Soft you now, the fair Ophelia...

Hurricane Ophelia's predicted track. 

Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, this post finds us sitting here wondering whether the next few days will bring us brutal weather and the tree-toppling, airborne chicken house roof dramas of our former 'girlfriend', Storm Doris. If you believe the more dramatic and alarmist weather forecasters, we are looking down the barrel of Hurricane Ophelia.

Ophelia's southward track so far.

This angry young lady has already shown herself to be a bit weird, having formed up off the coast of Newfoundland and tracked SW down the US east coast before doing a small loop-the-loop and hanging a left out to sea off Florida. Not for her the usual targets of Haiti, Houston,Texas or Puerto Rico; she's steering well clear of Trump's Twitter storms.

The beech in the pig run starts to turn
colour.

I am, naturally, quite nervous despite this jokey bravado. We do not need any bad storms this winter. Friends of the Blog will recall that Storm Doris ripped a good bit of the roof off our main chicken house and this building spent the summer shored up with a nice new tarpaulin.

Hops

The plan was for K-Dub and I to replace the roof this year with corrugated iron salvaged from his house in Sligo, but the need to do the kitchen extension kind of got in the way. You can only do so many buildering projects a year. Re-roofing weather is probably done now till next spring, so our chicken house must go through this winter and Hurricane Ophelia (and friends) on a wing, a prayer and a hopefully strong tarpaulin. What could POSSibly go wrong? Soft you now, the fair Ophelia - be gentle with us.

Bank behind the poly tunnel now cleared of nettles and brambles
and over-hanging elder branches.

That said, we have had reasonably good weather so far and rain and wind have not yet interfered too much with the Autumn clear-ups I have been doing, working with my Help-X volunteer, AB. This is still mainly the wilder areas of perimeter including various neglected banks behind the poly tunnel. As well as nettles and weeds, these often have dumped piles of tree prunings and hedge cuttings which I could not burn on the day I cut them.

The bank also known as "The Turf Mine". Every home should
have one?

On one of these, regular readers may recall, we came across a buried stash of turf-fuel. The previous owner had obviously had a clamp of turf there which had at some stage been sheeted over with old (used) silage wrap and then piled up with good top-soil scraped from some other part of the farm. It has been, for us, the gift that keeps on giving - every time I need turf for fuel, I just clear some more weeds, burrow into the bank, pull out a few barrow loads to dry in the poly tunnel. Bingo.

Poly tunnel becomes turf-dryer for a few months. 

As part of the Autumn thing and part of battening down the hatches for the storm, we also decided to take down the Honeybee swarm 'lure box'. This, readers will recall, gets hung optimistically from the big ash tree down by the bee hive in the hope of tempting any emerging swarm to take up residence and not vanish over the horizon.

Brace comb created in the swarm-box.

Well, apart from a little flurry of comings and goings by scout bees from the hive when I first hoisted it into the tree (when you deploy it you load it with 'bait' of old comb, old honey and lemon-smelling plants like lemon balm or lemon grass), I had seen no activity.

Goat's cheese. Delicious. 

Bit of a surprise then, on getting it down and opening it, to find 4 nice chunks of "brace comb" in there. All dead and redundant now but there were some dead bees in there and some of the comb cells had obviously contained honey or pollen at one stage. No signs of any egg-laying or a brood nest, though.

I have perhaps been over-critical of the veg garden, suggesting
it was a disaster this year. It is giving us plenty of kale and chard
at this back end.

We are not experts, but we imagine that at some point during the year, while we were not watching, there was a swarm or a proper swarm followed by a 2nd "cast" swarm, probably with either no queen or a problem, infertile queen. These bees would have come out of the main hive, decided to set up in the swarm box and started to create wax comb where the new colony would be able to start storing honey and pollen. When no queen showed up or started successfully to lay eggs, this colony would have faded and died along with its new (start-up) workers, each bee only living about 6 weeks in summer here. Nice to know and Liz, at least, got the few ounces of beeswax from this.

Finally a bit of fun and a new experience for me. I have sheared sheep and clipped dogs but I had never done any human hair cuts. Today our Help-X lad decided that he was fed up with his flowing locks and that they were getting in the way of his 'farmering'. I joked that I could take him to the local barber's shop (lady rather nicely named "Barbara"!) or I could run the Wahl dog-clippers over him. He rather warily inspected the clippers (I think he thought they'd be as big and industrial as my shears!) and then decided that, hey, at least it'd save him the €10.

