Pork, Pigs, Paul and Pancakes

When I left you at the previous post, we were gearing up for our big invasion, expecting 12 mouths to feed on roast pork on the Sunday. We can not really cater for this many and had to get K-Dub to bring with him three chairs and to resurrect from the poly-tunnel our spare table. The latter was the original kitchen table which came with the house, inherited from TK-Min but has been serving time as potting-bench in the tunnel. Sunday morning saw me hefting it round on my back so that Liz could give it a good scrub out at the front of the house.

Spare table - a TK-Min original.

We made up with stools, folding chairs and a mountain of cutlery which we keep in a crate for spares. The day was a great success, the house a chaotic buzz of noise, children. chattering gossip, full-time Mums getting a chance to chill out as someone else minded their charges, K-Dub, Mr Silverwood and me able to do some male bonding, Charlotte getting on really well with J-M and Em-J hunting escaped rabbits and so on. The pork, you will recall, had been very-slow roasted, a quick burst of 250 degrees, then 90 degrees for 24 hours. It was a 6.2 kg leg of Gloucester Old Spots reared by Carolyn and, cooked like that, barely needed carving. I could have picked it up the bone at one end and given it a quick shake but the crackling was also superb. Dessert was a date and rhubarb crumble with ice cream and there was a gooey-centred chocolate mousse cake for later. It was a happy gang of well fed, gossiped-out good company that we bade farewell to. Thank you all for coming and enjoying our place so well.

Big Sarpo Mira spuds are still coming out clean from the store.

Back to work then and, as is our wont, the making of a LIST. We love, every now and then, to take a stroll together round the site and make sure we have a handle on everything that needs doing, so we walk round in a big double spiral, note book and pen in hand listing tasks, in this case 32 of them. We have everything from long-running needs we have been avoiding (Digging out the bank!) and big projects like pig-fencing, to back-burner jobs which might never happen (Make the yard dog-proof*), to quick and easy ones (paint bee hive or fence round the raised bed). This list then gets transferred to a spreadsheet (you probably guessed that bit!) so that we can prioritise it.

Occasional huge eggs. This one weighed in at 118 g

That process brought into sharp focus the need to get ready for the pigs in two areas, building the pig ark and getting the fencing installed. I nipped down to our builders' providers in Castlerea this morning to order the bits for the ark. By happy coincidence, we suddenly got the phone call from Paul-the-Fence quoting me a very good price and saying that he would like to start both my pig fence and two entrances he is improving for Vendor Anna, this week. We are suddenly all 'go'. I had been dropping a few spindly dead trees in our woods and logging them up and was tired from hefting the chainsaw, when Liz shouted "I think Paul has arrived!"

We love a pancake!

There he was in his huge van loaded with galvanized gates and massive, 10 inch diameter (and smaller) wooden posts, sheep wire and barbed wire. I thought he was just unloading, ready to start tomorrow but, No, this is Paul. He stopped briefly for tea and some of Liz's home made orange biscuits and then decided that if we made a start now we could get the main post and gate to the pig field done this evening before it got dark at 18:30. I'll do pictures of this, and the ark, when we are a bit further on but I think I am going to be busy over the next few days. Lovely tonight, then, to lock up the chickens, walk the dogs and come indoors from the post-bashing to light the range, and look forward to pancakes from my own expert and Queen of the Pancake. It is bitter sweet to enjoy these remembering that 'we' always did pancakes (Liz doing chef) in Kent with our good friends Diamond, John and (the late) Denis. We love it here but we'd be lying if we said we never missed the Kent days and pancakes is one of those foods which bring it all back. Happy Shrove Tuesday, Diamond and John. Lovely memories of 'Den'.

*Sounds easy but we worry that the chickens would still try to fly in to get to their house so we need a dogs-in-chickens-excluded solution which does not spoil the look of the back yard. We'll get there. We are just not sure how yet.

