A Long Walk

Scorchio! This was Met Éireann's short-range forecast for
4pm today (29th May)

Scorchio! The island is currently enjoying a very nice, mini-heatwave with temperatures soaring up to 26 and 27ºC. All our friends are delightedly taking pictures of the lanes outside their farms and commenting how different they look from when there were 7' snow drifts only a few weeks ago.

A pleasant surprise in the polytunnel. I don't remember
planting this.

My diary tells me that we have not had any rain since about 3rd May except for one wet night on the 21st, between us shearing our sheep and then doing Sue and Rob's. The ground is as dry as dust and those sheep, which must be very relieved to be 'naked' spend most of the day sleeping under trees in the shade.

Of course, our Help-X volunteer, Laura, who hails from the South of France, is a bit disparaging of our 'heat'; she is more used to 40ºC as 'hot' but we let her away with that as she is still a brilliant help, an absolute boon, a very easy to please guest and very pleasant company. Her current jobs-of-choice are anything to do with mowing and keeping the garden bits spick and span.

This much-abused broom is finally doing colour

She will push that mower for 5 hours and only take breaks when you bully her inside for tea and cake or lunch. Today she was on 'edges' with the shears , edges of lawn, sides of raised beds, all round bases of young trees. We are in danger of looking like manicured parkland.

Laura's new admirer - the male turkey
follows her everywhere. Here she is
actually bring tea out to us but it looks
like she is fetching him some!

She is also what they would describe locally as "a mighty one for the walking". If not pushing a mower for all those hours, she likes to do at least 10 km per day. She walked from here to Ballaghaderreen one day (neither of us have ever tried it - it is a 15 minute car ride!), she climbed Holy Mountain 'Croagh Patrick' one day prior to coming here, having done a 10 km walk in the morning and then on Sunday managed a 4 hour, 20 km one.

Sorry poor photo (bad phone) but can you just
see the 3 foot roundel target 450 feet away down
this path? Nor can I. 

Archery has moved out of doors again for the Summer and our shooting field is almost exactly 20 km from here, south of Castlerea. Laura expressed an interest in coming to see what we were about but asked could she then walk home. We explained that it was 20 km up (gentle) hill and down dale and would take her all afternoon but, no, she knew all that and wanted to do it anyway.

Another fun target for the new outdoor season.
You have to shoot this life-size fox at 40 feet but
THROUGH the car tyre. In front of the stand is a
little owl-model at 20 feet if you need a warm-up.

I suggested that after 2 hours of archery, I would be driving past her on the way home, so I could always rescue her if she'd had enough. Well, I did pass her and stopped to offer a lift but she just smiled sweetly and declined, saying she'd see me later. She eventually wandered in home at ten past six, not a bother on her, as un-tired and un-ruffled as when she had set out. Oh to be 22 again.

3 of Shtumpy's new babies. 

Meanwhile we are enjoying a bit of a population explosion among the baby chickens. In the last post I described our 6 successful hatchings from the grey hen 'Cat Basket Lady'. Next up was our ace Mum with the deformed foot, 'Shtumpy' who managed 2 hatches last year and kept all her charges alive despite her 'disability'. She has just hatched 4 babies from 6 eggs and is now starting to bring them off the nest and show them the ropes.

Laura cooked us this superb apple tart.

This will, we hope, be followed by the 14 duck eggs in the incubator, due 'out' Thursday or soon there after. These are a mix of Sue and Rob's Muscovy ducks (the big meaty, bi-colour birds who are half way to being geese) and our last Khaki-Campbell eggs from just before the final female was out-foxed, plus a few KCs from Sue and Rob to make up the numbers. I don't know what % success to expect here - our KCs have been very low and these are the first Muscovies any of us have tried - but if we get all 14 we will be feeling a bit over-run. Fortunately, it is most unlikely. We may be lucky to get any.

