Draw a Line....

The black spruce (Picea mariana) around the 'Secret Garden"

We are determined to put the upsetting fox episode behind us now so here is an easy-on-the-eye post which contains no foxes or even fox tracks. The whole scene has been blanketed in picturesque white snow (all be it only a few inches) so that we can all think of Christmas card scenes and, (apologetically) using that management-speak baloney expression "we can draw a line under it and move on".

Rudbeckia stems.

Sorry if the snow scenes are a bit monochrome, gloomy and sunless, but I whizzed round early in the morning, sure that the sun would not come out to brighten things up before all this lot started melting and dripping off the trees and fencing. The forecast is, anyway, for a thaw and a return to wind and rain for tomorrow (We hope, also that the forecast weather for "the wedding" is accurate).

No digging in the veg plot today!

The best aspect by far of the snow is that you can see that we have definitely no fox tracks anywhere on the property. With the dogs also confirming no interesting scent when we are out patroling we are hoping the 'line' in my title is well drawn and written in permanent ink, though realistically we know we have not done for all the foxes in the townland.

No sitting around enjoying the view today, either...

Just one amusing story on the subject of guns if you will allow me. My complete (but short) gun history up till two nights ago. Don't worry. It involves only one pull of the trigger and no deaths. Or injury even. When we posted our fox problem on Facebook, several friends stepped up with helpful and sympathetic suggestions involving, obviously, shooting the fox and such lines as "how are you with a rifle? - a shot in the air might be enough".

Quite cute - the lamb's tiny hoof print (left) next to Mum's

Well, if people knew my gun history, they would not be letting me anywhere near a shot-gun licence, far less a rifle. Way back, probably 30-35 years ago I was involved in a farm by way of courting the main man's Sister in Law and he (Big Tim) agreed to take me out 'lamping' in a Land Rover with a bunch of other lads. We'd drive around his land looking for bunnies, then stop the Land Rover, shine a big lamp on them and take pot shots at them from standing up in the back of the Land Rover. Youthful high spirits but also controlling the rabbits which were at pest levels and decimating the growing corn down by some woods.

Dawn from the top of the allotment, looking east.

We pulled up then, by a hedge where there are a gazillion bunnies mooching about near a hedge and Big Tim hands me a .410 (small shot gun, a "four-ten"). The rabbits are so close that one is almost under the Land Rover's front bumper so I take careful aim and squeeze the trigger as instructed. I have no idea where the shot went but the target rabbit remains standing looking at me, a bit put out at the noise I'm making. I hear Tim's voice say "D'yer want me to git out and 'it 'im with a spade?" and then there are gales of laughter and everyone else trying not to fall out of the Land Rover, creased up laughing.

Tim took the gun back off me and 'sacked' me as a gunman. I was relegated to gate-man. I had to just get all the field gates for the LR. I think I can also remember being a bit uneasy about killing a rabbit and relieved at having missed and being sacked, but that might just be me putting a favourable gloss on it all. That episode was the last time I fired a gun and the last time I even saw one fired. I went back to being an animal lover and wildlife nut for 35 years till 2 days ago.

Improved shelter.

Meanwhile, back on January 13th and we need to start getting the lamb ready for proper out-door living, but we have snow here and wind and rain forecast. Mentor Anne who, with Simon, has built and lived in a proper house made of straw bales, might be proud of us - we decided to improve the makeshift shelter with straw bale walls and a floor of shaken out straw (rather than, admittedly dry, soil). My little trailer will take ten bales so we were off to the local hay/straw merchant; 2 for the pig ark, one for the existing sheep-bedroom (former feed store), one for the new shelter floor and 6 to play 'Lego' with. We may need more, but the shelter is already a lovely, warm dry place for a lamb and the Mum and Aunt to take shelter from the snow, wind and rain and, potentially, for an Aunt to become a Mum in when we get to 25th March?

Snow Geese.

And so I have probably done enough now to bury Brer Fox. The chap himself has been removed by Charlotte of the Mini Horses who does some kind of fancy dog-training using the scent of the dead animal to train her dogs in the ways of what to chase and what not to. She came to collect him last night and we had to nip round with a torch and find him where I'd laid him out to take his picture yesterday but, of course, 3 inches of snow was now blanketing the scene. Amusingly we could easily find him as he made a cartoon style, perfect fox-shaped mound in the flat grass; he even had pointy 'ears', 'eyes' and a 'mouth'; somehow the eyes and mouth must have been that bit wetter than the glossy fur, so the snow was melting on these features as it landed giving little darker pits in the snow and the flakes had built up on the pointy ears creating an exact copy in white. Snow-Fox has now gone too, then, with Brer Fox. RIP, the pair of you.

