Stirring it Up.... Early

Stir It Up..... Christmas Pudding Mix

Normally we would be looking to make up our Christmas Pudding mixes on the 'proper' day, "Stir Up Sunday" which, as you will probably know falls on the last Sunday before Advent. This year that is the 20th November. However, this year Liz wanted to make extra puds to give away as Christmas presents, one of which will be going to some UK visitors who are here soon; way too soon to have a pud mixed on 20th November.

...because sometimes you need to leave yourself a reminder
for the next morning.

So as I sit here writing this on a Tuesday evening with Liz off at knitting club and then drama group, I am actually supervising three puds 'blupping' away gently in three different places. this just to make sure nobody boils dry. I have to turn off the hob pair at 10 p.m. but the slow-cooker one can keep on a-going till Liz gets home. The house seems to be acknowledging that Christmas is just around the corner (though we are not ones for early decorating or playing any Christmas songs till much nearer the day).

One of the puds simmering gently (lid removed for photo)

This very mild, food-based, Christmas feeling is also spreading to our sense of 'harvest time'. I like to get all the killing done by the Solstice (21st Dec) because then I can go into Christmas in a constructive frame of mind, not a destructive one. I mentally turn a corner on that date and start my getting ready for Spring. We have started to "finish" (that aul' euphemism!) the Hubbard meat-birds who are currently on day 93; you may recall that we try to finish them all between days 80 and 100 so that they a big and meaty but still very young and tender. Superb meat. So tasty and succulent.

Hubbard carcasses. These two were 2.4 and 2.7 kg oven-ready

This year I am mildly concerned that following a good 'harvest' of our pork and our lambs, the freezers are a bit full to be accepting a dozen biggish chickens but Liz is calm and tells me not to fret. "Keep on killing them", she says, "and I will keep on plucking them, dressing them, jointing, packing and freezing them". She shuffles up the smaller items already frozen to make more space and immediately capitalizes on any vacant places gained by us whipping out a joint, a frozen left-overs tub or a bottle of stock.

Rolled Rib Roast of pork

Reading Anne's blog, she found that this batch were unusual in their inconsistent oven-ready weights. "There is a wide range of weights", she writes, "with these latest birds which are supposed to be Hubbards, a slow growing strain. They have ranged in weight from six and a half pounds (2.94 kg) to nine pounds three ounces (4.17 kg). We really  do have our doubts as to whether they were in fact Hubbards. None of our previous batches have weighed so much yet they were reared and fed exactly the same as previous batches". We have killed our biggest 4 roosters here so far, with weights ranging from 2.4 to 2.7 kg - the hen birds all look quite a bit smaller.

With Charlotte now off in Dublin working for a living (good
luck Charlotte!) I had to clip my own dogs. I know! Outrageous!

My other comment on them would be about the dirtiness of them. Regular readers will know that this year, to avoid wading through lazy, over-fed Hubbard poults (and their poo!) as soon as we stepped out of the kitchen into the yard, I confined them to a pen out by the 5-Acre field-gate. They quickly mashed this ground to a muddy desert and, not being ones for perching or roosting up out of the wet, they ended up more brown than white and looking very bedraggled.

Liz enjoying Mum's car. 

I shovelled in no end of shredded wood to try to dry them out and eventually let them out fully free range so they could walk the clean, green grass. Their upper sides and backs were quickly cleaner but the damage was done on their bellies and breasts, their feathers worn and mudded to discoloured "stubble" which was not a lot of fun for Liz to pluck out. I don't know what the answer is to this - it rained so much through August and September. Ah well, they look OK as carcasses with all those soiled feathers gone and in the bin, and they were happy and healthy enough despite the muddy pen.

These 6 youngsters escaped into the lane once too often and
the owner decided to take them 'home'

The local cattle have all been taken 'home', the ones who rent the land surrounding ours. As they ran out of grass in the field, they started trying to push through the fences and hedges to get at the greener grass beyond. This happens and is normal (I am told) and it is usually the youngsters who get out first because they are smaller.

Walking our summer guests home.

Several times last week I'd return from a dog walk or drive and find the lane "filled" with calves all happily grazing the verges (the "Long Acre") and helped by either random passers by or Liz, we'd be rounding them up and shepherding them back into their field. Each time I'd text the owner but then send him another text to say "sorted". The owner had been hanging on as long as possible because these Mums and children run with the bull (young cousin of the original 'Felix') and he did not want the bull mixing it with the ladies he already had nearer home.