Finally, an even sillier hatch story, and not my finest 'management' hour. Out in the goose-field/orchard, we have a 4' x 2' x 2' nest box intended for ducks, which we call, logically, "The Duck House". This was adopted by one of the hens (Donaldina) 12 days ago to go broody in, so I found her 8 eggs to sit on and promised to lock her up each night safe from the fox. As time went by I suspected that another hen (or more) was nipping in there each morning, bullying Donaldina off the nest and laying her own daily egg into the clutch.

When the politics goes the way you want it to....

I did not get an opportunity to check while there were no birds in there, till today. TWENTY eggs!!! The poor hen can barely spread her 'front' out enough to cover them all. The experienced chicken-keepers among you will also have spotted another problem looming. All the eggs are similar colour (so it's probably one hen repeat laying) so I cannot tell which are the original 8.

Montana putting on a good show.

Come June 7th, Donaldina will have brooded those 8 for the full 21 days but the others for fewer days, so the 8 will hatch (if we are lucky) leaving the nest full of part-developed embryos. If we rescued them to the incubator we might then get one hatching on the 8th, one the 9th and so on. That would be a tricky clutch of babies to manage. Ah well. We shall see. We will cross those bridges when we come to them.

Shtumpy's first hatch,.

There is just one tiny fly in the ointment of our warm days - last night we suffered our first theft from the honesty box. It has been there for months and never an egg or a single cent stolen (as far as I know). Last night, though, some toe-rag cleaned out my money tin and left the dozen eggs in there. It was just 20, 10 and 5 cent coins, total value no more than €1.30, so we'd guess kids, but we don't get any passing kids (on foot anyway) so we'll probably never know. Ah well, guys, who ever you are, don't go spending all that at once now.

Plague Pit (a Hot Drop)

A "hot drop" for what ails you. Very
welcome when out exercising the dogs.

This is not a happy home the last few days. Both of us have been struck down by the 'lurgy'. It's just the common cold so don't go believing any bunkum you hear from me about man-flu, but it's very disabling and misery inducing. Colds are now, also nicely rare round here. When I was working in the UK my work involved moving between air-con offices and huge cold stores in a space shared by 600+ other fellow sufferers so I "always" seemed to be catching colds. It seemed like 3-4 a year and I can remember the 'weakling' shame of always being asked by our lovely neighbour (The Angel B), "have you got a cold AGAIN?"

No better lip-tingling marinade for the chicken stir fry when
the taste buds are a bit dull, than home made chilli oil.

Even then we would always generously stick the wedding vows... "all I have I share with you" .... and who ever caught the cold first would always try to share it with the other spouse.

When the jar of Hellman's "REAL" Mayonnaise runs out and
Liz is reduced to knocking up a quick bowl full of mayo from our
Free Range eggs. Hellman's is creamy white so our yellow mix
surely can't also be 'real'?

Now enjoying our outdoor lifestyle with no crowd of 600 warehousemen following me about and no air-con or cold stores, I have had a remarkable reduction in the colds per annum scores. We only ever get the one per year and sometimes, if memory serves, none at all. All the more annoying when you do pick one up, maybe.

By rigging some temporary fencing, I let the sheep get at the
grass on the walk BETWEEN their fields. They were more
interested in the ivy on the wall. 

Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining. Yes we have spent a few days dragging boxes of tissues round and dosing ourselves up on "Max Strength" Lemsip or taking ourselves off for extended naps (I took a "sickie" from Archery and Liz has, tonight, from Drama Group). But on the calendar was a note to strain the plum-vodka to separate the fruit from the booze after 3 months steeping. We kept the fruit, obviously, but the hooch proved to be delicious AND to be just too much to all fit in the posh bottle we had saved, so a small overflow ended up in a tiny tonic bottle. The cold sufferers found the idea of a 'hot drop' made with plum vodka instead of whiskey, very welcome when out exercising dogs on the breezy, drizzly front lawn. It was also a chance to break in my new(ish) thermos mug. Thank you Dan and Dan.