A Sustained and Determined Attack

The only good fox...?

Mostly these posts are happy, up-beat affairs describing pleasant days, entertaining distractions and good outcomes. Our time here has mostly been enjoyable and the days we remember with a smile. Yesterday was NOT one of those days. We came under a sustained and determined attack by our local big dog fox who kept it up for a good hour and a half and even then did not really go away till we brought the episode to a close. I will not, however, do the tension-building write up, cliff-hanger thing on you. We did not enjoy it being done to us by Brer Fox, so I will let you off the hook straight away by telling you the fox wound up shot at 8 pm, quick and clean, a shot-gun round between the eyes and he only actually killed one young Buff-Orp rooster (today) and only got away with the head of that bird, leaving us the carcass.

A possible first Buff-Orp egg from one of the young ones.

The 'fun' started at around 9 am when I was up and dressed except for shoes and on the phone to Vendor Anna, gazing out the front window. I was shocked to see a chicken race past the front of the house, 5 feet from the front door, chased by a galloping fox. I dropped the phone and dashed out in my socks, tore round in time to make the fox drop the hen and then, zig-zagging about a bit, clear the sheep fence (3-4 feet high) in one leap. 'Safe' in the east field he stopped running and seemed to suss that I had no gun, so he could lope around looking back at me curiously as I rather pathetically roared, shouted and lobbed some stones at him. He was a brave one for sure, convinced I could do him no harm.

John Deere Bob's cattle

We (Liz was up too, in an instant!) then endured a good hour of Brer Fox seeming to retreat but then looping round and sneaking back in from north, south, east or west, while Liz and I circled the house trying to keep the hens in the yard and not giving the fox a 'blind side' to come at us from. Oh for a gun (but more on that later); I was amazed at how upset this makes you feel - I felt so helpless, angry, under attack, besieged and useless. Sick even. The fox's 'Modus Operandi' was just to burst from cover and sprint at a group of birds who would then scatter at near ground level but inevitably one would not get out of the ambush in time. It was presumably this he was doing last week, across 50 yards of our east field, when he took those 2 birds. These birds are young and silly and do not know to split up or get up on a wall.

More cattle - explanations on these pics later!

The garden was getting covered with tufts of feathers from near misses. Luckily only one of these puffs contained a dead bird, a young rooster decapitated by the fox on one of his charges. For some reason he only got away with the head. This guy was leaping the sheep fences, so able to easily move from east field to goose-orchard to pig paddock, but luckily was only chicken focused, he ran straight by the geese and the new lamb without trying to grab them. Only when I came out with the dogs (on leads, but then free in the pig area) at 10:30 did he start to look a bit wary and scarpered off the site. We got a chance to draw breath and phone for help - we have 2 local 'hired guns' available but no names, no pack drill, these guys like to keep it a bit quiet and discreet.

Ginny and Padfoot stripping bark from
some cut ash.

I then saw the fox again at lunchtime when I went out to walk the dogs, but by now he was out in the lane. I shut up the sheep and geese and did my usual dog exercise at 4 pm and then hung around in the yard at 5, supervising all the birds to bed (I didn't want to lose another bird after keeping them safe all afternoon) by 5:15 pm. At 6 pm I went out with the head torch to get some sprouts and what do you know, the lad was in by the rabbit run, his green eyes reflecting the LED light, and then did his slow, brave lope-away in short 'legs' as I followed him out to the 5 acre field at walking pace. Meanwhile my 'gun' had been around to look for fox track-ways though the local area to see could we find a likely ambush spot of our own.

To cut a long story short the boy used one of these routes at 8 pm and got our lamp and a shotgun 'round' between the eyes for his pains. I can't quite believe that I, lifelong animal lover and wildlife nut, was out there with the lamp determined that this animal would die and the flood of relief at his end. It was quick and clean. This morning I was able to check out the carcass and 'he' was indeed a well grown dog-fox, 42 inches from nose to brush-tip (that's about as big as they get, full size is 48 inches or so), in very good, well fed condition and weighing as much as one of our westies, so 8-9 kg maybe. He had good teeth and beautifully clean fur, disease free that I could see. I was very sad that it had to end like this, but I could not have left him to come back each day taking a bird a day till he'd cleaned us out. I couldn't have coped with the tension waiting for his ambushes. So, sorry. Brer Fox. RIP.