AB takes one for the team. Pics by Liz.

So, much to Liz's amusement we set up shop out front on the terrace furniture, I looked him in the eye one last time to check it was REALLY what he wanted and then went for it. No going back now, AB. 5 minutes later he was a "Number 5 all over" and delighted. For some reason Liz didn't choose to have the same and, when we went back indoors it was to find Towser, worried by the clipper noise, hunkered down in the tiny gap below the oven.

Young Scots pine all set up for next year. 

That's a bout it for this one.

Venison pie.

Keep your fingers crossed for us over the weekend and I hope to be able to post a safe, intact 'All Clear' post on Tuesday.

Mullein still in flower.

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This little mite hatches yesterday (we think) and manages to get
out of the nest. We find him cheeping frantically and waddling
round the shed floor. Fear not, all ends well. 

A Birth is Announced! Best news, I expect, for this post is that we finally have a hatch of goose eggs, this a good 2 weeks after the "due date" for the original eggs (27th May). The reason for this is that the 3 Mum/Auntie geese keep leppin' in and out of the nest after #1 goes broody and the eggs you set get trampled. These will be more recent eggs. Our goose breeding is definitely chaotic.

Curator-ing the @IrelandsFarmers Twitter account

This little mite announced his presence with frantic loud cheeping you could hear across the yard even through the excited honking of 4 adult geese, He'd got out of the nest which means a 4-5 inch "fall" out of the former concrete cattle-trough in which they nest and was a bit lost running round the floor, not trying very well to get back into the nest. It could have ended badly. We had one gander one year so annoyed by the appearance of this new, noisy, scurrying "rat" that he grabbed it by a wing and threw it across the shed, badly damaging it.

But not THESE parents. They lower their necks and chunter at him encouragingly from close range so that he stands up to his full 4 inches of height and wobbles his head proudly. The gander (Gorgeous George) has amazed all of us by being even better a dad than the ladies are mums or aunts. They get distracted, he stays focused. All 4 would protect the little fella with their lives and get very excited and angry at anyone who comes near. That was my problem. If I needed to rescue him back to the nest I knew I would need the chainsaw helmet, gloves, a coat with thick sleeves and so on. A relief then at 6 pm ish to see him back in the nest and now accompanied by a sibling. I can sleep easy and undamaged! Wish the little ones luck.

The Hubbards at Day 5 are growing a-pace. They have lost the
spherical look and already have white wing feathers.

This, though, seems to have been a week where we have both "worked" for hours without actually achieving anything around the farm, not a stroke of weeding, mowing or tidying. For Liz there has been the normal working week plus all the politics to follow, both in the US (Comey's testimony to the Senators) and in the UK (May's snap election and subsequent need to get into bed with the DUP).

Potential fruit #1 : Cherries

Liz always stays up for the results and normally takes the day after as holiday to sleep and recover. This time she was denied the holiday by boss John who suddenly had a funeral to attend, so she had to go in "even if she slept for most of it". The office must be manned and the phones answered at least from 09:30 to 13:30, Mon-Fri. In the end she gave up on the  voting coverage at 03:30, slept a while, worked the morning, then caught up by sleeping from 3 till 6 pm. There's dedication.

My 'job' was to be 'Curator' of the @IrelandsFarmers Twitter account, the voice of Twitter-using Irish farming for the week from Monday morning (5th June) to Sunday evening, tomorrow. Most of my readers, I know, have nothing to do with Twitter even if they are regulars on Facebook. It is seen as too 'ephemeral', sound-byte-ish, fleeting and short lived. You post your comment of 140 characters max and if no-one's paying attention it vanishes down the screen quickly replaced by the next Tweet. It is seen as the medium of smart, office, city types clip-clopping across marble floors in their heels, their thumbs and noses glued to the ever-on expensive smart phones and 'tablets'. It is used by vacuous, brainless celebrities and, of course, Donald Trump

Potential fruit #2 :Plums

Stick with it, though, and you can find sensible, intelligent chatter within and between groups of like-minded souls, whether your thing is politics, news, Ireland or more specialist subjects like farming or even smallholdering. When this happens, someone will generally decide that the subject "needs an account" on Twitter so they set one up and start trawling for members to join them. In this case they give the helm of the account to a different person each week, the "Curator". Friends of the blog may recall that I have curated the @smallholderIRL account 3 times now and I love having the extra following (numbering thousands of people all round the world) for the week with whom to share my news, pictures, anecdotes and banter.

