Judith and Vicky

Help-X-er Judith turns out to be a nimble whizz at the tiny
Origami. Here are 3 crane-birds with normal dice for scale

Busy people. The biggest pieces of news for this post have got to be that we successfully "landed" our two latest Help-X volunteers and saw Auntie Mary (The Nun) off on her final journey. The other jobs have all been a slow chug through that "ever extending task list" detailed in my previous post, none of which are particularly blog-worthy.

Judith gets loved up by Poppea and Towser

The Help-X lasses are Judith and Vicky, 2 Berlin-born medical students just at the end of their 5 years of 'basic training', now completed (successfully, they believe) their final exams and released for a while to party, travel, enjoy themselves and find hospitals to work in where they can do a 4-part 'rotation' round possible speciality areas of medicine for their chosen careers. One fancies radiology, the other "internal medicine" (e.g. surgery).

Vicky with Towser.

They are both, currently at Lübeck University Hospital in far-north Germany. The rotation, 4 chunks of 3 months, does not have to happen in Lübeck, and Judith has plans to do one chunk on the French owned island of Reunion, just off Madagascar. As I've said before, these Help-X-ers get about. Ireland is chicken-feed!

Ah the mowing!

They are very similar in appearance, both being tall and slim, with similar hair styles and colouring, and both wearing glasses, so that I struggled for the first day to tell t'other from which, but I have now sorted them, Judith is slightly fairer of hair than Vicky. They are both delightful and also very keen and hard working. Exhausted when they arrived, they enjoyed a light supper but then retreated to their room where they managed an 11 hour sleep and still got up for my suggested 08:30 breakfast and set to work.

Hidden between the trees, Judith mows the drive banks

Popular first jobs in the dry sunshine were mowing and pulling nettles. Mowing is also a good job to make a rapid visual impact on the tidiness of the place.Even though the grass is not too long anywhere and had been well grazed off by the sheep on the front lawn, it was still looking a bit shaggy. Well, not any more! The girls, in 2 mornings have mowed almost every grass blade we own; front lawn, Primrose Path, drive banks. pond garden orchard and the paths down to the apiary plus along the lane outside (the daffodil verges). Tomorrow they have asked if they might give the dogs hair-washes and shampoos (sorry dogs!). The Lady of the House is never going to turn down an offer like that!

A tidy front lawn.

Welcome aboard, the pair of them. This is working out well and though we will still probably call them our final Help-X volunteers of 2018 (we've run out of jobs!), we will miss them and definitely be doing it again in 2019. Like all these 'travelers' they are fascinating to talk to. One, in this case, is from either side of the Berlin Wall, though they were not even born in 1989 when the wall came down (They are 24), so their 'divided' experience is all parents and grand parents.

A 'Kanzan; flowering cherry tree for the
Auntie Mary Memorial garden

Thursday, then, saw Elizabeth off up to Drogheda and Dundalk, away on the east coast of Ireland, north of Dublin, for the funeral of Auntie Mary, the (Franciscan) Nun (90). She had been asked to source a flowering cherry tree for a memorial garden. Our brilliant local small-business garden centre guy came up with a 'Kanzan' variety tree which nicely fitted the bill. Elizabeth and the various other nieces and nephews are, of course, known to the Nuns from previous visits, who LOVE to be visited by 'outsiders' and her main impression of the day was of being swallowed up by a sea of fluttering little-old-ladies all wanting to make a big welcoming fuss and feed her tea and mountains of good biscuits.

Beech in the Pig Run turning colour.

They were also all invited to stay for a good lunch after the formalities, though they got away with being asked to stay the night (as happened to Mum-in-Law, 'Steak Lady') in voluminous borrowed Nun-nighties which enveloped their bodies from chin to ankle and wrist to wrist. I mentioned 'tea' there - in fact Elizabeth tells that her day was full of cups of tea barely sipped at before she was moved on to be shown the Reading she'd have to do, or to retrieve the cherry tree from the car. She was as thirsty when she got back as if she'd been deprived of tea all day.

