Rogers sorted for now

This garden, (or more accurately the drives, terrace and ‘edge’ bits) grows excellent dandelions and Mum and Dad gather these and lob them into the rabbit run where they are enthusiastically received by the bunnies Ginny and Padfoot. The rabbits bite through the leaves and then gradually draw them into their mouths by chewing alternately left and right. The leaf gets shorter like a child sucking in spaghetti. Many a daft looking expression happens when interrupted mid-chew so that rabbit looks up with huge green 'tongue' protruding.

Concerned about Rogers's possibly getting beaten up by Ginny-the-Bully and or wet/cold from the omnipotent Roscommon Rainfall, Dad decided what he needed was one of those triangular 'arks' - little house-een at one end, mesh run at the other, the first foot of which would have transparent plastic sheeting to give him a bit of a porch as he stepped out the front door. Because this was all about keeping Ginny and Padfoot out, but not stopping Rogers coming out to commune with the girls in the wider run if he decided to, the run deliberately had baby-bun (coinin-ín?) gaps designed into it and was covered in 2 inch size chicken wire. Dad had a pile of spare wood, tar felt and chicken wire to hand so 2 hours later, working by eye and tape measure, making it up as he went along, “ark-ín” was built.

Mum was summonsed and we processed out to the big run armed with the ark and Rogers in his cat-basket. The house end of ark was filled with the hay given to us by Cerise Lizz, so that it might smell familiar and comforting to Rogers. Rogers promptly vanished inside and, like kids at a zoo in the rain, Mum and Dad and we dogs stood in the drizzle, watching the little doorway of his house in the forlorn hope he might scamper out and frolic in his new run laughing at the grown-up girls who could no longer get at him. Eventually we got bored waiting and gravitated inside.

In fact he did appear and so scamper late that evening, and the next morning at 06:30, as Dad had intended, he was out in the main run and scampered for the cover of his own ark as we approached to let Ginny and Padfoot out of the hutch.

Other than that, it’s been a case of sitting indoors watching the incessant rain try to turn our property into a bog.

Barns and Bunnies

And so to the 30^th and the first Anniversary of Dad’s giving up work. It was at 15:30 on 30^th June 2011 that Dad handed his security pass in to Hungarian Anna (tiniest Security Guard ever), walked across the pedestrian bridge and out through the turnstiles for the last time into the car-park. He has kept in touch with most of his chums from the old firm via Facebook, and it was on FB that they all had an amusing “virtual” celebratory drink at 15:30 on Saturday. There were invitations and people accepting or declining apologetically, good wishes, choosing of virtual “drinks” etc, even though everyone was actually in their own house or going about their own business. At 15:30, dad put the following out on Facebook

"Ahem!!! . Thank you, Thank You! Now then. Thank you all for being here today and for taking the time to come and support me in this small celebration. Some of you have, I know, come considerable distances, some even from the far side of the globe. I will not keep you long - do you all have a glass with something in it? Good. Please raise your glasses then and join me in a toast to "Brand New Life". May everybody who wants one get one! Cheers. "

Mad as a box of frogs!

Other than that it was a bit of a quiet-ish Saturday really in which we dodged the frequent bursts of heavy rain to get the shiny new, red painted stable-door(s) installed on the utility room. Very nice they look, too. Dad also made a batch of white bread rolls which were his best ever (all be it starting from a fairly low base!)

1^st July

When the rooster crows at the break of dawn (well, 06:30) to bright sunshine we were briefly optimistic that we might have put rain and wet behind us with the month of June. By 08:00 when Dad’s taking Mum's cup of tea upstairs, it's drizzling and these hopes are dashed.

Mum and Dad’s Plan A is dashed - a trip to a local vintage tractor fair - when we see from the website that it's postponed due to bad weather. However, there are gaps in the rain and in one of these Dad can get the final weather strips onto the 'stable' door he has fitted to the utility room and final touches of white undercoat or red gloss as appropriate. It looks very fine.

