Weighty Problems

The pigs under the beech trees

If you have read the link through to Anne's blog in the last post, you'll have seen their little double-take when their pigs stole a march on them weight wise. I have to admit to having had my own confusion around this when I went measure the girls at 4 months. We are using, as you will have read, the 'bust squared' method (see my 18th July post) and had estimated out our pigs at 33 kg-ish by 3 months, and were now showing as 50-55 kg at 4 months. In my head, I had that our 'Bible' (Liz Shankland's (Haynes) Pig Manual) was advising that porkers should be grown to 50-55 kg (about 5-6 months), baconers to 80-85 kg, so I was taken aback by my own measurements. Surely these little babies could not be 'ready' already, at only 4 months old?

Mapp still all baby-faced.

I started double checking and even fired off an enquiring e-mail to Margaret and Alfie, my training course 'experts' and to Therese and Michael in Kildare, where we originally bought the girls. Needless to say, it is all now sorted and I feel a bit foolish. The weights given in Liz Shankland and described as 'ready for butchery' are, of course, the dead, cleaned out carcass weights. My experts tell me that with Tamworths, I should be aiming for around 36 weeks and 90 kg live weight. They vary slightly from the 'bust-squared' figure by being slim of hip and not huge in the 'ham' department, so that you need to subtract around 6 kg from the 'bust-squared' figure. There's a relief.

Buff Orpington chicks under IR light, just because I liked
the colour of the picture!

Incidentally, I spotted that our beech trees seem to be doing very well for 'fruit' (nuts) this year to a degree where I wonder if this might be a 'mast year'. Beech mast was always, since Medieval times, a vital part in the farming of pigs, and the right to graze your pigs under the beech woods to eat the beech 'mast' was called pannage. I am amusing myself with the idea of me, the land owner, granting me the pig farmer, my own rights of pannage.

Taking his meds like a trooper.

We had a little minor hiccup in the Buff Orpington chicks department, when on Sunday morning one of them looked a bit off. He/she (I'll go with 'he' for now) was not running about like his fellows, and was standing with his head up and back, silently gaping as if weakly trying (but failing) to clear a tickle from his throat. Well, there is precious little you can do for these guys if they are going to 'check out' but we isolated him, kept him indoors under the heat lamp while his siblings were outside, dribbled small amounts of water and cod liver oil into his open beak and shut him up quiet to let him think about it.

11 healthy chicks enjoy the August sunshine. They are
well protected from the unseasonable chilly breeze.

Well, this time it had a happy 'ending' and he is now back running around, pecking food, drinking and squabbling with the best of them, to such a degree that we can not now tell him apart. (It was always easy - just look for the one gulping air!). One friend emailed suggesting 'Ribena' rather than water. We had no Ribena but we assumed this was just to get sugar into the patient, so we subbed in a little of Liz's elder flower cordial. Maybe it was that which 'cured what ailed him'!

Post and Rail fencing round the lawn.

In other news, fencing contractor, Paul showed up - we suspected he might just when we were about to have visitors! He is a really nice bloke and quite appreciates me helping him, so that gave me a lovely day of lining up runs of posts and persuading them into our variable soil using the 50 kg 'pile driver' on the back of his ancient tractor. Variable because in one place the post will sink easily into soft, pure Roscommon clay, straight as a die, descending 3-4 inches at each whack while at the next 'hole' it will stop dead at a big tree root or veer off and twist on a huge buried boulder. The former take seconds to put up, you can be half an hour trying to get some of the latter in.

We made good progress working through from lunch-time till 7 pm and getting all the posh post-and-rail posts in place, the tractor roaming around on our lawn on double rear tyres leaving only the lightest of foot prints. Tomorrow and Wednesday, however, we have the Silverwoods up and fencing equipment and children do not really mix, so Paul is off doing some other jobs and will return, we hope, on Thursday after we have rounded up and delivered (we also hope) Anne and Simon's #2 pig. Anne phoned me today; it seems that #1 has now been butchered (by them) having killed out at 85 kg or so. Her estimates of 125 kg live weight cannot have been that far out. 2 of them in my trailer at once might have been pushing the envelope a bit. It's all go!