Enough, though for this one. In the absence of Mrs C, I must look to livestock and possible supper making. Laters.

A Visit From The Dans

Welcome aboard, Dan and Dan.

As promised, a post mainly about the current visit from Friends of the Blog, 'Dan and Dan(ielle)', a.k.a. "Mr and Mrs Dan". These two have been here before several times, but normally as a rest cure (though once Dan came alone, to write up a Masters thesis). This time they wanted to support us in our hour of need for volunteer labour, so were determined to be more like Help-X students than holiday makers. Most welcome and huge thanks, Dan and Dan. It had been lovely to see them again.

All three dogs adopt Danielle on the black sofa. Here, Deefer
seems to be doing a 'High 5'

They flew in to Knock on a very early flight on Wednesday having been woken up in Milton Keynes by an 0430 alarm. They hired a car at Knock; previously they have brought their own car across on the ferry but that loses them a whole day at either end, travelling.

Danielle on the mower. It was a bit random, but eventually the
mown patches got joined up.

I wasn't at all sure how the 'volunteering' would work out. They are city types with no garden and no experience of the physical jobs we might need doing round here on the small-holding; mowing, splitting logs and so on. Also, these two are family and good friends, so I did not want them to fail at anything or get upset, so I wondered if I might have to be a very gentle 'boss'.

Team effort alternating the mower pushing with the bag empties

In the event, I need not have worried. They are also enviably full of youth, strength and fitness, so they went at every task with enthusiasm, power and increasing skill and speed. They have LOADS done. Despite the early start and long travelling time, the first afternoon had them master the mower and mow the entire pond-garden.

Refreshments near Westport.

Day 2 and we all woke up to heavy drizzle, so mowing was off and the pair decided to go touristing, taking their hire car off to Westport, a look at Achill Island and some of the twisty, mountainy country roads of the "Wild Atlantic Way". They stopped, of course, at the odd pub for refreshments. Some of the pictures in this blog post are theirs, taken on their phones.

Dan getting tight into the edges by the living willow arch/tunnel

Today, then, back onto the treadmill with more work. They really got stuck in; Dan was still mowing at 5 pm! Other jobs today included breaking up the messy stack of old roof timbers from the chicken house into single clean lengths.

Attacking the pile of old roof beams.

This had been cut up as it stood, with all the 'A' shapes and 'T' joints intact, making for a very untidy pile. With Dan on the nail-bar and lump hammer and Danielle putting all the bits together like a giant jig-saw puzzle, the big random heap was quickly re-assembled as a neat efficient stack up on 'skids' out of the wet and flat of top for easy sheeting from the rain.

Dan goes lumberjack on the old hawthorn
hedge

One day I will be fit enough to zoom round it with the chain saw and reduce it to 16" lengths for the range. I pray! The chain saw is one piece of kit I do NOT let the volunteers play with.

The next job was unusual and, I suspect, a unique one locally. Friends of the Blog may recall that we have a decapitated hawthorn hedge up between the front lawn and the 'Primrose Path' and that we also have a ewe (Myfanwy) with an itchy patch in her middle back which we are just now starting to cure. Among the ewe's favourite scratching posts are some of the "overhanging" limbs of the old hedge which she can get right under and itch upwards.We want to put the sheep back on the front lawn (to save the mowing) but we needed to cut off all these offending limbs before we let Myfanwy anywhere near them, or she'd just open up all the nice new tender skin again.

Feast fit for a heart-patient? Don't worry, I
reined it in a bit!

Obviously, this was also a visit by cherished cousins, so the catering dept has also swung into full, 5-star, envelope pushing action. There has been duck in Guinness sauce followed by choc-cake and home made lemon ice cream. There has been a superb, creamy, cidery 'Somerset Pork'. There has been a gorgeous fish pie and a lunch time version of the full Irish (breakfast) fry. These have been well accompanied by interesting salads and side dishes.

