The Turkeys go Free-Range

The Rector rambles up our old hay-barn wall.
He may only manage one flush of flowers
but he certainly pulls all the stops out to do it.

In the previous post, I apologised for possible poor service and English while borrowing Liz's laptop because my PC was in the doctor's. I can no longer use that excuse. The offending machine is back, delivered today by my new friend Patrick in company of his good lady Lara (no mean techie herself) and ball of energy and fun Tyler (2 and a half)

Red currants doing well despite losing many leaves to the rapacious
gooseberry saw-fly larvae. 

Patrick has done me proud, completely wiping all traces of the old Windows Vista system and installing an official, certificated (and legal, obviously) copy of Windows 7, MS Office etc while saving all our 'documents' (pictures, spreadsheets etc) and moving them across too. We are also right up to date on anti virus/spyware/malware. It all seems to be working; I have been in this afternoon making things happen as normal on email, Twitter, Facebook, spreadsheets and now this blog.

Liz's rose garden with the row of Lady's Mantle doing well.
The roses are just getting there. 

The clean-up has also got rid of numerous programmes which were all set to fire up on a boot-up for equally numerous historic reasons. This box is 10 years old and has seen no end of systems come and go, such as Spotify for music which leave bizarre bits of, for example, Apple software sitting there, firing up at every boot-up and asking for updates.

Our shiny motorway sculpture is now the go-to
poster-boy of dances and other adverts

It also kept telling me that Google Chrome would no longer be updated as Vista is now out of support. We should probably bite the bullet and buy me a new laptop but such moves are so far down the shopping list (Kitchen, chicken house roof etc) that this clean-up and upgrade will have to do for a few years yet.

The turkey poults go free range and, as usual, the Guinea Fowl
lads adopt them and volunteer to mind them. 

Meanwhile, as Summer advances, the young turkeys are released to full free-range having now found their feet in the familiarisation rabbit run. Even while they were so confined, the Guinea Fowl boys were quite attentive and we remember last year how the youngsters were adopted by the Guineas and minded by them.

The Hubbards at 10 days old get to feel the grass under foot
 and the sun on their backs.

I let them out on Wednesday which was a bit showery but that proved to be very beneficial come evening. Turkeys normally get a week or so of being allowed to free range but coming back to their familiar bedroom in the rabbit run. These guys, approaching evening lock up time were relaxing near the coop door when a sudden rain shower drove everyone indoors. No rounding up or shepherding required - I locked them all away and Bingo! Youngsters released AND moved into adult quarters all in the same day.

That proved to be very handy. I needed to put the Hubbard chicks somewhere while I cleaned out their brood-box. Hubbards are huge eaters and fearsome producers of poo, so a week in a small crate can easily have them trampling around in half an inch of the stuff. We started with 13 but one sadly died on the 2nd night (we have no idea why). The remaining 12 are thriving and seem to have doubled in size. White feathers sprout from their wings and tails.

These are not puny weaklings who need constant heat and Infra-Red lamps, they are thugs who can run around arguing about morsels of food and shrug off the breezes of a Roscommon June. As long as you keep them dry and out of the wind, they love being outdoors where there is space to stretch their legs, flap their wings and zoom about like little clockwork toys. So with it now having turned warm and dry, they are out in the rabbit run from morning till evening and then get rounded up back their crate overnight.

It seemed a good choice for a hot, thirsty,
pig-keeping gardener who had been mowing
for a good few hours in the hot sun. 

Only 2 other bits of news occur to me. Mrs C is in the UK for a long weekend meeting the 'girls' for a good session of gossip, gin and eating. The gang refer to it as their AGM. These annual meets which rotate around various European centres have been going for a decade at least and when they started most of those attending had 'serious' jobs in the City and needed a good excuse to not be able to 'just nip in' at weekends. They did not want to get caught slipping up with mentions of anything as frivolous as drinking or restauranting, so they called it the AGM. That way anyone over-hearing the planning talks on phones would assume they were talking business. Clever, huh? The name stuck.

Stumpy's turn to go broody. Probably nice to take the
weight off that poorly foot.

