Daisy Cutters

Cat Basket Lady with 3 of her 4 chicks

Friends of the Blog may recall that we are now down to our last broody birds at what will probably be the end of this year's breeding season. The last indoor bird, Cat Basket Lady, came off the nest this week with her 4 successful hatches, 3 yellow and one black. She is now well into the "teaching them to be chickens" phase and we see her all around the site, the yard and the grass.

A lovely vegetarian Mex spread for one
 of the suppers

That leaves us with just 2 birds AWOL who we hope are out there somewhere, hidden up in the hedges, sitting on eggs and trying not to be eaten by the fox. One is the Guinea hen who went "off piste" 5 days before I came out of hospital. If she's still out there, that makes her due in a week and a half. Just maybe she will shepherd any successful babies ("keets") home to us and delight us (and her 3 patient 'husbands') one day.

We passed our NCT (= MOT) and I was delighted to be reminded
that this car is still not 10 years old, so NCTs are only every OTHER
year. Expires 2020.

Also out there but not quite so promising is a white hen we call Connie. As of now she has been out there way too long, her eggs will be well past it and we also have a mini-tragedy in her motherhood career.

2 nice steaks made a change to the diet of vegetarian food.

Last week, one morning, when I was the only one up, a commotion of geese in the yard called me running, thinking we had a fox. The Guineas were screaming and I let the dogs go to do their thing. Well, there was no fox, but as the geese moved off I saw a sad, lemon-yellow fluff-ball lying in the yard where they'd been. I also noticed that Connie the hen, AWOL for 3 weeks or so, was back in the yard and chuntering in an upset way.

Daisy the Pig as back seat passenger.

The fluff turned out to be a very new, but dead hen-chick, so my best guess at what had happened was this. Connie had come off her AWOL nest with a single successful chick, but then led it into the yard and way too close to the goslings. The geese would not have tolerated that and quickly killed it. Poor Connie. She stuck around for the morning, chuntering, and then disappeared AWOL again. She may have gone back to the nest to try some more, but the eggs will have been badly chilled in the interim, and she will almost certainly fail, get bored and return to us. If the fox does not find her first.

Have new OSB apron. I'm going in!

The Help-X lasses have gone a-touristing, a train journey to Westport yesterday and then a bus trip out to very popular tourist destination Achill Island, to stay overnight and return tonight (Fri). One of them is a vegetarian and we have been exploring the veggie repertoire out of solidarity with her but, 2-3 weeks in we were starting to crave meat. With the girls off site, it was the perfect opportunity to have steak and chips. Also, by happy chance, it was also the day we collected the pig carcass from town, so we would have a chance to butcher that up without inadvertently upsetting anyone, and squirrel it away in the freezer, out of sight.

The new pork-butcher extricates a sheet of ribs

We had a thoroughly enjoyable time at the cutting. With me being still restricted to 'light duties', we did this one on a 50/50 basis, Elizabeth doing her sawing and knife work while I took a breather and advised her. This was her first pig. It was great teamwork and we had the whole pig (Daisy) cut up in about an hour and a half. That is now wrapped, bagged, labelled and in the freezer. All except for a huge 'ham' joint which we will brine up and keep for Christmas.

Hubble bubble boil and....... The split head gets boiled down.

We also got back the heart, liver, the head (split) for brawn, and a bonus couple of trays of sausage rolls. This morning The Woman of the House took on the boiled head and has produced some rather lovely looking brawn (low salt, by all accounts, for the sake of the 'heart patient'), a rillette made from a pot of neck meat so tender and light looking it might be crab meat, and a stock so rich it sets as jelly when cool. The dogs will get the ears and tail roasted and chopped up as treats, the chickens get a few gribbly bits and we only threw away the skull bones.

A good size ham joint waiting for its fancy spiced brine to cool.