Those 'kattens' are due their operations this week. We don't
want any dodgy brother-sister incest. 

Eventually even he got fed up with all the escapes and came down with a small crew of walkers and followers (plus vehicles) to take everybody home. We'll miss them and, with the land now having changed hands, that will be the last time we see them. We got quite good at shepherding the calves about.

That is pretty much it for this one. I was hoping to get some pics of the 'super-moon' - last night's full moon which was meant to be the closest to earth (and therefore biggest and brightest) for 70 odd years. Well, Roscommon did it's usual 10/10 cloud and misty morning so there was no moon to see that night. I did get a glimpse of it on my morning rounds as the sun burned off the mist on the 5-Acre field to our west. That would have been about 07:45 and almost full daylight. I could have probably got a pale photo but, hey, had my hands full of bird food and sheep crunch. Such is life.

Bull and Barrel

Feeling a bit sorry for the guy (Mike the Cows) who rents the fields next door because he only had a scrappy warning sign up (faded felt pen on old hardboard) I decided to do him a secret favour, nicked his sign and painted him a decent one. He won't know it's me, and I don't even know if a) he's putting his cows in there this year and b) running Felix the Bull with them. I have now sneaked the sign back up and we are wondering whether anyone will comment, or suss us, and if so how soon. Hee hee! 

The sign looks very smart and quite professional. The white is just some exterior woodwork undercoat. The red gloss was left over from painting the Utility Room door and the dark green was just a small tin of wood preserving stuff useful for the rabbit hutches. The red was dabbed on using a half inch gloss brush salvaged from my jar of old brushes. The finer stuff was done with a set of kiddies 'art' brushes got from a local shop for €1.99. No expense spared! The design was just scratched out in pencil and then lashed in free-hand; hence it is a bit wobbly in places. 

Mike, though, does need to attend to his fences if he is going to put Felix and the gang back in there. I don't think I've ever seen such a rat's nest of scrappy barbed wire, rotting posts and baler twine set to hold back 800 kg (or so) of Charolais bull (and his wives and children).

I have now made and installed the Mk 2 version of the goose bath. The geese, you will recall, were using a temporary arrangement made from 4 lengths of timber and old plastic sheeting. This worked OK and the geese enjoyed it, but geese, although they have webbed feet, do still have claws on the end of each toe, which are reasonably sharp. The geese eventually puncture the sheeting and the water drains away. 

All around here, in almost every field, the locals use a type of blue barrel cut in half as food bowls and drinkers for cattle, sometimes plumbed in with loo-cistern style float valves and standing in posh frames. I tracked a supply of these barrels down to a local agricultural supplies place in Castlerea. They are 25 gallon capacity and nice tough plastic. 

They are empty but sometimes have the last 'dregs' of what ever was in them, still in there. Unfortunately (and rather alarmingly) few still have their labels on them, so you have no idea what this might be. One barrel in 'our' pile said simply 'flouride' and the shop guy had no idea what was in them. His attitude seemed to be 'buyer beware - at your own risk'. We believe they may be 'food grade' as an embossed mark on the plastic says "Do not refill with Food Grade product". The huge number of them around the local farms made me wonder whether they might be an ingredient in the local animal-feed milling industry. 

Ours proved to have a small amount of a white, milky, odourless liquid in it which diluted down with my rinse-water and was 'lost' as safely as we could. The insides of the barrel also seem to have some kind of wax protection, presumably to stop the contents picking up plastic taints, or the contents attacking the plastic of the barrels and becoming contaminated with residues. We scrubbed this off as best we could with hot soapy water. It then remained just to sink the half barrel into the ground and fill with water - three buckets in the barrow three times. We have sited the new 'bath' near the bottom of the orchard so that when I have to bale it out to clean it the water can run off harmlessly under the hawthorn hedge, though this made for a long walk with the water-laden barrow. We then steered the geese down past it so that they'd know it was there. 

We will see how it goes. That was yesterday. Today I fed the geese some sprouted wheat close by the bath and saw them drinking and head-bathing in/from it but we have not actually seen them climb in for a paddle about. If they do, this will be, we think, the first time they have ever been in water deep enough to swim on so it might be a bit alarming for them. 


Finally, just a quick picture of me on the sofa surrounded by the dogs. Poppy is on my lap, Towser on my shoulder and Deefer sitting by my side. We'd lit the Living Room fire that day, so we were as warm as toast and recovering from the jolly gardening and dog-walking. 