I delivered Liz to Knock Airport this morning for her Ryan Air flight to Bristol. There she'd be scooped up by our good friends Mazy Lou and Airy Fox and taken to Cardiff where this year's host lives and this year's AGM is to be held. Last I heard she had arrived safely and been 'handed on to the next responsible adult'. She's back on about Wednesday.

Good progress by the stone mason on the curved wall about
which more soon. 

Finally, in the warm weather, if it stays dry, I have picked up a bit more sheep shearing. This for a lady who is a friend of a Facebook contact. We are hoping to complete this job, which is only for 3 ewes on either Sunday or Monday, dry weather permitting. More on that when it has happened.

The Thousand Natural Shocks that Flesh is Heir to

80,000 kms of good rumpy-bumpy potholed Irish roads did for
the poor Panda's suspension. New shocks at the back and a wishbone
at the sharp end. €290 - ker-ching. Ah well. 

OK. The normal PC I use for this is at the 'doctors' (slow and old like it's owner; hopefully more fix-able!). This  is being typed on Liz's posher, newer and faster lap top which I am able to blag while she is out at knitting. The machine is, though, unfamiliar to me so if this blog posts has any howlers in it - typo's, missing pictures etc, then bear with me and I will try to fix them when I get the old familiar dog of a machine back, improved.

Shiny new wishbone drivers side front.

Also, little happening just now so I will keep this one fairly short. Main job today was to take the car round to the local tyre place and get new shocks fitted at the back and a wishbone at the front. Fiats are highly regarded here for the cheapness and ease of fitting of parts but even they will eventually wear suspension parts rumbling up and down our pot-holey, rippled roads.

Rain has stopped play in silage locally, but we heard a mower
going round a local field - we might be back on.

I'd noticed uneven tyre wear at the front and a "play in the suspension" rumble at low speed, so got it checked out up on the ramp at the tyre centre. Mr Fixer there declared play in a front wishbone and the upper bushes of both rear shocks very tired. Also recommended a tracking adjustment (after the new bits, obviously!).

Twitter stats for that @IrelandsFarmers account I steered
last week. You can see where I took over at the right hand
end of the graph. I did 3 times the traffic of the 3 weeks prior
combined. The boss was delighted!

I was quite impressed by the tracking machine - 4 laser/mirror contraptions get clamped one to each wheel rim and then the computer screen lights up with little graphics, diagrams and results for each wheel vertical-ness and horizontal toe-in. Modern cars apparently have adjustment on the back suspension as well as the front. Very cool. Ah well, I am €290 poorer but the car is safe and should see us through the next NCT, at least on that aspect.

I managed to get some statistics back for my week on the @IrelandsFarmers Twitter account. I knew I'd been busy and I was fairly sure the owners/bosses of the account would be delighted. I was and they were. Turns out you measure Twitter 'traffic' on 3 main criteria as well as how many posts you create, pictures you put up etc. These are "impressions" (where someone else clicks on your post to expand it or do other things with it (copy, follow links etc) - they create an impression of your post on their own screen. Secondly how many people 'like' it and 3rd, how many copy it on to all their followers (called "re-tweeting").

In the 28 days ending with my week, the account got a million impressions and over 500,000 of these were from my posts - they told me I got more in my week that in the 3 weeks prior. Not bad All the other graphs also show big peaks on the right hand end, my days - re-tweets, likes and replies. Some of the latter may be my own - Twitter only allows 140 characters. If you need more space you reply to your first tweet with the 2nd part of the anecdote and on and on. Some of mine went to 4 'replies' which were not really replies at all. I am quite proud of all this even though it probably confirms to all my own followers that I talk too much!

Baby George being minded by his 4 responsible adults.

The only other news is that the adult geese have finally brought the one baby gosling off the nest and started to show him off and show him around.

I'm saying "him" here; we have no idea really but for now he is Baby-George. I may have posted before that there were two. There are not and I don't think there ever were. I just miss-saw a 2nd between all the 6 legs in the nest.

When they go out for a sensible amount of time and I can shut the door on them safely I will get a chance to finally get in there and clean up, and throw out the failed eggs. Right. That's it for this lap-top post. I hope it all works.

Tweet Tweet

This little mite hatches yesterday (we think) and manages to get
out of the nest. We find him cheeping frantically and waddling
round the shed floor. Fear not, all ends well. 