Not a brilliant pic but can you just see that the shell of this duck
egg is faintly ridged in a spiral pattern (in direction of the arrow).
The duck's vent must be grooved in spiral ridges like a gun barrel!

What else is new? Off on one of my missions into town, in this case for emergency supplies of (you guessed it) Lemsip and tissues, I spotted in a roadside paddock, 5 new outdoor piglets and immediately worked out that these must belong to some friends of ours, the man of which is a former pork butcher and ace maker of proper pork pies. I fired off a quick text to see if I could blag a cup of tea and an admire of the new piggies. Long story short, they are 13 week old weaners who are thriving and fast learning about electric fences. They are Gloucester Old Spots (crosses), 4 for the freezer and 1 as a keeper who will be joined by another breeding-quality gilt. The 2 ladies will be put to a Berkshire boar if our friends can find one.

The young turkey looking huge against the new chickens.

We also had a nice treat, a visit by the gardening journalist for the local paper who asked to look round the place and interview us about how we garden. Local readers may know this guy as Paul Kirwan, gardening writer for the Roscommon Herald but I must admit I only knew him as "the guy who runs the garden centre attached to the farmers' co-op in Balla-D, "Aurivo". Well, Paul came round yesterday just before it got dark and walked round the garden while we chatted and then enjoyed a cup of tea and a slice of chocolate cake when we adjourned indoors. Lovely bloke - fascinating story. 'We' should appear in the Herald which comes out next Tuesday (28th Nov) if you're interested and we will definitely be grabbing a couple of copies for our own interest and friends and family. Assuming he says nice things about our messy weed patch, of course!

As Easy as AB, See?

Venison on the menu.

The cupboard is bare! The sales of eggs from the 'Honesty Box' have just this week started to motor and when I looked in this morning there was not an egg to be seen. Instead, of course, a good handful of coins in the Tupperware box. We were sold out. I have had to re-stock with the reserves indoors. It is a good feeling but I might have to go have a word with the girls to see if we can up the production a wee bit. The hens, of course. The poor ducks are already going at 100%, putting the chooks to shame. 3 eggs from 3 ducks EVERY DAY.

Augustin gets an archery 'taster' session. His hand is on his
first ever bull's eye. 

Welcome aboard the Blog, though, our new Help-X lad. Augustin, 18 from the Eastern suburbs of Paris, joined us on Friday 22nd. A lovely bloke - big and strong (handy around here!) he is also very happy and relaxed, always ready with a witticism, very easy to get along with and very appreciative of our food and hospitality. No farming experience but very willing to try anything and already ticking off the new skills. He is settling in well. He is enjoying trying to improve his English (with added Irish expressions)  and Liz is enjoying being able to use her French again.

Taster session at the archery.

For the purposes of this blog, Augustin is actually "AB". It's a bit complicated. I had just about got the hang of nailing the correct pronunciation (too many options on all 3 syllables! Ow/Awww/Agg followed by Gus or Goose (or one in between) and then tan/tin/teen. I kept 'landing' the feminine versions (tin/teen).

Our man tried to put me out of my misery by suggesting "Call me Gus" but we can't use Gus at the moment - a TV series we are glued to in boxed set (Breaking Bad) has the worst bad guy named Gus. So we've gone with 'AB' (Augustin's initials) and he is delighted. Our other options from his long list of childhood nick-names are 'Doctor' (for his regular clever witticisms "like a Professor") or 'Ancien' (the old guy, after his love of wearing old fashion hats (flat caps, berets) and having a beard. Anyway, AB it is.

AB winds some pressure onto the cider press
while K-Dub holds it all down.

AB, then, was straight into things even though his first days were weekend. Archery coach, Con, had put out a call for volunteers to come and dismantle the club's big marquee / party tent. It was a bit windy to be messing with canvas but AB and I are 'substantial' lads and did not think we'd get blown away. Con was very grateful for our efforts and invited AB to come and have a taster session at the archery the next day (Sunday), where he was already due to start the latest Beginners' course. It all went well and AB even signed up for the next few Sundays. 