Potential fruit #3 : "Irish Peach" variety of apple

All well and good. Small Holdering is the home turf and I'd know a good few people on that group through Facebook or in real life. I am happy to go on that one and strut my stuff, reasonably confident of a sympathetic reception and not too much "trolling" (idiots who are just out to argue and spoil the chat). But then I was invited to curate the 'proper' farmers' one @IrelandsFarmers. I accepted but if I'm honest I was a bit nervous. How would they accept me, this wannabee farmer, blow-in, smallholder and a Brit besides?

Potential fruit #4 : (pea sized) Peaches

I needn't have worried - it has gone really well with 95% of the stuff getting favourable comment ('Likes' and 'Re-tweets') and only the odd one completely blanked or ignored. I have covered a good range of stuff - the holding here and its stock, equipment, activities as well as what I like to do when NOT farming and some anecdotes on disasters and triumphs. One post I was very pleased with had me showing that picture of the house circa 1900 alongside one of me sitting out front on the mini-horse and cart. As I go to press I have just looked in and that one has been seen by 6713 people, 93 have said they 'like' it and 16 have shared it on ("re-tweeted" it). I seem to have done OK and I am delighted. I have to hand the tiller back at 6pm tomorrow. It is quite tiring and you are tied to the PC (no smart-phone for me!) frequently so I will not be sad to finish but I guess the 'owner' will happily have me back when the rota comes round again.... next year, maybe.

A poor blackbird gets dismantled overnight
in the new kitchen. We suspect feline
involvement. 

What else have we been at? I was out at the archery coach's place  putting the cover back on our enormous "gala tent" (mini marquee) ready for the summer activities, helped only by the lady of the house (Niamh) and a friend (Karl, an Austrian lad). Hard work in quite a brisk wind but very enjoyable and, like the curating, good to get it done.

We do get to eat out sometimes!

For Liz tonight a "Mystery night out" for the Lisacul Players, the amateur dramatics group still a-glow from their very successful performance of "Cupid Wore Skirts" a few months back. They had no idea where they were being taken, only that they had to show up at the village cross-roads by quarter past 7 a bit glammed up. One of the lads was organising it and he was keeping very tight lipped. Small huddles of actors formed (plus Liz and Director Tom C) frantically trying to work it out from the time, the need for €20 as a share of the mini-bus hire and their knowledge of 'Derek' (organiser) where they might be bound. One actor was praying that he'd not take them anywhere with Country music - she can't abide that, she said.

Well. Now they know. I have just had a text from Liz to say they are at a place called "The Oarsman" in Carrick on Shannon. She will no doubt fill us all in on the standard of the place's catering and the presence or absence of good aul' boys slapping their thighs, plucking their banjos and shouting 'Yeeee Harrr!' Y'all have the biggest time now!

Winter Draw(er)s On....

Trump towers?

In the last post I alluded to my passing, and Liz's more passionate, interest in the US Elections and the big horse-race between Trump and Clinton. There can not be many people now left in our orbit who do not know that Trump shocked 'em all by winning, leaving a trail of formerly confident Clinton-ites upset, angry, baffled and plotting revenge in his wake.

A more reflective, considered response from the British Isles
papers by the next day. 

By early morning it was all sweary disbelief on Facebook and Twitter, with the Irish and British national papers going to print too early to know the result. By the next day, when they could do their Trump headlines, they had all had a chance to put together more reflective, considered reports. Now I am way too much of a beginner at this to add my opinions to the learnéd prose but I am going to sneak in one observation for what it's worth. Feel free to skip on by. It all looked to me a bit like the UK's 'Brexit' vote with the big majority not really voting on the issues but just wanting to give authority a bloody nose.

I was feeding a neighbour's cattle while he
is in hospital again. Love this fine Charolais
head.