The Comings and Goings of Cows

We are now, to all intents and purposes, surrounded by land grazed by Mike the Cows's Charolais herd. Well, mainly Charolais, the nearly white beef breed, but the group of 20 or so does include a couple of black Angus and some more Hereford-y gingery beef animals with the Hereford white face. Those are Charolais crosses. The bull, Felix, is purebred Charolais. Many of these girls have calves at foot, and/or are in calf at the moment. They will be taken back to Mike's Grand-dad's farm to actually have their calves, which won't be long now. They are very broad in the beam.

You'll already know that I drive Mum and Dad nuts by my regular chasing out across the fields to the west of us to shout at the cows if I think they are coming too close to our gate. I get up quite close to the cows. They mainly ignore me but occasionally I have to nip back a bit quick because one of the Mums has a little go at charging at me, especially if I'm a bit close to one of the calves.

We have now (on Monday) opened up the gap at the bottom of the east field now that we have the new cow-proof fence keeping the beasties off the garden and the lane. The grass in the east field, not grazed at all this year, is nice and long, if a little infested with docks and rushes but it's a welcome bite for the cows who were struggling a bit on the short, over-grazed land around us owned by Vendor Anna L and grazed almost continuously through the Summer.

The pups are getting quite interested in all this cow activity and I have sometimes tried to lead them astray into the cow fields but they are not that brave yet, and seem to take my barking as a cause for concern, so they don't come that far into the field and nip bacvk a bit smartish if Dad does his "Pupuppuppuppup!" shout.

Inside Out

As we get more and more sorted inside the new place, we also start to broaden our horizons. We meet some neighbours. All through the project we have had regular visits from a local old boy who we only ever see driving his John Deere tractor. John Deere Bob, we've Christened him. He was very curious about us and our moves to do up the old house which he's known from his youth. He knew the previous owners, TK-Min and TK Max plus the three sisters. He seems delighted with what we've done and very impressed by what we've achieved and he loves the warmth, brightness and dryness of the finished place. Our other neighbour, Una, says "there was never any warmth in that house..." There is now! Mike the Cows finally gets round to letting his animals into the surrounding fields and also does a deal with Dad whereby we get our fields 'topped' (mowed down to 3-4" including the rushes) and Dad gets his allotment bit ploughed if Mike is allowed to electric fence off our 1.5 acre field to the east of us, and graze that. The cows are a purebred Charolais bull called Felix, complete with ring through his nose, about a dozen Charolais girls, some with young calves at foot, plus a few random hangers on including a dark bullock and a couple of darker heifers. These boys and girls amble around in the neighbouring fields and when we can get away with it we (Coco comes too, but the H can't be bothered) like to go shout at them. We never get too close because they are very big. usually they ignore us and just keep chewing the cud or lying down looking at us vacantly, but sometimes they all get up and start walking or half-trotting towards us, which sends us scurrying to and through the gate. I'm brave, but not that brave! Work moves from the indoors to the 'grounds. Dad finally un-boxes his chainsaw, assembles it on the dining room table and then takes it out for a try. It's a good weapon and we now have a source of logs for the stove. Dad hires a couple of skips and we can throw the pile of builders rubbish and left over thermal panel offcuts into it. We finally have a clear view of the front of the house, and from the terrace out across the lawn. The grass is damaged in places where the rubble was stored, so Dad rotovates up these patches, rakes it smooth and re-seeds with grass. Mum, who has always wanted a box hedge but never really got one going in Faversham, finally gets her chance at the kerb edge between front lawn and terrace. While he's got the rotovator out Dad tills a nice bed along this edge for Mum to plant in the rooted cuttings. That should get away nicely. A new face appears, another neighbour, Eileen C, welcoming us to the village and bearing gifts of a little auricula cutting and a photo (above) of the house taken in 2000 when the white outside paint was obviously still quite new and fresh, and the drive not yet overgrown with grass. Deefs

Bye Bye Felix

Felix runs out of lives and luck today. His bulging cheek diagnoses out as a big tumour, and Dad makes the decision to have him put to sleep while he's still under sedative for the examination. The Vet says it is a good decision and that she'd have done the same if it was her own cat.

Dad collects him and brings him home after work, and prepares a burial hole in the old chicken run alongside the damson bush. When Mum gets home they bury him, still in the towel from the basket in which he went to the Vet. It's a shady spot down there among the fruit trees, so they will plant suitable plants to mark the spot - probably anenomes and woodruff

Felix had a good, healthy, long and happy life, and a dignified, pain free end. You can't really ask for more than that for a cat, can you?