We are now coming to then end of our little time with these Help-X-ers, Emma and Flora. They are home again tonight from Achill, then around for Saturday (we will not make them work!) but on to a train or bus on Sunday morning bound for Sligo and their next 'placement'. On the Monday we take delivery of our next Help-X, a lad this time, Rafael, another Frenchman.

Cuts of Daisy the Pig

He is with us for 3 weeks and by another happy coincidence we may be replacing that chicken house roof. Builder friend K-Dub has us booked in for the 13th and has come to measure up and given me a list of timber and materials to buy in the interim. With me 'Tom-Dick', I was worried I'd not be able to help, passing timbers and sheets of corrugated up to K-Dub up his ladder, but with new guy Rafael here we should be well manned up. That poor 'house' has been under its "temporary" tarpaulin roof for 18 months now and I'd be very worried asking the tarp to survive another winter.

Butcher's bonus. A gift of sausage rolls.

Enough for this one. Good luck now.

The Good Gosling News or the Bad?

In the nick of time, a new baby gosling.

Regular readers may recall that back on 10th June I posted news and a picture of a new arrival; our first and only (at the time) new-hatched gosling. On the 13th I posted pics of his first exploration out of doors, being 'minded' by his bodyguard of Mum, Aunt(s) and Dad. Those readers may be wondering why they have not heard from him since. I have neglected to mention a small tragedy that happened here, the disappearance of this first gosling.

Our 2nd 2017 gosling - we hope he fares better than the first.

I discovered the loss on the first day of shearing those Texels (20th June). I had been out all morning at the sheep, so I had left the birds all shut up for the time I was absent, ever fearful of a repeat of our day-time fox-raid back in November. Everybody, including the gosling, had all gone to bed as normal on the evening before.

I'll just build a cage round these beans then,
to stop the chickens, shall I?

Only when I got back from the shearing and let them out, did I see the three adult geese come marching out as normal with not a bother on them but no gosling. I thought at first that he might be having a lie in, still in the nest with the still-broody 4th bird. Also pointing to this was the complete lack of excitement and separation-anxiety that parent geese show when momentarily separated from their babies.

Good chard and calabrese coming off the Kitchen Garden

Well, later in the day the 4th bird came off and no sign of the gosling. I have had a good look round and can find no little carcass or fluff or any sign of him. He could not have got out of the house so my best guess is that either a predator (rat? mink?) has come in through one of the small above-ground holes) and taken him, or he has nipped out from the goose-bit into the wider coop and been either nabbed there or got himself wedged in a tight spot between tools, the wood pile or what ever. If the latter then he must have been dead by that lunchtime because all was silent; no baby goslings screaming for release. When the geese finally finish with the nest (more of that later!) I will have a complete de-clutter and deep clean in there and may find his little dried up form but I don't hold out much hope.

Tubs and Toms out front

Since the 20th, our always-chaotic goose-breeding 'system' has involved just waiting for the #4 adult, who had stayed on the nest, to get bored and decide that the ancient eggs on which she sat were never going to hatch. By last weekend we were running out of patience, Liz had started asking when I would be able to deep-clean that shed and I was thinking I would wait till the goose went out for a 'toilet break', close the door on her and clean it all out from "under her", as it were.

Stumpy and her 5 chicks.

Well, just to prove that sometimes the sitting bird knows best, I went out to shepherd them home on Sunday 9th July and behold! There was a tiny new hatched gosling out on the grass with them. A nice surprise and #4 bird has earned herself a stay of execution. I will give her another good week before the bedders move in to change the sheets and make the beds. I will also be on tenterhooks and not wanting to leave them in of a morning for a week or so, in case the "safe from foxes" jinx strikes twice.

