Spent Mushroom Compost

Feed the soil and it will feed you. The substrate in our poly tunnel managed its first season producing shallots, strawberries, some tomatoes and pumpkins but is not really in good heart. The ground there was the floor of an old hay barn, so well compacted by farm machinery, strewn with bits of old peat-turf, riddled with stinging nettle roots, tussock grasses and, it turned out, many an annual weed seed, especially chickweed. The soil, where it existed, seemed to be mainly the clay subsoil, the topsoil having been scraped away and into 'the bank' (of which more in other posts). The clay had been badly poached and puddled up making the ground into a quagmire that we hoped would dry out a bit once the tunnel cover was on.

Mushroom farm tunnel.

We decided to dig the whole floor over, recovering as many bigger bits of peat turf as we could, pulling out the weeds and stones, but then to leave it to sit, chopped over while it might drain a bit. We would not, for the moment, add any fertilizer or soil improver. We thought it would go one season like this while the soil structure recovered, helped by worms and crop plant roots. This is what happened. I cleared the area at the end of the tomato season and then let the chickens in to scrape and peck through the aftermath creating a nice seedless and critter-less crumb, which they are happy to do. They especially love the chance to dust-bathe in there on rainy days.

But now we need to get the soil ready for the next season so we will add some of our well rotted calf manure, but also some spent mushroom compost. Anne has tipped us off about a mushroom farm within half an hour's drive, up beyond the town of Boyle, which runs 8 dark poly-tunnels full of mushroom beds and which clears (they use the expression "bounces") the compost from one tunnel each Monday. The inoculated compost  (in this case 'chestnut mushrooms') goes into the shelving and onto the beds in these tunnels packed into bales looking like thick grow-bags with the tops cut away.

When the crop is grown, cut over several weeks and 'spent' (cropped out) the beds can be cleared by lifting these saggy damp bales out for commercial disposal but the farm encourages gardeners and other interested parties to come and collect as much as they like. Anne and Simon bring their van (and, in fact offered us the use of same) and can fit 30 such bales into the back. We took the Fiat and managed to squeeze 8 bales into that with the seats down. We wished we still had the 2CV and its trailer. We may well get a tow bar fitted to the Fiat. The spent compost is a lovely 'clean' product which, said Liz, smells beautifully of the woods in autumn. It is also covered in tiny button mushrooms-to-be which will apparently give us a crop for a while in our own poly-tunnel. Well it's home now and spread around the tunnel here. I could probably use a couple more bales, realistically, to give good cover.

The rest of that outing was also a very successful shopping expedition. I needed a new chain saw chain and a file to sharpen the existing one(s) so East Brothers near Boyle did the honours. We needed socks, jocks, Marmite and some jeans for Liz from Tesco in Carrick. We also needed paint for Anne's glass-painting hobby from Carrick. Scenic, too, with all the lovely sunshine and autumn colours around Lough Kee. Very pleasant.

Spreading the compost around in our own tunnel.

We were amused to learn some more story on our 'failed' Hallowe'en where, you will recall, no children turned up and we are left with a bowl of un-used sweeties. The main 'Mum', Mrs McG was laughing about the adventures with me, It seems that the McG tribe set out with good intention that night but poorly off for torches, one Mum with a small torch but the other just using the light on her mobile phone. They started off going west down the lane away from us meaning to call at some of the houses down there. They actually pre-agree these with some of the old boys who live alone in these old houses and in some cases actually give the sweeties to give back to the children!

Roast pork belly with apple, chestnut, sage and onion stuffing

Returning from this western leg of their mission one of the smaller boys had tripped over and fallen on his hand, grazing the 'heel' of his hand and getting gravel in it, and worse, his older brother had then stumbled over his prone form in the dark and fallen too. The Mums had picked up the kids and wiped away tears and cleaned grazes as best they could. They were then just about to set out our way when a big loose dog bounced up the land behind them. Apparently it did not attack or harry them, it just bounced enthusiastically, but the little ones aren't very good with dogs, so there were more tears, crying of "Mummy!" and also, by then, it had started to rain, so they aborted the trip and all went home to get clean, dry and safe. Mrs McG was 'horrified' to learn that we'd been there, all waiting in vain and even writing poems to cover our absence and she joked that they'd make sure to do us first next year.

