All Quiet

All quiet now that the pigs are gone.

We are enjoying a quiet few days between the departure of The Dans and the arrival of the next Help-X volunteers. It is extra quiet here at the moment because we have now finished the pigs - a euphemism for taking them on their final journey (which is , itself, a euphemism for taking them to slaughter). It is not that they are especially noisy with squealing for food or craving attention. It is the very bass-y grunts they chunter out as they move about. The noise carries right across the garden so, no matter where you are, you'd know there were pigs close by.

The ark. Redundant now till next year?

The pigs were booked in for early Wednesday. We knew we could load the pigs into the trailer with no problem - these pigs were trained and would sprint up the race for their breakfast. We could snick the door shut on them before they'd hoovered up the tempting fruit.

However, in my current, weakened state, I was not at all sure we could push the loaded trailer, with its 180 kg piggy payload across the dippy grass to the hard standing where stood the car. Step forward our good friends Suzy and Rob who volunteered to donate their early morning muscle; they are easily our closest 'barter' partners when it comes to man hours of help. They were headed on to Castlerea afterwards, so they also opted to come to the butcher's and help us unload the animals, after which we'd adjourn to Benny's Deli for a coffee and croissant breakfast.

Blue among the hops.

That was the pigs "finished". The carcasses now sit in the butcher's cold store round to Monday while the meat sets. We collect them around mid-day Monday and have an afternoon armed with the bone-saw, knives and cleaver, breaking them down into kitchen-friendly chunks. By then, we should have the new Help-X volunteers with us (Sonja and Asbjörn), both chefs of a sort, so I am fascinated to see if they want to get involved or whether butchery is too far "up stream".

Work boots.

For the next few weeks, Elizabeth is calling Thursday her 'busy day'. Regular readers will know that she is currently on a once-a-week, year+ long Horticultural course which absorbs every Thursday.

Red Admiral.

For these few weeks, this has become a Thursday AND Friday outdoor module on Hard Landscaping. A gang of them are out by the church at Ballinlough finding out all about digging foundations, creating hard paths, building planters, erecting an arbour, doing stone-work and even learning about re-pointing walls with lime mortar.

Hollyhock.

On with the work-boots then, tough gloves and at least have your wet weather gear in the car. Elizabeth also needed a hi-viz jacket, so she grabbed one that had been hanging in the shed for who knows how long. She did not pay too much attention, but this one had my name and the name of "Exel" (logistics) on the front panel but "PROJECT MANAGER" writ large across the shoulders. This drew a fair amount of friendly flak and banter from the rest of the 'students' - "Come on then, YOU're the Project Manager...how do we do this?"

Lupins doing well in the nursery.

Then, as if she'd not done enough physical stuff for that day, she signed up for evening classes on furniture restoration starting last night. I couldn't go to this one as she had to be there early to help set up and the birds here would not yet have gone to bed yet, but from the report back it sounds a fascinating course. Elizabeth had taken 3 pages of notes on tools and techniques and is now looking hungrily at a pair of old favourite blue chairs we have in the Sitting Room. Watch this space.... I sense a 'project' in the making.

Very slow cropping but tasty.

That's about it for this one.. I will just do a quick meander through a few other pictures. By the time I next post, we should have the Help-X couple on board and the pork in the freezer.

The 'Summer' 'Parma-style ham is only fit for the stock pot now.

Blackberries were a bit variable this year due to the drought.
We have not (yet) been out picking.

Henry and Min Re-United

In a recent post I might have worried you by finishing with a story that one of Henry or Min had gone AWOL at 'bed time' and we'd been out hunting with torches. Well, next morning  the pair were happily and noisily reunited. The missing bird had run for cover into the collection of bikes, cement mixer and other junk in the goose end of that building and kept his/her head down and kept quiet. That explains why the other bird was so contented to be up on the perch alone and also stayed quiet - he/she was presumably well aware of where the hidden bird was keeping quiet. In the morning they just had to each find their separate way to the yard and give each other a load of telling off. Not so silly after all.

