A Mum-Seeking Missile

Our two new kittens, who came to us on the day after Brexit-vote day (24th June) are, we estimate, now 4 months old. They are big and lively and have long out-grown their willingness to stay contained within the Sitting Room so we leave that window ajar for them and have taught them to come and go through it so that they get access to the whole garden and yard.

Chip (boy)

They are, however, a bit small  and silly yet to be able to cope with a chase or an attack by the terriers. Deefer would possibly be OK on her own but the 'pups' in pack-mode are a different species, rushing in teeth-first, desperately trying to get in faster than their sibling. Real 'red mist' stuff with no thought to whether this is allowed prey or just ratty vermin needing several bites and shakes to kill it as fast as a dog can. The kittens have showed a tendency to try to get back into the house through the other (non-Sitting Room) windows or doors, which would (and has) land(ed) them in the doggy parts of the house. A mad scramble then ensues to rescue the silly kitten and secure the dogs. We have to remember when we open the Sitting Room window, to close all the others far enough to prevent kitten ingress.

Chivers (girl)

We have started to warily try out some controlled 'meetings' and looking at options like crating the kittens in a room to let the dogs get a bit familiar with them and calm down the killer instinct a bit. Liz tried one yesterday where the 'pups' were locked in the bedroom and Deefer was allowed access downstairs. She apparently walked right past the kittens to go steal their food. Progress of a sort, we guess.

The Araucana x game cock-bird always
manages to look totally demented.

This morning, though, a rude awakening of a new sort. We were lying there semi-asleep in the last few minutes before my alarm goes off (07:30) with the dogs scattered over the duvet as normal. I had every reason to think the alarm would sound, I would get up and then prod some snoozing dogs into action so that I could take them out for a 'comfort stop'. Suddenly all hell broke loose and the three dogs were charging about the bedroom down and around each side of the bed, round the foot-end or over the top (and us).

Guinea Fowl also managing to look demented. 

They can't actually get under the bed as the space is full of suit cases, crates of bed linen and 'other season' clothes but the spaces are small enough to allow in cats and Soldier in particular likes to wake me up for (his) breakfast by playing with the dogs and winding them up. In the half light I assumed he would be, as usual, on my bed side table 'asking' to be let out (and then fed downstairs, of course). Then I saw the real cause of the chaos - a kitten was running around and diving under the bed whenever a dog got too close for comfort. Luckily he was still intact and Liz, awake and out of bed in an instant was able to scoop him up while I tried to hold all three dogs at a distance. Obviously we had left too many windows open and the bedroom door, and the kitten had woken up, then gone out, come back in through the kitchen and hunted us down in our sleep. "That boy is like a Mum-seeking Missile" was Liz's comment. Luckily, no harm done and a lesson learned.

K-Dub hacks off render with the medium
sized kango hammer. 

Meanwhile, work has started on the kitchen extension. First job once the site had been cleared was to hack off the render on the house side of the new space, so that we get a lovely attractive stone wall in the kitchen, instead of the stippled "gravel-dash". The plan was to hack off this, rake out the (pointing) cracks between stones and repoint with pale mortar which will contrast with the beautiful dark grey of (we hoped) the lovely quarried, shaped stones.

Raking out the old pointing and the 'gobs'
of render in the cracks

We were not at all sure that the stone would be beautiful, of course. Plenty of the internal walls proved to be a right old mess of concrete blocks, old bricks and re-used rubble. But 'no', we were delighted to find quality stone work with big blocky 'coin' stones at the corners and well bonded rows of good stone throughout. Some of the coins are 13" high and one was a gorgeous black stone which will make quite a feature. We were also delighted with how "handy" (well) the render came away. You can be days chipping away inch by inch. You don't know till you start. The kango-ing, raking out and then wire-brushing were all dusty, messy jobs and my hair felt like a Lego man's one-piece plastic wig by the end. It was pure joy to be able to get into the shower.

Lovely stonework revealed. 

Since these pics were taken we have moved on. The plumbing has been moved to accommodate the new roof (mainly sneaking the vent 'stack' out sideways through what will be a block-work in-fill mini-wall so that we do not have to make a big hole in the new roof). We have also measured up and now ordered all the timber for rafters etc. That should arrive tomorrow. More on this in the next post.

The Buff chicks are a month old now. 

Tonight we will be a bit more careful with the windows at lock up. By the way, I love that the spell-checker on this site offers you 'mango' for Kango. While trying to work out what a Mango-hammer might look like, I am also trying to see tropical fruit used to remove concrete render from the outside of a house.

Enda Vaneera

Way, way back I posted that we in Ireland had had a General Election. I *think* it was actually 70 days ago. Nobody won (which is no surprise here in this land of coalition governments) and the various factions have been negotiating (or failing to talk) ever since so that even the political journo's have started to sound weary and impatient. Would the 2 main parties (Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil) actually get together after 100 years of the main differences being what they thought about Partition (Ireland split into the Republic and 'The North')? Would we need some kind of Rainbow coalition of Fine Gael plus assorted minor parties and some Independent Members (TDs)? Well, they finally came up with a solution today and re-elected the previous "Taoiseach" (=Prime Minister, say it 'Tea-shuck'), Enda Kenny, though for how long this fragile peace can stick is anybody's guess. It got me to thinking about our various milestones and anniversaries here.