New ash logs completely cleaned of bark by rabbits

Obviously, this might not be the end of this story. I was out again giving the dogs their last walk at 10 pm and what would be the last thing you'd want to see having just killed "your fox"? Yes, another pair of green eyes reflected in the LED torch light! This one, though seemed way smaller, lower to the ground and more nervous - he was up and gone at our first appearance, sprinting 50 yards up the 5 acres before he turned and showed me his eyes again. I am sure that 'our fox' was the one 'we' shot. The hired gun is going to keep interested, though as he says there are often more than one. Watch this space.

A bit white on Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, what of all these unrelated pics I have posted here? Poor aul' John Deere Bob has been laid low with flu, so I have turned cattle-man temporarily, making sure they do not go for want of food (silage), water and straw bedding. One of our young Buff Orps may have started egg laying - we got a tiny egg laid in the garden which I had poached this morning with 2 normal eggs and it had the tiniest, pea sized yolk in it! Very sweet. I had been de-limbing an ash tree to make some space ready for potential extra bee hives in 2015, and had left the trimmings lying on the grass, where I was surprised to find that the aged rabbits, Ginny and Padfoot had some great times gnawing off the bark. I guess they are getting good winter nutrition off them or some good wear on the teeth. I grabbed up some bigger bits and dropped these in to the 'giant' rabbits, Goldie and Nugget, and they were the same, stripping my logs cleaner than you could do with a spoke-shave. Happy bunnies.

Well, we woke up this morning to falling snow and a feeling that our fox problems are sorted for now. All the embarrassing puffs of feathers and the small blood smear from the killed bird are shrouded in forgiving white. My little 10 pm fox has not made an appearance and (touch wood) everybody is still alive. The carcass was a mess so, though Liz had a go at plucking it, she got fed up with the many puncture wounds, torn skin and bruises from our bushy-tailed chum's teeth and skinned it. Only some of the meat will be kept and that marked down or a very slow cook. I have been enjoying walking about in the snow with the dogs (on leads again) NOT seeing fox tracks.

Allowed Out

On the fourth day, Mayo-Liz decrees that the new lamb should be allowed out of the Maternity Unit (we'll give it the proper name of 'bonding pen', where you keep Mum and lamb in close proximity to make sure lamb gets a good dose of colostrum and the pair get well bonded before being released into the bigger field where they might get separated now and again). Saturday morning, then , we were delighted to find that the recent burst of vile wind and rain was done, the warm air-mass shouldered aside by some cold air; we had blue skies, little wind and bright, drying sunshine. We pulled the pallet 'gate' out of the way and carried the lamb at ewe-nose height across the yard, closely followed by both ewes, setting the lamb down in the shelter in the East Field to get his bearings (and snatching a few pictures).

You are advised to keep the indoor time to an absolute minimum. Sheep man Kenny actually does not do it at all - he lambs out of doors with just big round bales dropped into the field for protection from the wind. I assume he is fox proof. Although you are doing everyone a favour in terms of warmth, dryness and safety from the fox, what you are also doing is potentially upsetting the sheep by enclosing them in entirely new and unfamiliar surroundings with a complete change of diet - green grass to hay and 'nuts'. In our case, even the 'nuts' were changed because it coincided with me running out of the old left-over "fast sheep crunch" and moving onto ewe-and-lamb ration. These abuses can upset the sheep's digestion and lead to diarrhoea (sheep-folk call this 'scour(s)' ) and Lily was, indeed, starting to scour in the pen, so needed to be got back out onto grass.

Well, the move all went well and all three sheep seemed to be delighted at the new space. The lamb, we had only seen moving around in the 8 foot square of the pen, so we were delighted at his speed and agility once released into the field; no problem keeping up with his Mum. He looks, to us, a fine, healthy lad and Charlotte (who knows a lot more about sheep than we do) also pronounced him fit and strong. He is 'big' anyway on account of being a singleton (no twin to share the space with) and will now benefit from all that milk to himself and Hampshires are known to be good milkers. He seems to have enormous feet anyway, if that is anything to go by!