Haggis mixture

In the kitchen we wind steadily on towards Christmas and even beyond. Liz converts a huge quantity of lamb "trimmings" (bits like the breast meat which the butcher would normally cut away and discard) and offal (including this year the lung which we specifically asked Ignatius to keep for us for this purpose), into home made haggis mixture. We love our haggis in this family and last year Liz found a recipe where you bake the mix in a baking tray instead of stuffing it into a piece of gut or sheep's stomach, or some kind of plastic 'cover' and it was easily the best haggis we had ever eaten. This probably because it was made with real ingredients instead of 'commercial' heaven knows what, so it is bagless haggis for us in 2014 too.

Hubbard hen at 19 weeks

Our two remaining 'Hubbard' chickens have amazed us over the last month by filling out from the rangey, gangly, big-legged adolescent shaped birds of October, to squared off, filled out, solid chicken-shaped birds now. They are 19 weeks old at this stage so they are approaching the standard 'Point of Lay' age where you'd normally buy them if you wanted them as laying birds, but these ladies are of a fast growing meat breed which the commercial boys would normally be 'finishing' at 100 days or so. Mentor Anne is keeping 2 of hers round to a fully mature age and is going to try a bit of breeding with a La Bresse rooster.

White Hubbard hen

Ours are still here for looser and more "happy chance" reasons. We had gone through a phase of 'harvesting' them, especially the roosters which were getting troublesome, and were finding them dead easy to catch because of their habit of gathering round my feet as I scooped feed from the feed bins, especially if it was raining outside. With just 2 to go, I wanted to 'do' these on the same day so that neither would be left lonely. I never got that chance and then the weather dried up and they stopped doing the under-foot thing. Also, we now had 4 birds in the freezer and needed the space for the lambs, so these two got a stay of execution and are still with us. A living larder, maybe, or perhaps we will see how they do as egg laying birds.

We've now done the run down to Silverwoods, so the lamb is all distributed to its final users. The Silverwoods have pronounced it excellent and, being as loopy as we are, found this lovely piece of lamb based 'tat' during their recent holiday in Bulgaria and thought of us. Fine, elegant tableware, I think you will agree, fit to grace the most elegant Christmas table. We have no idea why the lambs depicted are cuddling tiny teddy bears. Our lambs never had them. Perhaps it is an animal welfare thing?

Castlerea prize draw sign

We finally came to the point here where there was no longer any escaping a job which I'd been putting off and rather dreading, that of slaughtering the young geese for the Christmas table. These geese are now 6 months old and full adult size. Well, we girded our loins and got on with the job this morning with Liz, for her first time, actually getting involved and in (watching) at the kill. It went well, better than I had feared, and the boys (we are sure both these are ganders) met their end quickly, cleanly and with as much respect and as little distress as we like to ensure and they are now hanging in the Tígín awaiting the plucking and dressing job tomorrow. The relief is immense - we are now pretty much through the autumn slaughtering 'campaign' which we appreciate we have to do but cannot claim to enjoy.

There is just the one more goose to 'go', but this is our current parent bird 'Gander', he of the genetic wry-tail abnormality which he is sadly too able to pass on to his sons and daughters, so the plan is to swap him out with an unrelated gander called George who currently lives down the lane with Carolyn of the mini-horses. We get George and we deliver Gander to them but we are currently not sure whether we need to deliver him alive or whether he will be collected and despatched by K-Dub.

Finally today, we loved this Prize Draw sign seen in Castlerea (picture above) where 1st Prize is a Charolais heifer. She looks a lovely big girl from the pictures we have seen and is worth about €1000. You have the option of taking her home if you win, or immediately selling her at the Mart and going home with your money. We were laughing about what we'd do if suddenly presented with a strapping young female beef-cow. We'd have to give it to John Deere Bob to look after. We are not set up for cows' we don't even have a cattle herd number.

Small Obsessions

Back before we actually bought these geese we had read that they have nice, amusing personalities with their own idiosyncratic and funny ways. Simon had told us that they get funny little obsessions for no apparent reason which they then cling to like a terrier with a stick, returning time and again to that specific place and thing. If it is a particular fruit tree and maybe a loose flap of bark, they (or maybe just one of them  who has got the idea into his/her head) will worry and worry at it making the tear bigger and bigger till, potentially, they have ring barked and killed the tree. We have tree guards round our orchard trees for that reason. Many trees now have thoroughly chewed lower branch tips.

Goose 'worry-hole'?

We have also had them nibbling and nibbling at a particular bit of ground which looks, to me, like any other. Maybe there we a worm there once which they fancied. The work away at it from all angles till they create a little conical hole in the mud, roughly goose-head size and as deep as they can reach. Obviously when it rain the hole fills up with water and they seem to leave it alone but when it's dry they are back. In the case pictured it is right where I throw down their breakfast grain so, inevitably, some falls down the hole and then there's great excitement as they gather round, heads lowered over the hole, honking loudly.

We love their personalities, too. They are a tight knit group. The 'goslings' have now grown up to the point where they are difficult to tell from the adults. We know, of course, that Goosey and Goocie have black markings in particular places and Gander is the big, wry-tailed, upright boy, usually at the back, but the only real way to tell them now is that the grown ups have that saggy belly between their legs which older geese get, while the 'babies' have tight, smooth under-carriage.

Blue (left) and Rolo at breakfast

These guys, regular readers will know, are our first attempt at breeding geese and all has not gone well because the 'parent birds' we bought as a breeding trio turned out to be, we are sure, fully or recessive 'wry-tailed' as well as being, almost certainly, a sibling group, i.e. brother and two sisters. Unfortunately, therefore, we have been wickedly in-breeding and our first batch have, in many cases, had hatching or subsequent developmental problems and have either died or been culled out, leaving us with only these 2 'babies' from 17 eggs. Not a good score! We have been a bit dispirited by this and frustrated by our "inability to keep them alive" and have doubts about whether we want to be 'in' geese at all. We have a possible option on replacing the gander with one named George, hand reared by our friends down the road (if he turns out to be a boy) but if not we may just keep them for the eggs. Apart from anything else, I am not happy having to slaughter them. I'm not 'happy' doing rabbits or chooks, to be truthful but I can manage it well enough when it needs doing. I think maybe I love geese in a more complex way and cannot, in my head, see them as just food. My problem, I guess, not anything I should be unloading on the reader.

Bubble with her 'bum' feathers in pin. 

Ah well. Enough of this. Today Liz is back from the UK having done her stint of house-minding for Diamond and John. I must walk the dogs now and then grab some lunch before nipping out to Knock Airport to meet her from the plane. It will be good to have her back in the fold.

Settled In

Readers will be pleased to know that the sheep have settled in OK and are all thriving on our nice moist green grass. 40 shades of Green and all that. In this case, obviously "The Green and Red of Mayo" as these ladies were born in Irishtown, Co.Mayo so should be supporting Mayo in tomorrow's All-Ireland GAA football final and if Dad can get them a green and red flag for one of their fence posts he probably will. Our mission is to settle them down nicely so that they are calmly eating and putting on weight. They arrived at respectively 31, 32 and 33 kg and a good slaughter weight would be in the range 46 to 60 kg, 46 for lean meat, 60 for more fatty meat.

Looking at the various websites, carcass weight is about 48% of live weight (although that depends on about a million other factors) and the offal bits that Mum and Dad love (hearts, kidneys, liver) are on top of that. A big old shoulder joint here can be around €27, and the lamb meat can be from €5 per kilo for scraggy stewing bits, up to €21 for rack of lamb. The theory is that having bought these girls for €80 each (€2.44 per kilo live weight) we should still win and have the fun of owning sheep, followed by a freezer full of lamb slaughtered and butchered up by our own tame butcher's "behind the scenes" meat factory, Cuniffe's.

There is, though, a 2nd option which may be called into play. These are healthy, good quality girls who would easily take being bred from to produce our own lambs. This obviously involves keeping them  alive and fed through the winter and then putting them to a hired or bought in ram at the appropriate time and then coping with all the lambing fun and games. Mum and Dad are not sure if they are ready for all that yet. Meanwhile, there's an acre less for Dad to mow.

All the hand feeding and making friends is mainly about getting them so used to us that we can slip a halter onto each one and lead them about the place, including onto other grass like the front lawn. You get them used to the bucket of 'nuts', goes the theory and they will follow you anywhere, so you can get them to the lawn and 'home' again when required. You can also tether them to the fence by their front end while you clip any 'dags' off (I'm not going to explain) round their bums to keep them clean and prevent fly-strike.