White Rhino.

Lime-washing the outbuildings; a job that Liz had been itching to do since we finished the house build but had been restrained by the weather and the knowledge that this is a job you traditionally do at Easter. Neither of us had any kind of exact idea of what 'lime wash' actually was, or how you bought it, although Liz had childhood memories of 'Daddy' mixing up buckets of water and powder so that they could paint the garden walls. Of course, the internet had as many versions of what to do as there were websites and our first shopping trip in spring to our faithful builders' merchant, Cooney's, gave us only the rather dim holiday-cover guy who had no idea.

Even 'Daddy' (understandably) let the side down by pleading that his memories of garden walls were 40 years old and that they now use a modern masonry paint like Dulux Weathershield. "Why couldn't we use that?" he asked. But we want to do the traditional job and limewash, we knew, as well as being a coat of white, has strong (caustic) cleaning properties against moss, ferns, creepy-crawlies, goes on nicely with the big-bristled slappy whitewash brushes and copes well with walls which are decent stone but very poorly pointed. The cement in the mixture also works as a 'PVA-style' stabilizer for the dusty joints. It is also way way cheaper than the amount of masonry paint you'd need for these buildings. You would do it every or every-other Easter and your buildings would improve with age. In theory.

Anyway, we wanted the fun of mixing, slapping and 'discovering' this old traditional way. Our barns were both bare concrete and stone and didn't look like they had been limed in 30 years.

So, back to Cooney's we went and this time found the useful guy (Kenny) behind the counter. "Ah!" says he knowledgeably, "You need White Rhino (brand) hydrated lime and white cement" and promptly added them to out order for the wooden laths for the poly-tunnel.

White cement is, as the name would suggest, cement powder with a whitening agent for use where you'd not want your mortar to be the normal grey cement colour. Hydrated lime is, chemically, Calcium di-Hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) or "slaked" lime and is made by 'slaking' (adding water to) Calcium Oxide (also known as 'quicklime' or just 'lime'. We were on our own - none of the websites seemed to know anything about cement mixtures, so Liz had a play with bucket-chemistry. We knew we wanted a mixture of a similar consistency to butter-milk and which would paint onto the walls 'fairly thin and milky looking' but would dry in the sun to that well known blinding white of trad Irish cottages.

We also knew that lime is nasty, irritant, corrosive stuff, so you need to wear gloves and, in our case mix your powder in that keen NE wind which would whip away any 'puffs' of dust before anyone had a chance to inhale them (or use a sensible mask if you are mixing in still air or indoors!). Eye protection is also advised, but that's another story. Old clothes or overalls are ideal. Our best mixture in the end was 5 litres of cold water in a yellow builder's bucket to which was added 2 'scoops' of lime and one of cement. The 'scoop' was a 1 kg yogurt tub so we guess about a litre of volume. That was stirred up with a bit of wood, and off we went.

We both worked at it all day and managed to complete all the way round both the Tígín and the 'milking shed' (now chicken house - goose house). It was not that professional a job and we both found the brushes very slappy. That was handy for firing a rain of wash into crevices and un-pointed bits, but did tend to mean plenty of paint splashed onto the ground, corrugated rooves, bits you hadn't meant to paint, window glass etc.

We were delighted overall with the results. It was a gorgeous blue-sky day and the new whiteness transformed the look of the place. White light is now bouncing around in the yard, kitchen garden and 'pottery' (gap between house and the 'Tíg' which will become a place for potted plants) and we look great as seen from the lane too. The white paint sets off the blue sky beautifully in photographs and I have had much admiring comment on Facebook and from passing locals. We particularly like some of the badly-pointed walls where the stones are now white and the gaps look extra-dark by contrast.

Rather usefully, the mixture, once dry, washes easily out of clothing and washed out of the brushes with plain water. It does tend to rub off on you if you brush against it but we guess that will get better as it ages. It still has not rained so we are both interested to see it all (hopefully) NOT washing away in the Roscommon rain. It also wiped easily off the windows where I had splashed it.