50% Success

Anne and Simon's pigs ready to go. 

An early start this morning has me nipping round our own livestock doing 'breakfasts' and releases so that I can couple up the trailer and hit the road by 07:45. I am headed for Mentor Anne's (and Simon's). Their 2 cross (traditional) breed pigs are ready to go on their final journey and we are providing the haulage vehicle, our little Fiat and trailer.

See also Anne's blog if you like, on http://anirishalternative.blogspot.ie/2014/08/whoops.html?showComment=1408039916196#c4573968651786064362 .

Temporary pig 'race' through the hedge

The pigs' paddock is in the corner between their drive and the lane on which they live, but has been, up to now 'behind' a hedge. Coming in, small and in their crate, the pigs could be hauled up the 100 yards of driveway, round the end of the hedge and back down the garden to their paddock. It was not really feasible to walk them back all that way, so Simon had hatched a plan to cut a hole through the hedge, lining it with pallets to make a mini 'race' leading to the trailer parked at the drive/lane junction. We both knew that the pigs might not want to go where the electric fence had been even though it was now turned off, and that they might not want to cross Simon's wooden 'clippetty clop' bridge over a ditch made of pallets.

50% success - one loaded. 

In fact neither of these hazards fazed the piggies at all, and we quickly got one loaded using the bribery of a bucket of meal and boiled spuds. However as a professional display of good pig wrangling, it was at that point it stopped being our finest hour. The 2nd pig hated the idea of getting cornered in the confined narrow space of the 'race' and was having none of it. Three quarters of an hour of trying included some near misses where Simon's feed bucket almost almost almost coaxed her in but then she'd spook and bolt, and 120+ kg of pig is not anything you can stop of it decides to barge you out of the way at a squealing gallop. I was tied up keeping pig #1 in the trailer, so Simon was just working up a good sweat on his own and the pig leading him a merry dance.

Narrow delivery lane. Topp reversing skills needed.

Time was running out - we needed to be at the butcher's for ten and anyway, Simon had a 'date' for 10 a.m. We decided to go with just the one pig, block the hole in the fence and head for town. After that decision what remained of the 'mission' went back to being plain sailing, an easy drive into town, a successful reverse into the narrow delivery lane and a problem free release of pig #1 to trot happily down the concrete into the butcher's lairage. A 50% success then and Anne will re-book pig #2 for a later date at which we may well enroll some extra man (or woman) power, but Anne tells me that pig #2 will now ONLY be fed from a bucket and will be coaxed down the race a few times as practice for her own big day, possibly next Thursday.

Left to right, Steak Lady, Mr SL and Liz.

For me, then, a whizz back home where we were to receive a visit from Steak Lady, Mr SL and 'Auntie Mary' (sister of Mr SL), down to have a look round the place and see all the new 'lines' (bees, pigs, goslings, this year's sheep) as well as to give Liz her Birthday presents (a little early!). We also fed them of course with many of the ingredients being home grown and the bread home made; they were delighted with that. They had arrived bearing various other gifts too, including some empty jam jars, so when they left we packed them off with their own vegetable crate.

Auntie Mary gets some 'tay' down her. 

They are currently in mid move, from Portmarnock down to near to the Silverwoods, with all the B+B students now 'evicted' to other homes and quite a lot of the furniture and 'stuff' already moved down to County Laois. The place they are buying has, allegedly, a rather fine and luxurious shed in the garden with heating, lighting and fancy worktops, so all the 'children' are full of curiosity as to the fate of that. Even more notable was that there was a fancy 'rabbitry' - a building also with heat and light, lined with rabbit hutches, but apparently the vendor is taking that one with him/her.