The rain generally, however induces a frustration and boredom. Dad is like a kid towards the end of the school holidays who wont be helped and rejects all suggestions with "But I'm BORED!" There's no pleasing him. He wants to get out onto the allotment and hoe but it's too wet. If you chop off grass roots in that damp soil, they just re-attach in the new location and grow there. You need a dry day where decapitated roots quickly wilt beyond redemption. The whole lot needs re-modelling into raised beds and sunken paths to help drainage but it'd just get smeared up and claggy at the moment.

Dad is pottering about with a hoe around some carrots when he sees Mum wander off towards the former hay-barn armed with 'his' bolt croppers. That looks like a much better offer. Dad and Mum (He’s in there like Flynn!) are going to dismantle the fallen west end of the barn which lies on the ground all overgrown with nettles and grass like some big metal roof of a fox den or vole city. We dogs can't wait to get under it, so are pawing, sniffing and digging round the sides as Mum and Dad work. This is proper work - crow bars, lump hammers, bolt croppers, work gloves, brute force and ignorance. Hour and a half and 2 coffee breaks later we have it dug out, broken up and the corrugated sheeting stacked, when rain again stops play. Mum and Dad retreat to the shops for wraps and salad to have with left over chilli. 

Afternoon is easy pottering and internetting while they wait for sun / yard-arm thing. Just done supper when John Deere Bob chugs round on his tractor. It's well late for him and we think he's feeling a bit lost and worried about his 4th Chemo tomorrow. We love the old boy, so we sit down and Mum and Dad chats with him while he takes tea and ginger biscuits. He tells us he's seen a weather report that gives a week of sunshine in July but, curiously, did not 'know' which week. He might be just teasing us. He's like that.

2^nd July

 Out to the left of our former hay-barn is a flat, earth 'parking area' with a short stretch of wall separating it from 'the woods'. Continuing the line of the wall was a rotted, half buried post and mesh fence with a couple of strands of barbed wire on it just for fun, the whole now well overgrown with goose-grass, brambles and nettles. Mum has a cunning plan to fell the few horrible trees at the top of the wood (Leylandii, elder etc) and remove the fence altogether, leaving us with an open space which encircles the rather nice wall. Yesterday's job, clad in waxed jackets, boots and hats was to rip out the fence and scythe down the weeds to remove the 'visual' barrier.

That brought us neatly (if a bit wetly and muddily) to 12:30 when Mum and Dad needed to be heading for the rabbit seller lady, known to us only as Lizz (2 zeds!) at that stage, from Donedeal.ie, Irish version of EBay / Classified ads site. "I'm down by Knock" says she - the town not the airport. Come as far as Knock and I'll give you directions. That's 'andy, 'Arry. Knock is not 30 minutes away. To an Englishman, Knock is one bizarre place, choc-a-block with tourists including busloads, featuring an enormous 'shrine' complex and numerous shops selling religious 'tat' - the usual icons and Virgin statues but also special bottles to collect your Holy Water in, any size you like from thimble full to Jerry Can, it seemed as well as posters (e.g. of Padré Pio) and no end of other stuff designed to make Dad curl at the edges. Lorks!

Anyway, Dad phoned Lizz and found the lane off the road to Kiltimagh, which turned out to be the entrance to the Mayo School of Musical Excellence (so we're guessing this bunny is going to more used to harmonious Mozart doodlings on the Baby Grand than our own home-brew of circular saw screeches and chain saw scream, hammering and banging on corrugated iron, dogs barking and William giving it "Cock a Doodle DOOOOO!" as he now does regularly throughout the day.). Mum and Dad were still 100 yards off when we spotted Lizz's superb bright CERISE hair! She was standing on a raised front lawn with another lass, by a small pen containing three tiny bunnies, 8 and 10 weeks old, palm-of-the-hand sized! 

