Treasure in the Dusty Shoe Box.

Your blogger in about 1959.

I expect that in many families there is, in some dusty corner of an attic or a lost filing system, the "box of family photographs". Blow the dust off that old shoe-box and there are the packets of Kodak black and white prints and negatives, often of long departed and barely remembered relatives who your Mum or possibly Grand-Ma might still be able to recognise as "That's Alison, who used to visit Mrs Conquest, who lived next to us in Pilot Road" (or where-ever). Maybe like us, the number of pictures reduces with each child born - those keen new parents in the 50s keen to click away with the Kodak Brownie and capture every move and new clothes item of No.1 Son, had become a bit jaded by the time No.2 arrived and barely took any of No.3. Our shoe-box contains hundreds of pictures of my 'big brother', Tom, around a dozen of me and only a couple for younger bro', Mark.

All grown up? 1981 by now and allowed out to play in the
Research Station Land Rover

It was Mark though (and fair play to him!) who now has the time and technology to volunteer (crazy fool!) to scan in all these pictures, digitize them and then spread them around the family in the modern way. Liz had this job for all the old slides of the Dublin/Portmarnock tribe, but Mark is now on a mission to create an (electronic?) "photobook" which can be run through the projector at family gatherings now that most of those children and cousins are in their own 50s and the original photographers, if still with us, are into their Autumn years.

A sofa-load of cousins. I am far right.

The rest of us have seen the occasional one pinged out on Facebook for a sense-check. How old were you in this picture? Here is one of all three brothers - anyone know the date/ages? We've also been enjoying remembering all those "Nana-knit jumpers" and some dodgy haircuts. Mark has now assembled the prototype photo-book which he will air at as many family gatherings as he can get at so that everyone can comment, correct mis-captions and so on before he officially goes to press with the finished version. I am looking forward to it. Good luck with that project, Mark. The joys of retiring and suddenly, in theory anyway, having time to do all these things.

Our wooden bowls get the beeswax treatment.

That furniture polish we made from beeswax and coconut oil is proving to be excellent stuff altogether and we are using it all around the place, on furniture, wooden bowls and now also the handles of garden tools and the like. Because it is all food-grade we don't mind getting it on our skin and this is, without doubt, the easiest way to use it. You scoop out a finger-sized blob and briefly soften it with the warmth of your hands, then basically massage it in to the wood by getting palm and fingers all over it. It's a bit like buttering a baking tin but you try not to leave quite so much loose on the surface. Twenty minutes at room temperature sees all the oilier elements soak into the wood grain whereupon a good buff with the cloth gives you a lovely polished lustre

Talking of old family pictures, 2 of the bowls give us a special pleasure as they were made by my Uncle Barrie who got very keen on wood turning at one stage and kitted his workshop out with special lathes and other gear. He made beautiful bowls out of some special woods and then, rather helpfully, used to burn in (engrave?) with a soldering iron (?) the name of the wood and the year as well as his own name. So in the pic of three bowls above, I can tell you that the paler bowl on the right is of "spalted ash" in 1993. Spalting is the confused-grain scar-tissue which trees produce around wounds and broken off limbs.

Liz getting adventurous with the stripes.

Ash didn't mean anything special to me back in 1993 but now, in Ireland where we are cutting our own trees and logs for the fire, ash is the local 'weed' tree that grows everywhere but which I now love for it's bright white cut ends under the chain saw, its dense, hot-burning well seasoned logs and its co-operation under the axe and splitting wedge. It is also the wood used traditionally for the Irish 'Hurley stick' (the 'camán') and is now causing concern by coming under attack from a new fungal disease, Ash Die-Back (fungus Chalara fraxinea). The other bowl pictured is of 'Amazaque' wood about which I know even less - it is a Columbian forest tree, allegedly.

It's raining at ground level, but maybe
if I go out OVER the top of the back door
I won't get wet?

Meanwhile we seem to be in a brief return to winter. Our lovely warm spell of April is almost a lost memory as we wake up each morning to tanking rain and the huge puddles we know so well. The pond is brim full and all the animal feed bowls have to be tipped out of water before I can feed anyone - only the sheep trough stays dry under the shelter and the trees. The cat is very annoyed that we can't seem to find him an exit where it is not raining. He tries the front door (with his mewing and pleading looks) but then when it is opened for him he flicks his tail in indecision and retreats back in to try a different door or window.