One of our honey bees on a leek flower

Meanwhile, no sooner had I posted bemoaning the lack of our bees using the flowers in our garden, than they suddenly are all over some leeks we left to go to seed over the winter. We have also seen them on hollyhocks and around the Kitchen Garden, so maybe the dearth of wild flowers is forcing them to look more locally.

That is it for this one. Catch up with you again soon.

Cat and Mouse, Wren and Butterfly

Liz and Sparks do 'beekeeper'

Monday afternoon sees us playing host to 'Sparks', Liz's brother, who is down for an overnight visit. He's on his own this time and is looking forward to a chance to have a good look round the place, relax, consume some of Liz's lovely food and have a good long heart-to-heart into the evening as he's staying the night. He is, as the Chinese (allegedly) say, "living in interesting times" at the moment and has some key decisions to make but distracted or not he is always welcome here; he pretty much built the place, after all (see all the posts from the first quarter of 2012).

So he arrives, grabs a quick coffee and then enjoys a tour of the latest livestock, taking in the pigs, geese and goslings, sheep and the baby Buff Orpington chicks. His afternoon coincides with our weekly bee-keeping tasks, and when offered the chance to suit up in the bee keeping garb and go assist Liz, he jumps at the chance, never having done anything like this before. The job today is to open the hive for an inspection and then, if the existing top 'super' is a buzz of activity, to stack a 2nd super on top, with the queen excluder board underneath it. Typical of Sparks, though, he doesn't just want to parrot this job and do what he's told, he is full of questions and interest, and we talk about the bee keeping for ages, finding him books to dip into and the Association magazine. Once Liz and I get going on that subject, it is difficult to stop us.

Well, the task went to plan and the new super is on, so that can now start filling with drawn honeycomb and hopefully some honey, but it is mid August by now and the big honey "flows" (that is how bee keepers refer to the busy periods of bees bringing nectar back to the hive from the peak flowerings of, for example, fruit trees, dandelions, clover, bramble etc) have almost finished. When I am doing my bumble bee surveys, I often add notes in the 'margin' telling which flowers I have seen my sightings foraging on, and lately these have noted that bramble is almost over and the bees are limited to knapweed, thistles and clover in the verges, with lavatera and lavender in gardens. The honey bees must be seeing the same dearth of flowers so that if you have not made a honey harvest by about now, then you are unlikely to get one. With getting our Nuc' (colony) only in late June, we've missed the boat a bit this year and will have to wait till autumn 2015 before we see any amount of honey

1st class travel arrangements for the chicks -
an old washed out paint bucket!

Other than that the place chugs along in its normal routines. We had one tiny hiccup when one of the 'Baker's Dozen' Buff Orpington chickens dies on us overnight. I have a sad little corpse to retrieve in the morning. We have, as ever, no idea why. There are almost never any symptoms These things just happen and they usually happen very fast, one minute the chick is a healthy and active as the rest, the next near-death or dead. We assume it is some kind of 'runt' development, thing, the weakling chick that would never have made it in the 'wild'? Anyway, we are down to a real Dozen now and , of course, all these look healthy and happy... but who knows?

Purple loose-strife in the pond.

One of our lambs is also concerning us in a small way; it is the ewe and she has gone lame, walking with a slight limp at the back end and seemingly a bit stiff when she gets up from the ground. Our sheep-man Kenny, has promised to turn up soon (!) to attach these ear tags to the sheep, so we will get him to invert the lady while he has a grip on her and he can cast his expert eye over her feet. She may have just taken a 'puck' from one of the boys (this is how they describe a 'clout' or a 'whack' here) and is bruised, but we know that sheep famously spend 23 hours of each day trying to commit suicide, so we had best get Kenny to check for foot root or other lameness issues.

Water mint. Sorry about the rubbish
picture. I was leaning out over the
pond, worried I'd drop the camera
in the drink!