So, there you go, a vast improvement achieved in just 2 'person-days' and for a nice cheap total of just €41 including brushes, indeed, less than that for we did not use up all the lime or cement.

Ma Nature's Lyrical

Oh, the barnyard is busy, in a regular tizzy,

And the obvious reason is because of the season.

Ma Nature's lyrical, with her yearly miracle,

Spring, Spring, Spring.

All the hen-folk are hatchin' while their men-folk are scratchin'

To ensure the survival of each brand new arrival.

Each nest is twitterin', they're all baby-sitterin',

Spring, Spring, Spring.

It's a beehive of buddin'....(and so on in the words of Johnny Mercer's song in Seven Brides)

Well, the East wind might still be blowing and the heavy frosts have all the bud-break and tulip growth on hold for the minute, but our reliable broody hen, Broody Betty, has decided that it is spring and, even if she only has rubber eggs to sit on, sit on them she will. We had just scratched around ourselves to find half a dozen eggs to give to our 2CV visitors, John and Carol and BB's sisters have not all come into lay yet, so we could only manage 5 eggs to put under a hen who is more than capable of covering a dozen. 

We decided that this might be a nice chance to diversify away from our original Sussex Ponte, mainly-white hens, and contacted Mentor Anne who we knew might have an egg glut. We asked what she thought might be suitable and she has generously provided us with a further 7 eggs. Three are of the well known variety, "Buff Orpington", three more from the big black breed "Jersey Giant" and another is a rather uncertain cross of the Jersey, possibly with the renowned French table bird "La Bresse". These 12 eggs were all slid into BB's nest on Thursday 4th, so now we must wait to see does BB stay the distance, 21 days give or take, and then do the babies survive and do they grow up as hens to bolster up our flock, or boys for the table. Watch this space.

We are both delighted that the Irish language is enjoying something of a resurgence in recent decades. Liz was taught it as a dry and dusty museum piece with little use, by rote and using some dire old books like the infamous 'Peig Sayers', a relentless tale of woe, death and hunger from the almost uninhabited, windswept rocks of the Blaskett Islands off our west coast. Children dreaded being 'sent away' to the Gaelic speaking areas (the "Gaeltacht") to live in cottages with little ol' ladies and forced to speak no English. Irish has been compulsory in schools since the state was founded but is now taught as a modern language with fun reading books, it is promoted by the Gaelic speaking societies in a 10 day event each year and there are Gaelic speaking radio stations and papers, and snatches of Gaelic in everyday life. The modern attitude seems to be use what you can cobble together, enjoy it, and don't get too precious about precise grammar and vocab. Be proud of it! 

So we loved that Irish favourite potato crisp brand 'Tayto' with which everyone grew up in the same way as all my UK peers would know Smiths Ready Salted, now do an Irish Language version of their famous packet. Amusingly, the nutritional details on the back still seem to have to be in English, and the little packet held up by the potato man in the standard logo is in English.

The cat Blue is turning out to be our best ratter. His Brother, Rolo, who started well (and youngest) has not caught anything lately that we know about and looks on enviously as Blue plays with this decent sized young adult which he nailed a couple of days back. This is A GOOD THING especially with our hen gone broody. Rats will happily steal eggs from under hens, and the hens, which will happily peck a mouse to death, just seem to grumble quietly and let the rat get on with it. Rats will also steal baby chicks and drag them off. Well, this fella may have been caught napping by the change of light since we painted the barns (of which more in another post) but his days of nicking chicks are over.

