One Star on 'Trip Advisor'

When you're on holidays and you need your hair
done and you conveniently brought Mum along.

This post comes with a Health Warning regarding itself and possibly future posts. My trusty Dell 'tower' PC, at more than 10 years old, brought over from UK with us, may be about to expire. If it does, there may be an interruption in transmissions on here, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. If I suddenly go quiet, don't worry for me. We will sort the tech out and get back on line as soon as possible.

The guests battled over goose eggs for breakfast.

My symptoms, should you be of a techie mind-set are an 'American Megatrends' screen appearing on boot-up. AM produce the bios chips that sit behind your 'Windows' stuff and , in theory you can solve this by changing a small flat, coin-size battery on the board. My experts think I may have gone beyond that, and my board is no longer charging the battery, so even if I change it, I will only 'live' a couple months more.

On Day 10, Polly takes her twins out onto the front lawn so they
can stretch their legs. They are soon racing about.

No problem. We have a handy solution - lose the PC, I inherit the laptop which is currently nominally Elizabeth's, and we treat herself to a shiny new tablet. I will also borrow the laptop in the interim so that the world is not deprived of my twaddle. I knew you'd be delighted!

Expert stock-man training. Danielle learns to lean professionally
on the fence and watch the sheep.

What of this 'Trip Advisor' header, though? In our house growing up, Mum (Pud Lady) was always the main cook and our family in-joke way of expressing pleasure at her marvellous food was something like "Mmmmm.... I will DEFINITELY be visiting this restaurant again!"

The girls hit the local fund-raising pub quiz. They came 3rd, only
3 points down on the winning table.

The modern version of this here, when we are visited by Danielle (plus Dan or, in this case, her Mother, Cathy) is that they pretend they are going to write us up on that website belovéd of travellers, stayers in guest houses and diners in restaurants, ( https://www.tripadvisor.ie/ ) Trip Advisor. This is a site where members of the public can write attractions up with star-ratings and, because it is all open and unsupervised, it can all get a bit brutal with little tiny disappointments and grudges getting aired.

If Danielle gets exactly the breakfast she desires (e.g. dippy goose eggs) she sighs out a contented "5 stars on Trip Advisor!" If we 'fail' in some way she gives us a twinkly eye'd dark accusing look and mutters (I promise jokingly) "1 star on Trip Advisor.... just saying...". All good clean fun; we are not even on Trip Advisor (as far as we know!)

Dippy Goose Eggs. The stuff of 5-star write-ups
on Trip Advisor?

Regular readers will know that the guest came this time in expectation of the usual good food, drink and hospitality but we dreamed that we might also be able to supply a successful lambing, a fox in a trap and a possible hatch of duckling eggs.  Well, the hard numbers will show that we failed to deliver on all 3 of these. Every morning on livestock rounds we found the trap empty and unsprung, and pregnant ewe Rosie piled into her breakfast like a girl not thinking maternal thoughts that day. The incubator stayed quiet and duckless. 1 star might be our fate after all.

The Parma-style ham is nearly all gone. 

Still, the guests had a great stay and loved it all anyway. Cathy learned some cooking techniques and how to make sourdough bread. We sent her home with a little starter culture to begin her own line. Danielle saw plenty of livestock action including running Polly and her 10 day old twins out for their first explore of the front lawn paddock. Liz and Cathy diverted off to Silverwood land on Sunday to attend the party following nephew Morgan's Confirmation and for Cathy to catch up with all the Irish relatives.

The first lamb's tiny front hooves appear at the 'exit'

If you follow us on FB or Twitter, you will know that the guests' run to Knock Airport for their flights home was the ewe Rosie's cue to start the long awaited lambing. They left at around 10 am and missed all the excitement by only 5 hours. They were spitting. We had to furnish them with plenty of pictures, text updates and (a new 'attraction' for this Guest House) video clips.

A (black) head emerges, bundled in membranes, and some
(paler) woolly neck. 