Breaking 'The Codes'

The mini horse of whom we have had custody in our acre and a half of 'East Field' for the winter, is still waiting to have his gelding operation slotted in between the end of the risk of frost (which causes blood clotting problems) and the spring start up of the nasty flies which prey on horses and give them such a hard time in the warm weather. Well, I don't suppose HE is waiting in any sense, but we followers are. Cody is his name, but he's a pedigree with a name longer than he is which ends with "Da Vinci Code" so he gets called Cody, Codes, 'the Codes' and so on, hence my title.

He had been Carolyn and Charlotte's stud stallion but the market has fallen right out of almost every type of horse now, so there is no point in using him to breed with, so no need to put up with his 'stallion-ness', hence the decision to have the boy 'done'. So what to do with him? Charlotte decided to break him to the harness for towing, as has been done with his two amigos (Bob and Romeo). This way he can pull the cart and, for a bit of fun, also be used to drag logs back across Vendor Anna's land the old way so that he works and stays fit and strong. Charlotte asked me would I like to help, watch, learn and join in the fun and games

So Thursday saw us rounding up Cody and Charlotte started to wrangle him into all his leather gear, the big yoke across his back to take the weight of the cart-shafts, his head piece and the 'bit' for his mouth, straps from 'pommel' to the back of his head to stop him lowering his head, one from his girth (tummy) to his chin to stop him raising it too far, one round his tail across his bum to stop everything sliding forward... the poor boy was well trussed up.

There are presumably proper names for all these bits, so Carolyn and Charlotte will be laughing fit to bust by now but you get the idea, and Cody was familiar with NONE of this, so day one was about him getting used to all the leather squeaking, pulling and pinching in unfamiliar places, and noises behind him, out of sight. He did very well, the lad. We 'lunged' him round in circles for a while, then Charlotte led him from behind as if in the cart, steering him with the bit. Finally we tried him on his first 'load', just a car tyre. This was to get him used to the idea of the gentle (and sometimes catchy-jerking) tug on his harness plus the noise of the tyre sliding along the road on its little chain.

One of the fascinations for me, beginner that I am, is Charlotte's running commentary as we work away. The local old boys, rather than be annoyed that they are being held up by two muppets blocking the road with a horse pulling a tyre, will melt with nostalgia as they remember the horses they had to break in before and after "the Emergency" (WW2). This is very gentle breaking-in we are doing. The Gypsies break their horses "hard" but you know what? They are the quietest horses you can get - if you want to put a small child or a beginner on a horse, then horses broken by our Traveler friends are the perfect choice.

Guinea fowl inner feather

Unfortunately for Cody, in the middle of all this, Charlotte spotted a small patch of 'Rain Scald' on Cody's back. This is a bacterial ailment which happens mainly in wet weather where the horse fails to use your nice rain shelter and stands around outside, permanently wet. It is itchy and results in small patches of scabby skin and small tufts of hair coming out, but if caught soon, it is easy to cure. Cody has been taken home to spend some time in the dry of a stable (enforced dryness!) while being given tea-tree shampoo baths and some TLC. His hair is re-growing already. We were going to buy him a get well card but maybe that's a bit soft!

Meanwhile we are happy to report that Goldie the rabbit has now 2 perfectly clean, pink, mite-free ears and Lieutenant Colonel Sir Bufton-Tufton is also off the endangered list, strutting around and looking after the needs of his various women. Following up on a lead from Mentor Anne, we have also found a source of good, vintage Cheddar cheese which satisfies us, this being one John McMillan and his stand "Carlton Cheese and Olives" who do Saturdays at Boyle Farmer's Market. We also came by some good Wensleydale and some hard goats cheese (plus some pesto olives) so we are cheesed up for now. Thank you for that, Anne.

€100 Euro's worth of bee gear. Frames, smoker, hive tool

Finally, we are back off to the "Two Marys" today to collect the remaining parts of our hive, the frames, wax foundation and nails, plus our smoker and hive-tool. We love these ladies, They are so helpful and generous with their advice, happily talking us through all manner of nips and tucks which we might be able to do ourselves rather than spending €8 or so in their own shop (on a 3-frames-wide 'dummy' frame to reduce the space available for the newly established colony lest the brood get chilled). They also chat away happily about which hive-tool you might prefer to prise frames away from each other when the bees have glued them all solid with 'propolis'.