Clinton obviously represented the governing elite, Washington, the White House and Democratic Party centre. Trump no doubt did not, but also, in my humble opinion, did not really represent the "other party" either. He seemed to have snuck in 'despite' the Republican grandees and was portraying himself as his own man; his followers could still vote for him and still feel sufficiently 'anti-establishment'.

The Irish Times had a lovely picture of a baseball capped, bearded 'good aul' boy' Trump supporter at the victory bash rushing at the photographer and doing two middle-finger salutes; real "F**k you and the horse you rode in on!" stuff. Like the British government and their Brexit problems, the US government on both sides (all sides, maybe) is going to have to react to this urge by the majorities to smear their noses across their faces. Meanwhile we have what we have, Brexit and Trump.

One of the turkeys tries his hand at
 'magnificent' up on the fence.

Aside from that excitement. it is all fairly quiet here. Steak Lady has gone on her hols to Malta so invited Liz to borrow her car for the duration. This is a regular treat for us, and Liz catches a train down to Silverwood-land, stays the night to catch up with her Mum, sees her off in the 'Sparks' taxi to the airport and then high-tails it back up here in the smart red buzz-bomb hot-hatch. We are a 2-car family for a week or so and then we have to give the whizzy racer back. Liz used to enjoy driving it to work where all the gang would say in impressed amazement... "New car, Liz?" By now they are all wise to the 'play' and just say "Uh huh.... borrowed Mum's car again then, Liz?"

Liz has now graduated to 5 needles at once knitting this
tubular sock-leg. Definitely NOT a game to play when there
are 'kattens' to help.

Heavy rain has been the order of the day and we are, once again, slopping around in a bit of a mudbath. We are not alone. I was over at Sue and Rob's today and he, too, was bemoaning the quagmire in some of his poultry pens.

One or two workers struggle up into the 'attic' to see why
there is suddenly daylight streaming in. Plenty of 'brace comb'
on these frame-tops. 

Warm enough today, though, to be able to crack open a beehive without killing all inside from hypothermia. After 2014/5 when my smaller colony perished from cold, damp and condensation, I like to snug this hive down tight before the frosts. I take off the un-used 'super' (honey store) box(es) and fit a blank 'box' (eke) into which has been fitted a tight-fitting slice of stiff house insulating foam. This gives the bees 3 inches of 'snug' between their brood box and the stainless steel sheet of their roof and stops any 'chimney' ventilation with all the hot air disappearing up through their roof.

All the spare hive boxes and bits go into
dry store

It worked last year and there was no repeat of the 2014/5 disaster. I whip off the eke in April or May before there is any chance of the hive overheating and put the super back on to give the workers space to store their spring time nectar gatherings.

Trying to get a crisp cat's eyes pic. Not bad, but not as crisp
as I would have liked,

I think that'll do you for this time. Just a few more pics because I had them.

Bobby the dog came a-visiting so I tried with him too.

Random cow.

Growing old gracefully? Reading glasses for me now.

Keepin' it 1600

It might be mid October but the sap's rising in Co. Roscommon.
This in-calf heifer got in with the 'boys' by mistake.

The reason this blog avoids the wise blogger's 'troika' of taboo subjects (politics, religion and money) has less to do, in the first case, with the wisdom and more to do with the fact that politics leaves me cold. I am delighted to vote on the day and have enough interest to make sure I am voting 'sensibly'. I then take an interest in the results but once they are in I pretty much put the whole malarkey back in its box till next time.

Whole leg of pork gets its dry-cure

Contrast that, if you like, with Liz's driving passion to eat, drink, sleep, knit (?) and work through every minute of the pre-match analysis, then stay up all night while the results roll in AND, afterwards, to stay well abreast of things and in touch with all the expert moves and howling gaffes of the candidates and politicians in power. This applies equally to UK, Irish, Euro and American elections as well as all the sideshows that come along in the form of referendums (referenda?); Yes Equality, Brexit, 'Repeal the 8th' and the like. When Liz is on her deathbed and some young relative asks, "Any Regrets, Auntie Lizzie?" I suspect that up there will be that when the results of the Blair/Labour Landslide were rolling in on that famous night, she went to bed in the early hours and missed the fall of Portillo.