The clear, dry skies, though, were not to last the morning and the forecast predicted that we would get bands of snow-squall cloud through the afternoon. I checked with Mayo-Liz that this release, once achieved, did not have to be permanent and it would be alright to round everybody back up at 'bed time'. She thought that a perfect solution (we have all seen enough film of poor Welsh mountain sheep farmers digging their flock out of snow drifts). The gang are on a day-release programme, then, shepherded out in the morning and back at 4 pm, like the geese for a few days. We have put off the brave hour of letting them stay out over night. We may be being ridiculously soft. We had a few flurries of snow but it came to nothing.

Lily motoring down the field with Feste keeping up easily.

The 2nd ewe, Polly seems happy to stay 'Auntie' at present and is keeping her gunpowder dry. We are fairly sure, based on the comment Mayo Liz made that she was immediately very keen to see the (proper) 'tup' (ram) in November that she had not been got at like Lily. There is a good expression locally to describe ladies of loose morals  "Ah, she's no better than she should be!" and that is now how Lily gets described but I say it takes two to tango.

There you have it then for this post - all quiet, the way we like it. Maybe Polly will go the distance to the end of March and it will all break out again but it never does to count your chickens before they hatch. Lily is sorted on the scours.

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Guzzling Mum's colostrum.

Our little "miracle baby" is thriving so far and this morning he was amusing himself with some first of those springing jumps off all 4 feet, that they do. He is alone so far and, unless his 'Aunt' Polly was also 'got at' by the youngsters with whom these ladies were running up till Aug/Sept, then he'll presumably have to wait till March 25th to get any playmates - he'll be looking a bit less lamb-like by then, all being well. We will just have to see he gets extra fuss and TLC so that he doesn't miss that side of life. He has already had his first admirer come visit, a friend from down the lane brought her 8 year old daughter for a look and a cuddle.

A 12th-Night clown?

But what to name him? We had put out on the usual internet discussion group circuit that we needed a name which might evoke any of the following: Surprise, very early, unexpected, wind-blown wet acres or even first-born. They'd only come up with 'Heathcliffe' (from the windy-wet thing) but then I spotted that the little guy had actually been born on Twelfth Night at which Liz's ears pricked up!

Liz is this family's literature expert and learnéd well-read Shakespeare scholar so she was straight into the Bard's play 'Twelfth Night'  and found the name of the clown/jester character, which is 'Feste' (I am told you pronounce this 'Festay'). I have to confess to not knowing this play well but we do have a DVD of the Trevor Nunn film version starring Helena Bonham Carter. Richard E Grant, Nigel Hawthorne, Mel Smith, Imogen Stubbs and, as Feste himself, Sir Ben Kingsley, no less. I love this film  and I can remember that the clown has a regular, repeated singing part which goes...

"Hey, ho, the wind and the rain, and the rain it raineth every day"

That seemed particularly appropriate for our little lamb just now; it seems to have rained every day since I managed to scrabble in the last of the spud harvest. As I was harvesting I was looking about me mentally listing all the other garden jobs that need doing (mainly tidying, cutting down raspberries and so on). I have been able to do none of these! Feste he is then. He is indoors today but, weather permitting, the family will get some outdoor exercise tomorrow, (Maternity Unit Matron) Mayo Liz has advised "Saturday or Sunday".

We have also been having some fun in a related area suggesting I might need to "Brush up (my) Shakespeare" which you may know is a very good song from the musical Kiss me Kate and given to some devilish rhyming as the song builds on the theme that the way to successfully charm your gal is to quote at her from the Bard

Just declaim a few lines from Othella
And they'll think you're a hell of a fella
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer

and

With the wife of the British ambessida
Try a crack out of Troilus and Cressida
If she says she won't buy it or tike it
Make her tike it, what's more As You Like It

(Ah well, maybe you had to be there! - if you fancy a listen to a good 'original' try

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-CSb3Xe06s

or similar)

It stains well, this lamb-medicine. Apparently it is how proper
shepherds recognise one another in shop queues and pubs; either
brown of iodine or the purple of foot rot spray!