Not with a Bang but a Whimper

Mademoiselle (left) and Clara Bow (right).

As I write this, the minute hand on my watch is chugging gently through 15:35 pm when I should have been anxiously handing my 2CV in to the NCT testing station in Carrick on Shannon for its 4th run up the testing lane 'sausage machine', its carburettor serviced and pouring a perfect mixture of petrol and air onto the spark plugs, its exhaust emissions compliant and the tester man fanning himself on my signed and stamped police form allowing my car to carry the registration it carries.

A 2CV camp at Preston, near Canterbury in 2010

Instead I am sitting typing this. The car languishes in the garage in Balla D, the carburettor sent off to a specialist despite my request that the garage do nothing if they could not guarantee to get my car back to me for today and the 2 guys at the garage (Father and Son) who are the only ones who seem to know anything about "these old cars" are in America playing at Kart Racing, mechanicking for the Ireland team in some international Karting race meeting.

J-M (left) and Em-J in Mademoiselle

This point, 2 tests and 2 re-tests down, plus a goodly amount of money spent on fixes I had already set in my mind as the end of the road for my 2CV-ownership hobby. It's been a great ride and an enjoyable period, over ten years as 'officially mine' and three years before that when it was registered to Liz (long story involving £2 sterling and 5 David Austin roses!). We have some great fun with the car as well as some misadventures, been to 2CV club camps all over the place including Kelso Castle and we've taken her to France a couple of times too. As I said though, always a hobby vehicle rather than a day to day 'proper' car and funded as such. It was always a cheap sustainable hobby when I was in Kent because I could call on my ace fixer, 2CV Llew who, for a small fee could always get it through MOTs, gearbox changes, body-part swaps and so on.

Ireland though, is a different kettle of fish. Nobody owns 2CVs here so there are no Llews to call upon. My local garage have done very well but the NCT is a much stricter test than the MOT and all parts have to be sourced from the UK. So we brought the car over with us intending to keep it running as long as we realistically could but now its time is up. When the carb comes back from the specialist, the garage will refit it to the car and I will drive it back here, park it up and officially take it off the road on a SORN notice. I am sad but resigned. A bit relieved too, if I'm honest and pleased that the stress of all this battling with garages and anxiously taking it for NCTs is over. A weight lifted.

So, as of about now, when the test would have finished, I am the owner of an NCT failure 2CV which may soon be perfectly repaired and able to sweep through an NCT (No! Don't go there! That way madness lies!) and, as it happens, half a 1961, 425 cc, 6 volt electrics 2CV known as Mademoiselle d'Armentieres which lives in Kent, so I can't get at that one either. I am not sure what the future holds. The rules around cars being 'vintage' or old enough to be exempt from NCT have currently frozen on "cars registered on or before 1980" (they are not rolling annually). I can drive it within the 'farm', of course and could even teach the nieces to drive on it, or I could put it up on good old 'Donedeal' and try to sell it. We'll see. Currently I am contemplating cracking open the Prosecco I bought on a "Win or Lose, have a Booze" basis and getting used to being someone who used to have a 2CV. I apologise for borrowing TS Eliot's much over-used final line for my header - his was a serious poem about the post 2nd WW world, not some classic car owning hobby. Look on the bright side. I nearly went down Auden's "Stop all the clocks... prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone" road.

Rest in Peace, 'Clara' for the moment. You were an excellent and respected friend. I will miss being able to drive you about.