Somerset Pork.

Danielle is a cider drinker, so she has been working her way through some local small-brewery, artisan type ciders and Dan loves the local "red ale" style beers, so he's been ranging around those.  I'm still on restricted fluids, so I get to taste these goodies but can only look at these pints getting poured and quaffed. One day......

Good Night all.

Ah well. That is surely enough for this one. Dan and Dan are here with us tomorrow and then head off back for their flight home on Sunday, so more on the  visit in Tuesday's post. Good luck now.

A Long Walk

Scorchio! This was Met Éireann's short-range forecast for
4pm today (29th May)

Scorchio! The island is currently enjoying a very nice, mini-heatwave with temperatures soaring up to 26 and 27ºC. All our friends are delightedly taking pictures of the lanes outside their farms and commenting how different they look from when there were 7' snow drifts only a few weeks ago.

A pleasant surprise in the polytunnel. I don't remember
planting this.

My diary tells me that we have not had any rain since about 3rd May except for one wet night on the 21st, between us shearing our sheep and then doing Sue and Rob's. The ground is as dry as dust and those sheep, which must be very relieved to be 'naked' spend most of the day sleeping under trees in the shade.

Of course, our Help-X volunteer, Laura, who hails from the South of France, is a bit disparaging of our 'heat'; she is more used to 40ºC as 'hot' but we let her away with that as she is still a brilliant help, an absolute boon, a very easy to please guest and very pleasant company. Her current jobs-of-choice are anything to do with mowing and keeping the garden bits spick and span.

This much-abused broom is finally doing colour

She will push that mower for 5 hours and only take breaks when you bully her inside for tea and cake or lunch. Today she was on 'edges' with the shears , edges of lawn, sides of raised beds, all round bases of young trees. We are in danger of looking like manicured parkland.

Laura's new admirer - the male turkey
follows her everywhere. Here she is
actually bring tea out to us but it looks
like she is fetching him some!

She is also what they would describe locally as "a mighty one for the walking". If not pushing a mower for all those hours, she likes to do at least 10 km per day. She walked from here to Ballaghaderreen one day (neither of us have ever tried it - it is a 15 minute car ride!), she climbed Holy Mountain 'Croagh Patrick' one day prior to coming here, having done a 10 km walk in the morning and then on Sunday managed a 4 hour, 20 km one.

Sorry poor photo (bad phone) but can you just
see the 3 foot roundel target 450 feet away down
this path? Nor can I. 

Archery has moved out of doors again for the Summer and our shooting field is almost exactly 20 km from here, south of Castlerea. Laura expressed an interest in coming to see what we were about but asked could she then walk home. We explained that it was 20 km up (gentle) hill and down dale and would take her all afternoon but, no, she knew all that and wanted to do it anyway.

Another fun target for the new outdoor season.
You have to shoot this life-size fox at 40 feet but
THROUGH the car tyre. In front of the stand is a
little owl-model at 20 feet if you need a warm-up.

I suggested that after 2 hours of archery, I would be driving past her on the way home, so I could always rescue her if she'd had enough. Well, I did pass her and stopped to offer a lift but she just smiled sweetly and declined, saying she'd see me later. She eventually wandered in home at ten past six, not a bother on her, as un-tired and un-ruffled as when she had set out. Oh to be 22 again.

3 of Shtumpy's new babies. 

Meanwhile we are enjoying a bit of a population explosion among the baby chickens. In the last post I described our 6 successful hatchings from the grey hen 'Cat Basket Lady'. Next up was our ace Mum with the deformed foot, 'Shtumpy' who managed 2 hatches last year and kept all her charges alive despite her 'disability'. She has just hatched 4 babies from 6 eggs and is now starting to bring them off the nest and show them the ropes.

Laura cooked us this superb apple tart.