Finally, I enjoyed a genuine 'Irish' day today, down on neighbour John Deere Bob's hot, dusty turf bog. There were 4 of us and in 8 hours we collected 7 good trailer loads of nice dry turf, maybe 17.5 tonnes total creating a massive pile in Bob's barn. I ached and was grimy from the black 'dusht' ; I also ached from laughing at the happy banter between the three local lads. This turf should have been 'winnable' back last September but rain set in in August and quickly made the bog un-driveable. I can't quite believe we were dry enough on 5th April in County Roscommon. This rather poor picture was taken using my phone - I did not have my camera. I picked up some lovely local turns of phrase in the process - "This'll tighten us" (This is going to be hard work). "Ah - Sean-een! He was a one for the Whish-key allright! He certainly shifted plenty. He was a bit-een mad" (Sean-een is like 'Little Shawn'). And on the subject of driving tractors over bog-peat without getting stuck, "The secret is, once you are moving,keep it moving.... You'd want to keep it lit alright!"

It was a brilliant day. That barn painting in the next post.

Back to Inspect?

Readers who have been with us since last winter will know that the Brother in Law, known as "Sparks" in these pages was here throughout the house build as our Project Manager and main Builder. Officially 'just a sparks' he was actually able to do all of our demolition, purchasing, general buildering, all the plumbing, carpentering, tiling and all manner of other heroics so that Liz and I, with our much lower levels of practical skill, could stick to labouring and catering and other service functions (driving, shopping for plumbing supplies etc). You'll also know that we were all very proud of ourselves, back in April 2012 when Sparks semi-officially handed the house over to us, big celebratory meal, job done, brilliant, and headed back to his 'real life' Mrs Sparks, son Brian (4, now 5) and North Dublin.

It won't therefore come as a big surprise that we are, as a result, slightly in awe of Sparks (despite Liz being 'Big Sister' in many other ways) and when he comes down on a perfectly innocent visit we always worry that we are being inspected to make sure we are looking after 'his house' in a satisfactory way. We get over this by the time Sparks has been here a few minutes and has not fallen about laughing, and it is well buried by the time he has looked around and seen what hard work we have been doing on poly tunnel and veg garden, and we go on to have a lovely time meeting them all again.

Brian just LOVES it here, his day down on 'the farm' and his chance to charge about doing stuff with Uncle Matt , cooking with Auntie Liz etc. He is as excited as any 5 year old at all the space to run around in, pups and kittens to play with, chickens to feed, geese, rabbits to see and all the other stuff that goes on. He loves to dig up worms for the chickens and spends lots of time, shovel in hand, inevitably surrounded by the chickens who arrive immediately anyone starts to make digging noises here, and is only slightly non-plussed at the rooster crowing within feet of the back of his head.

He was all a bit too much for the geese, who ran a mile every time he appeared, but they are new and nervous and will probably get used to him. At least they were not attacking him.

The visit also gave Liz a chance to do 'hostess' again and Brian coped very well with the fact that the lamb he was helping Liz cook, was one of the ones he fed by hand last year. For Liz it was a chance to use the halogen-light powered slow cooker, which is a gift from the Silverwoods. Liz went for a Moroccan style meal this time well smeared with garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, onion and enough yogurt to make a paste.  Brian was on hand to help grate carrot, mix mint sauce with yogurt, measure out cous-cous and add cinnamon and raisins.

Brian is well able for this, loves his cooking and often helps his Dad in the kitchen. Mr and Mrs Sparks have given him plenty of supervised practice with the 'serious knives' so that he can now be trusted not to add too many fingers to the mixture, and is really good with the measuring and mixing. He knows some recipes off by heart - leek and potato soup for example, and if Spag-bol is on the menu he will have all the ingredients out of their cupboards and on the work surfaces ready to start, without being told.

So, we had a lovely visit and everyone enjoyed them selves. We were sad to see them all go, but also exhausted in the way you are when an important visit has gone off successfully. Thank you, as ever, Mr and Mrs Sparks and Brian. You are welcome back at any time.

