The Pond is Finished!

The biggest news by far from this camp over this bright, warm, windless Bank Holiday, is that we have finished the pond! We got stuck in well today trimming and burying the edges of the rubber sheet, determined to create a variety of types of bank. A long stretch of the 'south' side is down to grass, so we simply lifted a wedge of turf with the fattest edge 'inland' and laid the rubber over a soil 'lip' at roughly water level.

We hope (and we have found on previous ponds) that the thick inner edge gives enough hydraulic connection to the surrounding soil to stop the turf drying out - we want grass growing right to the edge and dangling over into the water to give cover for and access to newts, frogs and invertebrates. At the 'west' end we have a shelf for our marginal plants (purple loosestrife, king-cup etc) and the grass margin is behind this.

Coming round by the 'Darby and Joan' chairs, we change to a line of boulders, many taken from the old 'Albert' cairn you may recall - the pile of boulders dug out of our floor during the house build, and stacked at the end of the front terrace. These stones run round the the 'north' side where we have made a flat-stone gently sloping beach to give easy access to young goslings. In the middle of this, Liz also created a small 'rock pool' which had turned out to be ideal for a special and surprising reason; more of which later.

At the end of this beach we made a headland onto which we carefully put the biggest rock that came out of the pond - the one which broke my first shovel. This is surrounded by smaller stones and is either called 'Howth Head' after the one in Dublin. or the "Hen and Chickens". Beyond that and coming back to the east end are a row of stones which are deliberately slightly lower, with their bases in water and the pond liner rising up behind them to get the right level. Again, this is all about hidey-holes for creepie-crawlies and amphibians.

The whole thing is about 10 m long and 6 m wide and is 22 inches deep at the deepest point. We love it and the geese have adopted it as a favourite place and I have been able to get some nice pictures. We were amazed to find that with this much space to play in the geese's splashing about includes some swimming under water like a penguin! Who knew that they could? They duck their heads and shoulders under then zoom along completely submerged for about 3-4 feet before bobbing to the surface! Liz has this on video. I have not yet been able to capture it on 'still' but I will.

It was during one of these sessions that the goslings discovered that they could keep to the 'rock pool' where it was a lot less wavy. The grown-ups were creating quite a 'chop' in the water and had us re-thinking where it might be wise to try to site water lilies and so on.

So, tonight we are feeling very pleased with ourselves and decided to have a celebratory meal. We had a deep, oven backed 'tortilla' made with goose and hen eggs plus potato and diced chicken. Chilled Prosecco served as our celebration.

Nice pond!

All your Birthdays at Once

Having all your birthdays at once usually means having such a good day that it feels as though all the treats from all your birthdays have arrived together. Here we have a different meaning. It so happens that last year, when we were looking to buy a pup, the pregnant Westie bitch who was going to supply us with him, Mrs Silverwood's "Lily" (by Maxwell), happened to whelp on the night of 2nd June into the morning of 3rd June 2012. Regular readers may recall that in the event we ended up with both the planned boy-pup, Towser on the right here, plus his sister and litter-mate, Poppy (left).

Meanwhile, Liz had been looking to buy 2 kittens and we had found out that there was a friend of Mrs Silverwood's, living just around the corner who had a pregnant cat. The morning of the whelping we found out that this cat had also given birth on the same night to three kittens and that we could therefore have our 2 from that little gang. These turned out to be Rolo (pictured here stalking through the buttercups) and Blue (sleeping in the caravan, below).

So there we had it - 4 animals all with the same birthday. It makes remembering the date(s) easier. Our traditional birthday treat for dogs is raw pork ribs which are gnawed, ground and slurped with relish. The cats will get a treat of fish which they will also love.

So, Happy Birthday Towser, Poppy, Rolo and Blue. We nearly had all this batch of baby rabbits born on 3rd June too, but we are fairly sure these were yesterday or the day before.