Home made cider press. 

The Monday saw us at the cider making. K-Dub announced that the cider press was now ready and we should bring all the apples over, so we raced round the orchard picking all we could see. When we got to K-Dub's place we also found that he had built a home made shredder - a wooden hopper with a plastic pipe slotted in at the bottom into which had been part-screwed, dozens of screws and into the end of which slotted a handle to turn this 'drum'.

I take a turn at the winding. We later graduated
to fitting a steel tube to the handle to give us
more leverage. It worked well. 

The apples fall to the bottom of the hopper where the exposed screw-heads rip them to bits. The shredded apple then goes in a 'pillowcase' assembled in minutes by Carolyn (she of the mini-horses) from a tea towel and some muslin-like fabric and gets pressed by the mighty press. K-Dub was well impressed by his own welding, with the new welder.

AB turns pig farmer as we train the pigs
to climb, fearlessly, into the trailer. 

The top of the press is a 12 mm thick chunk of sheet steel but the winding action was able to slightly bow this; a considerable pressure exerted on the apple pulp but nothing broke. Long story short, we extracted 3 and a half litres of juice from our (not many) apples but K-Dub tells me today that they have since sourced more apples and extracted another 7 litres. The juice is with Carolyn for the next stage. She knows a bit about brewing! Hopes are high for some delicious scrumpy.

All loaded. 

Our other main activity with the Help-X assistance has been that the pigs have 'come ready' and needed taking on their final journey today (Tuesday). AB helped me over the Sunday/Monday to train them to the trailer. Even though he has no experience of farming, he happily joined me among them, in the pen, with the pigs snuffling around this 'new' person, sniffing his legs and boots, nudging him out of the way. He stayed relaxed and calm (as instructed) so that Empress and Pride quickly climbed the ramp and we were sure we'd have a problem free 'loading day'.

Sunrise through the trees

I am happy to say that that worst-of-all small-holdering days is now done. We all managed to get up early, the pigs loaded as if they couldn't wait to get at their breakfasts (thin portion sizes today - they need to go to the butcher "fasted") , we had problem free haulage and drop off. Obviously we all hate to have to do this and we wish we didn't but that is a discussion for elsewhere. The pigs are, presumably by now, 'late' and the carcasses get 48 hours to cool and 'set'. We collect them on Thursday and AB can then see the next stage in the process. He likes his pork, we are told. It will have been an interesting experience for him. And he has not yet run away screaming!

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.

Bucket List Item....Tick!

Back in November I wrote a post in which I noted that the Silverwoods had managed to find some archery and that I was going to join them and fulfill a life long ambition. The post is at

http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2015/11/patterns-and-toiles-bows-and-arrows.html

 if you would like to re-cap. At our age we are all supposed to have a mental or written "bucket list"; a list of things you would like to see or do "before you die". I am not sure why it is called a bucket list but my mental one includes plenty of pricey stuff we are never likely to achieve now that we are no longer DINKYs swimming in cash (African Safari, Mountain gorillas, terracotta warriors and Great Wall in China, drive a Mk 2 Escort (preferably red and with a POO 505R number plate) with respectable speed through a Welsh forest stage... that kind of thing). But one item which I should have ticked off years ago is the archery and now it seemed I would finally get this done.

'Playing' in the back garden - lots of bad
technique here (flappy sleeve, 4-finger
grip, stance etc) but I had not yet had
 a proper lesson.

Then along came one of the named storms of late November and made it unfair to leave Liz minding the farm overnight, and then the loss of Theo, then Christmas and so on, so I got postponed until January. We finally made it this weekend just gone. I drove down to the Silverwoods' Saturday lunchtime, met the gang all there. We had a first play and demo of the bows and arrows there - Steak Lady has a nice car-width drive up the side of her house ending in big thick solid gates, where Mr S sets up a serious, woven straw, circular target on a tripod so that they have a mini archery range out there. We adjourned for a lovely curry (Thanks, SL!) and then headed for the proper evening club session in a village near to Portlaoise where club-founders and instructors, James and Tom put a gang of around 17 of us (including myself and 2 other complete, Day 1 novices) through some paces.