Looking decidedly nervous in this 4 year old pic, releasing
our first Irish chickens

Facebook has to take a lot of the 'blame' for my train of thought. They have got into a 'thing' now where they ping you pictures which you posted exactly 2, 3, 4 or 5 years ago and ask you if you want to share them back onto FB and comment on them. They dug up this 4 year old one of me releasing our first ever Irish chooks from their carry-box. I look very nervous. Nowadays I'd just tip the box on its side and let them walk out. They were our "Lovely Girls"; 6 (quickly reduced to 5) Sussex Ponte Hybrids. We were so green I'd even bought the "wrong" chooks - I'd intended to buy proper pure bred While/Light Sussex (Hadn't heard of Sussex Ponte). 4 years on we are evolving over to Buff Orpingtons and Cuckoo Marans and we have only one of these original birds left - we call her Enda (as in Enda Vaneera....geddit?.... and, yes, I do know Enda is a boy's name).

Meanwhile the piglets come up towards their 14th week and the ducklings and poults are going on 6 weeks. We are charmed by the ducklings now starting to change from the 'peep peep' noise of new hatched ducklings to some proper throaty quacking. Their voices are breaking, Bless 'Em! Both these clutches are now let out all day as long as it is sunny and one of us will be around. They tend to stay in the main yard, though the chickens have wandered as far as the front lawn before 'zooming' back to safety in that amusing wings-flapping sprint young poults have.

Buff Orp poults at 6 weeks

Today we decided to try to herd the ducklings as far as the big pond. They were not that keen and very perturbed at being hooshed out of the familiar yard. I wondered whether the sight of that big body of water might kick some instinct in and they'd happily dive in and play. Not a bit of it. We let them go at the water's edge and all 6 sprinted back towards the cattle-race and the familiar safety of their tiny cat litter tray 'pond'. That can fit only one or two at once now and then only paddling up to their ankles. We may need an interim "kiddies' paddly pool" solution in the yard so that they can experience water where their feets do not touch bottom.

Brooding in stereo. 

Our long-term brooders (the geese and Barbara the turkey) are still playing the waiting game. The geese, we know, are sitting on at least 12 eggs but we can not know how long these eggs have been in there. 3 have been in from the start. We may have the usual goosey chaos as the two Mums (Aunts?) hop on and off the nest and steal each others eggs for safe-keeping while the other female is out grazing. We hope that they will also do the 'aunt' thing once hatching starts. I'll take these 2 day old out to the orchard if you could just sit on those other eggs in case we get any stragglers hatching. Madness.

Not a happy bunny. Tom the turkey misses his woman.

Tom, is feeling very woe-begone with his 'wife' away in the fields (we hope). He mopes around all day and does not display even to us when we are seated by the pond. Hang in there, Tom. The 16th or so might see herself re-appear with babies. We'll give it a fortnight more and then possibly, try to find you a new love.

Damsel fly pupal case

I am still plugging on with the '365' project and trying to ring the changes to give the village website a good variety from which to choose. It is going well. Liz has upwards of half a dozen contributors now (and is trying to encourage more) so we have pics of children, ride on mowers, vegetable seedlings, the hand-ball courts, sunsets, pictures done by the pre-school (and flags by the National School). I am still here as 'back stop' to make sure we have no blank days. The end of April had us all a quarter of the way through the project. Fair way to go yet.

New log stack in the making.

I have managed to blag a couple of old pallets locally, so  the project for the end of this week has been to create yet another log stack against the barn wall up in the "Rose Walk". K-Dub would be proud of me. I am trying to build this with near vertical faces and even binding in the corners with log versions of "coin stones" like a bit of stone work. The plan is to roof this stack with my curved corrugated iron sheeting from the hay barn (you can see this in the photo, centre left).

Hornwort in the big pond.

This stack will be a good 4 cubic metres so should represent years 3-4 (maybe 5) of my store. It is a good feeling to be in May 2016 and to know that we probably have wood stored now round to Winter 2021/2. It will certainly have a chance to season (dry out) well and would also be a good hidey-hole for plenty of mice and voles safe from our cats.

Big boys' toys? Wide-track turf-cutting machinery

Ah well. That's probably enough for this one.

Fear the Deere

Storm 'Clodagh' sets the trees rocking and a-rolling.

Our latest named storm, 'Clodagh' blusters through but she is a lady characterised by plenty of wind and not so much rain. We all get nicely frazzled by the chilly blast but the puddles and gravel-shovelling of last week ease up and things are, in general, starting to dry out a bit.

The big black spruces in the 'Secret Garden'
take some punishment.