Kindling and Horse Play

June the 2nd - due day for our two 'pet' rabbits, Ginny (pictured here, grey and white) and Padfoot (lop eared black and white, 2nd time around Mum). Both of these girls were taken off to Charlotte's rabbit collection for mating with two different bucks, on the same day that she came to collect our "buck", Buck Rogers. Rogers, you will recall, turned out to be an on-heat female, so we hurriedly changed 'his' name to Ginger Rogers. Charlotte took her anyway and mated her to yet another buck and she has now 'kindled' (given birth).

These two were due today but, as is the way of these things, you see very little and if you are wise you don't go looking. Anxious mother rabbits will quickly eat their young if put under stress, while they are still at the new born, pink, naked, blind stage. You are best off leaving well alone for 2 weeks and waiting for any tiny, fur-covered, baby bunnies with eyes open, to emerge from the nest. All you might see is fur in the grass - the rabbit will pluck some of her own fur to line the nest and we have seen this fur in both the females' runs. Any babies will be detectable from about the 16th by which time our big doe, Goldie, may also have kindled.

Now a part of the post which you might want to miss if you are an experienced horse owner (or even if you own these particular horses, Carolyn and Charlotte). You will either be laughing fit to bust or horrified at our cack-handedness, and especially mine rather than Liz's. I admit I do not know horses and I expected them to be biddable and steerable like sheep. I also do not know electric fencing and I expected it to keep the horses 'in'. Big mistake which resulted in some fun and games but, let me add quickly, no injuries or loss of life!

We have borrowed this electric fence and I had deployed it to give the horses access to the 'Primrose Path'. I tested the fence with the back of my hand, as you do and got a decent jolt off it, so I knew it was working. The horses were let out of their field and grazed happily in the new space for a couple of hours. Then Liz went out to wash some spilt fruit-squash from the front step and spotted Cody calmly grazing in the middle of the front lawn. Not a bother, Liz went for a head collar, got it on him and walked him back to the fence where-upon he happily ducked under the fence-strand as if it wasn't there! Fence too high on the posts? We lowered the fence in the escape zone but judged it to be OK for the rest of its length.

A little later I spotted that Cody was back out again, this time apparently having ducked under again but at the lane end of the lawn. I walked over to him, gently grabbed a hank of mane and steered him gently back to the fence thinking he'd just duck under again. Not this time - he stopped dead, rooted to the ground. At this point I am afraid I become an incompetent idiot. I let go the horse and nipped down to turn off the fence so that I could make a gap to let him back through. Instead of him going back through the other horses trotted up and piled through the gap. I now had 3 horses loose on the lawn, heads up and an excited look in their eyes. I yelled for Liz. Cody and Romeo got into a canter and headed for the woods. They weren't about to be stopped by me calling 'whoa' or doing any of my sheep-steering hand gestures. Our only saving was that the road gates were all closed.

Liz grabbed the Polo mints and got Bob's (The Shetland) attention, so he , at least, wandered over and was amenable to having a head collar and lead fitted, so Liz was able to get him back into the field while we tried to catch the other two. Not a bit of it. They were straight way galloping round the whole place, all fired up at the new freedom. The charged through the woods, scattered the geese and chickens, thundered past very close to our new pond (Argghhhh, No! Visions of ponies galloping through shallow water in cowboy films!) and down into the allotment where they, thankfully, ran down the path-ditches, not across the raised beds and crops. I thought I had them cornered but 2 excited horses are not anything you can corner, and they raced back up the allotment, along the dog-wood path and, luckily into the orchard field where I could at least close the gate on them and contain them in a small area.

Here the galloping turned into play-fighting and then, as far as we could see, to a proper fight. They raced in circles around the orchard doing 2-footed high kicks on each other, biting necks and legs as if to try to make the other guy fall down or sit down. The rabbits in their runs had never seen anything like it and were racing about all over the place trying to take cover. The horses avoided hitting any trees but were careering into fences and at one stage clunked the big goose-house to one side. It was a hot day so we thought it might run out of steam, but Liz suggested fetching a bucket of cold water to throw over them. I got Romeo a direct hit and this did seem to slow him up. Both horses stopped the running-battle and stood, panting hard with nostrils flaring. I was able to get head collars on the pair and Liz and I led one each back to the field where we bolted them in and sat back to draw breath. What a relief!.

