tigger' for his bouncy antics in the pen. In the afternoon of that same day, we received word from our pig breeder that he has started farrowing for this year's piglets, these from his first sow, 'Plum', who had had these three by that point. Since then Plum's sister, Iris has had 10 and 2 other sows in that group have also had 10 each. Lots of choice for mid March when we come to want our class of 2018.

Snowdrops starting to show themselves.

The garden, despite the snow and the sloppy, snow-melt mud, is showing good signs of spring. Daffs, tulips, snowdrops and Muscari are all bursting out of the ground and starting to bud up. Liz is back on the Drama Club rehearsals trail, with the usual Easter weekend (end of March) deadline looming.

10,000 Tweets. 

In the week, I saw that I have now passed the 10,000 tweets milestone on my Twitter account. I am not sure whether this is proof that I am officially become a boring old fart or whether it just means that I ought no longer to reply when asked about this social media that "Ah yeah, Twitter.... I don't really get on there much....". Truth is, I think, that I might be 'done' with my Facebook phase.

If your filing is getting a bit behind and the pending file getting
a bit thick, a cat will weigh it down nicely and it will not look
so neglected. 

FB is OK for proudly putting up a picture of your latest good news (lambs born, piglets bought, foods cooked, etc) and getting a load of old mates 'liking' it but it is not any place for interesting discussions. I think I am losing the love for it and moving on to Twitter just as many friends are moving on from Twitter to the newer, smart-phone-friendly systems like 'Instagram' where I have not yet been. Also not likely to while I am working on an old PC, rather than a smart phone.

One of the cats adds a final touch to this tray of chocolate
fudge brownies by walking across it. Thanks cat!

That, I think, is about the lot for this one. I will just close with a couple more pictures because (as usual), I have them.

May not have needed this many logs.

Bye now.