Free Range Guineas

The Guinea Fowl have now been with us a week and have settled down well to the routine, living in the Kitchen Garden and sleeping in the Tígín. I was confident that they would stick around if released to range with the rest of the poultry and would be home tonight to roost back in the Tíg'. It was another beautiful, blue skied warm, almost windless day so with my chores all done I opened their gate and their inner door and sat down with a coffee. I love these 'release' days what ever the species and new group, clutch or family. I am proud that we are able to do full free range on our birds and that they get good green grass underfoot and the sun on their backs. It is pure joy to watch them start to explore their new environment.

Henry and Min were as good as gold (those are the Goon Show names we have given them inspired by them looking to me like the old folks on the road sign walking hunched forward as they do, and being (by all accounts) rather dim). They quietly and calmly explored the yard, the chicken and goose houses, the cattle race and then out towards the Secret Garden and the big pond. They creep about rather tentatively muttering high pitched 'chat chat' clucks to each other. They met some Hubbards first and were confident and unperturbed. When a Hubbard 'roo' decided to square up to one of the Guineas, the Guinea squared up right back at him and he backed down in a hurry. I watched them for the first hour and then went about my business, calling back to check on them during the day.

The Guineas claim the centre of the scattered seed.

At one stage in the afternoon I went to throw my usual handful of wheat and oats onto the ground of the yard to give the chickens something to do their 'feeding frenzy' on and something amazing happened. The Guineas had not yet approached me at all, tending to back away nervously at my approach, but as all the chooks came running (as they do), the Guineas joined in the charge and raced towards me in the thick of things and then, even more surprisingly, claimed the centre ground of the scattered food, pecking it up furiously and shooing away any competition so that I had the two Guineas at the centre of a ring of confused chickens (even William) who were left to pick up the crumbs from the Guinea's banquet table! Go Henry and Min.

600 g parsnip.

With the first frosts now well under our belts we have been enjoying some root vegetables, notably parsnips and more recently some Jerusalem artichokes. Many of the parsnips are grown huge and fat. The one pictured weighs 600 g. They are, though, still delightfully tender and young tasting. Liz cooked a roast beef on Sunday with all the Yorkshire pud and onion-gravy that goes with and the roast parsnips that came with it were pure delight. Our only problem, with the parsnips being this big, they were roasted in chunks which looked very like the roast spuds in the bowl, so we were having to look carefully to make sure we got some of both.

The Jerusalem Artichokes have also done remarkably well. Their 8 foot tops looking like sunflower plants have now started to die back and go black with the frost but the soil is so loamy and crumbly that you can harvest the chokes just by pulling up the main stem. This bowl with its 2.1 kg of chokes comes from a single plant. These are, if my plans are to be believed, the old fashioned knobbly variety, though they look as smooth, swollen and clean as any I have seen. We have also grown a ridge of the modern 'Fuseau' variety which purport to be less knobbly. It is possible that I have cross labelled (though I doubt it) so it will be interesting to dig some of those and see what shape they are. Liz has been surfing the net for interesting artichoke recipes and I think we have something along those lines on the menu for tonight. I will let you know how we got on.

Finally, Joy of Joys, I found in the bottom of a drawer an old English tin of that elixir of boot cleaning potions, Kiwi "Dubbin". This stuff is brilliant for keeping work boots and hiking boots waterproof and the leather supple but try as I might, I have been unable to find it for sale in Ireland. I have been smearing my boots with goose grease which kinda works but is a bit messy and does not seem to stay put very long. Now, though, all is well with the world. The tin did not have much in, just enough for half a dozen 'goes' maybe, but for today my boots are clean, dry and with that lustre that neutral Dubbin lends to them. I am a happy 'stockman' clomping about after Henry and Min.

You Live and Learn

Oven ready Hubbard 'roo'. Apologies for
the imperfect plucking and torn skin. 