I had a nice surprise this morning, a sight that I have never seen before (all be it not very 'nice' for the 'mouse' party) - a fluttering outside the kitchen door caught my eye while I was making coffee and turned out to be a tiny wren playing 'cat and mouse' with a big peacock butterfly. The wren was not much bigger than the butterfly, so the two looked at first like a pair of butterflies mating, but closer inspection showed that the wren had damaged the butterfly but not stopped it flapping. The wren had to peck and tweak at it for several more seconds before she had it subdued enough to grab the insect's head and fly off to some secret place, presumably to consume the prize. As I said, not a lot of fun for the butterfly, but a wren has to eat too and it was a charming sight.

The Baker's Dozen

3 trays of Hubbard meat.

Well, that was 'it' for the Hubbard chickens. This is another post where those readers of a squeamish disposition, who don't want any detail on where their meat comes from, might like to look away; click down a few paragraphs. The remaining ladies got to Day 101, at which point they are no longer converting our expensive feed into body weight at a decent rate and, anyway, are getting too big to be useful as whole roast oven-ready birds, so they needed converting into frozen meat. They are over 3 kg at this stage (oven ready or 'cleaned' weight) and we can only really eat a thigh or wing or two at a sitting.

The Buff chicks enjoy some Roscommon sunshine.

I know (or 'know' through Facebook and the internet) quite a few small holders by now and have yet to find one who 'enjoys' killing the stock. I can do it and I hope I am doing the task as cleanly, as painlessly fast, and with as much respect as I can manage, but I absolutely hate the job. I dread the day as it approaches, I get through it as best as I can, and I am enormously relieved when it is all over.

12 of the 13 in the sunshine.

If you are curious as to the mechanics of this, I do it by catching the bird, cuddling her reassuringly as I carry her to my little private 'hole in the hedge' (I prefer to kill birds out of sight of any other birds), then take her by the legs so that she hangs head-down (and goes all quiet and relaxed), then take her head in my other hand, top of the head in my palm, thumb under her chin, then pull down and twist my wrist, breaking the neck at the 'atlas' bone. There is a brief 'explosion' of the wings flapping but you can see that the head is flopping around un-attached, maybe some small amount of blood from the beak and nostrils, and then it is all over. I hang the bird by its feet to bleed out. I always go back and check a few minutes later to make sure it really is dead (I poke the closed eyes to check for no reaction and make sure the legs and feet are starting to chill). Sorry if you didn't want to read this.

The new sheep trying a bit of 'picturesque'

Sometimes it works as smoothly as this and is dead easy, sometimes not so easy. In young, silly, naive birds who gather round your feet as you are just a source of food, it is simplicity itself, and their necks are easy to break. In 101 day old toughies, who have seen their siblings vanish, and whose necks are as tough as old boots. it can be more problematic. Ah well. the dead birds are hung for a while to cool down and then plucked, gutted and jointed. I am relieved that this part is all over for another year and I am not even sure we are doing 'meat birds' next year; Mentor Anne was a bit concerned at the huge size achieved by this year's birds and has rather lost the love for the Hubbard as a variety.

Red, white and 'golden' onions drying in the car port.

Meanwhile, our 'Baker's Dozen' of Buff Orpington chicks are thriving as you can see from the pics above. Yesterday and today, with the weather being sunny and warm (all be it with the occasionally shower) we have risked letting them feel the sun on their backs and feel the herbage and genuine ground under their feet in the rabbit run in the yard. They are still on a mix of finely mashed hard-boiled egg (incl shell) and chick crumb for now and they love picking the bits of egg out of the mix, but we need to wean them off the egg and get them onto chick crumb. We rescued them from the run last night as it seemed a bit chilly, but left the IR lamp turned off as their crate is in the spare room, the warmest room in the house. We were planning tonight they stay outside, in the rabbit run 'bedroom' with the door closed off with a chunk of plywood and a load of hay to bed down on. It is August, after all and the temperatures, even outside, were due to stay above 8 degrees, in their huddle in the draught-free house they would be fine. In a late night conversation with Mentor Anne, however, we changed our minds. Anne advised that they are far too young yet for this kind of adventure and might chill down and die from hypothermia; wait till they are at least 3 weeks old and have some secondary feathers (rather than just chick fluff), she says, so they were rescued again. Better safe than sorry. This morning they are fine and will go back out into the sunshine as soon as it warms up. Some indoor nights, outdoor days for these guys for now.