I was confused and curious when the basket came home, and had to go have a look and a sniff where Dad put it on the terrace table. I couldn't understand why Felix would not come out, and I sniffed him again as he was being carried down the garden. He was a good friend and an endless source of chase games and larking to me, especially when I was younger - suddenly breaking into a scampering run up the garden or up the stairs, easily outpacing me, especially on the slippery laminate floors.

You were a good mate, Felix, and I'll miss you.

Deefs

In Safe Hands

It is not looking good for Felix our poor old hand-me-down, rescue, discovered-in-a-dustbin-when-a-kitten, black and white cat. He is currently at our very capable vets and will be sedated and examined in the morning, but it's almost certain he has a cheek/throat/nasal tumour and will probably not be reversed out of anaesthetic. Don't give up on him yet - there's an outside chance it's a treatable abcess, but don't get your hopes up either.

He's had a good life, Bless him, after an unlikely start. Mum's sister, "Mrs Silverwood" found him in the dustbin at the old Shell filling station in Rainham, where she used to work. He was found along with his litter-mates, in a very sorry state. She passed them to the Cats' Protection League (more power to their elbows - a bunch of heroes if ever there was!) but asked, when they'd done what they needed to do to return them to health, wean them and neuter them, could she have the little black and white one back.

Years later, when they moved to Ireland, it was Foot and Mouth year, so no livestock could go with them, and we inherited him. Then when Diamond wanted an affectionate cat he fitted the bill, so Felix went to live with her for a while. She, as you know, then got Asbo (Rags), the dog, and the two loved being pup and cat together. But then Asbo started to get a bit to heavy on poor Felix, who got upset and too anxious to go on the floor. So we rescued Felix again and he's been with us since - and is now approaching his 14th year.

Wish him luck, poor old fella. He's going to need it
Deefer

Jack Frost nippin' at your nose

Freezing evenings and cold frosty mornings. Proper frost to scrape off the car in the morning before Dad can start driving. First thing Dad does when he gets home is lay the fire. A pure indulgence - the house has central heating and in fact (Says Dad) the thermostat is in the dining room where the fire is, so the fire heats the thermostat, the heating turns off and the rest of the house goes cold!

Never mind, we (That's especially Mum, but also all three dogs and both cats, plus Dad) love a coal and log fire, so here's a pic of us stretched out tonight after our walk. Mississippi on the left, me centrally (natch!) and Felix right. Look carefully* and you can also see Haggis peering round the fire breast on the (oops - very grubby) dog bed to the right. Look even more carefully and you can see, bottom left a small fragment of Meggie (trust me! it is!). Dad is taking this shot. Mum is sitting at the dining table just out of shot to the right, reading a book, warming her "kiddlies". A blissful Friday night, when all's said and done. The entire family enjoying a real fire.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

ps -* I assume, dear reader, that you've sussed that if you click on the pics here you can expand them up to full screen size and even save them down to your own machine.

A Delicious Roll

Some nice pics for you today. I am hoping that following deep research which established that they will appear in the blog in the reverse order to that in which they were uploaded, I can describe them in a sensible order.

The day starts with a lovely walk through Challock Forest - all dried, crunchy, rustly autumn leaves and opportunities to scurry about. Also a chance for a gorgeous delicious roll in the leaves to pick up all the scents a dog could possibly need. Pic 1 is of Meggie (left) and the H walking towards the camera. Pic 2 has Haggis (bottom of shot) and my good self rolling in the leaves.

I am back in the doo-doo having chewed the sole liners out of one of Mum's favourite comfy shoes , so Dad (if he wants to live, apparently) has to get in touch with a guy called the "Shoe Doctor". It's a dog thing. I cannot tell a lie. I did chew up the shoe.

Exhausted from our Challock walk we are delighted that Dad has decided that winter is here and has bought in coal and logs for some real fires. Here is a pic of myself (left) and the H stretched out in front of it

Fianlly, after 3 years of yowling and hissing at each other as soon as one got near the other, the two cats seem to have settled their differences and are now able to sleep together, curled up on the carver chair, much to the amazement of the humans. So here is photographic evidence of Felix (black and white) and Mississippi (brindled) in case we all wake up in the morning and think we've dreamed it!

Have a great weekend

Wound up by the continuing fireworks

Deefer

Sentry Duty

There are plenty of perfectly good beds in the house - dog, cat and human. Felix though, has decided his favourite place of all is an old shopping box just inside the living room. Here he stands (or sits or lies) guard as if he was a sentry on duty.