John and Carol

Our visit yesterday from John and Carol went really well. They are lovely people, easy to talk to and fascinating to listen to and I think I can safely say we have made some good friends there, all be it we will not see them very often as they are based in Chippenham (Wiltshire in the UK). They had stayed overnight at their camp site in Cong, deciding not to move about too much due to the cold wind, but instead to base them selves at Cong and work outwards from there. They have quite a sophisticated set up, trailer tent, cooking facilities, sink with pumped water, warm and cosy etc, so much so that they declined our offer of a stay overnight. They had come from Cong (to our west) relying on sat nav which had somehow found them a route via Moyne village (east of us!). They had then driven past our door without knowing, and phoned us from Lisacul village, back west of us again.

We are similar age and interests so the chat ranged around over a big variety of subjects including 2CV escapades, the North of France and WW1 sites, the Normandy beaches and then on up into Yorkshire. Both of them hail from the lovely village of Slaithwaite which we know from narrow boating as the village where the canal runs up next to the high-street tarmac, between the house and shop fronts. See also my post on this blog from July 26th 2011 on http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2011/07/nurse-screens.html . They grew up together there and met while working in one of the local factories. John has had a fascinating life having worked for a while in textiles including running an angora rabbit fur processing plant (!) as well as working for Intel, the computer chip makers) and spending some time in Co. Mayo, which is how come he is now bringing the Bath 2CV club 'raid' over this way.

They were intrigued by our own move, the house renovation and the small holding. They had a good look round the house and the garden. Liz's food was a great success; we had cheese, bacon and chilli biscuits as a snack, then an Easter inspired slow-roast lamb with plenty of veg (I did my roast potatoes) followed by a lovely chocolate mousse in which 'floated' mini chocolate eggs. They had arrived bearing gifts including a lovely yellow rose plant for Liz, and we sent them off with half a dozen of our lovely eggs. They were here from about half twelve till gone 6 and we enjoyed every minute. For entertainment, just in case they'd get bored, neighbour Una had a go at setting light to some trees so we raced round there at one stage to play fire-fighter. Never a dull moment.

Thank you for coming, John and Carol. We will see you again when the Raid happens (May/June) and I hope we can now be firm friends on into the future.

Freeze Dried

Neither of us have seen anything quite like this bizarre weather. We are not complaining that it is unseasonably dry after last summer's sogginess but we are amazed by the weeks of relentless NE cold wind. We used to get NE winds in North Kent, of course, but generally only for a few days. I think I am correct in saying that we had our much trumpeted drought from Valentine's Day round to early March (19 days) and then just a few days of wet before this NE wind arrived on 9th March. That has now blown almost continuously for the 3 weeks since, bringing plenty of clear skies, bitter, frosty nights and just very occasional dust-like frozen snow.

The soil is dry enough to raise dust and what small amount of water there is in the soil is frozen, so unavailable to plants. The poor things are suffering frost/wind-burn like you would not believe, even the known drought-tolerant Mediterranean herbs like Rosemary and some hardy species like Verbena bonariensis (Purple verbena) and perennial wallflower. All the new growth, encouraged into motion by the warmth of our false spring is frazzled, curled and dead like the worst drought. It is one of those things - we assume the plants will recover and produce some new growth from still-dormant axial buds when a proper, more honest spring comes along, thawing the small amount of water that is here already and supplying a top-up.

So, yesterday we completed out dutiful paying of respects to the late James Harrinton. We were off down to the big, drafty, unheated church in Loughglynn for the service, which turned out to be a full Mass (I gather this is unusual for Holy Saturday). The church was packed with maybe 300 folk. We saw John Deere Bob in there sitting away to one side at the back, and we were joined in our pew by neighbour, Una C. I have my first Irish cold bug so I feel very bunged up and moopy, and sitting at the back of this church for an hour had me chilled down to the kidneys. Liz got on OK in a woolen suit and the vintage mink coat (those two thicknesses of 'cloth' even made the pew feel comfortable!) but we were both relieved when it was over and we could shuffle outside into the thin sunshine.