Big Red and her 4

While I'm on birds, I was witness to a very sweet "Mother and Toddler Group" meeting a few days back, when all 3 'yard' hens and their baby chicks wandered round through the cattle race and into the kitchen garden where 'Beebs', our mint-patch hen, is still minding her 7. So I had, briefly all 4 Mums and 19 chicks milling about, mingling a bit. The three visitors were quite cool with this liaison but Beebs was chuntering a bit at the 'encroachment' onto HER territory and called for her gang to gather close. Eventually our big sex-change rooster, Herme wandered over curious as to what all the excitement was about and then all 4 Mums gathered their tribes and melted away. Meeting over.

Glut of chard leaves? Liz makes this lovely "Tourtes aux Blettes"
See text. 

Meanwhile, in the kitchen we have both been busy based on the very successful harvest of our first blackcurrants - 3 kg already from our few bushes, some good calabrese, courgettes, an armful of chard leaves and the arrival of my 'banneton'. The latter is a special ridged bowl for making your sour-dough finish its final prove in a professional shape.

A 'banneton'. A fancy proving bowl for your sour dough.

The black currants have mainly gone into the freezer as we have a great stash of jam from previous years and need no more. Some have re-appeared as a dessert tart and more as home-grown 'Ribena'. More will be re-incarnated as Creme de Cassis which we love mixing with fizz to make Kir (Royale). The calabrese just got steamed that night with our roast chicken and fresher, darker, squeakier veg you would struggle to find. Gorgeous.

Sour dough loaf ex the new banneton. 

The chard gets split stems from leaf blades and the blades, Liz tried out in a new (to us) recipe, Tourtes aux Blettes. "Chard Pie?" I hear you squeak dubiously. Well this one is from Mediterranean cookery and was a revelation. It is quite sweet and the filling includes the chard leaves for body but also raisins soaked in brandy overnight, pine nuts, grated apple, eggs and sugar. The pastry is extra-short and includes icing sugar. Unusual but delicious. If you have a chard glut, then give it a try. Recipes are all over the Internet.

You saw that focaccia in the last post, still raw. This is the same
cooked to golden perfection. I was impressed. 

My banneton sourdough proving-bowl was a great success. It is a very lightweight thing, apparently made from paper like that used in egg boxes, so you'd never want to get it wet washing it up. You dust it well (with rice flour in this case) to stop the dough sticking, then when you tip the finished dough-ball out, give the bowl a sharp tap to shake off excess dusting flour. Mazy, I know, has a rattan/wicker one.

Finally a couple of pictures of that focaccia which I had not yet put into the oven as I went to press last time. Here it is now cooked to golden perfection. It was gorgeous and has earned it's place in our "keepers" recipe files.

Our dark buddliea. Not a butterfly in sight on these rainy
windy July days. Ah well.

Most of it disappeared as a sauce-dipping bread in a pasta I cooked a couple of days back with a bacon, mushroom, onion and tomato cream sauce. Perfect.

And that's about it for this one.

Connie, Big Red, Beebs and Stumpy makes 19

Beeblebrox with her 7 chicks

We are suddenly tripping over baby chicks everywhere. Awash, we are. Readers of recent blog posts will already know about our first two broodies, the white Sussex, 'Connie' who is now confidently marching around with her three and Big Red who has four. Big Red has taken to hanging about the yard with hers waiting to pounce on either Liz or I hoping for the next hand out of my hard-boiled egg mixture. She does not need to be doing that for too long - the babies only get egg in their commercial crumb for the first week.

When the 'Parma' ham runs out, boil up
the bones for bacon and bean soup. 

Next up we were expecting our chicken-with-a-gammy-foot, 'Stumpy' who was sitting on five eggs in the proper official nest boxes in the main coop. She was coming up to Day 21 today (7th). Before she could get there, though, Connie wandered off with hers one evening intent on bedding down in the mint patch on our kitchen garden. "Oh no you don't", we said, "Mr Fox will get you!"

Not very common... a DUCK double yolker. 

We went to rescue her (and chicks) into a kitten basket and found to our surprise that she had nestled in alongside our black Araucana-cross hen, Beeblebrox. But what was SHE doing there?