First up today, the weights on that Hubbard rooster, as promised. He was at 97 days old and had a live weight of 3.645 kg ( 8 lb and half an ounce ). In oven-ready form he weighed 2.470 kg ( 5 lb 7 oz ) so a fine big lad and one we would not normally roast intact for just the two of us, so Liz has jointed him up and we will get 4 meals out of him easily. We started that evening with a roast thigh and a 'fore-arm' a-piece which Liz deliberately cooked with just oil so that we could assess the full unadulterated Hubbard flavour. Meaty and delicious served with potato wedges, home made coleslaw and home made mayo, all washed down with a very nice Italian red wine, Montepulciano which we are getting currently from Lidl at just under €30 for 6 bottles. These Hubbards are declared a success and if we get a chance we may do them again. This is an 'if' just because we only ever got these through a bizarre sequence of events (you may recall) - our 'clocker' (broody hen) was rearing some very young ducklings having incubated the eggs for 28 days and we wanted something to slip under her when we took the ducklings back to their owner, Mentor Anne. Anne happened to be driving right up to the hatchery on the Northern Ireland border to collect some day old Hubbards for herself and a friend and offered to collect 8 for us on the run.

I said that when we decided to buy a pair of Guinea fowl we knew next to nothing about them - only what we'd read in books, been told by the seller and found out by a quick internet search. We have since had some fun picking the brains of Anne and Simon and the many many poultry experts and keepers on a couple of internet discussion forums, one of which I am one of the Moderators on. Well, now we know all sorts of facts, myths, legends and 'what I reckon' comments, probably more than you need and definitely in some cases a little 'embellished'.

They can be a devil to persuade to stay around and difficult to teach that new home is a their new home. They love to roost up high in trees and one lad suggested that they can predict the weather better than Met Éireann, choosing to roost out on nights where it will definitely not rain, but roosting in their coop when there is risk of rain. They free range like crazy - another member of the group said he'd often seen his out half a mile from home during the day but that they were always home by supper time. It is said that they might attack your chicken-roosters. They are allegedly as thick as a plank - more stupid than any other bird. Anne, who keeps quail and does not have a very high opinion of quail brain-power, says that Guinea Fowl "make quail look intellectual". Another lad says they are "far from stupid". The eggs are apparently nice but a very pointy shape, almost triangular (says Simon) and Anne commented that the shells are so tough that if you are trying to do the eggs and toast soldiers thing, you almost need a hacksaw to do the neat decapitation. Pick the bones, as they say, out of that little lot!

We have had to part company with our friend, miniature Falabella cross stallion Cody. He'd been in our sheep field since a month or two back because his alpha-male hormones had been driving him to escape the 'home field' and go in search of mares. This had led to an interesting hour one day for Carolyn when she'd had to go 'rescue' him from a field of three full sized mares who were playing 'hard to get' teasing him as he chased them in his randy way while they tried to kick his head in, playing rough. Carolyn, who is not much bigger than Liz, had to dive into this mêlée and pull Cody out for his own safety and get him to the gate without any of the mare kicks connecting, while Cody wanted to stay in there and work on his seduction technique.

Cody ended up in our field where he'd be OK with the sheep because he was such a chilled out lad that he was OK with anything and, indeed, that was the case. He became a boss-sheep and used to give the 5 sheep the run around occasionally but was only playing and never seemed to be trying to do them any damage. Happy days. He was going to be gelded by Aoife (Rhymes with Deefer) the Vet but the warm autumn had meant that the risk of fly/maggot infection in the gelding scar was too great and this has not yet happened. Then yesterday it seemed to turn nasty and a bit serious. I went out at 4-ish to find Cody beating up one of the ram lambs, Cody had the ram pinned down between his front 'knees' and seemed to be trying to bite chunks out of the ram's woolly flanks. I raced into the field and, yelling at Cody and smacking him on the nose, managed to separate the 'protagonists'. I got Cody into a head collar and tethered him to the fence. The sheep seemed to be OK, just a small reddish wound near one eye and chunks of wool hanging off, but they all piled into their supper and certainly looked OK by this morning.