Ah well, not everyone loses. My 2015 'Million trees' batch went into lovely wet soil so there is no chance their roots will dry out - they should get away nicely. The return to chill has caused us a return to lighting the range every day which makes the spare room, with its radiator, right above the (Dining) room with the range, the warmest room in the house. We have been able to turn off the infra-red heater-lamp over the Hubbard chicks so that they can now learn about day and night and can get some proper rest and sleep when it is dark. And we are TRYING TO SLEEP. Bless them. If it just stopped raining we are even looking to let them feel a bit of warm Roscommon sunshine on their backs and the grass under their feet (though they'd obviously be rescued back indoors for the nights, they are barely 2 weeks old yet).

Buff Orpington broody hen

And finally our newest 'Mum', the broody Buff Orp is still hanging in there, sitting tight in her chosen location between some concrete blocks and a camping chemical toilet. We rescued her to a seed tray full of hay as she was almost on bare concrete, but she's now on day 11 of her 21 day sit and looking very focused and content.

GAA Action

Don't Panic! Your old mate and blogger has not suddenly gone all sport orientated. Those who have known me for a while would probably KNOW that this was impossible or at least highly unlikely. I managed to survive the first 50+ years without knowing the first thing about soccer, my main objection being that the sport was (is) boring to watch and can happily go the whole 90 minutes of a game without anybody scoring at all, even at the top, professional levels. GAA Football (Gaelic Athletic Association), I am assured is a whole different kettle of fish being fast, exciting and high scoring. This time of year in Ireland is also when the "All Ireland" finals take place and our nearby county of Mayo (also the country where my lambs were born) got through their semi final a couple of Sundays back and this one just passed would see Liz's Dublin team in their semi against Kerry. The place has gone mad decorating gateposts with flags and houses with bunting in county colours. It is a regular subject of conversation - the barber's where I was this morning, the local post office and even John Deere Bob who drops by. My curiosity was piqued. This was an important part of the culture of my new life and friends.

Here then is the only sport related blog post you are likely to get for a while, borrowed from another web post.

"On Sept 2nd, I am woken up by Quoth, our local raven who swings by occasionally. He/she was shouting from the spruce trees and getting a bit of abuse back from the crows and magpies. The morning was spent gently bimbling in the garden, spreading calf poo on the cleared potato ground and picking beans. I walked dogs and got talking to near neighbour whose kids were in the middle of clothing a big cuddly-toy dog in a Roscommon GAA football jersey. Seems that as well as the 'big match' (an All Ireland semi final Dublin vs Kerry) there is an Under 21's ("Minors") match on at 13:30 featuring our own Roscommon and dodgy 'nordies' Tyrone. 

I came in early pm and caught Liz listening to the match commentary IN IRISH. I am in awe. Not only do I have no interest in sport, soccer, rugby and stuff, I also have no Irish worth a light and this guy was rabbiting away as only sports commentators know how. Wandered off back to my weeding. We lost narrowly by all accounts.

Later in the afternoon came the 'real match' in which Liz had more of a vested interest, being a 'Dub'. Out of nowhere we also suddenly had enough broadband to actually stream the televised match programme. Our BB is usually so poor that we measure it in kilobytes (700-900) as opposed to 'megs' and can only watch short Youtube clips without it going all stuttery or dying all together and refusing to perform. But No, here we were with uninterrupted visuals, so I decided to watch my first ever full GAA match.  I'd been told that GAA is a whole different kettle of fish and so it proved. For them as don't know, you can score in the goal below the cross-bar (3 points) or between the posts above the bar (1 point). This match had half a dozen scoring moves in the first 10 minutes. As boring as soccer it definitely wasn't. It stayed exciting all through and Liz was even getting a bit sweary at the midway point.

Her Dubs were looking a bit shaky at one stage and she was voicing those ol' '3 times' superstitions - Man U had lost, the Roscommon Minors had lost and now..... However, the Dubs put in a late surge right at the end and saved the day, winning 3-18 to 3-11, i.e. the two teams scored 35 times between them!" 

So there you are. The Dubs now play Mayo on 22nd and it will be all over for another year. In the two weekends in between now and the 22nd, the Hurlers get their turn - their game is even more mad, frenetic, crazy, fast and dangerous. They all run around armed with a hockey-stick 'club' (Camán) and the ball (Sliothe) seems to be a rock covered in leather. Face masks are almost obligatory these days.