A Birth is Announced! Best news, I expect, for this post is that we finally have a hatch of goose eggs, this a good 2 weeks after the "due date" for the original eggs (27th May). The reason for this is that the 3 Mum/Auntie geese keep leppin' in and out of the nest after #1 goes broody and the eggs you set get trampled. These will be more recent eggs. Our goose breeding is definitely chaotic.

Curator-ing the @IrelandsFarmers Twitter account

This little mite announced his presence with frantic loud cheeping you could hear across the yard even through the excited honking of 4 adult geese, He'd got out of the nest which means a 4-5 inch "fall" out of the former concrete cattle-trough in which they nest and was a bit lost running round the floor, not trying very well to get back into the nest. It could have ended badly. We had one gander one year so annoyed by the appearance of this new, noisy, scurrying "rat" that he grabbed it by a wing and threw it across the shed, badly damaging it.

But not THESE parents. They lower their necks and chunter at him encouragingly from close range so that he stands up to his full 4 inches of height and wobbles his head proudly. The gander (Gorgeous George) has amazed all of us by being even better a dad than the ladies are mums or aunts. They get distracted, he stays focused. All 4 would protect the little fella with their lives and get very excited and angry at anyone who comes near. That was my problem. If I needed to rescue him back to the nest I knew I would need the chainsaw helmet, gloves, a coat with thick sleeves and so on. A relief then at 6 pm ish to see him back in the nest and now accompanied by a sibling. I can sleep easy and undamaged! Wish the little ones luck.

The Hubbards at Day 5 are growing a-pace. They have lost the
spherical look and already have white wing feathers.

This, though, seems to have been a week where we have both "worked" for hours without actually achieving anything around the farm, not a stroke of weeding, mowing or tidying. For Liz there has been the normal working week plus all the politics to follow, both in the US (Comey's testimony to the Senators) and in the UK (May's snap election and subsequent need to get into bed with the DUP).

Potential fruit #1 : Cherries

Liz always stays up for the results and normally takes the day after as holiday to sleep and recover. This time she was denied the holiday by boss John who suddenly had a funeral to attend, so she had to go in "even if she slept for most of it". The office must be manned and the phones answered at least from 09:30 to 13:30, Mon-Fri. In the end she gave up on the  voting coverage at 03:30, slept a while, worked the morning, then caught up by sleeping from 3 till 6 pm. There's dedication.

My 'job' was to be 'Curator' of the @IrelandsFarmers Twitter account, the voice of Twitter-using Irish farming for the week from Monday morning (5th June) to Sunday evening, tomorrow. Most of my readers, I know, have nothing to do with Twitter even if they are regulars on Facebook. It is seen as too 'ephemeral', sound-byte-ish, fleeting and short lived. You post your comment of 140 characters max and if no-one's paying attention it vanishes down the screen quickly replaced by the next Tweet. It is seen as the medium of smart, office, city types clip-clopping across marble floors in their heels, their thumbs and noses glued to the ever-on expensive smart phones and 'tablets'. It is used by vacuous, brainless celebrities and, of course, Donald Trump

Potential fruit #2 :Plums

Stick with it, though, and you can find sensible, intelligent chatter within and between groups of like-minded souls, whether your thing is politics, news, Ireland or more specialist subjects like farming or even smallholdering. When this happens, someone will generally decide that the subject "needs an account" on Twitter so they set one up and start trawling for members to join them. In this case they give the helm of the account to a different person each week, the "Curator". Friends of the blog may recall that I have curated the @smallholderIRL account 3 times now and I love having the extra following (numbering thousands of people all round the world) for the week with whom to share my news, pictures, anecdotes and banter.

Potential fruit #3 : "Irish Peach" variety of apple

All well and good. Small Holdering is the home turf and I'd know a good few people on that group through Facebook or in real life. I am happy to go on that one and strut my stuff, reasonably confident of a sympathetic reception and not too much "trolling" (idiots who are just out to argue and spoil the chat). But then I was invited to curate the 'proper' farmers' one @IrelandsFarmers. I accepted but if I'm honest I was a bit nervous. How would they accept me, this wannabee farmer, blow-in, smallholder and a Brit besides?