Anyway, they all made friends, selected the 10-week boy, mainly to increase the chances of him not being clouted around by the girls, bid Cerise Lizz (and chum) farewell and headed home through an absolute downpour. They actually sat in the car when they got home while the rain eased off. Quick snack, then they put the bun in his cat-box in with the girl-rabbits. Padfoot said a quick hello and ignored him. Ginny was a bit more interested. Small boy rabbit (named Rogers by Mum (she claims, innocently, based on the fact that he's a buck, but hopefully his name being plural he'll feel less alone when he copes with G+P)). Ginny decided to whack him a couple of times sending him scampering away to crouch motionless for a few minutes. He recovered and hopped about some more but then she pounced again. That was all, and we hope it's just her showing him who's boss, but it reduced him from happy scamper to a crouching nervous boy. We left them be but then it started raining again and it looked like a) he wasn't going to be allowed in the hutch to get dry and b) his response to rain was going to be to crouch and hope it went away. Mum and Dad rescued him to the cat-box in the calf house for the evening and night. We will play bunnies again tomorrow.

Working Dog

On the 28^th, out of nowhere we get a day with some sunny bits in between the rain showers, and it's actually quite warm. For Dad it’s a chance to break in the enormous felling axe, splitting the 'rounds' of the sawn up Leylandii and generating oodles of nice logs for when Summer's over and it's wet and windy again (!)

Local old boy John Deere Bob seems to have adopted Mum and Dad as new residents worth cultivating and is now our most frequent visitor. His only 'car' is the old John Deere tractor which he put-puts around the village on, into the local bigger-village (Lough Glynn) to the Post Office, and into nearby town Ballaghaderreen for his shopping. Mum and Dad are working away mid morning-ish and we hear him chugging up the lane and we pause to see will he turn in or is he off to see near-neighbour Una, one of his other tea-stops. If he slows and turns up the drive, Mum nips to get the kettle on and find the fig rolls. Bob parks the tractor in front of the house and shuffles in in his farmboots and black Thinsulate hat, sitting in 'his chair', settling down for a good aul' chin wag.

He's a real charmer with twinkly eyes, a quiet soft voice and a lovely laugh. He has a deep knowledge of things local, things rural and Irish History. He loves to compare notes on history books with Mum , who is also versed in these things (no good to Dad! Even UK history whizzes over his head like pensions and VAT, barely clipping the ends of his hairs!). They talk of the Civil War and the Uprising, and of T.D.s (= M.P.s) and politics, constituency changes, but also of local stuff like the 1901 and 1911 census data etc. He usually passes comment on whatever jobs Mum and Dad are doing. In Dad’s case today, he gives us some tips on how/when to use the splitting axe and what types of wood to burn in the range and on the fire. He checks our progress on extracting the horse-drawn hay-rake and tells us all about the soil and the 'sausage-turfs' we found there. He tells us of raised beds and vegetable growing techniques. Then he goes away again, checking his watch and deciding to chug gently on, on his rounds on the John Deere. Lovely old bloke!

Mum and Dad head for county town Roscommon to explore, just because they've never been. The town centre has an Easons (good book shop) but not much else to attract them back - rather too many pubs, clothes shops, betting shops and boarded up abandoned lets. It smacks of a place where the landlords did not react quickly enough to the dip and as a result now have nobody paying them rent instead of letting the poor hard pressed shop keepers away with reduced rent. No. We will keep passing through as it's on our way to the In-Laws, but we'll stick to the 'by-pass' and the business park bits.

There is a lovely patch of sunshine in the evening, so we're out on the new (concrete) sun deck to watch the sun sink.

Friday 29^th sees us up early. Mum is urgent, up-and-dressed by crack of sparrow's and saying "I want go to a garden centre NOW!" She'd found a promising one out Boyle way (Co. Rosco still but only just) called Ardcarne, 25 mins away in the car. It turned out to be wonderful and Mum and Dad rattled gently through €80+ in fairly short order taking in some special offers on fruit bushes and the "knackered and half dead" racks (They aren't called that by the shop, but Mum and Dad delight in buying unpromising plants cheap knowing they can rescue them due to being good experienced gardeners. New and properly priced stuff also found its way onto the trolley - a dahlia, more roses, some Iberis sempervirens, a yellow flag iris for the bit we'll leave boggy and various seeds and bulbs. All this retail therapy is a happy result of buying a garden which is part chest high brambles, nettles and weeds, and part former cattle yard but in no part clean cultivated tilth.