In the afternoon we had to go out, but when we came back we thought we'd better lower the fence strand all along the length and let them out again. I noticed that the 'jolt' from the fence was by now very faint, so perhaps the batteries were going flat and Cody had spotted this. Things went OK in the afternoon session. With the fence lowered none of the horses challenged it and when it was time to go back into the field, the carrot-bribe worked as normal. Charlotte is possibly coming round to check the gear out. We might stick to the tethering for now, till we are sorted properly.

We have, sadly, one piece of bad news to report, which is the loss of one of the 7 goslings. We do not know how or why; the most likely reason being a snatch-raid by a hooded crow. When the goslings are as tiny as ours, the crows can swoop down, grab one by the head and nip off even with the parent birds standing guard. Anyway, by what ever method, we know we had 7 goslings this morning till about lunchtime, but by mid-late afternoon we could only count 6. We did a thorough search of the garden in case the little mite had simply been left behind in the various wanderings of the family. Ah well. These things happen.

All 8 chickens are still with us and now at almost 6 weeks of age have formed a nice little tight-knit group who move around together independently of the grown-ups. Broody Betty has little to do with them now and has re-joined the main flock and William.

With the pond now almost full after 2 days of hose-pipery, we have been able to start doing the edges and, in particular, our flat-stone 'beach' and some of the surrounding stone edging. Tomorrow we should be able to play 'bury the rubber edge' under the bits where we want grass edges. It is all starting to look rather good. We are very pleased with it.

Miniature Groomers

After yesterday's 11 2cvGB visitors, then a dash of John Deere Bob and then Carolyn and Charlotte in the evening, you'd have thought we'd have had enough of host(ess)ing. Not a bit of it. Today we entertain the Silverwoods where Em-J and J-M have been hungry to get their hands, curry-combs and horse grooming gear round Carolyn and Charlotte's miniature horses since we first posted about them a few weeks back.

Robbedy (6) was also keen to get in on the act so, as it's a Bank Holiday in Ireland this weekend, the whole family decided to make a day of it. Alarms were set. The 'smalls' were dragged out of their beds still in their PJs and loaded into the car to continue their sleep for the 2 hours of the journey and breakfast was planned for here when they arrived at 09:00.

Em-J and J-M are keen enough on the horses that they now help out at the riding school when it is not 'their week' (The Silverwoods do 2 children every other week so that the older ones could help out training the smaller ones, but now that less supervision is needed as their skills improve, the older ones slope off to groom spare horses and have now bought their own grooming brushes). It was these brushes that they brought along to  tackle some of the Miniatures' left over winter coat.

With breakfasts done we rounded up the horses and gave a head collar and lunge-rein to each of the older girls. I kept hold of Romeo. Horses were led out to today's tethering, mowing zone. You can see in the pics how long the grass is here; it wasn't that long by 5 pm! Then all 4 children  with Mum there to help and supervise, got stuck in, rubbing down flanks and rumps, combing through manes and tails and even plaiting a tail in J-M's case. I think everyone enjoyed it and then the horses were just left there to graze till their bellies were so full they needed a lie-down.

The Silverwoods were here from about 09:00 to 19:00, making a good old day of it, enjoying the space, the geese and goslings, the 5 week old chickens and the grown up chickens, plus Liz's roast pork lunch. Charlotte also arrived with baby bro' Henry at one stage and joined in the fun. Mrs S has posted an amusing picture of the children wiped out in the back of the car on the way home. All that fresh air and exercise! We loved having you, Silverwoods, as always and please come back as soon as you can. The girls are booked to help out at the 'real' riding stables tomorrow and Stef, the main lady was anxious that they'd still have some energy!