None of your bendy yew tree wood
for us. A modern "riser" .

They use a big church hall where 5 archers can stand in line and fire arrows down the hall to either thud successfully into the foam targets or to be gathered up by a heavy drape curtain behind designed to catch and stop any misses. It is all very safe. Your group of 5 fire off a set of 4 arrows each before everyone puts their bow down flat in the floor, once all are ready, the instructor tells you "Go collect". You then get another 4 shots and on till you must stand aside (behind) while the next group of 5 archers take their turn.

'Caging' the balloon north, south east and west

The name of the game at this early stage is nothing to do with trying to hit the bullseye or even the target circle, it is about finding a consistent technique and stance so that all 4 arrows in your set land in a tight group. You can be anywhere on the target board as long as all your arrows hit within a few inches of each other. Beginners tend to see one go low left and mentally adjust up right etc, spraying arrows all over the gaff. You need to learn the correct process and stance (feet just so, Right* arm straight and rigid, left hand with thumb in and main three fingers round string, pull back till your first finger is at the corner of your mouth, breathe, relax, steady and release). You don't aim by looking straight down the length of the arrow with the feathers (fletches) poking in your eye, but rather along the top of the arrow and lining the point up with a likely place on the target. That way, says the theory, if you always line up on the same place and use the same pull and technique, your 4 arrows will all fly the same trajectory and all land together. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Happy Beginner

Ah well, I had an absolute blast and loved every minute of it. I did reasonably OK at the archery but also had a great time meeting people and talking to them. Towards the end of the session James clipped a load of balloons to the targets for a bit of fun and had us shooting at them. I achieved a certain notoriety by missing with all 4 of my first arrows but managing to cage the balloon with an arrow touching in north, south, east and west. The balloon was undamaged but held firm. "Bet you couldn't do that again!" they said. I nailed the thing with my 6th arrow. It was a brilliant day and my heartfelt thanks to the Silverwoods and SL for their hospitality and letting me play. Also to the newly formed "Laois Archery" club, James and Tom. I must now go off and find a more local group (There is one in Castlerea) to save me the 2 hour drive and to practise more and see whether this is something I do, indeed, want to take up properly and even get good at.

I pass the 700 Tweets mark on 'my watch'

The other pastime mopping up all my spare hours last week, you will recall, was the curatorship of the @SmallHoldersIRL Twitter account. That was good fun too but I am not a natural 'tweeter' so I was quite tired of it by the end of the week and happy to hand the account on on Sunday evening to the next man. He is a pig and water buffalo farmer on the Beara Peninsula (I kid you not - the buffalo are apparently the perfect solution to the rough grazing and wet bogginess of County Cork). My stuff seemed to go down well and I was quite popular as a poster. We had plenty of sharing and banter going on. I may take another turn in the future but it will not be for a wee while yet.

*'I am left-eye'd despite being right handed, so I shoot holding the bow in my right hand.

The Best Laid Plans.....

This post was going to be all about the wonderful time I was going to have trying out the sport of archery for the first time in the delightful company of the Silverwood clan. Then along came Storm Desmond with his howling gales and our first ever RED weather warning, this one for rain plus all the usual advice from the Police not to risk any un-necessary journeys. I won't bore you with the details as most of my readers will have probably copped their own share of Des by now and some will have struggled with the genuine hardships of flooding and damage which make our 'big puddles' pale into insignificance. I am in no way claiming 'hard done by' status; we just got a bit wetter and more blown around than usual. I postponed the archery till after Christmas and opted to stay here and look after the place, the livestock (and Liz?) rather than leave Liz on her own.