Potential fruit #4 : (pea sized) Peaches

I needn't have worried - it has gone really well with 95% of the stuff getting favourable comment ('Likes' and 'Re-tweets') and only the odd one completely blanked or ignored. I have covered a good range of stuff - the holding here and its stock, equipment, activities as well as what I like to do when NOT farming and some anecdotes on disasters and triumphs. One post I was very pleased with had me showing that picture of the house circa 1900 alongside one of me sitting out front on the mini-horse and cart. As I go to press I have just looked in and that one has been seen by 6713 people, 93 have said they 'like' it and 16 have shared it on ("re-tweeted" it). I seem to have done OK and I am delighted. I have to hand the tiller back at 6pm tomorrow. It is quite tiring and you are tied to the PC (no smart-phone for me!) frequently so I will not be sad to finish but I guess the 'owner' will happily have me back when the rota comes round again.... next year, maybe.

A poor blackbird gets dismantled overnight
in the new kitchen. We suspect feline
involvement. 

What else have we been at? I was out at the archery coach's place  putting the cover back on our enormous "gala tent" (mini marquee) ready for the summer activities, helped only by the lady of the house (Niamh) and a friend (Karl, an Austrian lad). Hard work in quite a brisk wind but very enjoyable and, like the curating, good to get it done.

We do get to eat out sometimes!

For Liz tonight a "Mystery night out" for the Lisacul Players, the amateur dramatics group still a-glow from their very successful performance of "Cupid Wore Skirts" a few months back. They had no idea where they were being taken, only that they had to show up at the village cross-roads by quarter past 7 a bit glammed up. One of the lads was organising it and he was keeping very tight lipped. Small huddles of actors formed (plus Liz and Director Tom C) frantically trying to work it out from the time, the need for €20 as a share of the mini-bus hire and their knowledge of 'Derek' (organiser) where they might be bound. One actor was praying that he'd not take them anywhere with Country music - she can't abide that, she said.

Well. Now they know. I have just had a text from Liz to say they are at a place called "The Oarsman" in Carrick on Shannon. She will no doubt fill us all in on the standard of the place's catering and the presence or absence of good aul' boys slapping their thighs, plucking their banjos and shouting 'Yeeee Harrr!' Y'all have the biggest time now!

A 4-Way Birthday and some New Babies

Early Purple Orchid at Kiltybranks

Friends of the blog may recall that Jun 3rd is Birthday for 3 of our main animals (was 4) who are all 5 years old. The pups, Towser and Poppea were getting born on that night down in Mrs Silverwood's house in County Laois while we were also waiting for news of a birth of kittens at Mrs S's friend's house just around the corner. The two joyful news, triumphant phone calls met in the middle at breakfast.

'Twayblade' (orchid) at Kiltybranks

Lily had whelped 7 (I think) pups and the cat had kitted 3 little balls of fluff. Since then we have lost one of the kittens (Rolo) to an RTA but we have gained a rescue cat (Soldier) of whom we do not know a birth date. We have therefore given Soldier the 3rd of June too, so HAPPY  5th BIRTHDAY the 4 of you, Soldier plus Blue, Towser and Poppea.

Getting the painting gear out. 

My main news events since the last post, though concern not these animals, but a coat of paint (or two) on the kitchen and the arrival of yet more livestock. The new kitchen got its paint on Saturday and we decided to carry the colour on throughout the old which has been up to now Brilliant White.

Liz had fallen in love with the colour of the dry, bare plaster (a very pale grey) and could not think of a better colour to sit alongside the new floor tiles, the bare, raked-out-and-repointed stone wall or, in fact, the existing splash-back on the sink in the old kitchen. As anyone who has decorated their house will know, you can now pretty much get paint in any colour you like. The shop stocks white base paint and has a high tech, computerised colour dosing machine that mixes the tin to the shade you have chosen from the swatch cards.

The new paint looks well against the stone
wall. Ignore the dodgy plastic wall socket.
That is only there temporarily. 

We had tried the older method of buying small 'match-pots' and painting little test patches but could not get a pale enough grey - the kitchen risked looking like a WW2 battleship! Wouldn't you know it, the ideal colour was from the (Dulux?) "Colour Trends" range, the most expensive paint in the shop. This was going to be €36 for the 2.5 litres we doubted would go the whole room even once.