Meanwhile the pond has been sitting there with its tiny puddle in the bottom since we emptied the bulk tank (1010 litres) into it but the sun came out and all rain stopped. I had been determined to try to let it fill with rain-water being suspicious of the 'chemical soup' that is Roscommon mains water. There is, though, another hot dry week forecast and we could see the little water we had evapourating away and the poor geese and goslings looking hungrily at it but despairing of the steep banks and gosling hazards they represented. We decided to bite the bullet, buy a garden hose and fill it that way. This involves about 15-20,000 litres but, hey, we paid €1600 for the right to connect up so we reckon we can take a wee dram off the pipes. . We nipped out to Connacht Gold for a hose and turned on the flow at about 11 am. We have been watching it slowly slowly fill ever since. It has taken 7 hours or so to fill the 'deep end' and is now expanded out to the full size as the 'tide' came in on the shallow end. We will leave the tap running all night but I do not expect it to be really full till mid morning. I will update you and supply pictures tomorrow. We have also created the flat-stone 'beach' on the orchard side.

Eire Raiders

The Citroën 2CV Club of UK (2cvGB, for short) is organised into Local Groups rather than being run as one big club (although there is a Central Committee and an official National body) and it is at local group level that all the camps, rallies and events take place, with each local group advertising their events in the club mag so that people from any other local group can come and take part. When I lived in Kent I was main-man for the East Kent group, who are called the Kentish Hoppers. We ran camps in a member's Mum's farm at the village of Preston, near Canterbury and these were regularly mentioned in blog posts of old.

But it is the Bath local group, the Bath Tub Club who are the subject of this post. The group, run by John Mellor and Carol M who visited us here a while back organise driving tour holidays which in 2cvGB tend to be called 'Raids'. This one, being a tour of the west side of Ireland, got called Eire Raid or, less seriously Hair Aid. We offered to become a port of call on this Raid, as well as a port in a storm, possible free camp site, under cover car repair facility etc if it all went a bit pear shaped.

Well, they have all had a whale of a time and some lovely weather. They have toured all the scenic bits, had some lovely meals and sampled some excellent Guinness and John has kept us all up to date with his blog and reports on Facebook under the heading Hair Aid News. They decided to call in here this afternoon, so we went a bit mad yesterday mowing, tidying the garden and blitzing the house and Liz went into full-on Domestic Goddess mode baking scones, three kinds of cake, lemon biscuits, bacon cheese and chilli biscuits and those chocolate covered Rice Krispies things. We had an army of mugs lined up for teas and coffees, jam, butter and whipped cream for the scones, dogs were walked and banished to upstairs (briefly!) and we were ready.

There were 11 of them in the end - we knew John and Carol and we knew Sue Chalcraft from club AGMs (she was 'Keeper of the Archive') and Jan the Membership Sec but I am rubbish at names so the rest of you, if you read this, I'm sorry but names pass through my brain without really touching down, so I will have to learn them and get to know you better through Face Book. They were all lovely people and it was fantastic to have them here. They loved the place and the geese and goslings, chooks, mini-horses, rabbits, dogs (yes, we quickly let them out of their room once we'd explained about not letting them dash out of a door and get at the goslings) and cats. They descended upon the food like a plague of locusts and we chatted and talked, showed them the place and all the work we have done to renovate it.

All in all it was an excellent 'event'. I think this is their last night of 'Raid'ing so as we said our good byes, some of them were also saying their own good byes to each other as they went their separate ways back to ferries to the UK over tonight and tomorrow. That sad 'end of holidays' feeling we all know so well. Well guys, if you are ever by this way again, do look us up. We love doing this and Liz, particularly loves all the baking and Domestic Goddess-ery. There is something Irish about being hospitable and feeding guests, and Liz has definitely got this gene.

Brilliant.

Water, water, everywhere.

By coincidence there is a lot of water in today's post even though we have a beautiful blue cloudless sky today as I type and a warm breeze blowing. Secretly and selfishly (for reasons which will become clear) we wouldn't actually mind if it was raining today but we are not wishing for that and definitely no-one is doing any rain dances.

First I expect you'd like a goose update. We have currently 7 healthy goslings on site plus 'Lucky' doing very well down at Carolyn's. I have started feeding them in the goose house and Liz has sunk a cat-litter tray into the gravel just outside as a paddling pool for them. Yesterday we noticed them for the first time being brought out accompanied by various grown ups, for a drink and a swim. Liz had arranged some flat stones to help them get in and out but they do not need these - they hop in and out quite happily.