Over at the Sligo house rebuild, excellent progress is being made and, with the concrete floor/base now in, walls are now starting to grow from the new bit. These are no ordinary brick or block walls. The front of the house is built from proper Sligo stone laid flat (like brickwork) with proper 'bond' (overlap) and genuine 'coin' stones at the corners. The new back is going to dovetail into this and stay in keeping with the overall effect with the same stone work up to window sill height. The new walls are to be a 4" concrete block inner 'skin', with a stone wall (up to 8" thick) laid outside of this up to that height, after which there will be a fancy pantile water-drip shedding layer and the wall will continue up to roof height as modern cavity blocks rendered with smooth cement. Should look superb.

Not bad for beginners - the inner bottom of the wall.

The most recent 'games', then have been to build the block wall up to the window sill height and then more recently to start building the outer stone 'skin'. The main man freely admits to knowing a lot about brick and blockwork without ever having done much and knowing a bit about stone masonry without having done any! "I can talk a good game" he said to neighbour Jimmy (owner and driver of HUGE excavators). The wall you can see in this picture is the most block our man had ever laid and I am merely the 'help' - lifting and carrying blocks, mixing cement (in our mixer left over from our own house build), but both of us are delighted to find that "we" can actually do this, and do it pretty well.

The very first 'coin' stone goes in. (bottom centre)

It has been a fascinating experience for me and so, so different from my 'proper job', which was desk-based, keyboard tapping 'Systems/Planning Manager' in a big food warehouse; my hands permanently soft and smooth. I have been especially taken with the process of building the corners, re-using (or finding new) the huge 'coin' stones which have to sit flat either aligned with the back wall or the side wall, their neat 90º corner outwards and their length having to be bound in with the smaller wall-stones. On a very cold, wet Saturday "we" (mainly the boss!) laid the new back side to the west gable end including it's 'step' in to the new wall-line and the corner at the other end of the extension, both up to the required 3' height. We rock, if you'll pardon the expression.

The first bit of masonry 'we' had ever laid. The old original gable
is on the right and the white breathable membrane covers
the new blockwork against which the stone is laid.

I must admit that in the cold and wet I was getting so perished that I was considering calling it a day and my thoughts turned to those hated 'Games' afternoons at school where I was forced to play football. None of we 3 brothers ever had the football gene in our DNA and the school was really well set up for sport. Many schools had huge grounds in those days and ours had room for many pitches. Pitch 1 was inside the grit running track of the school's grass-banked stadium. On that and the nearby Pitch 2, the first-teams did their practise. Both my brothers will remember that we were always sent right out to Pitch 8 for our begrudging, risible, pathetic football, where we froze to death in our shorts and gloveless hands, praying for it to all be over.

My office.

No such torture though on Saturday for we stone masons. Riding to the rescue came the ladies and our little 3-year-old helper, the 'catering department' armed with extremely welcome and deliciously meaty warm pasties, sandwiches, apple turn overs and hot drinks. We FELL on the goods and wolfed them down. We were quickly back to feeling human again, restored to a second wind, though we did not have that much more to do. We finished off, cleaned the gear and tidied up - we have to bring the mixer, genny etc out with us in the van as there is nowhere secure to leave it on site. It was a good day. We were both delighted to retreat to our separate homes and get out of the wet coats and clothing. I even had a fire going by the time Liz returned from her own morning's work, volunteering in the pop-up craft shop.

My English readers may not be aware of one particular Irish institution and 'national treasure', the most popular chat show on Irish TV, known as the Late Late Show. This airs every Friday evening but on the last showing of November gives itself over to the children, Christmas and a million TOYS and becomes for one week only the "Late Late Toy Show". It attracts the biggest viewing figures ever (around 1.9 million which may not seem much compared to a 'Fools and Horses' Christmas Special in the UK but is almost one third of the whole population here). The children are chosen from all round the country and they come to sing and dance, demonstrate the toys and generally make mayhem in the big studio. It's a hoot and we always try to watch it.

Another nice artisan beer I have found, Kevin Dundon's.

I love particularly the section they do on farm toys, which this year gave space to two superbly farmer's son types. One was showing off the toy tractors and farm machines and professed to be a fan of John Deere though he did say that his best friend would not agree with him and the two regularly had ding dong arguments about whether Massey Ferguson were better. This JD/MF rivalry is as fierce in farming circles as when the petrol heads set to discussing Porsches vs. Ferraris or Jeeps vs. Land Rovers and our lad here coined the expression "Fear the Deere".

The geese are still pumping out a few eggs.

These shows are always followed by the Social Media crowd, especially Twitter, with everybody 'tweeting' comments in real time as they watched the show, and the 'Fear the Deere' was quickly taken up by the delighted followers. Even show presenter, Ryan Tubridy said there ought to be a tee-shirt with that on. John Deere would be fools not to exploit it! The 2nd 'farmer's son' was a superbly chubby, rosy cheeked, be-hatted lad who ended up doing a brilliant, 2 minute rap around a tractor stopping but the funniest aspect for me was that I couldn't understand more than about 3 words of it. Excellent TV.