Mike the Cows drops by with his young son Fintan to nosey on our progress and talk lumber-jacking and logging, fences, the village, holidays, Dublin Prices, getting his kids to a Westlife concert and all manner of other subjects. Mum, Dad and Mike looked a right aul' group of rustics putting the world to rights; Mike in his farmer boots, torn jeans and big ol' beer belly, Mum in battle-scarred waxed jacket and green wellies and Dad in even more disreputable Barbour 'gillet', painty, buildery tan-coloured jeans and (gasp) sandals and socks (highly illegal but Dad was in a rush to get out there). Mike can talk for Ireland but he's always a good laugh.

And so to Mum's big long meaty ribs and noodly stir-fry. The red wine's called "Working Dog". Last night we were not, for once, working like dogs.

Chicken Commotion

Tuesday 26^th June is an easier day for us with none of the dramas of the weekend. It's a "soft" morning (i.e. drizzling) so much of it is indoors. The half doors for the utility room get more coats of paint, with Mum applying bright post office red. Dad makes some wholemeal bread using recipe from some friends on the internet (50/50 wholemeal and strong white flour, shorter first rise time, longer proving time and he is delighted when it turns out to be light, elastic and softer than the dense brick he has been creating up to now. Dad digs some more soil out of the piles surrounding the hay-rake-in-a-hedge and discovers (inevitably) more buried plastic bale-wrap sheeting but also (pleasingly) another stash of "sausage" turf. These are olde style, hand-dug peat 'sods' but cut (or reconstituted/extruded?) like thick sausages, 3-4 inches in diameter. These have probably been buried in this shallow grave for 30+ years but hey, peat is peat; it's not going to spoil for a few more years underground, so we bring some in tonight and chuck it on the fire and of course, it dries out and burns. Proper peat-smoke! Very Irish!

An early bit of drama is provided by Ginny the rabbit on Weds 27^th. Dad and I have come downstairs at the usual 06:30 and done the rounds of the livestock, releasing chooks from their shed and rabbits from their hutch. We are back indoors sitting down when we hear a commotion from the chooks. Dad nips round to check and finds Ginny up on her hind legs just outside the chicken run introducing herself to the Lovely Girls and they, having never seen a rabbit before are quite alarmed! Dad is in dressing gown and slippers. There is no way he’s going to catch Ginny (even if he was in running spikes) but Ginny is reasonably steerable by gentle persuasion. If you get behind her you can mush her in the rough direction you need but she’s picked up her skirts and is loving the freedom to run around the acre-age! At one stage she’s up through the allotment pausing to sample cabbage and sprout leaves. She is eventually rounded up. Dad discovers that where I’ve been pulling and and biting on the 2 inch mesh chicken wire, I have made bunny sized holes. He resolves to add a 2^nd layer of one inch mesh as belt and braces. He is kind of glad we do live in a quiet area, not overlooked.

 

We have no TV but Mum and Dad are enjoying evening's entertainments through t'internet with combinations of silly R4 stuff like "The Now Show" and "Sorry I Haven't a Clue", stories like the currently running "Chamomile Lawn" and recently finished "Night Watch" (Terry Pratchett), plus a BBC-shop DVD of the Griff Rhys-Jones series "Britain's Lost Routes". The latter was bought mainly for the Thames Barge episode, but proves to be good throughout. Also a Birthday Present boxed set "Frozen Planet" (Dad can't get enough Attenborough.) When those run out I guess it'll be back to Dad’s current gently slog through ‘improving History book "Ireland Since the Famine" (FSL Lyons).