Today they were taken on a big adventure as far as the orchard by both parents. Suddenly the sky seemed to be full of hooded-crow calls and then the shouts of magpies harassing the crows and eventually driving them off. I stayed around just in case and for the first time in my life, wished I had a gun. The mass exodus gave me a first chance to inspect the remaining nests and to collect up failed eggs and have a tidy up. I found, to my surprise another gosling but this poor little mite, though dry and fluffy, was stuck to the inside of his half-shell by his head, neck and shoulder. I freed him but he is very weak and wobbly, presumably as a result of not being able to exercise after hatching. More on him in a minute. First there were also 2 other stuck, half hatched goslings but dead ones, and 5 other eggs, now cold. 4 of these proved to be fully developed but dead, so I assume these were laid after we got started and have now been left behind. There was also a sterile egg (just yolk and white).

So, for my 17 eggs which I know were there at one stage we have

Lucky, doing well at Carolyn's
7 healthy goslings now being shown around the place
1 sickie
2 half hatched dead
4 fully developed but unhatched, dead
1 sterile
1 missing (no idea, the list above only accounts for 16)

[A quick pic of the chickens, now 5 weeks and let out to join the grown ups]

So, that sick gosling? Stuck in his shell he has not been able to exercise and develop properly so his neck is all weak and twisted and his legs seem a bit crunched up but he can kick strongly. He wobbles a lot, falls over and was lying upside down for a while this morning. When the gang go off for an explore, he gets left behind, so I have been able to sneak in there and help him a bit, holding him in the water so that he can drink and do his physio therapy kicks. I have offered him food but he just pokes at it with his beak. I didn't actually see him eat any. I am hoping that now that he is free of the egg and can struggle about, he might catch up but I don't hold out much hope for him. I am consulting with Nurse Mentor Anne.

Yesterday saw us make the long journey across to Allenwood, County Kildare to collect our pond liner from Rock-World. This could be rolled up reasonably tight so would fit in the Fiat, but weights 150 kg, as much as 2 people, so was actually offered up to the car with a fork lift. Poor old car! This is the last real ponds and water-features business in Ireland after the economic woes and probably survives in Kildare only because this is one of the most prosperous counties, home of The Curragh race-course and all those rich race-horse folk. The 'shop' we noticed was well stocked with huge pumps and filtration gear for massive ponds and fountains - prices of over €1000 per pump and outputs of 18,000 litres an hour. Impressive.

Allenwood is right by the Grand Canal so we opted to take a picnic and we sat in a very nice moorings to eat our sandwiches and salad, remembering all those brilliant narrow boating holidays. Not a single boat went by and we know that the canal is barely used. As well as being clear of boats, it is also amazingly clear in the water-clarity area - unlike a lot of Yorkshire and Lancashire canals, you can generally see right down to the bed, seeing all the little fish ('Pinkeens!', said Liz) and the pond weed. We watched the strange dog-foot-print shadow cast on the bottom mud by pond-skaters on the surface.

With the liner home, I was going to rest up and leave the installation till 'tomorrow' (now today, of course) but Liz was having none of that! It was heavy to move about, but we got it in place north-south-east and west. First, of course we had finished preparing the bottom, going over it with the back of the rake and a yard-brush to clear up any possible sharp stones and bits that might puncture the rubber sheet. It seemed enormous! Well it's in now and we have started to fill it with the 1010 litres from our bulk-tank plus a little rain last night but, guess what. it has stopped raining and the sky is blue! The tank full, we calculate, resulted from 1.3 inches of rain falling on the car port and the car port is smaller than the pond so, as you'd expect, it has spread back out to being only a shallow pool in the bottom of our rubber. The advice from the guys at Rock-World was to get half an inch into the bottom to help with pulling out wrinkles. That's ab out the stage we are at.

[Cats playing with the first rivulets of water into the pond liner.... "Can we start fishing yet?"]

If we can, we want the pond to contain only rain water, none from the mains here which are not the best chemical mix for a wildlife pond, even though the brave folk here drink it when it is not under 'Boil Water' notices due to the latest outbreak of Cryptosporidiosis. This might take a few weeks, though we now will get what falls in naturally PLUS the car port's gurglings. We will also arrange intercepts on the house down-pipes to collect some of that - fortunately the house is uphill a bit from the pond. We could just do with a bit of rain, but if anyone asks, I never said so.