This tiny narrow drainage ditch is not usually visible from
our hill top. Here the concrete 'kesh' bridges are submerged.

So, I have some nice pictures of our "floods". The drain that runs into the River Lung below us has burst its banks as has the Lung itself, the local bridge named for our townland is almost up to its arches with the River so full and high, and the name-sake Lough is as big and full as any locals can ever remember seeing it. That was quite some rain that came down. We were worried for the trees near the house (and may have decided we need to do something about them), of course, but relaxed enough to be joking about conspiracy theories.

The bridge is nearly up to its arches with the 'Desmond Depth'.

Are these storms now being named, we wonder, to soften us up because Met Éireann KNOW SOMETHING about climate change that they are not telling us yet, perhaps that our standard N. Atlantic storms in November are going to be so powerful soon that we need to name them like Hurricanes? (gasp). More ridiculously, we wonder whether these storms are cunning enough to know that they can get named if they would only put in that little extra effort. Thus Abigail was not that impressive, Barney was getting there, Clodagh was definitely trying and Desmond was the best/worst ever. Do we have a Stephen King novel here? Sentient anti-cyclones?

The local Lough is no mean body of water this week. The tiny
white dots here are our wintering Whooper swans. 

Meanwhile, back in the real world the locals are all impressed by the size and fullness of the Lough. It has filled the whole valley, where it is normally a thin weedy ribbon of water half hidden by the bullrushes. Gossip has it that it was "always" this full and contained enormous pike one of which sits, stuffed, in a glass case in Liz's work-place. But then ten years ago the Dept of Civic Works (or what ever they are called) changed the drainage and allowed the Lough to empty much faster rather than hanging on to the water 'up here'. "You wait", said one local veteran, "..and in a couple of days you will hear of flooding in Boyle or Carrick. We never had that before. They should never have done that".

My new favourite 'weapon', this old cleaver was once the
property of John Walsh's Dad though he took to using it
in the cellar for chopping up kindling wood. 

So much for the rain and floods. We got off lightly this time and we are now enjoying some blue sky, calm (ish) days as the big puddles drain slowly away and the cat, Blue. stops cursing us for cutting off all his grassy walkways and hunting routes with water and puddles. We sympathise with the folk in UK who inherited Desmond from us and got the serious floods and damage. With this non-archery weekend over we are now coming up fast on Christmas and we needed to start thinking about festive food and, in particular, turkeys.

Liz dons farmer's wife hands and starts plucking this monster.

Our first 'customer' is Brother in Law, 'Sparks' who has this year bought one of those fancy-pants  American style, cylindrical, outdoor, deep-fat turkey fryers. He is due to cook turkey for a gang of mates this week and 'ordered' a bird from us, rather bravely, having no more idea than we did as to how it would 'do', how big it would get or what it would cook and taste like. This is our first year of turkeys and our birds are the old fashion 'heritage' variety "Bronze". These are old style "single muscled" birds where most shop mass-produced birds these days are white and 'double muscled' like Belgian Blue cow or a 'Beltex' sheep, bred to put on extra muscle in intensive systems and fed no end of special food, growth promoters and so on like a steroid-enhanced weight lifter.

Those massive wing feathers took some pulling. 

When these guys hatched in June, we had no idea how they would flesh up and I worried that we'd only be able to give Sparks an over-grown chicken. We were amazed and delighted at the growth rates on them and within 4 months the youngsters were nearly as big as their Mum (Barbara). Spark's bird was always going to be the biggest as he wanted his in early December but even so, we knew we were on to a serious weight bird and him only 6 months old at this stage.

If you don't want to know how these big, living birds turn into oven ready, plastic wrapped carcasses then skip this and the next 2  paragraphs. Then, of course, there was the problem of how do you cleanly, painlessly and respectfully despatch such a big bird. The books talk of a rather gymnastic process involving standing up with your bird upside down holding his feet in your hands. Juggle a broom handle across his neck, stand on it and pull his legs upwards, breaking his neck. I was not at all convinced that I could do this quickly and cleanly and with no stress to the bird so I have to admit that I fell back on good old decapitation, the trusty meat cleaver and a big chunk of wood. Thunk. Job done, 100% certainty of death.