Mackerel with Gooseberry sauce

Back in Kent at this time of year, we used to eagerly await the near-neighbour (Eric, a keen fisherman) starting his mackerel season, and he would bring us fish less than 24 hours old (the only way to do mackerel!). He would swear by the good timing of the mackerel and the gooseberries coming ready at once. Surely no coincidence. Imagine our horror then, when, with a tub of gooseberries from our bushes, we headed for the usually excellent fish van and our belovéd fish lady "John Dorey's" to try to buy mackerel only to be told that mackerel is out of season. Pardon? No way! Is this some kind of local thing with the Atlantic Mackerel being out of kilter with the Roscommon gooseberries? We don't know. We adjourned to the local supermarket (where we have been badly disappointed in the past by flabby, tasteless mackerel) where the fishmonger was happy to tell us that the fish was really good at the moment, so we bought a couple (and wished we had bought 4!) and enjoyed them immensely with our sharp, fruity sauce. Good eating!

Underfed?

Snout in the trough....

I was getting a bit concerned there for a while. I am feeding my pigs with what seemed like a decent amount of food, based on the "by sight" principle of "do they hoover it all up in 20 minutes?" If it's all gone then you may not be feeding enough, if they leave some then you are feeding too much. Well, these young ladies seemed to be hoovering it up in about 15 minutes and are always ready (often squealing their desire!) for each meal. I was feeding by the 1 litre yogurt tub, one each for breakfast, one split between them for lunch and one each at supper. At each meal there is also fruit, so for example an apple and a tomato chopped up between them.

A contented Tamworth almost 4 months old?

There was nothing for it - I needed to refer to 'The Bible', Liz Shankland's (Haynes) Pig Manual. Liz S advises that you feed pig nuts by weight according to age, basically at 0.1 kg per pig per day per week of age, so that a 16 week old pig should be on 1.6 kg of nuts PLUS any fruit or veg you can add to that. She does not advise substituting fruit and veg for the nuts and hoping that your pig will put on weight based on a bucket full of knackered old cabbage and potato peelings.

I love the ginger bristles on these ladies, glowing in the sun

I needed to check the weight of food I am feeding, so a quick experiment with the yogurt pots told me that a pot is equivalent to 850 g. On that basis, Mapp and Lucia's 2 and a half tubs per day is over 2 kg of nuts! I am over feeding, if anything and the girls squealing for more are just lying (telling me porky pies?). In fact, Liz Shankland has pork animals (rather than 'baconers') on the 1.6 kg only UNTIL they are about 20 weeks old - after that you actually cut down to 1.4 kg to avoid the pig laying down that thick layer of fat all round. I am going to have to sneak the volume down a bit without Mapp and Lucia raising a written complaint to the Management!

13 healthy babies

Did I ever give you a final score on the Buff Orpington babies?  13 chicks was how we did; all now in the brooder box under Infra Red (though for the picture, I carried them to the sunlit window so that they could admire the front lawn and you could see them in the natural light). When I say 'final' score, I refer only to the hatch, we expect about half of these chicks to turn out to be roosters who will not be added to the flock, but the hens are very much part of our future as small holders, all being well.