Watercress in a bog ditch. I had thought that stiff needed a clear
flowing, pure chalky stream.

To our rescue, the shop guy who is probably well used to penny pinching customers (his shop is in Roscommon!) who said that he quite often makes up the colour in the "standard" Dulux version of the base-paint and it always works. That was now €19 for the tin which was especially nice when it became obvious that we'd run out of paint and need a 5 litre tin to finish the first, and complete the 2nd coat. 5 litres was €29 which was not so bad. I didn't ask what a 5 litre tin of the real 'Colour Trends' version would have been.

The 10 week turkey poults arrive

Today, then, saw delivered both our turkey poults and our day old Hubbard meat-bird chickens. The turkeys come from Sue and Rob who are currently breeding them by the dozen, hoping to sell birds for people to 'grow' for the Christmas market. It is nice to know that her parent birds are, in some cases, raised from the eggs laid by our own (late) Tom and Barbara pair, so the DNA has been working away over there and is now coming 'home' in a sense.

Sue and Rob hatch these either in an incubator or sneaked under any broody hen who has space under her skirts. One such "clocker" (broody hen) got a mention in my recent sheep-shearing post when we discovered a hatched turkey during a pause from the wool clipping. Once hatched they are kept under good heat; an 'electric hen' AND and Infra Red bulb till they are about 9 weeks old. They then get a week off heat before they go to their new homes, acclimatized.

We have 'landed' ours into one of our well used redundant rabbit runs, which have a cosy, draught-free, bedroom at one end. They spend a week or two in there getting used to the sights, sounds and smells of our yard and all the other birds (and cats and us), before we start letting them out free range and try to persuade them to move home to the proper chicken/goose coops. This year we will be more careful around the start of cold weather and the increased braveness of foxes. Last year we lost all three in November and had beef for Christmas dinner. It was lovely but we still hated that fox for stealing our turkey(s)!

Hubbard chick at day 1

Friends of the blog will also know that we have done several batches of the Hubbard chickens as meat over the years, lately one from May-June to August and a 2nd Aug to Oct/Nov. We join in with Anne and Simon who have access to a big commercial hatchery (long term friends of the Manager) and when they drive all the way up there to get their birds, they always ask us would we like some too. Thank you very much, Anne and Simon.

The Hubbard is a popular variety in Ireland among the commercial boys who are supplying supermarkets with Free Range and/or Organic birds. They make a nicely keeled oven-ready carcass and have a phenomenal growth rate, achieving 2-4 kg (oven ready) in 80-120 days. We kill ours at about 100 days on our 'genuine free range' system and it has always been the tastiest, most succulent chicken meat you ever tasted.

Long may it continue. We also enjoy having Anne and Simon in for a chat, a cup of tea and either dillisk, or chilli-cheese-and-bacon biscuits (or both) which Liz rustles up within minutes of us all sitting down at the table.  We got 13 chicks this year (a miscount at the source!) instead of the straight dozen and we have been amazed by the speed with which they have learned to peck up their own food. In previous years I have spent some time pecking at the food with the point of a chopstick to 'show' them what to do and, even, picking up bits of food and carrying it to their little, hopeful, upward pointing beaks. This lot were straight in. Good luck to them.

The Boys are Bereft

Apollo and Belvedere, 2 Guinea Fowl cock-birds suddenly
lacking a focal point in their lives. 

Long term friends of the blog may recall that we first got into Guinea Fowl back on Nov 5th 2013, 3+ years ago. Back then we purchased Henry and Min named after the aul' wans on the Goon Show with dreams of eating their eggs and possibly a few young birds.
( http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2013/11/guinea-fowl.html ).
Much later, Henry was killed out on the road while minding Min who was hiding in the hedge opposite laying the next of a clutch of 16 eggs. Min abandoned the eggs when her hubby was lost and we incubated them, hatching 13 youngsters (keets).

Cornflower

If memory serves, we sold some of these to a local lad who wanted to start a 'flock' but then lost the rest to a fox attack. We certainly never ate any - I'd remember. The pining Min then annoyed us for months with her "Buck wheat buck wheat" mate-calling till we blagged a couple of males from our friend Sue. These were Apollo and Belvedere. Min fell in love with Belv' and Apollo had to take a support role, watching in the wings as back-up.