Empress and Pride at 4 months

Beebs, incidentally, is named for the two-headed man character in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Being part Araucana she has that weird feathery top-knot on her head, looking like a 2nd head, hence the name. Anyway, what she was doing was demonstrating to us very neatly and shamingly that we are not the close, detailed protectors of our flock that we probably should be.

She was sitting on about a dozen eggs and may have been broody out there for days. I had been shutting "all" the birds up each night without spotting that she was absent. No roll call. Just a quick visual check of lots of full perches and rafters. Ooops. But then, we now have a bird sitting on 12 eggs who is "out there" vulnerable to foxes etc. Do we try to move her plus the nest indoors? Do we try to build a fox-proof cage around her? Either would have been OK but may have caused her to get upset and desert the nest. We have moved nests before and the chicken just frets to get back out to where the eggs WERE. It is heartbreaking.

Empress nailing a chunk of yellow melon. 2 for €2 in SuperValu
at present. We can afford that!

Rather recklessly (irresponsibly?) we decided to risk her out there. It is a quiet little corner surrounded by a thicket of mint, tight against the wall of the Tígín deep inside the kitchen garden where I can not imagine a randomly patrolling fox would bother to go. We worried about this decision long and hard. We then stressed about this each night and especially on Wednesday when we were both woken at 03:00 by a vixen screaming very close - possibly in the lane out front. When it started raining we propped 2 long sheets of corrugated over her like a lean-to.

Well, long story short, we have, so far, got away with it. 2 days ago Liz was taking the air out in the kitchen garden when she heard loud cheeping from the mint patch. We had a hatch, only TEN days after we found the nest. The quick-witted among you will spot that this means she had been 'missing' at night and broody for 11 days before we knew anything about it. Embarrassing. She now had 7 little balls of fluff shadowing her about. There was, briefly, an 8th. I found one egg part-open with a struggling wet baby still part inside, but later this poor mite was stiff, cold and still wet. There had actually been 15 eggs and only one proved to be infertile, so Rooster Gandalf is obviously doing a good job even if we aren't!

Then yesterday, right on schedule, our 4th and final broody, 'Stumpy' nailed it with loud cheeping coming from under her skirts. What I always do for these new mums is try them on a bit of chick feed. They lean down to peck it and make that bass-y "Food kids!" clucking and if there are any mobile babies under there, these will generally pop their heads out and start learning to peck. I could see Stumpy was sitting on at least 3.

Back on that digger yesterday. This is that mini-mountain of
good topsoil we needed to barrow away to the new raised beds.

Today she came off the nest, job done and I was delighted to see she had hatched all five eggs. 100%. Go Stumpy! So we have 3+4+7+5=19 babies at the moment, more babies than we had birds a month or so ago!

Focaccia loaf, first knock-back

What else is new? I have been back out to Sligo at the diggering. The pressure is on. 'We' need to move that pile of topsoil to make way for the '804' gravel sub-base which will then need laying and 'whacking' in time for the 3 concrete lorries to arrive, scheduled Saturday week to pour those shed-bases. It's all go over there.

Sourdough loaf.

I have been messing around in the absence of Lizzie (she's down in Laois minding Auntie Mary) with some more sour dough stuff. My 5th attempt at a standard loaf came out quite well - no scorching, no excess flour on top, no 'scars' where I had let the dough stick to the tea-towel.

For relaxation I broke out the 'self sufficiency' book on bread we have (James and Dick Strawbridge) and had a go at their 'focaccia' recipe with sea salt and rosemary. I added 35 g of my sourdough starter to the dried yeast in the recipe and got a really good rise out of it.

Final prove, then bake to a golden brown and brush lightly
with olive oil for a gloss finish. 

You stick a mini-forest of rosemary sprigs into the top of this for aroma and aesthetic reasons. It was a thing of beauty. I will post a pic in the next blog. Was delicious too with a rather 'fusion food' Lancashire Hotpot main course.