We phoned Carolyn for advice and she decided that the lad had better be brought home, so Charlotte was dropped off to walk him home. He is now back home in the sand-school but where he can get to a lot of grass growing round the edges. His gelding operation is now timed for some point in the next 2 weeks and fairly soon after that our sheep will have gone for their last journey anyway, so he can safely come back into our field while his hormones calm down. Then he can be reunited with his two amigos, Bob and Romeo. Complicated this horse management, isn't it? Maybe we should stick to our highly intelligent Guinea Fowl?

Guinea Fowl

Guinea Fowl

We have treated ourselves to a pair of Guinea Fowl as an Anniversary present to ourselves. We have never done these rather bizarre looking things before (though we have eaten the meat) so this is a new species for us. We saw this pair at the Balla-D livestock fair. I asked the price but didn't discuss it further at the time with Liz and only on talking in the car we discovered that we both thought they'd be a good idea. We managed to track down the guy's phone number via our friend Charlotte and nipped out to inspect them today, found them to be clean, free from parasites and sound looking birds and brought them home in the cat basket. They are now exploring the kitchen garden, separated from the rest of the stock by the fence and checking out their new quarters, a mini coop I created this morning from bits of caravan-bed and cut down shelf laths from the Utility Room.

What a handsome dude!

Guinea Fowl are an African bird originally from the family (or sub-family if you are American) 'Numinidae' (Order Galliformes) with the one species, the Helmeted Guinea Fowl (Numida Meleagris) having been domesticated many years ago and spread throughout Europe (and elsewhere). They are used for meat, though you can eat the eggs. We have eaten roast guinea fowl several times in a Creek-side restaurant in Faversham which used to be owned by a locally famous chef from the Dordogne. They tend to be a bit smaller than a full grown chicken, so we like that you can manage a whole half-bird on your plate.

What we know about these guys has mainly come from the internet over the last few days and by talking to the seller and his good lady. We are assured that these are a breed-able pair (i.e. not brother and sister) and actually they mate for life and the girl is a good layer who produced many eggs last year. They do sometimes go broody but I think we may end up using Broody Betty again. The chicks, called 'keets' are tiny and delicate and, being African natives, do not like damp or wet grass till they are quite feathered up, so we may also be needing a broody box. Apparently they are almost impossible to sex except for by their calls, so we don't know which one is which yet!

Bodge of the week!

So, there you are. Where they came from had all its runs completely bare of grass, so they were running on a mix of mud and stones. They seem to be delighted with the green-ness of the quarters here which is currently the kitchen garden with its grass paths, cleared raised beds, the 'Jam and Jerusalem' Hedge. some herbs and roses and the gravestones of the late Haggis and Coco in out Pet Cemetery. We have had them wing-clipped by the seller so that they stay put till they get used to us, the new house and these surroundings, but the plan is to have them completely free ranging along with the rest of the gang.

Tarka Dahl under construction

What to call them, then? We are currently enjoying the TV series "The Sopranos" as a boxed set having let it pass us completely by when it was first aired. Well, we find that Guinea is a derogatory term in America for Italian Americans, so we considered naming them Tony and Carmela for a while, after the two main characters in Sopranos. Or maybe Numi and Mel from the Latin name (above) but we'll probably leave it open for now and see what happens.

In other food news we have been exploring the Guardian newspaper's "Best 10 Curry Recipes". We had the one called 'Luxury Chick Peas' first and then yesterday a lentil based one called Tarka Dahl which we had with flat breads and home made mango chutney. Like the Madhur Jaffrey recipes, neither have so far turned out to be madly hot or challenging, just beautiful complex mixes of spices. I have also culled out my first Hubbard chicken (actually a rooster). More on that including weights, in the next post.

Anniversary Tourists

By the beach at Louisburgh, Croagh Patrick behind us.