Tomorrow we are back into visitor mode, potentially with 12 for lunch. The biggest pork leg joint you ever saw (6.2 kg) is in the oven getting a very gentle roast to a 24 hour (!) recipe, chocolate mousse cakes have been made, ice cream bought and a rhubarb and date crumble constructed. Bring on the Silverwoods who are showing up divided between a train journey for the car-overflow and a car bringing a hand-me-down fridge-freezer from the Steak Lady, plus the Cody-owning crew from down the road, Carolyn, Charlotte, K-Dub and young H. Chaos? It probably will be!

Bee Space

We progress! We received today through the post, our Pig Herd Number and the paperwork we are required to keep all the time we are pig keepers; all the triplicate, multi-colour forms and A4 blank proforma sheets for such as our internal Register. This makes us all official and is required by the responsible breeders before they will allow you to buy and take away their pigs. Still a way to go, of course; we have to do fences, build an ark and actually go and get some pigs, but we are all excited for those days - it will be another new adventure for us. Neither of us has had anything to do with pigs before.

We have also been to Longford again for Lesson 2 of "Bee School", this one a nice lecture by an experienced bee keeper from Co Lietrim, name of Eamonn T which he entitled "The Hive and Its Inhabitants". He brought along a hive similar to the one we are building (a UK National Modified Hive) and talked us through the parts and their functions before then moving on to the bees and how they go on inside, frequently referring to our own local expert, Dieter, to compare experiences. I would not even want to cover all that was included but there were 2 aspects that were new and worth noting. The first was that bee keepers now think that there are no longer any 'wild' (or feral) honey bees about and the second was the subject of 'bee space'.

It is the varroa mite (which you may have heard of) which seems to have done for the feral colonies as it is so successful a parasite that it easily spreads between colonies, especially via the male 'drone' bees and easily between domestic and feral colonies. In domestic (hive) colonies the mite can be controlled using pesticides and its numbers stay low and the colony can thrive, but in the wild situation the bees get no such protection and the mite wipes out the colony which would be in a roof or an old hollow tree. The Department scientists here are now sure that this has been so bad a collapse that the only bees here in Ireland now are in hives or in recent swarms from same. It makes the beekeepers job even more vital to the bee-pollinated crops and wild flowers so it is good to see that our own group and the training classes are so well supported - there is a huge surge of interest in bee keeping going on at present.

Bee hive entrance, 7 mm high give or take.

I was also fascinated to see demonstrated and hear Eamonn's stuff about "bee space". You may be able to see in your mind's eye a typical hive - ours are a 19 inch square set of stacking wooden 'boxes'. But inside they are not just an open void full of random bees. They contain a set of ten or eleven hanging wax frames looking a bit like short files in a filing cabinet. Bees in an empty box would build a similar arrangement of vertical sheets of honey comb hanging from the roof but you'd struggle to get in to examine them, check on them or harvest the honey, so we give them a blank 'brood nest' on which to build and the frames can be slid out vertically.

One of the Bee School hand-outs

The bees move about within this box and between the 'files' like  people in a library, facing the shelf of books but with their backs almost touching the shelf behind. If the space they are moving in feels too 'wide' they build out more comb from the foundation till their backs are again touching the comb 'behind' them. The hive design is set so that bees will build comb from either side of an 'aisle' to the depth required for storing honey or housing the growing baby bee (larva) and to recreate the 7 mm "bee space" between the two sheets of comb. Give them too much space and they will build deeper ('brace') comb which can make it difficult to ease out the frames. Give them too little and they will not be able to go into the 'aisle' and will seal up the gap with resinous 'glue' called propolis to stop the draughts and glue everything very tight together. So hives not only have their frames at the correct distance apart but also have to have all the cross-ways tunnels and pathways of that spacing too - above the frame tops, along the side under the ends of the frames, moving around the floor of the hive, between its layers of frames and across the 'ceiling'. It's all a pretty exact science and they say that if you are going to DIY your own hives then you can do what you like with wall thicknesses and exterior detail as long as you can build to exactly the right internal dimensions. It's called the 'Bee Space' and it is almost sacred.