False Alarm!.... (or not).

Good book choices among the Birthday present 'haul'

In my previous post, I recorded that both a turkey hen and a goose had gone broody; the former in an inconvenient place lost in a neighbouring field, the latter nice and tidy in her proper coop. Well, as soon as I had gone to print, of course, both ladies changed their minds. In the morning, the goose was off her eggs and asking to be let out with the gang into the orchard, where she happily stayed all day and the cold eggs, I picked up for normal kitchen use.

Calf-eens a-plenty in many neighbouring farmyards.

In the middle of the afternoon, while I was away buildering, Liz texted to say that Barbara had turned up, butter wouldn't melt, looking for food in our yard. False alarm? Well, you never know with poultry. The goose, having taken her day off, decided to go back onto (some more) eggs and has now spent the last 2 days sitting tight. I assume the eggs can stand this on/off start to the incubation when they are still only a 'germ' of embryo. Barbara spent a day or so very much here, mooching about with the husband (Tom) but today went AWOL again from about 9 a.m. till just before lock-up (8 p.m.). These eggs are either taking a long long time to lay, or she is doing like the goose and building up to broodiness.

Rounding up the mini-horses. 

Meanwhile in the Sligo dept, the mini horses which had been happily grazing the last few millimetres off the rented field down by our local river-bridge, suddenly needed moving. The person who is taking over the rented field next was asking if he could spray slurry all over it prior to the agreed date and Carolyn was not at all sure he would take no for an answer.

Primroses are everywhere this month.

K-Dub and I had to take a day off from the buildering to rapidly create a horse proof paddock about 40m by 50m at the new place (not an easy one but we made it) and then I was asked to help with the rounding up and loading of Cody, Romeo and Bob at this end into a borrowed stock-trailer. That bit, at least, was a doddle because these boys are suckers for a carrot-bribe. I offered them some nice fresh crunchy veg through the gate while C snuck up behind and slipped head-collars onto them. They are well used to trailers, being former show-horses, so all three were led up the ramp with a minimum of fuss and off they went to Sligo.

The warm weather has given us some gorgeous sunsets

Out of nowhere we have been enjoying a week of gorgeous sunny, warm weather. That's 'warm' by Roscommon standards, you understand, so daytime highs of 17ºC, nothing too tropical (or even Mediterranean) but after a long, cold, wet, miserable winter it is a lovely relief. Liz and I have been able to enjoy a post-work coffee 'al-fresco' and on one evening sat out by our pond in the 'Darby and Joan' chairs till gone 8 p.m. rather than spoil it by coming indoors to cook. We didn't even light the range. The dogs had been let loose in the orchard at 6:15 p.m. expecting to only get the usual half hour and they were still out there, running free, at 8 p.m.

A '365' pic of a nearby swallow hole. The yellow arrow
shows flow direction before the water disappears under-ground.
Obviously I have not put the arrow on the 365 version. 

I heard my first cuckoo out in Sligo (on the 19th) while we were putting up the horse-fence; he sang away all day. I then heard my first home-bird the next morning here at 7 a.m. on my first dog-'patrol'. We saw our first swallow near here on the 16th and then saw a load of them flying over a nearby lough (Lough Glynn). We have since seen "our" swallows dipping over our pond to catch insects and to drink. Summer is definitely coming, even though the forecast has some nasty cold nights (down to 2ºC) coming up over the weekend.

Keep warm, people.

Free Range

Currently AWOL, our turkey hen, Barbara. 

Tonight, one of the downsides of fully free range poultry came and paid us a visit - that is the ability of hen birds (in this case the turkey, Barbara) to go and hide up to go broody under a hedge somewhere. You are lucky if you see them sneak off, and even luckier if you can follow them and discover their carefully hidden nest site. There is no bird-proof (or fox proof!) perimeter fence here, these are fully free range birds. They are here because they want to be - we obviously have the best food, housing and TLC around.