Every Day Country Folk

 Today my post will sing of stable doors and animals bolted, of riverside towns and expansionist chickens, of bunnies and beef. Grab a cup of coffee and a comfy chair. Sit back and enjoy and/or click past muttering "Bl***y Deefer's off on one again...."

 We had decided that what the still door-less Utility Room needed was a stable-style door in two halves, painted red to match the house front door. You can't seem to buy them anywhere except for mad money, a guy we asked to quote a price for us has joined our "choir invisible" of vanishing Irish tradesmen (I'll call you in a couple of days....), and making one from scratch is way beyond Dad’s carpentry skills and tools, with all those mortice and tenon joints etc. But then ace interweb ferretter, Mum came upon a website which advocating buying a suitable one-piece door and cutting it in half. You have to strengthen the door so that the half you cut off doesn't fall apart, of course, and you hang it first on 4 hinges to make sure it does what it's meant to, then you split it, re-hang the halves and finish with weather strips (2) and all the door furniture (bolts, handles etc). More complex than anything Dad had tried before; He’s a rustic arches and dodgy nest-boxes kinda bloke!) but hey... nothing ventured.

 So, orf to Carrick on Shannon went Dad, down the minor roads, dry stone walls, green green fields, leaving Mum with us behind as he had to bring a full sized door back in a Fiat Panda. Nice town, Carrick, all boaty, marinas and riverside pubs etc. Mum got down to some weeding in the gravel of the front terrace.

Before Dad started the carpentry Mum and Dad decided to move rabbit run en bloc down the western field to give bunnies a new bite of longer grass. Not a bother except this seems to unleash in the me, a new enthusiasm for biting through the chicken wire. On this occasion, unknown to Mum and Dad, I must have made a hole too small for a Westie but big enough for an escapist rabbit, but more of that later. They next closed off the gates at either end of the cattle race and open "Chicken-Gate" (which sounds like some dodgy American scandal inquiry) to give the chooks extra territory and a million worms and grubs unwise enough to live in the thin carpet of earth and grass over the concrete of the race. No escape downwards, guys! We expect very proteiny eggs tomorrow, Ladies.

And so to door wrangling, which goes OK and Dad is quite proud of the results. He finishes carpentering and sands off the door halves, passing them to Mum who is our proud, no-runs, gloss painter. She sits out in the yard on a stool in the sunshine with the door halves propped in front of herself on the big terracotta tubs, looking for all the world like a Parisian painter at her easel. Dad thinks “Ahhhhh sigh...Why do I love her at these moments?” Soppy git!

While she's a-painting, Dad grabs the shovel and barrow and moves a bit more soil from round the horse-drawn-hay-rake-in-a-hedge (hdhriah) to fill the two newest raised beds. It's hot. he finishes and grabs a cool Guinness on the front terrace. Coco, joins him. I am pre-occupied elsewhere so I don’t know this is happening. They sit and watch Ginny, the grey and white rabbit lollop past them down the drive towards the road. ARGHHHH! Dad jumps up, shouting to Mum to help and sprints across lawn to road in time to see Ginny crouch and freeze on the grass verge as a tractor/trailer thunders by inches away. She's untouched (thank God she froze) but a bit shocked. Dad manages to grab her but she comes to, screams and kicks out. (Ouch! cheers Ginny). Dad returns her to the run and they've found the hole, fixed it, settled her and returned to the front terrace, when we all hear noises of cattle being moved down the lane towards us. Mum jumps up and races to stand at (lack of) front gate to stop ingress of beef animals and to stop us shouty dogs from scattering the cows. Spoilsport!

The relaxing life of everyday country folk....