Meanwhile, even though pinned down indoors by the rain, work goes on. Our chum JD Bob is a bit under the weather lately with flu so I was down there yesterday on cattle feeding duties, shoveling wads of silage to his indoor-housed twenty bullocks (always amused by the fact that locally "cows/cattle" means just the females, so if you ask a farmer does he have cattle, you are likely to get the trip-up answer, 'I don't; I only have weanlings and bullocks') I have also started culling out the young Buff Orpington roosters who have started to cause trouble with their battling with each other and aggression towards the smaller of our existing adult hens. Liz is plucking and dressing the first one even as I type this. Being a big breed, these guys are not fully grown even though they are at 22/23 weeks, so they make rather small carcasses (certainly compared to the meaty Hubbards we were doing most recently!). The first went 'oven ready' at 1.984 kg. Not bad.

A First Lamb

Totally taking us by surprise this morning, welcome to the world a little ram lamb born to Lily overnight out in the windy, rainy open in the East Field. The lambing gods were obviously smiling upon us - it could have gone so wrong. You'll have read that we were not, for a start, expecting anything till March 25th at the earliest, so this guy is 2 and a half months early. Mayo-Liz had had this ewe still running with her own lambs till well into October (29th), when we decided to buy her and her chum, Polly. At that point the lambs were separated so that the ewes would come on heat and be put to the tup. 5 months of gestation would then bring us round to late March or into April, with a closing date of late April/Early May. Those, we'd have been ready for, with our 'maternity unit' set up and me on nervous but high-alert vigilance. This birth date says that Lily was already 'with child' when we were choosing her, possibly by one of her own ram lambs, possibly by the intended father, the purebred Hampshire Down tup.

Last night was a filthy night, windy and raining big splattery drops but the sheep were out loose in the East Field as they are every night. I'd left some washing flapping on the line (oops) and 2 pillow cases had blown down into the wet by the time I did my breakfast round and the dogs' 'comfort stop' at 0830. I could see that the 2 ewes were not together, and could see Lily way out in the field with what appeared to be something white on the grass near her - a blown pillowcase maybe? Better go check and see why she was over there and not at the gate begging for breakfast.

Obviously, a major excitement when I saw that it was in fact a lamb, on its feet and bleating. What happened to 25th March? I picked up the lamb and led Mum, with it, to the rain shelter in the field, so it would at least be out of the rain, then rousted Liz out of bed (no cup of tea? A rude awakening!). Together we swung into action, clearing some space in the goose house, moving feed bins and laying hay down, making a pen with pallets etc. Mum and baby were shepherded in to the warm dry house. 'Aunt Polly' was abandoned for the moment in the field while we phoned Mayo Liz for some advice. She (Polly) was not happy to be split from her chum, but we didn't know if it was OK to have both ewes in the pen.

Mayo-Liz, Bless her (Thanks Liz) was on the phone within seconds of me sending the text, asked loads of questions and gave me loads of advice and reassurance - check Mum is milking OK, check sex of baby, check baby has an anal opening, get some Iodine spray for the umbilical cord end etc but yes, you can let Aunt Polly in there. So we now have Mum, Aunt and the little fella in the pen, happily warm and dry and getting used to their surroundings. Baby is suckling well and dividing his time between feeding, sleeping and exploring the pen. He is Iodined up. Lily seems to us, now, to have gone off the boil and relaxed so, we are fairly sure, this singleton may be our lot for the moment - no twins this time round.

Oh and the rest of the stock, missed in the excitement, did eventually get released and fed - poultry, geese, rabbits and Pirate the Cat. And the washing got picked up from the grass and re-washed. We are all calm again if a little "bounced into spring". Oh and Liz caught one of our Buff Orpington youngsters bullying one of our adult 'mini-buffs' this morning, so they are growing up too.

F.U.N.E.X?

Did you ever play that game as a child? You had to try to say things but only using the names of letters and numbers, so 'Have you any eggs' became FUNEX (Eff-you-en-ee-ecks) to which my chickens, lately would be struggling to reply anything other than "I.F.N.10.E.X (I haven't any eggs). I assume kids now have no problem with this as they seem to mangle the English language well enough with 'text-speak'  (L8R for 'later' and M8 for 'mate') and it's not that different. But enough of this Radio-4 style introduction and link.

Over a year ago I was chatting to one of the users on the poultry discussion forum I used to moderate, and she suggested recording your eggs as they were laid day by day, so that you could know your monthly and weekly production figures. It seemed like a good idea to me, so we started scratching down any eggs collected on the kitchen calendar. With the turning of the year, I've been able to add them all up and here is how we did.