"Full House" from the geese - 4 eggs from 4 birds. 

Barbara had come into lay at the start of the month and produced 4 eggs that we had found - she scatters them all over the gaff - but had then stopped (as far as we knew). Then she started to go missing during the day and 3 days ago had us out searching all around the neighbouring fields looking for her quite dark and well camouflaged shape. To no avail, that time. We gave up and came back 'home' only for Barbara to suddenly re-appear in the yard mid afternoon. We had seen tracks in the mud just outside our NW corner but not enough to follow her.

Gooseberry

For 2 days she stayed put (again as far as we know - we don't watch them all 24/7) but tonight at lock up, she is AWOL. We have searched the fields again, but no sign, not even of follow-able fresh tracks. She may wander back in - I am patrolling round every hour to see if she has arrived back and is trying to get into the (now locked for the night) coops but that is not very hopeful by now - it's 9 p.m. and quite dark.

Chestnut "sticky bud"

We are looking at a 28 day period of incubation when she could easily be snatched by a fox or, by some huge miracle of good fortune, successfully hatch the chicks and then bring them the marathon hike back home. We can only wish the girl luck and pray that we see her again with or without babies. Her husband Tom seems oblivious of all this and struts around the 'farm' displaying at everyone and strutting his stuff as if it has not yet dawned on him that she is gone.

Early sunrise breakfast for the flock

Meanwhile, not all our baby birds are living so dangerously, nor our broody 'Mum'. The latter is the first of our 4 geese to tip over into broodiness. She's been very clingy to the (indoor, safe) nest the last few mornings, sitting tight till gone midday before "asking" to be let out to join the gang in the orchard. Then just today she sat there all day and got quite stroppy when I went in to gently offer her a bowl of grub. In previous years this has been the sure start to a broody session, with geese being 28-33 days at it. I think she is sitting on last night's 4 eggs. She may be joined by other geese and they may also try to drop more eggs into her nest. We have a rather confused time with our goose breeding as regular readers will know. This mainly because we don't actually WANT to breed geese, but our efforts to steal all the eggs as soon as they are laid do not work out 100% towards this time of year.

The ducklings get a first feel of grass and sunshine.

The little clutches of ducklings and chicks are now at the stage (just under 3 weeks old and part feathered) where they get little try-outs in the yard in rabbit runs when it is warm. They get to feel the grass under their feet and the sun on their backs. If our judgement or the weather forecast calls for it, they are rescued back up in the early evening for another night indoors.

The chicks

Both groups seem to be loving it. The ducklings in particular have become a loud and clamorous gang of demanding 'gannets' who peep-peep loudly for food as soon as either of us show our faces at the back door. The chickens do not want to be left out, so they kick off too, but 4 chicks cannot compete noise-wise with 6 ducklings. They are all getting a good mix of chick crumb, cooked rice and finely chopped veg peelings/grated carrot offcuts and they are all wolfing it down. Thriving, they are.

Electricity pole covered in ivy.

Finally, I am now pretty much through my archery beginner's course. It was going to be ten weeks at 1 hour a week, shared with up to 5 other students but regular readers will know I got lucky. Not only did I get one-to-one tuition but also some weeks we carried on after the hour into the 2nd hour of club time in that hall. The instructor would have been well within his rights to say, nope, you had your hour... now I am off to 'play' my own archery. So, 6 weeks in I have ticked all the boxes (literally) and my form has gone into the national club to win me my membership card and number (and insurance cover) and I have been measured up and assessed to see what size and draw-strength bow and arrows I need to be buying. 62 inch bow, 29 inch arrows and a 40 lb draw, for those who are interested. Off to t'internet then and Quicks Archery of Honiton (Devon) to select £315 (nearly €400) worth of shiny new equipment. That will help distract me from waiting for Barbara to return.