In one area, though, we are tapping our fingers at lack of progress. We have, as you'll know, our 'magnificent' (our unbiased opinion!) wildlife pond all planted up and filled and bristling with skaters, boatmen and fly nymphs. We have deliberately stocked it with NO fishy predators. We have seen frogs and newts among the long grass in 2013 and some of these we have dropped into the pond just so that they know it is there. We have seen people's pictures of frogs spawning in December 2013 in Cork and now in Kent in February. We have sent out invitations. We have even seen road-kill frogs on the lane here this week, so we know they are starting to move about, seeking out those breeding ponds. We have NOT, however, seen a single frog or newt in our pond. Patience, you wildlife gardeners. If You Build it, They Will Come.......

Discharged

Following on from my 'Sickness and Health' post a couple of days back, here is the 'Doctor's Rounds' update as of today. It is all great news with both the main patients 'fixed' and discharged from the sick bay. The rooster, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Bufton-Tufton* never really did look sick with anything specific (no discharges from eyes or nostrils or beak, good colour in facial features, no coughing or rasping, OK poo, good feathering, no signs of trauma or damage) - he was just moopy, limp, sleeping a lot and not eating anything we offered, or at least not while we watched. We think now that he probably just had a chill-type infection. We took the advice of all our known experts and isolated him indoors in the warm and dry and 'fed' him (by dribbling liquids into the side of his beak) sugar water and cod liver oil and using Charlotte-of-the-mini-horses, dosed him daily with by-mouth broad spectrum antibiotics. He dozed mainly and a couple of times a day woke up and screamed his Cock a Doodle Doo messages answering shout for shout with our other 'roo' William, outside.

Now, far be it from me to slur the character of a high ranking Army Officer, but by day 5 we were starting to think that he might be malingering and Charlotte suggested turning his heat down a bit so that he got less comfy and either woke up to do something about it, or just went into a sick decline of sulking. So today, with the sun coming out I decided that it was exactly this 'kick in the arse' that might spark him up and I am delighted to say we were right. Straight back in with the gang (having been accepted and quickly reminded who was boss by William) he was suddenly alive and well, scratching and pecking the ground with gusto, mixing it with all the other birds and even trying a bit of tentative 'treading' of some of the hens.

Lieutenant Colonel Sir Bufton-Tufton, centre with his gels

We stayed with him, supervising for an hour but he was doing so well doing 'normal chicken' in the sunshine that we left him to it and just made sure he got to bed alright in the roost this evening (which he did). So he's fixed. We just need to keep an eye.

Goldie the rabbit has also been successfully cured, by 5 days of daily gloopy ear drops which clean up the mites and soften the hard wads of 'citrus peel' scar tissue and being cleaned out by wetted cotton wool pads wrapped round a finger tip and rooted about down the ear canals. She is back to clean, pale-pink ears which she carries much more upright and comfortable and just needs a check up in a week's time to make sure she has stayed clean.

Our sincere thanks to our medical advisors Anne, Steve and Ray but also to Charlotte who has got properly involved in these two cases as part of her 2 weeks of work experience with Aoife-rhymes-with-Deefer. She has been like a whirlwind of activity and we have especially felt the benefit. She has probably seen more drama in 2 weeks than you'd maybe want an 18 year old to see but I guess if you want to do 'vet' then some of the horrors come with the territory and Roscommon's farmers and animal keepers would be as good and bad as the next county's.

Our first primrose of 2014

She has seen heifers put to massive meaty bulls who then gestate calves which are way too big to fit through the birth canal and have to be cut out C-section or die and have to be cut up to get them out. She has seen bodged attempts by farmers to pull out big calves which have resulted in broken legs and even one calf with a broken back. She has pulled smelly rotten lambs out of ewes in putrefying chunks.

...and a first Winter Iris.

She has, though, also seen some lovely things - the live, healthy lamb they found hidden 'behind' the dead one and got breathing. There was also a genuine, knowledge-able guy who called in because a ewe had been trying to lamb for 2 hours and then stopped. He feared the worst, but Aoife and Charlotte pulled out twin lambs. The bloke was delighted but Aoife dipped in again to make sure and found a third, Triplets! I am a softy myself and I was in tears as she bubbled this story out to us! Charlotte finished her work experience on Friday and came away with a glowing report and Aoife telling her she will make a great vet one day. She can't wait to start and is annoyed (tongue in cheek) that she has to go off and finish her college course before she's allowed to play that game! Aoife has said she can come back on any weekend or Wednesday when there are no lectures at college to keep her hand in. Everyone's a winner.