In matters of etiquette I take my cue from JD Bob here, and he had his black woolly 'Thinsulate' hat back on his head within seconds of stepping out into the car-park, so I did too. Also, he was not going out to the grave yard with the hearse and procession, so we took that as permission to also depart and get back into the warm, light the range, walk dogs, do shopping and, in Liz's case get into 'Domestic Goddess' mode baking and food prepping for our guests the next day, now today of course.

Today we are hosts to 2CV acquaintances John and Carol Mellor. I vaguely recognise John from 2CV events gone by, from his pictures in Facebook, but do not know them in any real sense. However, John is organising and fronting up a holiday tour 2CV convoy (They call them 'Raids' in 2CV land) for his Bristol-based 2CV club local group (The Bath Tub Club) in Summer all up and down the West of Ireland and is over here this Easter weekend to 'recce' the route. We saw his notices in the club magazine and, as their route is passing through Connemara, an hour or so away, we decided to offer our house and grounds as a port-in-the-storm, respite from bad weather if they get it, warm dry place to recover, fix broken cars etc. John is delighted with this and, although he agrees the official route is a way off here, has accepted the offer to call by on his recce to get fed and possibly stay overnight. We are doing him slow roasted lamb and assorted other bakery etc. Should be fun and nice to meet some new friends.

Looking So Sharp?

One for my non-Irish readers but one which has amazed me since I have been 'over here' - Funerals are MASSIVE. When a funeral takes place, at least in the rural areas EVERYBODY goes - the whole village and for miles around. Everybody who is even remotely connected to the departed. It is just part of the culture. It is what you do, what is expected and how you have to show suitable respect to all those in your local area. In my 55 years so far I have probably been to no more than half a dozen funerals. John Deere Bob, our near neighbour has probably been to around 3 or 4 a month for as long as we have lived here and presumably for most of his life. Driving through the local towns and villages I am amazed at how often we come upon an obviously BIG funeral - scores of parked cars lining the streets around the church or cemetery and every church with a huge car park, maybe 40-50 spaces or so. There are whole websites for death notices and all the papers and local radio stations do big sections on funeral details.

With tongue in cheek, when I moved here Liz passed me a superbly amusing book, "How to be Irish (uncovering the curiosities of Irish behaviour)" by David Slattery ( Orpen Press, ISBN 978-1-871305-24-1, pub 2011). This very funny book gives lovely insights into what makes the Irish tick and has a long and detailed chapter on the etiquette around funerals. It covers the important stages of the process. First the corpse is 'laid out' and 'reposes' either at the house or in the funeral home. Second is the 'removal to the church' where the coffin is processed from funeral home to church. The next day will be the funeral service and burial (or cremation, but normally burial in rural parts; the nearest crematorium may be as far away as Dublin). David Slattery also divides the funeral 'guests' into levels of importance a bit like celebrities, the Immediate family being 'A-list mourners', wider family and close friends being 'B-list' and so on down to 'D-listers'. Today and tomorrow we are definitely D-list mourners.

Half a dozen doors down the lane lived a gent named James Harrinton, 100 years old when we moved in and 101 this year, living with retired nurse daughter whom we guess will be in her 70's. James (Jim) passed away on Wednesday evening and when JD Bob phoned us to tell us we took that as a heavy hint that our attendance might be expected. We have never met the chap, so we'd be D-listers but knew we had to be there.

The 'repose' and removal were this evening down in the local village of Loughglynn so we ate fairly early and then scrubbed up and headed out. I still have an old dark business suit which almost fits, plenty of shirts, a black tie and shiny shoes. Liz has a nice black Jaeger two-piece, dark tights and black shoes, plus the vintage mink coat.