In an earlier post, I was possibly a bit disparaging about the "lacks-a-daisical" time keeping of Kenny, our sheep man. I think it would be safe to include our "fincing" man, Paul in that category too. We have done a lot of business with Paul and we have long ago learned not to hang about waiting on his returning calls, coming up with quoted prices, or showing up to erect fencing when he says. When he arranged to have the woodwork for the post and rail fence round the front lawn delivered "on Monday" we fully expected it to arrive on the Thursday, and when he left us on that day saying he'd be "back next week" (now this week) to put the fences up, we both mentally decided to believe that when we saw him arrive with tractor, fencing wire, rammer, monkey strainer and all his other gear.

The geese and goslings race home to supper,
from orchard to their house

In fact, it has not been a problem, because a) time is a commodity of which we have plenty here and b) it has given us a chance to take advantage of a cheap offer in the Irish DIY chain 'Woodie's' for some 'Forest Green' fence paint. We have been able to unpack the rails and posts, dry them in the sunshine, and larrup a good old layer of this paint onto them prior to putting the fence up. Painting downwards onto fence rails when they are all in one place is always easier than working your way along 54 m of fence painting the bottoms of rails 'upwards'. If some of the rails have to be cut, we can always nip round and paint the grain ends after the event.

There are not many apples in our orchard this year but
this Bramley cooker is looking good so far.

What else is there tonight? Young 'Pirate' is now well settled and getting quite cheeky with his waiting out front of the house and sometimes yowling for attention. He can hear us when we retire to the terrace furniture for a coffee and a chat and will come round and jump up on the table, un-bothered by the objecting shouts of the dogs indoors. He then finds a lap and gets himself comfortable; the only problem being that he is one of those cats who 'knead' you with their front paws while purring, so your belly gets a bit lacerated by those claws through the thin summer clothing. That's about it for this one.

21 Days Later

Mr and Mrs Buff, suppliers of DNA and 8 of the eggs

Regular readers will recall my post of 15th July, where we had just set in the incubator, 17 Buff Orpington eggs, 8 from our own 'Mrs Buff' hen, plus 9 from Mentor Anne's Buffs. Well, time flies and 20 and a half days later we were delighted to see the dogs suddenly taking a keen interest in the incubator; they could presumably hear the first, almost inaudible cheepings of baby chicks starting to 'pip'. Obviously the poor dogs get evicted at this stage except under supervision. The incubator is in the Living Room, so we can sit in there in the evenings keeping an eye on dogs, reading books and listening to the ever louder commotion in there as eggs break open and chicks start moving about, steeling ourselves not to peek too often in case we let out the heat and humidity. We are still new enough chicken 'breeders' to be as excited as kids at Christmas watching the tiny cracks appear and the first tiny flakes of shell to be thrown off.

Just hatched this second - still wet and unable to stand.

Well, it's going extremely well. Over that night just 2 chicks hatched (one of Anne's eggs first and then one of ours) but several more started pipping. We are amazed by the speed that these babies burst out once they are pipping; the membrane around the blunt end of the egg seems to tear rapidly right round the egg starting at the pipping 'hole', as compared to the Guinea Fowl eggs where the babies seem to have to laboriously chip their way all round the circumference. 6 more babies 'fell' out in quick succession so that we had 8 hatchlings by mid afternoon of day 21.

First 8 are out and drying. 

The plan is to rescue them to the brooder box (but see also more on this later on) when they have dried out and got up walking about after 24 - 48 hours - they hatch with enough reserves of yolk in their fat little abdomens to go that long without food or water. I was going to leave them till tonight (Day 21 evening) but this morning we had our only failure (so far), one failed to make it all the way out and died half-emerged. I noticed the chicks pecking at the broken shell, and when I put my hand in to rescue this baby, they also tried a few tentative pecks at me - they looked hungry! I decided to rescue the 8 dry ones into the brooder where I could feed them and give them water, leaving a wet, just emerged, noisy one to encourage the remaining pippers and non movers.

A lettuce spinner bowl to transport the chicks.