Deefs

Bonfire Night Irish Style

At lunchtime on Sunday 24^th we bad farewell to our house guests after a very successful 'bonfire night' (BfN is 23rd June, St John's Eve in The Republic of Ireland where they don't really go in for those nasty UK celebrations of toasted Catholics on Nov 5th, can't think why...). The Silverwoods arrived minus one niece (Em-J in Paris on exchange visit) but plus Lily and the seven pups in a crate. The pups are 3 weeks old now and very cute and, because we hope to end up with one of same Mum and Dad were very pleased that they were the source of much delighted, happy, fascinated sniffing for Coco and I.

 Mum cooked a superb chicken dinner. Dad had decided in the shop that the organic Free Range birdie he had been sent out to buy looked a bit light for feeding 7, so he'd supplemented with half a dozen wings and drumsticks. The kids were much amused by counting how many 'limbs' the evening roast appeared to have!

The bonfire, when we tried to light it, was good and wet, so took a time to get going but eventually blazed away. The kids amused themselves running back and forth from caravan (now officially adopted as their 'den'), helping dig out the horse-drawn-hay-rake-in-a-hedge, or chuck more wood on the fire. Nephew M (6) has been a bit anxious / alarmed / paranoid about fire since the Silverwoods had a bit of a drama in the house recently where the flu from a badly installed range started a minor house fire in a stud wall behind the range, so Mrs S was very pleased that he seems to be quite relaxed near the bonfire. 

 We retreated to bed at gone midnight Saturday and nobody was that keen to get up on the Sunday. Dad, Coco and I were all on our own rousting chickens and rabbits out of their scratchers. Eventually the guests and hostess stirred and Mum laid on porridge for the 'smalls' and then an Irish Fry for the rest of the humans. It was a lazy morning with occasional excitement for 'smalls' as the Lovely Girls managed to produce 4 eggs, and all in the proper place. 

 Our guests departed midday leaving Dad to a bit of lawn mowing and filling raised beds with soil and Mum to restoring house to 'between-guests' format. Mum and Dad discovered that our new concrete apron, being due west facing, makes a very nice 'sun-deck' from which to watch the sun sink over the galvanized farm gate and the Charolais cows, while sipping rosé. They are going to buy a French stylee café table and chairs.

And so to bed.

Deefs

Married all over Again?

 Way back in the dark gloomy days of February (we know this because of the photographic record!) the only injurious accident happened on the build project. A window frame in the kitchen which the boys were trying to prop up above the old sill, in its new position fell out of its supports and landed on the back of Dad's hand. Luckily he had tough gloves on but he still took a whack and was bruised (though not enough for him to stop work for more than a quick half hour sit-down). Luckily, by quick thinking, he realised that if his hand swelled he'd not get the wedding ring off, so he whipped it off straight away.

After a couple of days, the swelling had gone down a bit, so he tried the ring on but it still wouldn't slide past the knuckle. Mum took it for safe keeping, threaded it onto the ever-present string of pearls (signature jewellery?). He tried it several times over the next days and weeks, and then months. It just felt wrong not to be wearing it (although generally speaking it's not a good idea to wear rings when buildering; you can get nasty injuries).

But whether the swelling was just never going to go down because of scar tissue, or perhaps Dad's hands had grown thicker and tougher with all the physical builder work, we don't know. Dad decided in the end to have the ring re-sized upwards. Almost at the same time the string on the pearls gave way, so a trip to the jeweller in Balla was planned, to get both jobs done. It all went a bit quiet, then. The jeweller joined the happy band of "Choir Invisible" local tradesmen who promised to call us back and we never seemed to hear from again. A month or so went by, Trees came into leaf, the birds sang, a tumbleweed blew across the screen.........

Eventually Mum and Dad got fed up with waiting and called by the jeweller. It was all in hand, they suggested; some old tosh about the lady-who-normally-restrings-the-pearls being off on maternity etc etc. You should hear something in the next couple of days. More birds sang. More tumbleweed..... We called by again and finally got the ring back. It had had to be re-sized up FOUR sizes. Dad now has it back, he no longer feels 'naked'. "I'm Married Again!" A few days later the pearls eventually returned too, so Mum also feels 'complete'. We just wonder why it all has to take so long.

Deefs