Geese all matey on the mini-pond.

Our geese seem to have all decided that they like each other and George, the gander is no longer insisting on his one-woman man routine. They all stay together when I throw grain in to the orchard, rather than George driving Goosey away so that he and Goocie can have it all. Goosey surprised us yesterday by arriving back in the goose house after I'd shut her into the orchard. She must be able (even if it was a one-off) to fly over the fence and wanted to go back 'indoors' to lay the egg she's not 'finished' during the night. That's a bit of a worry. If she starts to make a habit of it we have to be clipping some wings again.

Boy-pup Towser with his "incorrect" ears

Meanwhile, if Charlotte has 'seen' some stuff this past fortnight, then I think I may have 'seen it all' now on the daft things people do to show-dogs. You'll remember that my boy-pup Towser has floppy ears instead of the pricked up ears which Westies are 'meant' to have We don't mind - he's not a show dog and he looks cute to us. You may also know that some breeds of dog which are 'meant' to have pricked ears are 'enhanced' by wire or plastic inserts installed surgically if they are not pricked enough for the show folk. Well down the lane lives a lovely Irish Terrier pup, name of Gripper. I've always thought he looked great but his ears stick up like Towser's are 'failing' to do and this is BAD (apparently). The owner, at his last haircut, has had his ear tips glued down to his head in a semi-flop like Towser's natural look where they will remain glued for 10 weeks while the cartilage 'sets' so that he can have the 'proper' Irish Terrier look. Yep... seen it all now.

* Pronounce this 'Lef-tenant, please. Only the Navy and the Americans say 'Loo-tenant'

In Sickness and in Health

Brian 'Sparks' on this week's visit

We seem to be 'enjoying' a succession of minor ailments moving through the 'farm' recently. You'll know about the limping Guinea Fowl (now fixed) but tonight's post is a bit of an animal health round up. I am going to start with the humans - me in fact. Monday into Tuesday saw us playing host to Sparks, Mrs Sparks and their lad, Brian all down for a meal and an overnight. They came equipped with B's new telescope, a present from Santa, which I wanted to try out too, so we were hoping that our pollution-free and light-pollution-free skies would be clear. No such luck on that bit - 10/10 cloud and for B, none of the usual baby animals to look at and cuddle, plus sloppy mud preventing him from charging about like usual, but it all went OK.

Buff Orpington rooster needs the sick bay.

For me though, almost on the last mouthful of Liz's delicious roast chicken dinner, a resounding crack as I accidentally bit down on a bone, told me a tale of a broken tooth or filling and a trip to the dentist. As I type this I am just back from there with one tooth fewer and a jaw as numb as numb can be, miserably waiting for the numbness to wear off and the pain to kick in. The tooth proved to be cracked neatly in half along the jaw line and the dentist, (a very nice bloke despite his trade!) is involved in writing exam questions for trainee dentists. He asked if I'd mind him photo-ing my tooth for use in one which he thought would really make the trainees sweat. So I may have a famous tooth. He is emailing me the pic, but I will put it up here as an optional link - not everybody wants to see a manky, much-filled, 56 year old tooth, no matter how clean and impressive the crack.

The offending picture is now on

http://www.flickr.com/photos/116190456@N08/12678492943/

but don't go there unless you are strong of constitution!

Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir Bufton Tufton 

Next up in our tale of woe came our Buff Orpington rooster who announced his sickness first thing Tuesday morning with a rather odd gurgling version of Cock-a-doodle-doo and then spent that day mooping around in the hedge banks, standing still with his head sagged down looking decidedly miserable. First port of call on any chicken problems is Mentor Anne, of course and she was quickly able to put me on to a couple of very experienced experts (Thanks Anne, Thanks Ray, Thanks Steve). The current thinking is that this came on too fast to be worms (everyone's first suspicion) and is probably just a chill infection due to the cold wet long horrible winter. The treatment is therefore isolation but in the warm and dry, tempting food, water plus dribbling sugar-water into his beak, or a few mill of cod liver oil. Anne also gave me a fun suggestion which they have used successfully while living in Spain, and that is to smear a little Marmite onto the beak which gets the bird licking its 'lips' and can stimulate the appetite. The first part worked - he was slurping away at the Marmite like a good 'un with evident pleasure, but just not willing to translate this into pecking up the food. Well, he made it through the night and looks no worse. He has now had some broad-spectrum antibiotics (Tylosin) and is settled down to roost in the spare room / sick bay.

Goldie pinned down by all four feet!

So, we move on to rabbits. If Anne is our go-to adviser for the chooks, then Charlotte of the mini horses, down the road, is our rabbit expert. Our male meat-breed only-remaining-son-of-Goldie is currently down with Charlotte, doing his duty as stud. Charlotte had noticed that he had some grot in his ears, possibly as a result of fighting with his other young male chum, or maybe ear mites. Rabbits are terrible for ear problems deep down in the ear, because the skin, once broken or damaged comes back as a soft, orange-peel type layer which itches the rabbit, who then scratches some more to try to relieve the itch.

Caught early it can be treated. Left, it covers the whole ear and starts to move down to the neck etc and you have a sorry situation especially if your bunny is a 'spare' living-larder rather than a belovéd pet. If it's mites, it is also highly contagious and you need to race round all your rabbits checking deep inside both ears of every one. Luckily for us, we have Charlotte now in full-on Vet-Nurse training mode doing her work experience fortnight with Aoife-rhymes-with-Deefer (our vet) and passing by our gate each evening already clothed in wet+cold weather gear and wellies. It was like 'Animal Hospital' that day as we grabbed up each rabbit in turn and shone torches down their ears. Ginny and Padfoot were clear but poor Goldie, our big female had some signs.

Ear mites and/or general 'mank' in Goldie's ears

We brought Goldie indoors - she's a big docile softy, so she doesn't mind being wrangled in and laid on the 'operating table' but no rabbit likes it when you wrap a finger in a cotton wool pad and poke it right in to the ear canal down deep, so I hung onto all four legs while Charlotte cleaned her out. We also now have, from Aoife, some anti-mite, anti-infection, anti-itch, anti-inflammatory jollop called 'Surolan' so Goldie has a 5 day programme of being jolloped and cleaned out to look forward to. Poor Golds.

Probable double yolker from one of the Hubbard hens

Continuing on our rove around the other animals, it's all a bit healthier and less of a worry. Cody is awaiting his gelding operation which we have to squeeze into the narrow window between the risk of frost (which interferes with blood clotting in the open wound) and the re-awakening of the horrible flies which might 'blow' the wound with their maggots. Goocie is now showing signs of having been mated by George (feathers missing from the back of her head) so we are letting her now start to build up a clutch of eggs and maybe go broody. She lays one every other day but we have been stealing them for cooking. On pigs, Paul-the-Fencing showed up today out of nowhere, with no warning, keen to do a bit of fencing for Vendor Anna and I asked him to come and have a look at my pig-fencing plans. He was happy to do this and is now going to give me a price for a day of helping (or leading) me. He has all the proper gear for making holes, straining the wires and so on, plus the know-how and experience. I could probably have done a passable job but I'd rather have a Paul-job done.

So, there you go. We live in interesting times. I will update you on all these patients in the next post.

Mapp and Lucia

I named my first dog 'Megan', my current boy-dog 'Towser' and our Rooster 'William' but usually it is Liz who names the animals as they arrive here. She seems to have an inexhaustible fund of names based on fictional characters, characters from films and names from funny radio shows. Our 2013 sheep were Constance, Dora and Florence, named for Lord Emsworth's sisters from PG Wodehouse. Last year's first three sheep were Larry, Curly and Mo, the geese were Goosey, Goocie and Gander and the Guinea Fowl are Henry and Min (from the Goon Show).

Bramble jelly from the freezer blackberries.