Now it is 8 o'clock at night, Day 21 and we are still going strong. Anne was delighted to know that of the 13 we now have emerged safely, 9 were from her 9 eggs - a 100% fertility and hatch rate which is quite something in the chicken rearing world; we are both enormously impressed too by this little, reasonably priced (€190 several years ago), unsophisticated incubator for the loan of which many many thanks to Charlotte of the Mini Horses. Last time I looked there were numbers 9 through 13 drying and cheeping noisily in the incubator and at least one more of the remaining 3 eggs maybe starting to pip.

Buff Orpington chicks only hours old.

We will leave all this running through the night after which we may candle any remaining eggs and if they are fails, we will call it a day. What ever happens it has been a very successful incubation and hatch. Not so successful, the other half of this cunning plan. You will recall that 2 days before we set these eggs our 2013 Hubbard hen, Miss White went broody for her first time. We put half a dozen less vital eggs under her and dreamed that she might go full term, hatch them and then adopt, in addition to her real clutch, any Buff chicks we might be able to hatch in the 'incy'. Well she went full term and is actually still sitting there on her day 24, but in the process she managed to lose or break 5 of her real eggs, so she has been sitting for the last week on just one real egg plus 2 dummy (rubber) eggs. We toyed briefly with the idea of swapping the 2 dummies with a couple of pipping Buff eggs so that she might 'hatch' them, but there is a risk she will freak out and kill the intruders, especially if they smell or look different. So, No, we'll 'hand rear' these babies and leave Miss White be, sitting on that last egg for a few more days.

Feta cheese and courgette cake

Meanwhile, not satisfied with being able to cook other people's recipes really well, Liz had a go at inventing a new recipe for using up some of the current mini-glut of yellow courgettes. She took our standard recipe for Dorset Apple Cake, subtracted apples and sugar and substituted in equal weights of feta cheese and grated courgette. She baked it as you would the apple cake and it became our 'carbs' in a meal which included lamb's liver in creamy onion sauce and broccoli. It was gorgeous and will now go into the home 'cookbook' for further uses. We also think you could do any number of versions of it, maybe fishy ones, different cheeses, a bacon/lardon one and so on.

Bee hive 'smoker'

Tonight I am self-catering as Liz is at 'Knit and Natter', and I have used up the left overs (actually that piece I photographed on the plate above) with a thawed out portion of shepherd's pie and some steamed black kale and more yellow courgette. I can vouch for it's deliciousness and texture a second time round.

More news on the Buffs in the next post.

An Occasion of Sin?

Class of 2014 try out the 'new' trailer.

On Friday the 1st, out of the blue, comes our long awaited text from that elusive Scarlet Pimpernel, Kenny, our sheep man. It seems he has broken his phone and lost a lot of contacts (Mmmm...) and has had to get back in touch via his brother Joe and our brother, Sparks. Kenny and Joe were part of the amazing stilt-walking plastering team of brothers who did such a good job on our rebuilt house. He was now back and offering us up to 5 lambs 'tomorrow' (Sat 2nd) and also suggesting that we meet him halfway at a car park in Ballyhaunis to transfer them from his trailer to ours. We asked for four. Kenny describes them as 'boys' so we put up on Facebook a jokey competition to name them and got back some very amusing sets of four names, everything from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, through the Ramones names, the Four Horsemen, the Rat Pack, the 'A' Team, the Goons, "Uncle, Tom, Cobley and All" to Eeny, Meanie, Miny and Mo, various recipe lists and even, cleverly "Post, Prey, Poon & Asted" I'll leave you to work that one out!

Eyeing us up through the vent gap on the trailer.