Incidentally, the pics in this post bear no relation to anything written as, obviously, I do not get a lot of pics of political 'slebs' out here in Roscommon. But, where was I? Ah yes. If UK politics leave me cold and Irish Politics just confuse me (more on that later), the American politics have, up to now, left me frozen in a hypothermic torpor. Then the Trump/Clinton thing happened. Suddenly I am amused, amazed, appalled and wide awake, watching in horror as a country I always assumed would do the steady, sensible thing and occasionally get brave enough to make a Lady (gasp!) or a Black Guy (gasp!) President seems to have gone steaming happily off the rails. I am no expert and I have only recently been paying attention but it seems to me that our Mr Trump has got to be the Republican nominee despite no-one really wanting him there, despite them fearing that he is a loose cannon who might say the wrong things, watching him like rabbits caught in the headlights as he does just that, and now no-one knows how to undo the nomination. We seem to just have to go with this and hope that the election undoes him for us. There is wry comment about "a man like that getting within reach of the US Nuclear Codes"

Nugget enjoying her freedom

My recent interest has been helped by that relatively new thing in US Politics, the subscriber (cable) channel, political comment "pod cast". Liz has latched onto 3 main feeds in this - namely "Keepin' it 1600", "538" and "NPR Politics" (links at the bottom of this post). They have funky, modern, website-y names (the 1600 refers to the fact that the White House's address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there are 538 'college' votes in the state-by-state elections and NPR is National Public Radio) and comprise a small group of well informed, lively, experts (plus, sometimes guest panellists) just discussing the latest events, gaffes, TV debates or electioneering moves as if they were sitting in a pub relaxing and chatting.

Annual Pig Census arrived 2 days late for our two.

These are subscriber channels, so they feel no need to stick to BBC-style political correctness or balance and the language can wander into "fruity" if they are more excited or appalled than normal. Many of those taking part have 'done it for real' previously, for example running Barack Obama's campaign(s). I particularly like the 'Keepin' it 1600' one and, despite my professed dislike of such stuff, find myself asking Liz regularly, "Anything new from the 1600 lads?" If there is, we sit down and listen to it together and I then harass Liz with all manner of 'how does THAT work?' questions and we check out the latest graphs and graphics.

A morning moon.

It will all come out in the wash, I guess, on November 8th. Then I can put it all back in its box. "PussyGate" defeated by "Human Decency"? I have got to thinking though, how good it would be if we could get some of these political pod-casts going in Ireland. I said earlier that Irish politics confuses me. I come from a world where you knew (for a while!) what you were voting for - the Tories were the 'management', Labour was for the working class families and Union types and the Liberals were somewhere in the middle or were the only ones interested in stuff like organic farming, green issues and so on.

In Ireland we have the two big parties (Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - FF and FG for short) with no obvious policy (or recent record) differences between them. Even local political activists can not give you a clear answer if asked why I should vote FG or FF. A commonly held view is that these 2 became the main parties during the Civil War (in the 20's), with one voting for partition of the country into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State (as being the best solution they thought they could realistically get), while the other party wanted to hold out for independence for the whole land mass as one entity. This conflict divided communities and villages, pitted brother against brother and father against son and for many it still rankles. They vote FG or FF now because in the 20's blah blah blah. They are still fighting the Civil War through the ballot box.

My frustration at not being able to get answers which matter to me (you know - pensions, Brexit, rural broad band, water supply, support for village life and , yes, even small holders) had me thinking how good it would be to get a few of these podcast discussions up and running, to hear what intelligent, informed, politically savvy people (Nate Silver with his statistics, Adrian Kavanagh - Irish University lecturer "whose main research interests focus on the geography of elections, with particular reference to the Republic of Ireland") are saying is good, bad, sound or unsound politics. Then I'd be able to go to vote having half an idea what I was voting for, rather than the 'attrition' method I use currently. (Not him or her because they support X, nor her because she won't say whether she supports Y or not.... ah well, that just leaves these ones then.... now what is '1st preference'?)

And now, just in case you are still awake, three links generously provided by Liz to those podcasts. Good Hunting.

https://theringer.com/keepin-it-1600-podcast-politics-election-jon-favreau-dan-pfeiffer-220924af4c94#.u1kxp2g1k

http://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/elections-podcast/

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510310/npr-politics-podcast