An feirm beag

2011-04-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to let you see a picture of the latest arrival on site.

2011-03-19T22:53:00.001-07:00

It's been a busy week of progress and setbacks. There was the steel beam thing, the escaping sheep thing, the poly-tunnel thing the planting thing, the paddy's day thing and the ongoing imminent arrival of our baby thing.

The steel beam thing:

It arrived on Tuesday, 500Kg of unforgiving I R.S.J. of course this was perfect. Tuesday was the day when the lads with the power tools were meant to be here to move and install it. Only problem was that although the steel was here the lads were not. So it was going to sit there outside the back door tripping me up for a week and this would be OK but it would stall the erection of the scaffolding (because the scaffolding had to go right outside the back door too), so it had to move. Opinions were sought as they usually are and then roundly ignored as they usually are and I decided that rather than get ten burley lads and pay them half a days wages each I would move the bugger myself. Amazing what you can do with a 2 tonne jack, a few logs and a big lever.

And here's the turn:

Full credit to Dave who arrived just in time to help me get it up onto the slab.

Some mounts ago D and I spent some quality time in the garden planting bulbs. I seem destined not to do well with flowers and I think I should just give it up as a bad job because no sooner had the bulbs begun to pop their heads out of the soil than the sheep escaped and eat them. Don't know why this bugs me so much. I think it's more to do with the fact that they were this whole father daughter co-operative exercise that has now been reduced to sheep poop. At least I get to eat the perpetrators.

The poly-tunnel thing is very exciting, I was knocking it up bit by bit than Dave arrived and finished the basic from in an afternoon. having handy friends is very handy. There's still lots to do but we can now see just how big it's going to be. Big is how big it's going to be...cool.

F has been a trooper, not content with incubating the baby she has been propagating seeds. March is here, spring is upon us and here we go again. Father in law Pat has been here with his spade. Now I can't dig cause of the boketty knee (coming along nicely thanks for asking but still very painful), but that's OK cause Pat is doing it all for me. I do hope he's enjoying himself because he's basically dug the entire vegetable plot in a week (usually takes me a month). Derek our architect arrived the day of the steel beam move to find me taking a rest and Pat in the garden working away like a machine. "that's the way to garden" he quipped to me.

the paddy's day thing, well what can you say, I got ropped into holding a banner for the local playschool but it was great fun, D had a ball with her cousins. F had a rest for the afternoon but by the time D and I got home we were both exhausted and when F and I had got her to bed I collapsed in my own bed and slept for 3 hours. 'Twas a bit of craik though. Parade was OK though it definitely had a tunnel of goats feel to it.

D has just woken up gotta go, baby is arriving in the next 2 weeks or so.......AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-03-02T17:05:00.000-08:00

In ancient times priests would gut an animal and fiddle with its insides in some vain attempt to divine future events. I've sometimes wondered what on earth they thought they were at. What desperate turn of events or tortuous course of history could drive an intelligent rational mind to think that fondling a sheep's stinky bits could help tell the future? Of course those lads were building pyramids. I'm merly building an extension and I must confess I've been eying the spare rooster with a degree of mystic curiosity. See the thing is this. It's not just building an extension. The extension itself is simple. walls here, insulation there, a roof and some windows would be nice. but the thing is..........timing.

We have a baby coming soon, I'm really looking forward to his / her arrival. I't's not like first time around where you don't know what the hell you're getting into. We both know exactly what hell we're getting into, insomnia hell and strange smells hell. but it's a baby and that's a beautiful, wonderful, squirmy, noisy, smelly thing. but the timing, the timing is like when you're playing football and running for the ball, there's an open net, you sense a defender closing in on the right and you just don't know for sure but it might, just might be possible that you'll get to that ball before he does and if you keep your cool and don't fuck it up the goal is yours for the taking. And everything is slowed down and you can't know, won't know until you reach that ball if you're going to succeed. that's how I feel right now. If the weather keeps right, if steel arrives on time, is materials and labor show up when they are supposed to, if I don't pull any more ligaments, if help arrives when I need it and a baby doesn't come early then I just might get the worst of this build finished before baby arrives, and that would be great. on the other hand If things don't work out we could be introducing the child to the world through the vehicle of a house with no walls, filled with masonry dust and ringing with the screech of some very nasty power tools.