There were some good spuds among the latest, very late, harvest

You can see that our best month for chickens was March (211 chicken eggs) and the year's total was 1366 eggs. These are a bit variable in size but basically 'large' and Free Range, but are not organic. In old money, 1366 eggs works out as 228 'half dozens' and these are currently in the supermarket we looked in as €3.09 for the 6, or €4 for 2 boxes. Even going with the cheaper price, this is €456 worth of eggs (€704 at the higher price!). It's a bit difficult to work out the input costs, especially as in our Mickey Mouse economics we tend to leave out labour, housing, initial cost of birds and lots of other costs you would need to include if you were doing this as a real business. We also buy the wheat, barley and layers pellets as a gross amount for the whole 'farm', and the egg-layers only get some of it, shared with the growing birds and, in Winter, the rabbits. Even so, feed cost us €294 for the year and shredded straw for bedding €40.65, so we think we 'did OK' and we are happy to continue. The girls will live to see another Spring-time.

More knitting.

Our best day, incidentally, was a 10-egg score which is not quite 100%; we had 11 hens at that time. We have yet to record a genuine 100%. We had a few days where we discovered hidden caches of eggs in the hedgerows and "scored" 16 or whatever, but we don't count those to that day - we spread them across the preceding days as best we can. The best week was 46 eggs (more like 59%) but we know that many hens only lay every other day or less frequently, so the bigger scores only appear when all the planets align for whatever reason. We know we could do much 'better' by pumping the inputs or messing with day-length and lighting but that's not what we are about.

Sparks's newest 'toy', this 8 seater, disabled-access taxi. 

The two geese managed a total of 92 eggs across the first 5 months before they both went broody. Min-the-Hin (our Guinea Fowl) scored 23 eggs on site plus the famous 16 egg clutch she laid in the hedge over the lane, which readers will know we rescued and incubated after the loss of her husband, Henry. One interesting aspect of these figures is that we have got into a strong annual rhythm now, with January 2015 already looking more like December 2014 than Jan 2014, so this winter drought is presumably something we will have to get used to. We think that perhaps the chickens in earlier winters were younger and coming into their first egg-laying season according to their age rather than the day-length. It remains to be seen how this spring goes, whether we peak in March again.

Red cabbage and sausage meat 'layer cake'.
The photo doesn't do it justice. 

On a completely different tack, one of the joys of the internet to us is the wealth of friends out there who are good cooks and who are happy to share recipes and advice with anyone who will listen. Liz was on an actual cookery discussion group the other day when someone threw in a request for suggestions of interesting ways to use up that left over sausage meat. There were plenty but one which caught Liz's eye was for a 'layer cake' of sausage meat and shredded red cabbage which you assemble like a lasagna and then bake for a couple of hours.

Clothes shopping - a rare treat!

Sausage meat and red cabbage are two ingredients we have no shortage of, so Liz decided to try it out very simply, with no extra flavours, no 'spicy', no other fruit or veg. nothing in the sausage meat but ground pork. It was nice enough like that but we both said that it would be a dish open to all manner of change and enhancement - both on the cabbage side (think spiced cabbage as for Christmas or the addition of other veg) and the meat ('posh' sausages, any kind of salsa or 'lasagna' type sauce or even different meats altogether). A world of possibilities.

Sparks Junior teaches Dad how you do Lego. 

Today saw us off on a rare adventure; clothes shopping! Other than replacement socks and knickers, we've not done a whole lot of that since being in Ireland but with a family wedding coming up (more on that soon) we have a good excuse for a bit of lavish retail therapy. Off to Roscommon Town, then and the respected 'Gentlemen's Outfitter', Donnellan & Co where we were well looked after and on to some boutiques to sort out Liz. We are very pleased with our day. On the way home a check point, and various Hi-Viz clad 'Guards' flagging us down and waving ominous 'bag and tube' equipment around. After the Christmas excesses we guessed it might be a drink-driving thing and I was looking forward to being able to spring from the car with my conscience and my blood stream completely clear, answering the Guard's "Have you had anything to drink in the last 24 hours, Sir?" with a resounding "No, Sir, I have not". Unfortunately these turned out to be Customs men and the bladder/tubes were only about checking to see if your diesel was legal, colourless. road DERV or dodgy red agricultural stuff. They quickly identified our little Fiat as being a petrol car and waved us through without even stopping. Ah well.