Actually being there for the whole thing was a lovely, thrilling new experience for me. I'd only gone out to scrub the wellies used by Danielle clean, and when I looked in on Rosie I could see that she was finally in the lying down, canted over with neck stretched up "star-gazing" position. We were on. This was quickly confirmed by the big whoosh of liquid and ropey membranes passed out, the big, pink, enlargement of the dilating vulva and the rapid emergence of the two, tiny, white-hooved front feet.

First born (ram) gets expertly licked clean. 

Rosie was a first time Mum so I'd been worried about all manner of problems (all except the one we actually got, in fact!) and sheepy friends chatting on social media had, of course, delighted in telling me all their horror stories and heroic rescues (thanks people!). My delight was well seasoned with relief, then, when Rosie shot the first one out like a sausage from a hot dog.

I had reached to gently grab it in case she needed help but the lamb came apart from the ewe "in my hands, guv". I only had to clear membranes from it's face and then swing it gently to start the breathing, before I could put it down in front of a rather surprised Mum, who quickly started licking it clean like a pro. Elizabeth actually caught this on video. The clip is on FB and Twitter and I sound, on the soundtrack, as childishly excited as a kid at Christmas. I was.

The new twins. Rosie only wanted the one, thank you very much

All shepherds know that the 30 minutes it takes the ewe to lick the new baby clean gives the uterus time to take a breather but then start labour on any 2nd lamb. That bit went OK and the 2nd lamb, a ewe-lamb, came out as quickly, cleanly and neatly as her brother. At this point we started to have a problem. That may be enough for this post, however, so I will be very brief and expand on this in the next post. The ewe is "supposed" to stop licking lamb #1 and transfer her attentions to #2, giving both fair treatment and bonding. Rosie was having none of it. Don't put THAT in front of me.... I HAVE the only lamb I want and it's right here. No! I insist. TAKE IT AWAY.

Hazel catkins

In brief, she rejected it outright despite my pleading, trying to persuade her, putting the new one in between her nose and the first born. She refused to lick it and even started to head-butt it away. We sought advice from all our tame 'experts' and helped it to get 4 good feeds from the uncooperative Rosie (by gently holding her against the pen side while we sneaked the lamb in out of view.). However by 8 pm we could see that this was not going to work and the new lamb would stay cold, wet, confused and unloved, plus possibly injured or killed by Mum unless we rescued her indoors, towelled her dry, and started bottle feeding her. Welcome to the world of bottle fed 'pet' lambs. She's doing OK, a day and a bit later but, as I said, more on that in the next post (if there is one!). We also have a first hatch of chicken chicks in that same shed. Too late for that Trip Advisor review, though, I suppose.

Mind the Bike

Dan and Dan sign the Register in a gently rocking
environment. 

Friends of the Blog, frequent visitors and happy couple, Dan and Dan(ielle) were last seen about to take that stroll up The Aisle on board a cruise ship somewhere in the Med. Congratulations you guys; you obviously nailed it and sent us a rake of pictures to prove it. You both look splendid and look to be having a having a whale of a time. The very happiest and brightest of futures to both of you and we hope to see you again soon in your new guises and Mr and Mrs Dan. Thank you for sharing the day with us via social media.

Meanwhile, back in Roscommon, we are all feeling a bit quiet and subdued after the departure of "our Spanish lads", the Help-X pair, Manu and Pedro. They have moved on to a smallholding with horses near Blessington and we hope they are enjoying themselves  (almost) as much as they did here. They tell me there is no broad-band there, though, so they are reduced to text messaging and so on. We have written them a good review on the Help-X website and they may well write one about us. It should all help both parties find work or workers next year.

2 kinds of Spanish ham

We have been enjoying the wonderful 'stuff' the boys left in their wake and not just the 2 kinds of Spanish ham they surprised us with as their final act before getting into the car for their run to the railway station, one a big fat salami sausage, the other finely sliced 'Serrano' type ham.

Totem man carved by the lads

We've also been wandering round with big grins on our faces at the extremely tidy, parkland type look of our place and at the 'Easter Island Man' totem pole fella just inside our gate.

Back to normal for us, then (or what counts for normal round here), tidying, post-visit blitzing (tho' the guys were very tidy and generated very little mess) , a mountain of postponed laundry and ironing, repairing a couple of tools which did not survive the boot-camp, shopping and that sort of thing.