We arrived to find a huge queue waiting to go through the funeral home - there are two doors and you shuffle through the rooms and corridors, pay your respects to the departed (open coffin) and then pass along a line of seated relatives (15-20) shaking hands and mumbling 'Sorry for your trouble' to each. Then you shuffle out past the book where you write name and townland. On any other day than Good Friday, Liz tells me you adjourn to the pub to await the 'removal' at (in this case) 20:30 pm. Pubs are shut here on Good Friday though and there is a bitter NE wind blowing up the main street so the consensus seemed to be that you can hop back into your car and drive home, possibly returning for the removal or maybe waiting for tomorrow and the service and burial.

So that was that, for now. As I said, a lot of this is about respect between village folk, so we were pleased that we had a chance to sign an on-line condolences list, and to sign the real book at the Home, plus that we were seen by Mike the Cows and then, on the way home, by Tony who keeps the local shop/post office. Tony was amazed and delighted with us, saying to Liz that I "shine up well" and saying to Liz that he "had never seen her looking so sharp". Tony (and his wife and post office lady, Anne) have only ever seen us dressed in farm grunge. Finally, I wondered whether anyone would have thought to tell Vendor Anna so I texted her and she thanked me for the news. She went to school with "all of Mr Harrinton's children" and will be coming to the funeral tomorrow.

So, there you are. Our initiation into a great piece of Irish culture.

 

Tunneling (3) Beds and Paths

With the cover of the poly tunnel finished and the door and frame built on the western end I can trim off excess plastic and start to think about what to do inside. Ultimately we may do a weed proof membrane and raised beds with planks around, but for now we have decided to do this season with a temporary layout of paths laid with sheet corrugated iron (of which we have plenty) and the soil merely ridged up into beds as in the allotment. We may obtain duck-board walkways for the paths, being more attractive and less likely to inflict cuts. We have laid this out in the intended layout of 2 side beds and a central bed with a stone 'floor' as you step inside to avoid us having to wade about in mud.

The soil has already been dug over, so we know it is a bit of a dog's breakfast of stones, old peat turf, clay and buried stoloniferous grass. As I shovel and rake the ground into beds I am getting a chance to haul out the stones and peat turfs and to break up the bigger lumps of clay. I am getting quite a nice tilth in which the tomatoes should do OK. We are also relieved that the relentless North East winds have only flexed the structure around, puffing the panels in and out and slackening it to a degree, not done any damage. This is good news and we hope means that it will survive a few of those Atlantic storms that come at us from the NW and SW. It is also much much warmer than being out exposed to the NE blasts and the boggy eastern end is drying out superbly. We are very optimistic. We have also been donated some strawberry plants by Mentor Anne (Thank You, Anne!) to kick off our planting. These are in the central bed - you can just see them to the right of the wheel barrow in the 2nd picture.

Outside of the tunnel, meanwhile, the NE wind and cold weather have stopped any Spring like growth in its tracks. Expanding fruit tree buds are the same as they were a week ago. It's not so much that we have hard frosts and we have only had the light dusting of snow seen in this picture, but it is cold over all and growth is on hold. My potatoes and artichokes, planted in sunny enthusiasm on St Patrick's Bank Holiday Monday are hunkered down below ground. Tulips in tubs and Granny's bonnets in the big pots in the yard stopped expanding and the half open show of daffs stopped at the half open stage.

Still, the NE wind will not blow for ever and when it stops everything is well set up to start moving again. Tradition has it that you must get your early potatoes in by St Patrick's and the rest in by Good Friday. Going into St P's I was not at all sure I'd get my earlies in, but we got there in the end. Now going into Easter I am looking at my main crop, the blight resistant Hungarian variety, Sarpo Mira, chitting happily in the Tígín and thinking it would be unkind to plant them into my cold soil. Maybe we will get another warm burst and I will get the chance.

So, there you have it for this post. Liz has been baking again today thanks to another part of Anne's generous gift - a dozen free range, organic eggs. We have a honey and ginger cake, a fruit loaf, plain scones and cheese scones. The range is burning with a good fierce red glow and we have that 'all is safely gathered in' feeling. I leave you with a nice picture of William the Conqueror just because he is such a magnificent lad.