A coward would call a halt right now and say, we'll keep our walls intact and stop the build for another 6 mounts. A fool would plough ahead recklessly and with wild abandon. I find myself torn between two mentors. I plan ahead, I chase down suppliers, I refine quotes and seek diagrammatic explanations. I also find myself looking up at the sky, sniffing the air and wondering if it's going to rain. I scene I should plough ahead, at least a little bit, I sense that it will all be great, not just OK but great, but I can't be sure and the consequences of failure are pretty bad and I can't know any more than I know now, can't plan any more than I've planned so I just have to run for the ball and see what happens. And it's the not knowing and not being able to know that drives you crazy so in desperation, in desperation you start to think well what way can I resolve this situation, what way can I get to a point where I have some sign some indication of how this will pan out, and it's at that point where you reach the limit of the rational when you begin to wonder well, maybe if I cut open a chicken?

2011-02-21T03:30:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been two weeks of "progress" on the build but to be honest it doesn't quite feel that way.

We've succeeded in pouring the slab and turning the lawn into a miniature of the great lakes. Michael is laying blocks as we speak so finally walls are going up. I strained ligaments and probably tore some cartilage in my knee while playing football last week so although I am off the crutches I'm still quite the gimp (nothing new there I hear you say). My injury has brought quite a few inconveniences but on the plus side I have now finished watching all 5 series of the wire (as if I wasn't depresses and cynical enough).

Weather has been the big enemy, I mentioned the lawn, it really has been torn to bits and the fact that the trenches are permanently filled with water is testament to just how much rain we have been getting. But today is a beautiful day. Work is progressing and hopefully by the end of the week we will be up to the first floor.

The BIG DIG

2011-02-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

We've started. At last we have committed to building the extension and actually cut a sod. White a few sod's in fact cause we had a mighty big digger doing the cutting. Here was me expecting one of those mini digger yokes but Gerry (the dude doing the digging) turned up with a machine fit to gauge out the sues. Made light work of it though. we started last Tuesday. A perfect day, bright and dry, measured up, dug the trenches and marked the levels for the pour. see how I'm all down with the technical terms now. height and pour and the like. That's cause I'm a builder now......well at least an apprentice laborer / project manager. the rest of the country has given up construction as a bad game but as usual I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

Wednesday we poured the concrete, that was easy, the two lads (Gerry and Mikey), did the work and I erm....supervised and nodded approvingly from time to time. It was all over by lunch time and the concrete set by evening which meant that on Friday another Michael could arrive and start laying blocks and I could keep him supplied with blocks, cement and offers of tea.

So week one ended with the foundations poured and the sub-floor block work completed. We aren't quite out of the ground yet. I still need to fill the cavity in the block work with cement and sand then we can go on to complete the floor slab but fortunately we have had the worst weather over the past few days so I've achieved nothing. today is supposed to be a better day but I would point out that it is 4:58 am and I am writing this because the wind is howling so loudly outside that it is keeping me awake. we can only wait and see what the morning brings.

2010-10-30T21:11:00.001-07:00

Hay saved and Tipp are in the final

Great summer

It’s October isn’t it? We can be forgiven for a bit of confusion here. For a start it isn’t raining and more than that up until last week we had bright sunny days that felt like a good July. We’ve had hay in the barn since June (I think) and our neighbour TJ even took a cut of haylage off our field (keeps the place looking tidy and his Donkey will eat it). Harvesting is in it’s final throws. The greenhouse is littered with ripe pumpkin and the kitchen is littered with untidy piles of Borlotti beans and the last of the tomatoes. Tomatoes were the big success this year, a wee bit of glass and copious amounts of horse manure makes all the difference. We’ve had so many tomatoes that to be honest there’s a massive bowl of them sitting in the kitchen and we’ve no idea what to do with them. Chutney I suppose. We’ve definitely done better this year than last. For a stat we actually got some spuds (the ones I planted the year before finally showed up), The onions were great, we had so much cabbage that to be honest the slugs and caterpillars ate more of it than we did and the sweet corn! The sweet corn was gorgeous; we finished off the last ears last week and resolved to plant twice as much next year. It needs a good summer but when it’s good it’s so sweet and so good.