Puff balls

The old redundant, grassed over cow-muck heap behind what is now our goose house, celebrated by yielding half a dozen nice fresh white puff-balls. These have appeared before but we have never bothered with them and left them to go 'puff' with their dark green spores.

Lentils with sliced runner beans and puffball as part of a curry
menu. 

This time, I dived on 3 of them and brought them in to see if we could do a 'Food for Free' forage recipe. Liz quickly rattled up some recipes off the Internet and the puffballs have appeared for a couple of nights now as the 'mushroom' part of various dishes. We agree with the Internet advice that they have a very delicate (absent?) flavour and are best used "as tofu" as a creamy bland base for other flavours.

Beeblebrox's ever bigger chicks. 

I suppose I should quickly add a Health Warning for anyone reading this and trying to follow suit. Wild mushrooms and toadstools can be very poisonous and can be difficult to ID one from another. Small puffballs can look a lot like the scary 'Amanita' toadstool when it is still inside it's 'cowl' so you should always slice your prospective puffball in half down the middle to check that you have an amorphous white lump, not an embryonic mushroom- shaped structure about to burst out of it's ball-shaped cover. Also, make sure you are eating these guys fresh and white. Any discolouration of the flesh and they have gone over and may not be safe.

Honda Gold Wing under cover

Just for a change, we have been minding an enormous motor bike for some friends. It has gone 'home' now, so I am safe to reveal the fact. These are new friends, Les and Jean who are just starting in the Irish Smallholding game. They have bought the place a few km due south of here and have dropped in a couple of times to drop stuff and do a few bits, but they have not yet nailed down the immigration/changing jobs/money side of things. Jean is still working in the UK and Les is only at leisure because his work involves a school, so he is on Summer Hols.

How much dashboard do you need on a bike?

We got the bike to mind while they were both going to be away from their new place. We are not bikers but I had, at least heard of this beast, the Honda Gold Wing (Lead Wing to its detractors because of the weight).

Thunbergia.

It is a huge 'touring' style beast with very comfy leather armchair seats and a cocoon of panniers, boxes and storage baskets. The dashboard is a ridiculously well equipped panel like a plane cockpit with stereo speakers included. The engine, at 1500 cc is 50% bigger than the one in our car and the bike has a reverse gear! Launched in 1979 (Les tells me) these beasts are still for sale new but with an 1800 cc engine and costing around £24,000 (Sterling). So, a lot more than a new Fiat Panda then! No thanks, Bikers, you can keep that one. Les's isn't new, of course but he tells me he sold a classic old convertible Jag to find the money to buy this one.

Liz is producing some lovely clean carcasses and the birds are
making good weights. The last 4 have been 2.2, 2.5, 2.8 and
2.9 kg respectively. Not bad for 72 day old fowl.

Finally, as the Hubbard birds come up to 70 days old, we have started "harvesting" them in earnest. This is rather early compared to the advised age for full free-range ("slow grown") ones but we want to off them all by Liz's Birthday, so we have been sorting 2 a day. By now Liz is skillful enough at the plucking and dressing that the birds come out a lovely clean carcass and the last 4 have made very good weights oven ready; 2.2, 2.5, 2.8 and 2.9 kg.

These Lidl supermarket "cheapie" lilies have been a revelation.
In their tub just outside the front door, Liz tells me she can smell
them 15 feet away while pruning the roses and if we leave the
front door open, their scent fills the house. 

Amazingly, this batch of 12 chicks contained only one rooster. The chances of that would be 1 in 4096 (0.5 times 0.5, 12 times) but it doesn't really matter when you are only growing the birds for 70-80 days. The roosters may go slightly bigger but not much and we are more than happy with our 5-6 lb birds. 5 lb is way more than we two need for a meal, so most of them end up jointed up and the freezer fills up with bags labelled "4 Hubbard thighs" or what ever. It is, as ever, the most delicious, meaty and succulent chicken you are ever likely to eat. If you can, you smallholders, try to get hold of these Hubbard day-olds as your raw material for chicken-meat birds.

That is about it for this one. Catch up with you next time.