I have to admit I was a bit scared of the trailer-transfer thing and had visions of sheep sprinting all over the busy town of Ballyhaunis an a Bank Holiday Saturday afternoon, with us in pursuit but that bit, at least proved that these sheep people know what they are at. However we suddenly had our Saturday now driven by the schedules of sheep-man Kenny. As well as a plasterer, Kenny is a small scale sheep farmer with a flock of one ram and about 30 'Mums' plus whatever singletons, twins and triplets he has managed to produce that year, and we have fallen in love with him over the years and use him as sheep supplier, mentor and source of sheep wisdom BUT (and it is a big 'But') he is a bugger for the lacks-a-daisical timekeeping and he will surely drive us mad.

Liz lets the sheep out in the East Field

He will text you one day promising to call back first thing tomorrow to confirm arrangements, but then he'll not text back, or it will be 'definitely around 2 pm'. Then as 2 pm approaches you will inevitably get a call saying he's fallen behind. Woe betides if you are hanging around waiting and putting off other jobs 'in case he calls'. One of our deliveries finally arrived at 11 pm and we were shepherding new sheep around in the dark with torches. It all somehow hangs together, though and we've not lost a sheep yet. This batch we finally got a firm rendezvous for the car park of pump-supplier 'EPS' in Ballyhaunis (which would be empty at the weekend and is nicely surrounded on all sides by fences but with an easily 'defended' open main gate). We backed our two trailers up tight together and guarded the side gaps while Kenny's son Oisín strong-armed the first sheep from A to B (the remaining three happily followed, as sheep do). The lads talked us through the sheep, which are an interesting mix of Mule and cross breed all with the same father (a Suffolk Down x Texel). Three ram lambs and a 'Yow'.

These Mayo-born babies taste Roscommon grass.

The 'Occasion of Sin' thing in my subject line? For the non-Catholic readers and anyone who was not schooled by the good Nuns who 'police' sweet little Catholic school girls, Liz tells me that as well as filling the girls with knowledge, a good part of the day was spent protecting them from bad influences and anything which might put at risk their purity and innocence. (Sounds like hard work to me, so fair play to the Nuns!). In this world, anything seen, read or come across which might give the girls a frisson of excitement or make their ears prick up and might cause a SIN to happen (gasp!) was referred to as an "Occasion of Sin". Liz tells me that Kenny the sheep man, with his devilish handsome, Wild Irish Rover good looks, dark curly hair, fine features, twinkling eyes, strong hands (swoon) and fit farmer's body is definitely an Occasion of Sin and would have been kept out of the school by Nuns armed with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Aren't these ear-tags meant to be attached to the sheep,
Kenny?

Ah well, the sheep are all home now and safe in our East Field, recently vacated by the last mini-horse to leave, Cody. There is plenty of grass there and the gang are patrolling around now seeing what it tastes like in all parts of the field. We have not settled on names yet - the choice was too huge! This was the first use of the new stock trailer in anger and we were delighted with how it all worked, all be it we lost the spare wheel from its mount at some stage and had to retrace our steps to go and rescue it in case it was lying in the road causing an accident - it wasn't, it was well hidden in a grass verge. Ah well, we've done all the paperwork and Kenny has given us the strip of ear-tags which he has promised (faithfully!) to come round and fit to the sheep in the next few weeks. Brace yourself, Lizzie!

Pirate after his most recent Vet visit

Meanwhile a quick picture of our old soldier, Pirate the Cat, now all goo'd up again with medical fluids, new stitches and scabby stuff. Poor aul' soul. We hope this is the last visit and now he can get better properly, put on plenty of weight and clean himself up a bit. He has effectively taken over the caravan now and won't let our other two cats in. It's his territory now. Our two cats don't actually mind, especially now that it has turned a bit autumnal and wet, and they are allowed indoors (Ha!). They are currently both stretched out luxuriously on a bed in the spare room. We daren't let Pirate indoors, as the dogs would try to rip him limb from limb. It's a shame, because he is so obviously an 'indoor' cat. We are secretly hoping that one of our guests or visitors will fall in love with him, one who can give him a proper indoor berth with no terriers. Meanwhile, though, we will keep him safe in his new life based around the caravan.