So there you have it, Goslings a-swimming, a pond liner, a canal-side picnic and fishing for cats. One unexpected aspect which never occurred to me and I will now have to watch. The geese brought the goslings down to see the pond. They stayed up on the bank but the goslings all leapt onto the rubber and slithered down into the 'depths'. The Geese called them back and only three could climb back up. I had to nip in a bit smartish in my soft shoes and give the other 4 a bunk-up back to safety. It's nerve wracking, all this baby animal management.

Happy Families ( There's a relief ! )

After the trauma of rejected goslings and rescuing poor unfortunate 'Lucky' to Carolyn's I am pleased and amazed to be able to report a complete turn around in our goose-rearing fortunes. We are not sure why but perhaps the geese got over the first shock encounter and spent the night re-thinking their maternal instincts, plus a bit of we humans being a bit calmer and not diving in to intervene as soon as we misread the signs. Anyway, for what ever the reason, once we had delivered the rejected gosling to Carolyn, all the geese calmed down and the females went back to quietly sitting on their eggs. Possibly overnight or early morning, but definitely by about 2 pm of Sunday I was fairly sure I could hear cheeping again and soon I was definitely seeing yellow down showing between the white adult feathers. We were on again.

Amazingly everybody stayed calm and I have seen even the Gander very very gently sniffing around the new goslings. He has moved permanently into the goose house and is doing a good job keeping guard - I have seen him lunge at Blue the cat when he approached the door. Even more amazingly and completely against the advice we had been given and had read, we do not seem to be getting any argument between the females as to who owns the babies. They are either sharing, or they each have their own and they know who is whose so it is not an issue. This, we know, could have been very different and still might, so we are not being complacent - we are keeping a very watchful eye on proceedings.

We think we have at least 4 goslings across the current brood (plus Lucky as a fifth). I have seen 3 and while I was watching the three, I could see rippling under the feathers of Goocie's back. It could be more, we are avoiding going in to disturb the happy family till they are good and ready to come out and explore the garden. There will be time enough then to 'count our chickens'.

Chicks, ducklings and goslings alike, hatch with the remainder of the rich yolk in a yolk-sac within their body cavity (it is drawn into the body during the final few days of incubation) so that they can live 24-36 hours without feeding. This is an adaptation to allow earlier hatching chicks to stay in the nest while more tardy siblings catch up.  Eventually though, you do need to feed them and supply them with water. We do not know for sure when these guys hatched but at some point today or tonight they should hit the hungry-gap.

On this one we were well supplied with advice, so I decided to make up a smorgasbord of all the likely ingredients. They should find something there that they can eat. In the picture, clockwise from top are chick-crumb, wetted chick crumb, water, chopped up grass, hard-boiled egg (including finely chopped shell). milled barley and (centre of tray) grated carrot. I sneaked this in mid morning to much protesting hiss from Gander and a bit of alarm from the Mums but I did my two-tone whistle which they know so well, and Gander's hiss turned to his excited 'food!' honking so everybody calmed down again. Gander loomed his neck over the tray and explored the contents with his beak-tip. I like to think he gave the selection his approval. As far as I know, no goslings have yet ventured out to the tray to eat but it has been disturbed, so maybe one of the mums or Gander have had a little taster. I will refresh this every morning and eventually they may learn to love it as did the baby chicks.

Meanwhile Carolyn has posted to Facebook a nice picture of Lucky getting his first swim in their house bath - he looks very tiny in what we think must be a big whirlpool type bath tub.

Finally we do not have a Bank Holiday today in Ireland, so we decided to bite the bullet and order the pond liner for the big pond. This measured out at 8.53 m by 12.5 m and set us back €915.90 or £782.85. It is being cut to size at the depot in Allenwood in County Kildare. We can collect it and save ourselves the lorry pallet-rate of €54. It is about 150 kg so should go OK in the back of the poor, over worked Fiat Panda. We are very excited!