This will, we hope, be followed by the 14 duck eggs in the incubator, due 'out' Thursday or soon there after. These are a mix of Sue and Rob's Muscovy ducks (the big meaty, bi-colour birds who are half way to being geese) and our last Khaki-Campbell eggs from just before the final female was out-foxed, plus a few KCs from Sue and Rob to make up the numbers. I don't know what % success to expect here - our KCs have been very low and these are the first Muscovies any of us have tried - but if we get all 14 we will be feeling a bit over-run. Fortunately, it is most unlikely. We may be lucky to get any.

Finally, an even sillier hatch story, and not my finest 'management' hour. Out in the goose-field/orchard, we have a 4' x 2' x 2' nest box intended for ducks, which we call, logically, "The Duck House". This was adopted by one of the hens (Donaldina) 12 days ago to go broody in, so I found her 8 eggs to sit on and promised to lock her up each night safe from the fox. As time went by I suspected that another hen (or more) was nipping in there each morning, bullying Donaldina off the nest and laying her own daily egg into the clutch.

When the politics goes the way you want it to....

I did not get an opportunity to check while there were no birds in there, till today. TWENTY eggs!!! The poor hen can barely spread her 'front' out enough to cover them all. The experienced chicken-keepers among you will also have spotted another problem looming. All the eggs are similar colour (so it's probably one hen repeat laying) so I cannot tell which are the original 8.

Montana putting on a good show.

Come June 7th, Donaldina will have brooded those 8 for the full 21 days but the others for fewer days, so the 8 will hatch (if we are lucky) leaving the nest full of part-developed embryos. If we rescued them to the incubator we might then get one hatching on the 8th, one the 9th and so on. That would be a tricky clutch of babies to manage. Ah well. We shall see. We will cross those bridges when we come to them.

Shtumpy's first hatch,.

There is just one tiny fly in the ointment of our warm days - last night we suffered our first theft from the honesty box. It has been there for months and never an egg or a single cent stolen (as far as I know). Last night, though, some toe-rag cleaned out my money tin and left the dozen eggs in there. It was just 20, 10 and 5 cent coins, total value no more than €1.30, so we'd guess kids, but we don't get any passing kids (on foot anyway) so we'll probably never know. Ah well, guys, who ever you are, don't go spending all that at once now.

Possession is Nine Tenths....

A dog needs a good bone to chew on every now and then, and one's nice clean bed is as good a place as any. If that stupid cat comes too near, he's gonna hear me growl at him (even though Dad says he'd be lucky to be able to lift the thing, never mind steal it.)

Actually this one is (was) Haggis's but he'd had all the good bits off it and couldn't be bothered with it any more and walked away. I had my own bit but... heh... you know the grass is always greener. And now it's in my Haggis-proof shelter. That's Meg out on the terrace with hers - she NEVER gets bored with them. A pup could grow old waiting for her to leave it alone.

They are, by the way, chunks of cow leg - you're looking at the shiny cartilege surfaces of the knee joints.


Another gorgeous hot day. We got our walk nice and early, before the sun got up. We met old John and his elderly collie-cross Maxie. "We" have known John since Dad has had dogs - it was John, in fact who was the first human outside family to make a fuss of Megs as a pup, on their first Rec walk at the age of 12 weeks or whatever. John is one of those blokes who always has a dog-treat in his pocket, so he became a firm favourite with Meggie


The Mum and Dad were off to the forest to help lead a guided Reptile Ramble, properly led by kent reptile expert Dr Lee Brady of Kent Reptile and Amphibian Group ( http://kentarg.org/ . We were left behind. Dad has this theory (can't think why) that inquisitive pups and warmed-up adders are probably not a good mixture. Dad says they saw adders (incuding some nice bright big males - bright because they had recently sloughed skin), lizards and slow worms


They came back via the Goods Shed Farmer's Market in Canterbury http://www.squaremeal.co.uk/restaurants/uk/view/82620/The_Goods_Shed
for supplies of meat (and bones for us). Since then, Dad has been mowing at the allotment and picking raspberries, and we are all now chillin' on the terrace.


It's a good weekend
Deefer