Salt Cured and Air Dried

You will recall that we have been trying our hands at salt-cured and air-dried Tamworth pork meat, aiming for a 'pancetta' or 'prosciutto' type product which we could slice as thinly as possible and eat with, for example, melon as a starter or have in sandwiches or as a cold meat 'antipasti' style. For our pilot try we simply borrowed a couple of the 4 inch thick leg cuts and made a curing mixture to a recipe from a Newspaper website (Dan Leopard in the Telegraph, I seem to recall).,

New Year's Eve starter. Our own cure meat
with some (shop) melon.

The meat got salted for 4 weeks (a week per inch of thickness) and seemed to be firm and 'sweet' enough to us, so it then got 4 weeks hanging in a muslin bag in the spare room. With the radiator turned off and the loft hatch open, that's our coolest and driest room. We just had to spirit it all away and warm the room up for Airy Fox's visit in the middle, praying that it would not all go mouldy in the Tígín (which is much damper) in the mean time. It was potentially going to hang and dry for several months but the instructions say that you are aiming for 'firm' rather than rock hard.

The makings of another superb cake.

We gave it a feel on New Year's Eve and declared it firm enough, did the taste-test, quickly acquired a melon (putting the old, rusty 'Man from Del Monte' skills back to use!)  and put it on the menu as a starter before our Hogmanay-ish meal of home made haggis, our neeps, tatties and a rather fancy clementine and almond, choc-covered cake for pud. The pork was of good texture and taste, though maybe a wee bit salty, so that the "with melon" worked well. The sweet, juiciness of the melon met the salt and seemed to come to a happy compromise.

Polly (l) and Lily (r) on the front lawn.

Meanwhile, in the sheep department, four days on we are delighted with the new girls. They are already very tame and friendly; we are used to Kenny's much less frequently handled 'babies' who have taken at least 2 weeks before they will approach you and another 2 weeks before they would be 'baa'-ing for their supper and running up to you and your feed bucket. One of the last lot never did get as far as allowing me to stroke his head.

These ladies are 3 (Lily) and 5 (Polly) years old and have for all that time been almost pets round at Mayo-Liz's holding, so are well used to human contact, food coming from buckets and the idea of following people between fields and into pastures new. On the first day of being here, I went for a wander round the East Field to check the fences and the sheep came straight over to me and then followed me round as if I was taking the dogs for a walk - almost walking to heel. On my night 'patrols' with the dogs (on leads, obviously), when we wander past their gate, I hear the low 'almost grunt' of a tentative 'Baa'; one of the girls is trying it on to see if food might be available at 10 pm (!)

Fine looking, sturdy ewes. Lily (l) and Polly (r).

Today, then, I felt brave enough to 'shepherd' them from East Field to the front lawn, fenced off in 2014 to be a sheep field and save me the mowing. We do this by blocking the 'bad' exits a bit half-heartedly with terrace chairs, wheelie bins and a roll of sheep wire tied to a down pipe with a turn of baler twine - any self respecting sheep trying to do a runner would have no problems bursting out, but we trust these girls to stay calm, stay focused on me and go the right way from field to field, and so far they have.

That cake. The 'icing' is melted chocolate, butter and honey.
A bit of clementine 'zest' gets sprinkled on. This is Ottolenghi's
recipe, says Liz. 

After a few times we don't even bother with the blockages and the sheep dither about a bit and look longingly at the yard or the front drive, but at the rattle of a feed bucket and a whistle they turn back to the shepherd and follow diligently. The front drive, I should add hastily, does not imply the lane and freedom of the village - the gate at the end is always closed! As hastily, I need to re-assure you that these bucket feeds are of 'tit-bit' size. We must not over feed these lasses, we don't want any over-size lambs or fatty ..um.... 'exits' for them to pass through. Time enough for lashing them the extra rations when the ewes are feeding milk to any successful babies or those babies are weaning and growing. The professionals feed them up just pre-tupping so that they go to the tup in good and rising condition (this is called 'flushing') but then only feed to ensure healthy placenta and then lamb development and ewe health.

I guess that's it for the 'Season'. Tomorrow the decorations all come down, the fancy booze gets stacked away and the house returns briefly to 'dull' normality. Of course we quickly get acclimatized to this and start to feel the excitement of the coming Spring. 'Dull' does not last very long. I am already looking at how much weeding and cultivation I need to do, buying seeds and plants and getting the garden going again.