The pigs we are likely to buy this year are still open to debate but Liz rather fancies 'Mapp and Lucia'. Liz is much wider read and has seen and heard more films and radio shows than me, and these two names were new ones on me - another gaping hole in my education! I felt I needed to at least know who Mapp and Lucia were before I could realistically name our first pigs for them, so Liz nipped to our extensive library and pulled a paperback from the shelves, "The Complete Mapp and Lucia (Part1)", written in the 20's and 30's by one E.F. (Fred) Benson. If you know these characters you will know that they are not pleasant at all! The books are very nicely and cleverly and amusingly written, but Miss Mapp and Mrs (Lucia) Lucas are just awful people.

Kir Royale, Feigh style; Prosecco and home made Cassis

Lucia is the self-crowned Queen of her village and seeks to control and lord it over all social events and who gets invited to what, like a nasty child in the playground. She is nosy, pretentious, manipulative, devious, cunning and such a snob. Mapp, living in a fictional version of Rye in Sussex is just plain nosy and seeks to know exactly what everyone is up to, who is seeing who, what all her friends are about to wear to parties so that she can out-manouvre them, engineers herself into being the focus of all the juicy gossip and dumps horribly on anyone who she imagines has crossed her. Ideal role models, then, for our two impressionable, baby piggies!

Nice marketing idea, Heart shaped Coeur de Neufchatel.

Valentine's Day arrives and we are nearly 'kiboshed' on our plans to create a special romantic meal by an extended series of power cuts born, we guess out of the recent wind storm damage and snow in the skirts of Storm 'Ruby'. Our land-line phone chirrups in its 'You have lost power' way at around 01:00 but I ignore it thinking they normally only last a few hours. It is still out in the morning and we phone around and find that Carolyn is calling it in. Power comes on mid morning while I'm out at neighbour Una's but only for ten minutes. It is lashing rain and blizzarding snow but we are delighted to be visited by an ESB Networks guy in Hi-Viz clothing who wants to look at the power lines that run to the north of our property, He (in a van) is joined by 2 other lads and 2 more vehicles, who scurry around working heroically in the bad conditions. We get power back at midday for 2 hours, then again properly at 4 pm. The Valentine's Day meal is saved and we know we are really very fortunate. There are people out there, especially around Galway and the south and east coast counties who have been without power for days, we only had 13 hours; the freezers stayed frozen and our candlelit supper was by choice.

Home made ice cream made with home made lemon curd.

Meanwhile 2 pieces of news concerning boys called Henry. Henry the Guinea fowl had injured his leg somehow but after a few days of decided limping and looking sorry for himself, suddenly recovered and is now back to full strength and a full compliment of working legs. Our other Henry is 2 years old today (Happy Birthday little fella) and son of Carolyn of the Miniature horses. We are invited down to the house for the party, where an army of friends and relatives have gathered while he is having his mid day nap. He wakes up as bemused and dozy as anyone who is fresh out of bed and copes very well with his house being suddenly full of people plying him with presents and party food. He gets into his stride as the present opening gets into full swing - he's mad for anything car shaped, he loves a big petrol pump to go with his sit-in pedal car, but the winner on the day is definitely a junior-sized but fully equipped drum kit with stool, bass drum with pedal, snare drums and even a cymbal. He is soon whacking 7 bells out of all this lot and doting rels are videoing him on their smart-phones. Brilliant! When we last heard all the grown ups were retired, exhausted and Henry was still going strong. He should sleep well tonight, bless him!

First Day in (Bee) School

Rain or shine, the dogs need walking

It has begun. Last night saw us off into the night of forecast rain and wintry showers, headed for Longford's "Teagasc" (pronounced "Chug-usk"; it is the training rooms and meeting centre laid on in the middle of town by the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority, a big concern here). This was for lesson one in our 'Bee School', actually a lecture on Bee Health given by our new friend Mary H of "The Two Marys". It was a big room and there were 15 or so of us in class, taking this Preliminary Certificate from the Federation Of Irish Bee Keepers' Associations (FIBKA) and the lecture was a Power-point style presentation (mercifully lacking in all the worst Power-point excesses of animations and zoomy graphics) with hand outs to save you having to write too many notes. We now know more about keeping your hive stress-free and healthy, promoting colony health and sorting out those diseases that do arise, than any two people should know who have not yet met their first colony.