Arum lilies do very well here.

Min (with Belv's help) may have been laying eggs this year but if there was "anything" going on or any eggs being laid then we never saw a sausage. All good so far. However, a week or so back, our Min was suddenly badly injured a across the 'saddle', all the feathers stripped away and a big bright slick of blood on the place, as if she'd been flayed. She was still walking but we really needed to catch her and isolate her, to give her a chance to recover. We had no idea whether the cock bird(s) had suddenly got rough or maybe she'd fallen prey to the chicken-rooster, Gandalf and his spurs. I caught them "just after" the act, I think, with G strutting and crowing and Min flat on the ground in a daze, bleeding.

Well, anyone who has had experience of Guineas will know how hard they are to catch and we never managed it, plus we thought that life in a crate or rabbit-run might be too stressful to actually do her any good. We decided to watch her and, true to form, the next day she seemed very 'repaired', bald but not bleeding. We chugged along for the next week with Min mainly recovering but occasionally getting blooded again.

Buff Orp laying eggs on the diff of K-Dub's
abandoned "Mad Max" trike. We are minding
this beast which has the back end of a Transit
engine, gearbox and final drive and may, in time
get the forks and front wheel of a tractor. 

Then on Weds 31st May night she seemed to go downhill and went 'to bed' OK but roosted down on the floor of the coop (among the ducks) instead of up in the rafters. It wasn't looking good and, indeed, I found her in the morning, as I expected, stiff and cold. We guess she died from her injuries or an infection taken in through that huge wound. Poor thing.

A family favourite blue Geranium, 'Orion'

So now we have two Guinea Fowl cock birds who are bereft. Stripped of their main reason to be, their woman to Marshall and mind, their prize to fight over, their appetite to protect from chickens trying to steal "her" share of the food, they are lost. They are currently hanging with the chickens and not at all sure at bed time whether they should be going to bed without Min.

Peas showing promise in the tunnel.

We are wondering what to do. The boys are real characters despite having brains the size of petit-pois and are excellent Guard-Dogs kicking off a hell of a racket should a fox or intruder come on site. Back when we lost Henry, we bought them because lonely Min was breaking our hearts with her calling. Will we just buy a couple of gals for the boys and carry on? More on this in future posts.

Big boots and tiny plimsolls.

June is with us and the season for Elderflower cordial (and "champagne" if you are of a mind and have the bottles for it). I was out on the front lawn a couple of nights back giving the dogs their off-lead exercise session when I saw my good lady striding out of the woods armed with a bulging carrier bag but walking in a very "clompy" fashion - not her normal gait at all. It took me a while to work out that she'd been out gathering elderflowers and, to protect those calves and knees from the stinging nettles, she'd found that her feet, still in their plimsolls would easily fit in my 'huge' wellies (inches to spare, allegedly).

Elderflower cordial

The elder flower cordial is probably our favourite soft drink. I love it with sparkling water whenever I need to be off the alcohol (zero tolerance driving in this house). It is very popular too with guests and visitors and Liz has taken a bottle of the cordial to work so that colleagues can enjoy it. A real taste of Summer.

Nice bit of resurfacing by the lads from Rosco-Co-Co (the
 County Council) in our lane but the dogs hate every last
sharp stone chip and every little sticky bit of tar from it!

Finally a silly story which made me laugh. I was taking an old boy, friend and neighbour on a run out to a nearby town on an errand. En route we trundled past an anonymous shop - no sign-writing, no logos, no name, no clue telling you what it might be selling. I had barely noticed it but the Old Boy (OB) piped up with "That's really good shop... Sells EVERY thing.... and if he ever doesn't have what you are looking for you only have to ask him and he will get it in for you". "Fine", I said, "but what kind of stuff does he sell?"
OB: "Ahhhh,,,, I wouldn't know that now...." Not a lot you can say to that, really. OB was not volunteering any more information, anyway, so we drove on in silence.

A mystery construction at the local crossroads. More on this
in a future post. 

That's it for this one. I will just leave you, as usual, with a couple more pics. Still no goslings but we do now have a chicken gone broody in an old knackered wicker basket full of hay in the shed. Bye for now.

I am suddenly getting a way higher readership than of yore.
Thank you very much who ever you are.