A lively auction  down at the Community Centre to raise money
for the same.

Done well, the bird is grabbed and 'cuddled' so he stays calm though he might be a bit curious as to why he is being walked across the grass, through the puddles, out to the other side of the pond. At the very last minute you shift your grip to his legs and let him hang upside down with this head sagging onto the wooden block. He relaxes and possibly feels rather helpless but he is not in any kind of pain and then (thunk) he knows no more.

Our antidote to Desmond.

If anyone is thinking of trying this, just be aware that although the bird may 'die' instantly, he will kick off an unconscious explosion of wing flapping and leg-twitching which will go on for a good 30 seconds and will bleed out profusely through the neck cut. The flapping will splash this blood everywhere, so I do it outside and near some long grass, so that I can dangle the bird low to the ground and contain the blood that way. You always get some on your wellies and trouser legs, so it is worth wearing old clothes and being ready to rinse the wellies before you go back indoors! I take a dustbin liner out with me to 'hide' the dead one in so that I don't have to march back past my gang of curious geese, turkeys, chickens and Guineas with a dead bird hanging from my hand, making my way back to the shed where the bird gets hung upside down by his feet to bleed out into the bag. I don't suppose the birds feel upset or grief at the loss of their friend but it makes me feel better.

Polly doing 'Monarch of the Glen'

At that point the birds get handed over to Liz who loves the plucking and 'dressing' side of the job. My work is done (though I do help with the big, tough wing feathers). This lad we were delighted to find, weighed just under 10 kg 'fresh' (but sans head and blood) and then in 'oven ready' format weighed 7.9 kg (17 lbs). Liz went for the 'traditional' presentation, legs still on, some feathers still on the 'hands' and with the giblets (neck, liver, gizzard and heart) in a bag stuffed up his fundament. Sparks can cut off the hands and feet and make good gravy out of the giblets if he desires. Good luck, Sparks. You will be our first Guinea-Pig customer and we will be very interested to know how the boy cooked up.

Patterns and Toiles, Bows and Arrows

Three and a half tonne of pea gravel arrives.

The heavy rain falling here while I was away, in the skirts and train of Storm Barney pointed up to Liz how worn and threadbare our driveway had become for want of a refreshing layer of gravel. Great puddles form down in the dip by the main gate, so that you struggle to open the gate without getting your feet wet. The drive slope is OK but at the top where it levels out, more dips and low points give us a few more puddles which push out a tideline of floating larch needles so that you can see how big they were even as they drain away.

The turkeys and Guinea fowl explore the new garden feature. 

My first job then, on return from the UK was to order gravel but I knew that the entrance to the sheep field was also getting a bit worn and sloppy, so I went for 3 and a half tonnes, the convenient size of load from our very reasonably priced 'man who can'. This man is also helpful enough that he let me take most of the load "up at the top" but kept a bit back to drop at the main gate on his way out; saved me a considerable amount of barrowing. Good man! The turkeys and Guinea Fowl were quickly on hand to explore the new heap and marched about all over the top of it till they decided it had no potential as food.

The three 'yows' having a lie down, but are they pregnant?

It is now my job to barrow it about and 'fire' it into the holes. The sheep turn out to be not entirely convinced that this represents an improvement to their field entrance and they are very wary of walking through this 'soft' surface; their sharp little feet quickly sink down through the 3 inches of gravel and don't seem to stop till they hit the original mud. Ah well. It's cleaner for the wellie-clad humans and we have delibrately chosen round-edged 'pea gravel' rather than the more abrasive 804 'maintenance' gravel because we had visions of all the sheep going lame with sharp 804 stones stuck up between their toes.

Whooper Swans - picture blagged
from the internet.