I also got from Mary the two hive frame 'runners' we failed to bring away with us when we went to collect the flat packs, so that today I was able to finish my (empty) hive. In the 'any questions' section at the end we were also able to establish that, yes, rabbits are OK as a method of keeping the grass short around hives - the rabbits will not upset the bees and vice versa and also that yes, we can paint the whole thing (outside only) in gloss white. This as long as we check the paint tin first to check that it doesn't say 'harmful to insects'. We have six of these lectures at fortnightly intervals and some practical apiary sessions leading up to our exam in May which is part written and part practical at the hive. We will be experts before we even own a bee but that, I guess, is only right. They are vital livestock with an important role on the 'farm' and also potentially dangerous as well as possibly being involved in the production of food which you might want to sell to the general public.

You can see from these pictures that the advance of Spring took a bit of a back seat today and let winter have another go at painting the scenery white; a little bit Christmas Card. It had frozen overnight (which is always a welcome relief to me in the morning when I am doing my feed and release rounds - I am nipping round on ground as hard as putty and crunching over little ice patches which were formerly shallow puddles instead of slopping through the mud and wet). It started snowing at about 08:30 and then kept on all day doing light but impressive 'blizzards' which then gave way to sunny gaps which cleared up the preceding fall before the next. Bob was round this afternoon predicting a heavy fall tonight which will 'stick' but we'll wait and see on that one. Met Éireann have us getting the next anti-cyclone in the neck overnight, this one called 'Ruby', but they have been famous for their rain rather than snow. I have no idea how we got to 'Ruby'; I am sure the last two were Christine and Brigid.

In the pigs department, I have found and booked myself onto a pig rearing course down in Co. Tipperary in early April. We have also found a possible source of Tamworth piglets down in Co. Kildare. These babies are currently only a glint in their Mums' eyes. The breeder had just finished selling his first batch of Tamworth x Gloucester Old Spots (50 of them!) and was now getting his Tammy gilts back in pig but by a Tamworth boar this time. Pigs gestate for the conveniently easy to remember period of 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days, bringing us round to June, and then would need 6-8 weeks weaning, so we are looking at July. That gives me plenty time to go on the course and to do my fencing and build my ark.

Bramble jelly drips through the bag.

The limping Guinea Fowl, Henry is still limping, no better but no worse. He seems to be getting about OK, still mixes it with the chickens and jealously protects the pecking order slot of his lady, Min as well as getting his own share of any food. We'll just keep an eye on him and hope that he starts to get better soon. We rediscovered our batches of frozen blackberries picked from Bob's hedgerows and decided to turn them into bramble jelly. I seem to have lost my 'jam-setting' mojo and struggled at first to get this slop to set but then Liz suggested chucking in more sugar and suddenly I had it setting in spoons, on test saucers, in the scum-scraping spoon and nearly in the jam pan. I got it into jars in a bit of a hurry and I think it's going to be OK. Pass me that kango hammer, I need to chisel off some jam. In the egg dept I just need to report a 'personal best' / house record: 9 eggs today from 11 hens plus a goose egg. Go the girls!

Lastly I was amazed and flabbergasted by the reaction I got to the picture of washing drying on the line, I posted a few days back. 'What's amazing about washing?' I hear you ask. I had posted the pic as a joke because it was the first time we'd been able to dry anything outdoors since about December, what with all the rain. A friend from college days now living in the USA told me she was amazed and was thinking of doing it that 'old way' which she'd not done since leaving the UK in the 80's. In fact, she said, it was actually illegal to dry your washing out doors and that lately people had been objecting to this ban and there are whole political movements and serious politicians involved. It all came out of some rich folks living in posh 'gated' communities thinking that someone else's undies flapping in the wind was an eye-sore and was presumably latched onto by the white-goods manufacturing industry. Now the move to re-instate it as an activity is coming out of the green, energy-saving factions. I was just gob-smacked and completely thrown by this. Only in America, I would think.... but you never know.