So much has happened since the last blog it’s going to take a while to get through. We’ve had a pigs and poles, a Christening, a Confirmation, a tractor run and a newspaper article. Quite a month
The Christening
We started the planning / implementing for this a week in advance. If that seems a bit mad it’s probably because it was. That said the party all went smoothly and everyone seemed to have a good time. We cleared out the big shed and the lean to which has become known as “the hay barn”, bought straw bales, decorated the place with paper lanterns straw bales and Christmas lights. The idea was to have a barn dance seeing as how we are like living in the country and all, yeeha!
We also researched different recipes, which was hard work of course but someone had to do it. We ended up picking this North African lamb stew with aubergine, almonds and dried apricots. It was absolutely delicious served on a bed of cuscus but when we started to make it up for 30 people we had a few terrifying moments when it just tasted and looked weird. The quantities were enormous and the cooking schedule went out the window but in the end it turned out really nice and after the party we were still eating it for about 3 days.
The Christening itself was done in the local chapel here in Newcastle. We called in Fr Gaygan who had performed our wedding ceremony so it was nice for him to come back and see the results of what he started. After the ceremony we sent half the crowd (all the men, except me), across the road to the pub to watch the rugby (Heineken cup semi final, Leinster embarrassed Munster), while the rest (all the women, except me.....obviously), went up to the house to spark up the barbeque, set out the salads and turn on the Tammy Wynette.
To cut a long story short, there was great food, decent music, children killing each other with sticks and the crack was mighty. In the end whiskey was produced and we all sat around under a patio heater chatting until me and Michael started debating (arguing) over the state of the economy and that successfully chased the remaining stragglers to bed.
Allotments
In Spring of last year some time a small group of fairly sinister characters decided to start campaigning to have allotments re-instated in Clonmel. This seems to have captured the zeitgeist because it now seems everyone has started doing it. Richard Corigan is making a TV series out of it but of course to us he’s just some Johnny come lately. In early spring of this year the allotments were re-instated on a pilot basis by Clonmel Borough council (thanks lads). Since then the scheme has run successfully and the first vegetables are just beginning to surface. The local Newspaper ran a full page article and we all patted each other on the back. Hopefully next year we can have the scheme extended
Hops
I initially planted these sometime in April I think and they haven’t really thrived. Allot have been eaten by slugs (later today I’m taking the ducks slug hunting), and others just don’t seem to have appeared at all but enough are now surfacing for me to take some heart and start phase 2 of the process, erecting the scaffolding. Hops are a climbing plant and to cultivate them you create a 4 or 5 meter high scaffolding and run strings from the ground up which the plants can climb. This in theory creates a spectacular curtain of foliage and loads of hops; but probably not that many in the first year. Anyway having never done anything remotely like this before I’m delighted to say that Fiona and I managed to get the poles up and the guide wires tight and the whole thing looks pretty good. More importantly it hasn’t fallen over. We still have another 3 poles to erect and 5 more hop plants to plant but the weather has been awful. Maybe today we’ll get things finished.
Pigs
About a week after the christening we finally took delivery of our first pigs. There was quite allot of preparation required for these lads. We had to install an electric fence and tighten up all the other fencing, scrub out and disinfect what is now the pig house, create feeding troughs and water troughs (the ball cock water trough had just been installed about 2 weeks after the pigs arrived, bad farmer John) and finally persuade Mary Nugent’s father Michael to lend us his cattle trailer to go and pick them up (we bribed him with free range eggs). We bought 2 sows and a bore off John-Paul Crowe (a budding star of Corrigans city farm). They are Pietran, or so he tells us; and were quite a challenge to get out of the trailer.
Eventually they came out when they bloody well wanted to but it was nearly dark and they made so much noise we thought we would definitely get complaints from the neighbours. Since then they have settled in well but still aren’t ploughing my field for me. Clearly I’m feeding them too much.
Sligo
Last weekend we were up in Sligo for Oona’s confirmation. It was a long overdue visit and the wonderful thing about it was that there were so many children. I’ve discovered that when you get enough children together in one place they reach a critical mass and instead of needing constant attention they start looking after themselves, entertaining each other, it’s amazing. You even have time to make cups of tea and have a chat and stuff, brilliant! We farmed out Dearbhla to some of her cousins and had whole hours to ourselves to hold grown up conversations. Of course inevitably Dearbhla heard there were beers and she had to get in on the act.
Tractor run
On our way back from Sligo, sick and tired from the journey we decided to stretch our legs in Ardfinnan and catch the end of the tractor run. Now I know some of my neighbours are a bit eccentric and that’s all to the good as far as I’m concerned but this is taking the biscuit, I mean it’s not even a tractor.
