Slow News Day

Cowslips in the local verges.

This post might be a bit short but, hey, Elizabeth tells me that the 'voters' tend to like 'same old same old'; it makes them feel comfortable that nothing is going to rock their boat or upset their millpond calm. I will pepper it with a selection of vaguely relevant pictures and maybe you, the reader, will fail to notice that I am not actually saying very much.

Dad-duck is paying a lot of attention to the new ducklings. 

Readers will think from the previous post that we are now letting our sheep out of their secure field to graze the longer grass and herbage around the garden, secure in the knowledge that they are well behaved sheep and will not do a runner into the neighbour's 5-acre cattle pasture.

Another barrow of cut hawthorn for the
log store.

Um. Slight change there - I let them out single handed on a recent day and watched all 9 nip through a gap. I had to stay with them lest they vanish we knew not where but rapidly phone Elizabeth to appear at the gap with a bucket of grub and tempt them home. All safe and sound now but the extra strand of barbed wire I added to the hedge below the one they had dipped under only stopped 3 of the 4 ewes the next day. Our oldest ewe, Polly was shimmying under it like a pro. They are now 'grounded' for the fore-see-able but by now the grass is growing so fast in their field that they will barely notice.

Thus order of a dozen asparagus crowns arrived looking more
28 to me including the scrappy bits. Thank you very much,
English's Fruit Nursery of Co. Wexford. 

The weather has continued mainly mild, so we have been getting on with the serious gardening, even in the absence of any Help-X support. I have gathered up all my wind-felled hawthorn and stacked it into the log store. I love that in May my store is filling up rather than stripped bare.

Asparagus bed with 'marker' row of catch-crop carrots

An order for a dozen asparagus crowns (Connovers Colossal var.) arrived containing my dozen nice fat crowns but also 16 more bits and pieces which English's might have seen as scraps but they look very good to me, so they have all gone into the ground in their lovely clean, weeded, mulched railway sleeper bed. We are looking to crop our first spears this year from crowns planted 2 years ago. Unfortunately the first spear to appear this week was broken off either by me in planting the new plants, or a chicken helper. Never mind. There will be more.

2 cuckoos, each pursued by a starling. 

We are suddenly surrounded by cuckoos. I noted that there were four calling in my 05:00 dawn chorus in the previous post. Since then I have seen 2 chasing about each pursued by a small songbird (possible starling?) and, today, 2 just cruising through our airspace unmolested. I had the camera in my hands for the chased two.

We loved this clever marketing campaign by Lidl Ireland. It's
mainly for the kids, but they give you a free seed pack with every
€20 spent. A tiny peat-pot about an inch cube, a pellet of peat and
a small amount of seeds in a paper strip, plus instructions. Our six
so far are doing very well. 

I have been out and about lately, helping various neighbours. Yesterday this was helping to repair some fencing down by the local main drain/stream and involved me wading about in the stream bed, praying that the water would not be too deep for the wellies (I was close, but OK). The local beef lads use the stream as water for their bullocks, and they cut 'slip-ways' down to the stream using  a digger.

We are re-starting the keyhole bed on the
'sun-deck'

The stream bed is 6' below the grassland at this place, so this lets the cattle down to below the height of the fences. Our job was to scramble down the slipway to fence off the river end of the slipway, so that bullocks coming down to drink could not wander out into the stream and go strolling up- or down-stream, escaping into the neighbour's territory.

A hole in the head. 

Meanwhile, there I was dozing 75% asleep on my pillow one night when a dog (Deefer?) decided to walk across the pillows to another position. As she walked by she just nicked the middle of my forehead with a toenail. I was vaguely aware of the pain and the small trickle of blood but slept on. In the morning I had a superb 'Harry Potter' style Z-shaped streak of dried blood down into and across one eye. It stung and the dried blood made it difficult to open that eye, so I washed it off before thinking to photograph it.

Ox Tail Stew under construction.

Finally, in 'breaking news' we hear tonight that the 'struggling writer in his garret' described in a recent post, Mr Dan, who was writing up a Masters thesis in Economics (actually supply chain resilience) in our spare room has passed his exams. That's all we know for now. He was chasing a 'Distinction' but our source does not say whether he got that. Well done Dan.

Topp Hosting

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

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

Roast duck with Guinness and honey

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

Asparagus and Gruyere Tart

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

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

Danielle meets the piggies

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

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

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

The ducklings meet Tom and some other residents

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

Poults feathering up well

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

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

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

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

...and that is enough for this one.