We suspect this may be a "Diamond" thing. Perhaps she is secretly twisting her animals heads. Felix once belonged to Diamond, and Diamond's dog, the famous Asbo, has also spurned all clean, new, reputable looking beds in their house , in favour of a beaten up ol' cardboard box, into which he has dragged an old bit of dog-blanket and a few chewed toys. He loves it like nowhere else on this earth. The more tired and frayed it gets around the edges, the more he loves it. It is his spiritual home. He looks like he should have a bit of old bailer twine round his neck in lieu of a collar, and be lying (in his box) alongside some poor homeless soul under a sooty railway arch in Chelsea.

Meanwhile, here, we are deserted by Mum, who is in Portmarnock, and even the Angel B and Jim, so while Dad's at work, Ken and Jackie, neighbours from the other side, come and let us out for our lunch time "comfort stop".

Just for the one night though- Mum's back tonight

Deefer

Felix

Felix, it turns out, has a bit of an infection, to go with his being 104 years old and having rubbish teeth. Nice Italian vet-lady looked him all over, took his temperature, and then shot him full of pain killers and anti-biotics. Poor cat - got a 2 week jab, and no tablets

Megan has long since persuaded Dad that the best way to give her her daily Cushings tablet (Vetoryl), is wrapped in a neat mini-ravioli "cushion" of either the cheese or ham with which he is filling his packed lunch sarnies, or buried in a tea-spoon full of cat food. House rules being what they are, of course, treat for one dog means treat for all dogs, so we (naturally) have to also have a piece of the afore-said cheese or ham. 2 week jab! Hah! Never was a very bright cat.

It's the weekend. Enjoy it
Deefer

That Australia.. gotta be here somewhere

Fit and active types, that's what we are! Up early in the morning sunshine for a nice long walk, then with Mum and Dad around most of the day we're in and out of the garden. We're going to sleep well tonight. Dad was up the allotment first, planting peas and runners, sowing carrots, parsnips, salsify and chard, onions and leeks; then the pair of them were down here in the garden doing sweet peas etc. The pic is of me helping to re-empty a hole dug by Dad wheich he had carelessly refilled with soil. I am 6 inches deep at this stage and busted by camera. Looking for that Australia

We all adjourn indoors for the Boat Race which "we" won (so I'm told, by Dad, although there seems to be some debate on this from Mum, who favours the dark blues. She is of a literary bent and it seems PG Wodehouse went to Oxford, or so I understand it.).

My other pic is of Felix looking very handsome and "classic" in cat outline.

By the way, I am now trusted with the run of the house when humans are away, due to my (let's not tempt fate here) current low incidence of puddles in the hall and recent absence of Richard the Thirds indoors. They have even removed the bin-of-bricks that denied me access up the narrow passage to the cat flap to outdoors. This is good because it also means that the elderly Mississippi can come and go more freely, she being a dame in her Autumn Years and not happy to be leppin' over tall obstacles.

Have a Great Easter

Deefer

In the Doghouse for Cat-Based Crimes

Look at these two smug beggars! Felix on the left, Mississippi on the right. They are the cause of my current misfortune! Yes, the honeymoon period is over and I am in the doghouse again

I protest, Members of the Jury! It does not seem such a crime to chase Felix around and it really was great fun when he sprayed all over me and the .. um... main human bed. Not so much fun when I was discovered , but beautifully fragrant meantime.

Nor, indeed, to have a go at tidying up Mississippi's poo from the cat litter. I was only trying to be helpful, yer 'Onour, when I was seen scurrying down the hall with a great big hard "Richard the Third" in my mouth, heading for my bed

And that's another thing. I am, allegedly joint-owned by Mum and Dad, so why did Mum yell through to Dad "Your bl***y dog has git a lump of cat sh** in her mouth"

I hear on the grapevine that bro' Archie is recovering well from his leg injury and is back to all 4 cylinders. Also that, just like me, he loves to pester his Dad when same is sitting on the "throne" in the morning. Only unlike me, who tries to climb into the throne bowl - Archie's thing is apparently the bath. Dad has to lift him into the bath where he either attacks the dripping water, or curls up happily in the bottom of the bath and goes to sleep while his Dad concentrates. Also, allegedly LOVES being bathed - the water, the shower head, the splashing, the shampoo...... Are you SURE he's my brother?

Deefs