The 3rd of November saw us hitting a major milestone and a happy event, our 20th Wedding Anniversary. We had decided a while back to celebrate this with a nice breakfast, a scenic drive, a picnic and a candle lit steak supper. We knew we were taking a chance with the weather but we just amused ourselves with the possibility of having to that British thing, a picnic in the car by the side of the road with the wipers going occasionally to clear the rain off the windscreen. When the 2nd of November presented us with a vicious Westerly, a gale of wind and driving rain squalls we wondered whether the joke was about to become reality but no, the 3rd dawned bright, blue skies, warm sunshine and not a breath of wind. We were on!

The beach at Old Head

Breakfast was that family favourite, boiled eggs and toast soldiers, always improved by having your own, deep yellow yolked free range eggs. Then we were showering and preparing the picnic, again, family favourite "Hang Sangwidges" and various salads plus some chocolate cake for 'pud'. With the car loaded, dogs an' all, we headed off west to find some scenery. Castlebar we have been to dozens of times, especially while building the house, but we'd never been past Castlebar and on towards Westport and all the lovely mountains and coast of North Mayo.

The shore of Doo Lough. 

As you approach Westport you can soon see the famous, cone-shaped 'Holy Mountain', Croagh Patrick, scene of many a pilgrim hike in the Summer, with an option to do it in bare feet if you are feeling particularly martyr-like. We are determined to do the climb soon, but not in bare feet. It is reckoned to take about 2 and a half hours to the summit, none of these Irish peaks are 'that tall' and "The Reek" is only 764 m. It is a tourist magnet, though, so we will try to avoid the known pilgrimage days.

From Westport we headed on West into ever smaller lanes, determined to reach 'Roonagh', the small port from which you catch the ferry out to Clare Island, famed in one of our favourite 'Sawdoctors' songs. We needed to let the dogs out for a comfort stop, so Liz found Old Head on the map, a small headland with a beach just east of Louisburgh. After Roonagh, we headed back to Louisburgh and then southwards into the mountains aiming for the gorgeous Doo Lough Pass and Doo Lough itself for our picnic.

Not everybody faced with a Lough in November in North County Mayo gets the urge to paddle, but I did and Liz grabbed the camera and took these pictures. The bed of the lough here is a lovely smooth scree of rounded, flat stones, perfect for skimming across the surface of the mirror-smooth water, so I could have gone barefoot, but I had my 'crocks' with me, so I kept those on. The dogs seemed to like the belly-deep (for them) wading, It wasn't that cold.

We swapped drivers at this point and I took over the maps to guide Liz down past the lough and on down to Killary Harbour (a 15 km inlet of the Atlantic), round the head of that to Leenaun and then south some more climbing over the minor road between the 'Devil's Mother' (mountain) and Ben Beg, grinding up the incline and dropping down a beautiful hairpin bend road and over a lovely bridge to Lough Nafooey. On to Lough Mask by which time we were a bit touristed out, so we were happy when Liz got onto some bigger roads, for the drive back eastwards through Ballinrobe, Claremorris picking up the N17 to near Knock airport and the lanes home. It had been a beautiful drive and a lovely, enjoyable day.

With all the livestock sorted we were able to crack the wine open and get our steak supper organised, whereupon the power died on us, so we would have had to eat by candle light even if we'd not planned to. Luckily we have a gas hob, so cooking was not a problem. We had a lovely evening chatting and reminiscing in the romantic ambience and, in fact, when the power was restored at 8 pm we chose to turn all the lights off anyway and carried on with just the candles. Cheers and here's to the next 20 years.

Our First Livestock Sale

We needn't have bothered with Hallowe'en, the pumpkin carving and the bowl of sweeties in the end. Not a single child came and tried to 'Trick or Treat' us. The small group from 2 families down the lane, the McG children who made it last year, although I'd seen them gathering in the afternoon, obviously went elsewhere come evening. You will recall that Liz was out at the Dublin Knitting and Stitching Show, getting back to Balla-D by just gone 8 pm, so I was all set with the 5 pumpkins burning up the driveway from half five, but to no avail. Come 8 and I was expecting Liz's call, knowing I had to nip to Balla and I might miss the children, I put the bowl of sweets out front and decided to leave them a note. Feeling still a bit enthusiastic at that stage, I composed this silly ode.