In another winter story, we are delighted that "our" whooper swans are back. These birds breed and do their 'Summer' up in Iceland and are normally here in this land of 1000 lakes well before now but this year, being very late, had not yet delivered them. Our quota seems to be 20-30 birds on the local lough - I had 15 by Saturday and now have around 22; they don't seem to move around much once they have flown in though you do see small groups (families?) coming and going.

They look beautiful down on the water - you can see them from the lane running along our hilltop - but the main attraction to us is the fluting bugle calls as they chat to each other down there. If the air is still or the wind blows from our SW you hear lovely bursts of honking and fluting when you are in the garden or, more commonly, when I am in the orchard, exercising the dogs of an evening. Once you hear them there is no mistaking them which is quite handy as they are difficult to tell from other swans just on the visual clues. They are midpoint between mute swans (bigger) and Bewick's (which are smaller and don't come this far 'wesht') and can also be told by the yellow on the beak extending down below the nostrils. We'll stick with those lovely calls, I think.

Cutting a piece of the final cloth out round a panel of 'toile'

Meanwhile, indoors, Liz has now been to enough of Carolyn's "Sewing Machine School" classes to be confident to take a step from making cushions and table cloths (very good table cloths, mind) into proper dress making. Specifically dress making for herself which is a landmark stage (I read). It frees up the dress maker from having to buy off-the-peg clothes which nearly fit an average 'size 12' or what ever, to being able to make clothes which perfectly fit the unique body shape of the wearer (which is presumably nothing like 'average').

Dress in kit form. 

This has landed Liz into the world of making and cutting out paper patterns and then from these creating the 'dry-run' temporary version of the garment out of muslin, callico or (in our case) an old sheet. This is called the 'toile' (pronounced twal) and I read that you can actually keep and wear the toile around the house if you finish it. Most people adjust the panel sizes on the toile and then create the shapes on the real cloth. That's been my job - helping Liz, who is by then dressed only in skimpies, to try on and pin up the toile. I know. Tough job, trying not to stick pins in your wife's skin, but somebody has to do it. The latest on this first go is that the garment is now pinned up in the final cloth and the machine is whirring away like a good 'un, though we do have the occasional issue with darts stitched up on the wrong side and the occasional outbreak of mild swearing. It probably happens behind closed doors in the best of seamstress/tailor/draper workshops.

Nephew M Silverwood (centre) is getting pretty good at the
archery. Maybe he'll teach me some tricks?

Finally, you may, like us, have a mental "bucket list" in your head; those things you are determined to do before you shuffle off this mortal coil. One thing on mine has always been archery. As kids we brothers used to go and watch the (Hastings?) Archery Club doing their thing on one of the practise pitches at the top of the land owned by Hastings Football Club (the "Pilot Field"). You could watch them from Ochiltree Road which is/was just round the corner from us, though (another story) we would occasionally climb up the mud bank from one of our childhood 'dens' and pop our heads up into the bushes at the end of the field where we could see (and were probably in danger from) the arrows coming straight at us!

I have longed to have a go ever since but have never quite got into it - there were no doubt archery clubs and groups when I was at Uni (both sites) and there would almost certainly have been clubs in range when I lived in the Fens, then Chatham and Faversham. Step forward then, Mrs Silverwood, who posted to Facebook some pics of the children all wielding bows and arrows at a beginners session down in their nearby big town. This is their latest activity - you'll know that clutches of children work their way through a good range - these young ones have been through Irish dancing, GAA and other sports, baton twirling, karate and more. It seems my best chance of ticking this sport off my own bucket list has landed in my lap. I have been invited to come down on a Saturday afternoon, join the gang in the archery on Saturday evening, get a bite of supper and stay the night. I just have to cope with getting my head around young M being streets ahead of his Uncle. He has taken to it like a duck to water, apparently and out-shoots them all. Maybe he'll teach me a trick or two and I won't miss the target EVERY time. More on this when it has happened.