Meanwhile it is all getting a bit Autumnal here. We retreat some evenings into our Living room where we either light candles or the real fire for extra coziness. The blackberries are turning black in the hedgerows and John Deere Bob is happy for us to raid the hedges of his cut silage fields. The sloes will also be red by now and turning black soon but ours out front were annihilated by the contractor hedge cutter so I need to take a stroll round the sheep fields to find some bushes with sloes still on them.

The front lawn has gone all 'Food for Free' on us and is now yielding a good supply of field mushrooms. The first of these took us by surprise under one of the big trees and had reached 8 inches diameter before we spotted it. This one Liz simply cut in half and fried like that, serving it up on its own slice of toast. Poor man's beef steak? More recent ones have been smaller. We are back into beetroot now and 'succession planted' radishes and, soon, peas.

For me, though, a weekend back in the UK looking up the Pud Lady and some Faversham Friends including 2CV Llew, before I head for St Katharine's Docks in London to help man our sailing barge Cambria. She is on show to the public as part of the St Kat's Classic Boat Festival which is , in turn, part of the Mayor's River Thames Festival. Liz gets to look after the 'farm' for a while so she is in training on livestock and the differences between milled barley and seed wheat. Wish us both luck. I will be 'off air' for the duration and will post again when I return.

The Best Laid Plans

St Patrick's Day, so Beannachtai na Féile Pádraig to all our readers. Round these parts it is traditionally the day by which we should have our spuds planted, at least the Earlies. However our lovely burst of springlike weather is currently parked and we are getting the chilly North Westerlies instead. We have freezing fogs and white rime some mornings alternating with cold wet ones where the forecast carries wintry showers and other miseries not conducive to planting spuds. So the potatoes sit in their trays in the tígín chitting happily out of the frost. When we do get a few nice days I have a raised bed 'ridge' ready for them. They will do OK.

Also on hold because of the broken weather, is poly tunneling. I was out there today in the morning creating the door frame and finishing off the ground boards to which we will attach the plastic. We have decided for now to go with no door at the other end but we will pleat up the plastic sheeting at the end in such away that we can undo it and fit a door-frame if we decide one is necessary.

We are remembering last summer and it's single week of OK but not particularly hot weather in August and thinking that the ventilation from one door will be adequate on a tunnel only 20 feet long.
I don't mind working in light rain so even with the wind a bit raw I worked away till lunchtime but when the rain turned to sleet and snow I decided I was just being silly staying out there. I retreated indoors for a coffee, then the dog walk and then came in for good for homemade soup and to light the range.

 Held up too, but not by the weather, are the plans for the local conservation group's 'Plant a Million Trees in a Day' project. They have the trees, bare rooted and in cold store apparently, but their clearance to distribute them hit the buffers when Ireland suffered an attack of the 'new' fungal disease, Ash Die-Back (a fungus called Chalara fraxinea). This disease is making the Irish forestry industry very nervous as ash is an important crop here, not only because ash wood is used in making the hurley stick (camán) used in the traditional, fast, hair-raising sport, 'hurling'.

The Irish Government has therefore stomped down hard on anyone trying to move ash stocks around the country and as the Million Trees project was going to include the planting of a fair amount of ash saplings, the organisers have had to find suitable substitute species and get all their paperwork cleared again which has knocked them back a month. We are now planting on 27th April instead of 22/23 March. The tree will be OK, apparently as they are in cold store and this is normal in the industry, we are told. This is a bit of a pain as Liz will be out of the country, so I will be planting them all myself.

Never mind. When the sun shines it is still lovely and spring is creeping along. The geese, now very happy, healthy and settled here have started to explore beyond their old secure 'home land' of the orchard and pond garden. They are often now out on the front lawn, frequently come into the yard and have now started looking at the East Field. We have also seen some 'nuptial' activity so we suspect either one or both of the ladies may soon come into lay. The 4 hens are now regularly back up to 3 eggs a day and today we had a very thin-shelled (broken) egg in one of the boxes. This is sometimes a sign that  a hen is coming back into production so, if that is Broody Betty finally coming back on line, maybe we will get a 4-egg (100%) day.

Meanwhile it is St Patrick's Day so I have just been handed a Guinness by Liz, who is sipping on a chilled glass of Prosecco. We are having 'bacon and cabbage' with mashed potatoes and parsley sauce. The 'bacon'  is in the form of a gammon hock which is currently driving the cat(s) mad as they try to rob it from the kitchen, but Liz is more than a match for 2 moggies and the hock is being defended well so far.

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone.