We saw a Sparrow!!!!

OK, probably not the most exciting subject for a blog post, especially for my UK readers where the good old common or garden House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is as common as muck. In our garden in Kent, where we did the 'wildlife garden' bit and fed them all year round, we had a resident population of between 35 and 75 cheeping from the holly bush and beech hedge, hanging around the feeders and nesting in at least 2 of the sections of our 'sparrow terrace' nest box. Like you, probably, we thought nothing of it. If you fed the wild birds, sparrows was what you always got and you hoped for the other species as well.

When we moved to the West of Ireland one of the first wildlife-related things that struck us, as we lived those early months in the caravan was the lack of sparrows. Not a one. Now we know that Ireland famously does not have snakes and, now trained on newts, we know that the island lacks several UK species of amphibian (allegedly the Common Toad, Palmate Newt and Great Crested Newt among others). It lacks all manner of mammal species which is understood to be an effect of the retreating ice age ice-sheet and species struggling to migrate north before the land bridges were submerged by melt water sea-level rises, for example moles, various rodents, wild cats and several deer. There are also many differences in flora and invertebrate lists.

Our caravan bird-neighbours were much more abundant populations of birds which were not common in Kent - chaffinches seemed to fill the sparrow niche, so that we have had a regular 15-17 permanently on site polishing off spilled chicken feed. Coal tits were common, though that seems to be a winter thing. We have 5-7 robins always around and wrens are also common. The common UK carrion-crow is replaced in Ireland by the grey bodied Hooded Crow. We have also since learned that some of the species that do live here 'do not get this far over' (to the west); apparently Short-Eared Owls do not live in Co Roscommon.

It was almost a year of living here before we saw a sparrow, and that in the yard of a local agricultural feeds supplier. We guessed that they are in fact 'here' but that because this is a beef farming area without the arable grain harvest and storage and where very few people feed wild birds. We have since seen them very rarely in other grain store areas but it was on 7th May, just a week ago, that Liz spotted 2 around our hay barn and shouted, "That's a Sparrow!". She was right - there were actually a pair and we were both grinning like loons, happy to have 'our old friends' back. I have since seen both a couple more times, so we are going to declare them resident. We do have sparrows!

I Named that Statue. Minute that!

One of the things I have always loved about the Irish is the way that they adopt amusing, irreverent nicknames for their statues, street art and landmarks, notably in the capital, Dublin. A rather boobalicious representation of Molly Malone with a barrow full of fish, cockles and mussels (naturally) is widely known as "The Tart with the Cart". A statue of James Joyce complete with walking cane and iconic specs is "The Dick with the Stick".

A fountain in O'Connell Street which depicted Goddess of the River Liffey, Anna Livia reclining in the water with fountains bubbling down her from shoulders to feet was nicknamed 'The Floozie in the Jacuzzi'. She has now been moved to Croppy Acre Memorial Park in Dublin, replaced with a Millennium Spire, after having been filled with washing up liquid for the umpteenth time. The spire, as far as I am aware does not have a funny name, but I expect it does. A nice statue of two ladies paused in their shopping, sitting on a bench to chat with their Arnott's bags beside them quickly became the 'Hags with the Bags' and so it goes on.

Our nearby Airport, Knock, now has its own statue. We saw the strange twisted pair of upward pointing spikes, shaped like one of the more delicate pincers or tweezers I had in my precious Dissection Kit as a biology student, when these prongs were still being smeared with cement as I collected Liz from the airport on April 29th. We had no idea what they were apart from fairly obviously being a bit of roadside art. Eye catching enough and with that lovely view across Mayo behind them. It was only a few days later that we saw in Facebook, that they were in fact the backdrop to a statue of the visionary 'man of the cloth' Monsignor Horan who first conceived of the idea of an airport for these parts and politicked it into being.

As the news release says "A new statue of our founder, the visionary Monsignor James Horan was unveiled today at Ireland West Airport Knock. The new statue is situated on the approach road into the airport and is a fitting tribute to the great man. A display of Monsignor Horan's memorabilia and artefacts will also be on display in the airport terminal over the summer months".

Of course, I was straight into Facebook and thinking that this statue now needs a witty name, so I challenged 'my lot' and, aside from a rather rude one from Mr Silverwood no-one took up the baton. I went with "The Geezer by the Tweezer" which got a few 'likes' (approving ticks by Facebook people) and was then passed on to a vox-pop 'Twitter' Feed called @Ireland where the current 'chair' liked it too.

This summer, when the crowds of returning Irish wing in on Aer Lingus flights to Knock Airport for "The Gathering, Ireland 2013" and you hear them being driven past Monsignor Horan by their pick-up drivers who say "Ah yeah! They're calling it the 'Geezer by the Tweezer'! Isn't that great?" you'll know that it all started HERE.

Meanwhile in Rabbit news, Goldie is settling in well and was out there in the sun (when it managed to shine) wolfing down good Roscommon grass like it was going out of fashion. She'll be fat as a fool, as well as pregnant!

Three in the Dog House

We have three animals currently on the 'naughty step' but I have not photographed them so I will post a selection of nice pics and catch you up with what they are about as we go along - the first 2 though are a Buff Orpington chick and a Jersey Giant (black) at 3 weeks.

First customer for sitting outside the headmaster's office to await his fate is Blue the Cat, who manages to hook a passing swallow out of the air as it dives down and into the Tígín where they are currently nest building. I can only imagine that the swallow failed to adjust his eye sight to the dark inside on a bright morning; they are usually well able to avoid our cats. Luckily I saw him out of the kitchen window playing with the victim who was patently still alive. He would not yield the bird to me, but his 'Mum' (Liz) has a more menacing way of scruffing the cats and growling "MINE!" at them which makes them drop the capture. Liz scooped the swallow up, shaken and not stirred and we laid it in a tea-towel in the only place where cats fear to tread- the Goose House with its two broody geese. It was still alive by lunchtime and then gone by mid afternoon and we have since regularly seen both 'our' pair whizzing about as normal so we assume this time he got away with it and , we hope, learned to be a bit more careful coming through the doors of the Tígín.

Next up, our bitch-pup, Poppy, now 11 months old, so old enough to KNOW BETTER. She has adopted the habit of chewing wetly, or just sucking, the crotches of any of Liz's clothes - knickers, jeans, pyjamas. She does not always actually damage them, just renders them unwearable till they have been washed. She never touches mine, just occasionally has a chew on my sandals, but never clothes. Naturally, we are trying to cure her of this annoying habit. Chunter chunter.

 Our final customer today is the hen we are now calling 'baldy' whom we believe, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, may have given up laying eggs for good. You'll recall that we had a eggy hiatus and changed the feed for an organic, Pedigree Petfoods product. This seems to have sorted the soft-shell problem and the lack of eggs, so that we now get 2 good eggs most days but ONLY 2 from three hens. We watch closely and have seen that the other two hens slope off from the rooster every morning and lay their eggs in the nest boxes, but 'Baldy' (so named because she gets William's 'attentions' so often that his spurs have worn away some of the feathers across her back) is never missing. Mentor Anne tells me that it is almost unheard of for a rooster to bother 'treading' a barren or infertile hen, so she has advised me to beat the bounds, searching all the hedgerows, nooks and crannies, where I'll almost certainly find a huge stash of eggs (Simon says this normally happens in winter as the vegetation dies back; that's when you find the caches). I have had a really thorough search today though, rummaging through nettle patches and ground elder with a hoe, and I am blowed if I can see any. So, unless she gets her act together before the new babies reach PoL (Point of Lay), the stock pot looms for her.

Meanwhile, in happier news all 8 of our chicks have survived to 3 weeks old. This is fairly unusual, apparently, you normally lose a few. The horses are also doing well, enjoying their new 'rushless' field and learning to come to us on call to earn a Polo mint treat. Liz has not yet done her official newt survey but by coincidence I found one swimming in the goose-drinker this morning. It's a very egg-loaded female (says Liz) and was probably looking for a suitable pond, which the drinker is NOT, having vertical plastic sides. We rescued it to a more suitable 'pond' and Liz was able to break out the official forms and record it for our 10 km square (grid ref M68). We got a nice reply from the Official Irish Wildlife Trust website to say that this was a 'New Record' for M68, smooth newts never having been recorded for this square before. This actually makes it pointless for us to survey Bob's pond, as the box has been ticked, but we will do it anyway and they can have a 2nd tick if we find any.

Today we collected up our latest addition, the meat-breed doe rabbit, Goldie. She came from Mentor Anne's 'stable' and is pregnant to Anne's Californian White buck, Bobby. This might get confusing - we have John Deere Bob, our friend and neighbour, Bob the mini-Shetland horse and now Bobby the potential Father to Goldie's 'kittens', who, if all goes well, are due around June 13th. We will be over-run with baby animals if we don't watch it. I do not want to be counting chickens, but we have the potential now for goslings on 22nd May, baby rabbits from Ginny and Padfoot on 2nd June and now Goldie.

Oh - and the other pictures? In order, the three horses having a rest, some horse product on the rhubarb, that newt, Goldie and some pear blossom just opening now on a Conference Tree we had as a gift last summer from Steak Lady.

That's it for now.

Down the Rushy Glen

Keen to stop all this lovely rain water going to waste, we decided that it would be a good idea to invest in a couple of the huge (1010 litre) water 'butts' that everyone uses round here. These could be a reservoir for refilling the pond and also for irrigating the poly tunnel but also to supply drinking water to a drinker on our East Field for the horses and soon the sheep. These come from Coca Cola in Dublin originally and are for sale at anything from about €45 to €75 but have lately been in short supply. We have clubbed together with Mentor(s) Anne and Simon who can possible get them, delivered, at the €45 end of the scale, but their supply has dried up, so we nipped out and got a pricier one locally, collecting it with the trailer. We want to start accumulating water now so that we have a full tank by the time we finish the pond.

We have rigged up a bit of 2nd hand guttering (also, partly, from Anne and Simon) to collect the water from the car port roof. These tanks are only made from plastic and aluminium, so are nice and light when empty, so that Liz and I could easily lift it between us and wrangle it into position. After a bit of rain over night it is already 5-6 inches deep in water. We find that we are now ahead of the curve. Keeping your rain water separate from the sewers is the LATEST THING in eco-warrior terms and is called "Blue-Greening". Get us!

Look at any picture of the East Field we have printed up to now and you will see a mess of rushes tall enough to tickle the bellies of sheep and horses, tall enough to hide them if they lie down. These grow easily here-abouts as soon as the land is allowed to get wet and neglected. The cattle will not eat them, so they just get worse and eventually take over the fields, rendering them useless as pasture unless the farmers bother to spray them and mow the fields; not many do unless pushed, as in this year, by serious shortage of fodder, or forced contractually by their landlords.

We do not want to be negligent managers of our grassland, and the sight of all those rushes was preying on our minds. I was going to have to hire a brush cutter for a day and have at them. I was talking about this to our fencing guy, Paul M and, generous guy that he is, he offered me the lend of his meaty, 'professional' strimmer to try out. This turned out to work like a dream, scything through the clumps like a knife through hot butter. The field is one and a half acres, so it took a few hours (about 4), some replacement "string" (tough nylon cord in the strimmer head) and 4 tanks of petrol but it looks very good now.

The rushes were sprayed last year by Mike the Cows when he was using the field for his cattle, so they are possibly weakened, and some have grass growing among the rush root-plate, but the theory is that the soft rush regrowth can be eaten by horses and sheep which should finish the tufts off and grass will win the grazing war in the end. Our pasture will be like a rush-free garden lawn (!). Liz fancied a go at this strimming game so we kitted her out with her best pink wellies, and my Husqvarna chain-saw gloves, helmet, mesh visor and ear defenders and she was away. It is not on record who she was thinking of as the whirling string zipped through the tufts sending a spray of mashed rush fibre flying in all directions and the decapitated stalks whipping away in the wind.

Meanwhile we have sought (and gained) permission from John Deere Bob to go newt surveying on the little pond at the bottom of his bank field. We explained that we might have to go look during daylight but also at night with a torch. Looking a bit twinkly eyed at Liz as if calculating how much he might get away with as a tease he warned us to be wary of the faeries in the dark down there as there were known faerie-forts (raths) near that water. I am remembering Pud Lady's little rhyme from when we were all small

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men.......

A Little Drop of Rain

Coo! When it decides to rain round here, there's no messing about. Buckets came down overnight, hammering on the roof and windows, blasted against the front of the house on a strong southerly wind. From no puddles and reasonably dry last night despite a bit of rain on Wednesday morning while we were fencing, I woke up to the biggest puddles I think we have had so far. The local lough, Lough Feigh has trebled in size overnight from a raggedy ribbon of wet between rambling beds of rush and reed, to an impressive expanse of open water. The reed/rush beds are submerged and the 'banks' are now grass fields further out. The local river, the R. Lung has risen from showing a yard of exposed bank, to brim full. A pipe-drain emptying into it under the bridge with a gurgling splashy drop of 4 feet is suddenly half submerged so that the water joins the river on the level like a tributary stream.

My part-dug pond was an almost complete sheet of (muddy) water. I will not be digging any pond today; that's for sure, but it is comforting to know that the pond is pretty level and is also in the right place in terms of catchment area. We are actually on top of a low hill here so nowhere is going to be that 'right' but we do have a small hollow centred around this part of the garden, partly because of the TK Max and TK Min apparent habit of bulldozing all the top soil off the yard and piling it up in heaps against our western boundary hedge. John Deere Bob tells us that many locals see topsoil as an expensive resource worth stock piling, so if an area was to be used for storing bales or farm machinery, then the soil (they say it "sale" here) would be scraped off. The result here is a big dam of soil along our boundary which prevents rain running off so we have a bit of a 'bowl' in which to construct the pond.

There are other dints and hollows which collect nice puddles much to the delight of the gander who splashes about dipping his head and neck under the surface, then rearing his head to shower the water backwards across his back, wings and tail. Suddenly he will honk excitedly and charge across the puddle splashing his feet down like a child playing in his wellies. We guess he wishes his womenfolk were not focused on being broody and might come out to play.

It's comforting to know that at least it drains away almost as quickly as it arrives. Almost, but not quite. Within a few days of no rain these puddles will be gone and even the pond will be dig-able. The house and yard area are the same - one of the main driving forces to our building project was to get rid of the damp and let it stay away - ivy was stripped off the walls, rainwater goods and guttering were all replaced with new, down pipes were linked to gullies (4 inch pipes) under the yard to take water quickly away to the ditches we had had cleared by mini-digger. The septic tank got a huge pebble-filled pit dug just 'downstream' of itself to ensure 'water' cleared fast and efficiently. My veg plot got its ridges and raised beds and these were aligned up/down the slopes to help clear water and our use of mini-horses and sheep on the East Field is mainly about repairing the damage done by heavy cattle squelching up the ground into a non-draining foot print divot mess ("poaching" in grass management parlance). All the overgrown areas of this hectare have been cleared and turned, for now, into short grass to help drying out and run-off when it does stop raining. Our living-hedge wind breaks are nice, thirsty, willow.

Let it rain - we can cope!

New Feed, New Fence, New Freedom!

Our chickens went on strike! Egg laying sputtered to a halt and stopped altogether. We have been messing around with ones twos and threes a day (from 4 'layers') earlier in the year and then 'lost' Betty to a broodying session and now to being an excellent Mum to the 8 chicks, so that we were down to one or two a day. We had a couple of generous donations of a dozen each time from Mentor Anne who is getting glutted out from her 30-odd birds so we've been OK but we were always suspicious that one hen was not pulling her weight at all. We have a slight problem that we cannot tell the Lovely Girls apart so we weren't sure this wasn't two hens laying every other day, but we have one girl spending so much time with William that she is always copping his amorous advances and her feathers are quite worn out across her 'saddle'. This one never seems to be 'missing' (as in off to lay her egg).

Last week this low production took a turn for the worse and one hen started laying very thin-shelled or shell-less eggs which were getting broken in the nest boxes and going to waste. Some days we had no eggs at all. We referred the case to 'Doctor Anne' who asked us all sorts of questions and homed in on diet. I have been feeding the local feed merchant's "standard" grade layers pellets but lately have found that their 25 kg sacks contain a lot of pellets broken down to dust size, so that the feed looks like it might be the sweepings from the end of a production run. At Anne's suggestion we have started the hens on Pedigree Foods' Organic Layers Ration. We have also discontinued the 'mixed poultry corn' which contains maize (and might, these days, be the GMO version of maize) and are going with local feed-wheat. It may take a few days for this new nutrition to work through but today (almost certainly by chance) was a 2-good-egg day. We will tell you how we get on. We are also going to fit the birds' legs with coloured leg-rings so that we can identify the non-layer and, if she doesn't watch it and these baby chicks come up to laying age, she may find herself in the stock pot.

The biggest project recently is our fencing of the 1.5 acre East Field with sheep-proof (and therefore mini-horse proof) fencing. This has been done by our fencing guy Paul M with me helping him as labourer. If you are interested in the detail, sheep fence is high-tensile square mesh about 3 feet high with smaller holes at the bottom (to stop baby lambs) with a strand of high tensile barbed wire at the top. It is all strained to bass-guitar twanginess using a thing called a 'monkey strainer', so it has massive 10" 'strainer' posts at each corner and for the gate posts and narrower (4 inch?) posts in between about every 3-4 yards. The strainer posts can be braced and buttressed with extra diagonal posts. The whole field is, as I said, 1.5 acres or about 127 yards by 44 yards, i.e. about 340 yards total fence which will set you back about €1050 installed. It's one of the bigger investments in the small holdering game, but good fencing should last you 10-20 years.

We started the task last Thursday afternoon, had a quick couple of hours on Friday morning before Paul had to go off and attend a wedding, missed Monday for Bank Holiday, and then got properly stuck in on Tuesday and today (in the rain). We'd done by about 4 pm. Paul joined us for tea and scones and then I had to show him a couple of bits Vendor Anna needs on her bit of land and then he was gone. He's a lovely bloke and great fun to work with, being full of local stories and anecdotes. We would happily use him again and I would recommend him to anyone round here who needs fencing done.

 We are delighted and feel like we have "got our field back". Since last year it has just had the beef fence (3 strands of barbed) between us and the field to stop Mike-the-Cows's cows from straying onto our lawns and garden and was open to the north. It felt like we didn't own it and shouldn't go there. Now we can come and go through the new gate opening by our Utility Room and the fences around the 'outside' stop animals coming and going across our boundaries.

At 5 o'clock then, we were ready to unleash the horses. We had two at that stage, Bob and Cody, who had been tethered on the lunge-reins since Sunday 5th and we had been moving them on to new grass each day. Now we could lead them into the field and take off the head collars and let them run free. And RUN they did, all overcome with excitement at the new space, grass and freedom, not seen since November last year. They took off at a full gallop, racing in great arcs up and down the field full of the joys, like a couple of mad youngsters (they are actually about ten years old). I walked round the field showing Liz the fencing (I know! I know how to show a lady a good time!) as they raced away and back past us again and again. It was lovely to see.

After a while they calmed down and set to eating. I texted Carolyn to say the field was now ready and soon, Charlotte showed up with the other horse, Romeo (he of the cart pulling). We let him go into the field and the others were so delighted to have him back that they went racing around again. It is a brilliant funny sight to see three Thelwell style ponies galloping about as a group as fast as their little legs will carry them.

Happy Horses (and happy roses and rhubarb!).

Deux Cheveaux?

A quick catch up on happenings around the livestock. In the last post you met miniature horse Romeo, he of the cart-pulling. This afternoon we have 'taken delivery' of his two stable mates, Cody and Bob. Both of these guys have posh pedigree names longer than they are; Cody's is "something something Da Vinci Code" (sorry - I wasn't paying attention!). He's the dark brown and white, 'entire' purebred Falabella stallion. His 'oppo' is Bob, the pale brown Miniature Shetland who, like Romeo, is a gelding. I am not explaining 'entire' and gelding' - if you need to know look them up.

We are currently half way through the job of fencing the east field for sheep (which will also make it miniature horse proof) and when we have done that, probably Tuesday or Wednesday evening, all three horses can go in there for the Summer to keep the grass under control and eat off the rushes. These two are fortunately quite happy to live on the end of a tether short term, so they have been brought down early to eat grass round till the field is available. Romeo, sadly can't 'do' tethering, apparently and gets himself all tangled up and then stands pathetically waiting to be rescued, so he has to wait, but he has the big horse for company.

These horses are only a borrow. They are owned by our friends Charlotte, Carolyn and Keiran from down the road. With the current fodder crisis in this part of the country due to late, cool spring and everyone running out of hay and silage, Carolyn had not been able to get agreement on grazing these horses on any land so they were eating bought in food and living in a sand-school since last November. Well, now they have grass under their hooves and bellies full of the stuff.

The theory is that the east field will support these three mini-horses with enough spare for this year's lambs when we get them and between the two species we should be able to improve the grass and get rid of the cattle-damage (poaching) and rushes. I may have to brush-cut the rushes but the soft re-growth will be eaten by the horses and the grass will then out-compete the rush plants.

With both of our female geese now broody and apparently working as an efficient brooding team (much to our amazement) the poor ol' Gander is feeling a bit lost and lonely with no-one to talk to all day. He has taken to hanging around the Broody Betty run and her baby chicks, seeming to have adopted them to protect. Perhaps they bring out some of his father instincts being a bit like goslings, but what ever the reason he shouts and yells his warnings at any hooded crows or magpies which fly over.

When he's not with the chicks, he tends to hang about with the rooster and the Lovely Girls but they are a bit less welcoming of his advances and tend to give him a wide berth. Poor old boy! Still, the geese should sort themselves out one way or another between about the 22nd and 27th of this month. He'll either have real goslings to defend, or presumably we forget procreation stuff, all go back to normal and the three geese can wander about as before.

Finally, the 'always-female' rabbits are back from their 'dirty weekend' at Charlotte's. Padfoot, our black and white lop-eared has been mated to a purebred lop buck, Ginny, the grey and white not-lop sister has been mated to a black and white 'Dutch' pattern buck. Due date for these expectant mothers is June 2nd and they have, for only the 2nd time in their lives, been separated in case of any jealousy fights over nest sites, new born 'kittens', or just territory. They can see each other through the mesh and touch noses, but not get at each other. The 'formerly male but now female' Buck Rogers (now either Ginger Rogers or 'Nibbles' according to preferences) is now also pregnant but is now the property of Charlotte.

That's about it for this one. As I said, Two-horses but not in the 2CV sense! Have a good Bank Holiday.