Come ghosts, come ghouls, come witches all
You're welcome to our house and hall
I kid you not - don't hear me say
I got too scared and ran away
I had to nip to Balla-D
To c'llect my wife from Dublin, see?
But don't you worry, hungry friends
We have a way to make amends
There's sweets and smarties on that table (arrowed)
Grab big handfuls while you're able
We'll be back soon, before you know
But we'll be driving safe and slow
More scary kids I've never seen
Good Luck and Happy Hallowe'en!

It made me smile, anyway, so I thought I'd post it here. There! Art! Culture! Poetry, even! Are you impressed? No, OK. Nor were the local children who still stayed away in droves. The only youthful activity I saw was some herberts letting off fireworks from the lane down towards the nearby village of Lisacul but I guess that is the way of the world. I came back with Liz by which time it was raining, rescued the sweets and the poster from the wet and we retreated inside and finally had supper. I was amazed that the little pumpkins, which had been so hard to get alight with their little tea-light candles in the wind and drizzle, were still going strong at 10 pm when we went to 'lock up'. 

The next morning, the 1st November, is the regular and traditional date for a bit of a livestock fair in local town Balla-D. We are told that ten years ago this was a huge event, the streets crammed with folk, dozens of stalls selling stuff, huge rows of people with poultry in crates, geese sitting on the pavement restrained by being pushed into onion sacks with a hole cut in the bottom for the neck, trailers full of piglets and every kind of horse and donkey tethered to every handy bit of fence, lamp-posts and bollards, 4-wheel-drives and scruffy vans everywhere parked as only the locals seem to know how, double parked, abandoned at jaunty angles to the kerb, all across zebra crossings and double yellow lines. 

'Dublin Girl', one ear up, one ear down.

Now it is a much smaller event confined to a couple of streets and 'the corner' near the SuperValu supermarket, with maybe a dozen stacks of poultry crates, 15 horses and half a dozen donkeys. We have seen it before and pretty much avoided it, pigeon-holing it as a 'Travelling Community' thing, convinced that any stock you bought there would be in poor condition, dirty or diseased and over-priced. 

Our friend Charlotte from down the road, however, is made of tougher stuff than we are and uses it as a way of clearing some excess stock, in this case rabbits and ducks. She pitches up, snatches herself a chunk of pavement, sets up shop between the horses and stock trailers and is quickly surrounded by a hoard of children all trying to brow-beat Daddy into letting them have a bunny rabbit. On this occasion, having no female bunnies to sell, she said that if I'd drive her down and collect her again at 3 pm, she'd be happy to include some of my remaining females in the 'shop'. So there I was at 10 am, the little Fiat loaded to the gunwales with cat baskets of rabbits, cage crates 'flat-packed', drinkers, hay and feed sacks tied at the top with baler twine, quacking and writhing with their living ducky contents. 

We pulled up like regulars at a likely vacant chunk of kerb, unloaded, I helped Charlotte set up, wished her luck and left her to it. We dropped by during the day as we shopped in Balla, and she seemed to be busy with prospective customers. She had a good day, selling 6 of her 10 ducks and a good few rabbits including we were delighted to find, two of our females including our prettiest one, 'Dublin Girl', she of the multi coloured coat and one ear up, one ear down. This, we realised, is our first ever sale of livestock. Charlotte has also advised us that there may be more sales between now and Christmas at which she would be happy to work the same arrangement plus she may get customers she would pass my way (who wanted female rabbits) going into Christmas. The 'stock' will not be 'offed' for casserole  for at least the next couple of months.