Bees

Another harvest was the honey. Now I didn’t do great this year, I messed up and my bees swarmed and then they were too few in number to get the July honey and let’s face it July wasn’t a great month but all these things aside I did get some honey this year, probably enough to do us all year and maybe give some away also. I’ve gone from 3 hives to 6 and then back to 3 again and now I have to nurse those 3 through what is predicted to be a hard winter. Hopefully they will all live and next year I’ll do better. Clonmel is a bit of an epicentre for beekeeping and this year as I am now a proper bee keeper we went along to the honey show to have a nosey. I’d been before and remembered a rather dull affair populated by men all of whom were the wrong side of 60. I was delighted to see what a change a few years can make. The place was buzzing, (literally due to the big hive of bees on exhibition). It had been transformed into a bit of a family day out. Lots of kids, lots of people chatting away and not just about how the honey yield was up this year. I met one of my classmates Malcolm. Malcolm if from some rural idol in England, Shropshire or Summerset or sommit, talks like the lead singer of the Wurzils (remember “buy me a bran new combine haaaarvister an I’ll giv yu de key”). Anyway when I met him, Malcolm wasn’t that happy.

“heard you passed dat bee exam John, congratulations”

“Thanks Malcolm”

“howed you do dat den? Cause no-one else bloomin passed it. I tell you now, I’m not bloomin happy, I thought I’d got about 90% in that exam and they tell me I’d got only 42%!”

“They were funny questions Malcolm I think you just had to be lucky”

“Right, right......you get any honey this year then?”

“ahh not much, just a few jars really.”

“That’s too bad John I did bloomin’ well I did, got 75 Lbs out of one hive, 65 out of another but I suppose you just have to be lucky”

Malcolm was smiling.

The joy of electric skateboarding

When I was a little boy I wanted a skateboard. My mother was having none of it as they were (she rightly pointed out), incredibly dangerous. Of course being the only little boy at school who didn’t have a skateboard made me incredibly un cool (a condition which has I’m afraid persisted throughout my life). Obviously I was deeply upset by this at the time and this minor childhood trauma must have lodged somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious where it has festered for years on end. Then about a month ago on a trip up to Armagh while taking a stole around the local car boot sale I stumbled upon a bargain. One slightly mouldy and water damaged electric skateboard £10. In truth the guy selling it had about 10 of them and wanted to flog the lot of them for £60 but I resisted the temptation. It took a little persuasion to get it to work mind but I’m still handy with a screwdriver and a multimeter. When that didn’t work however I shook my soldering iron at it menacingly and that seemed to do the trick. Now despite the fact that the skateboard is designed to carry a max load of 75 Kg (I’m closer to 100), and that it’s only supposed to run on smooth surfaces (our driveway is grittier than an arab’s underpants) I have learned to use the thing. Finally I can skateboard, a childhood ambition fulfilled at last, festering subconscious purged. Unfortunately due to the fact that I am now nearly 40, wobbling around on a skateboard I look less cool now than I ever have before but I’m happy so I couldn’t give a sh*t.

Cider

It’s been a phenomenal year for apples. People who know these things keep telling me. Given such a bountiful harvest it would seem a shame to let them all go to waste so naturally I was egger to turn them into some form of alcohol. A local farmer we know (let’s just call him big Mickey), has an old old orchard that hasn’t been tended in years, he used to supple Bulmer’s, this year he supplied us. Friends and family got together and half a trailer load of big Mickey’s finest were gathered up. You can do worse than spend half a day picking apples in an orchard. Anyway we got a pulper and press from the local apple farm (thanks Con) and set about juicing and filling industrial food grade plastic containers. Weeks passed, cider fermented. Now its “maturing” but soon I’m going to stick it in a keg and it could be a very merry Christmas. I’ll tell you how we get on.....if I can still see the keyboard.

Heat

Finally we entered the 20^th century and got central heating. I don’t quite know myself. I’m sitting here in my boxers basking in glorious kerosene fuelled comfort. Maybe next year we’ll move into the 21^st century and get some solar water heaters.

Hay saved and Tipp are in the final

As some of you may have noticed there was a bit of excitement down here. Something to do with an all Ireland hurling final? Now more than a month later the flags are finally beginning to come down and the euphoria is subsiding a little but throughout late summer there was a gentle joy about the place. People were smiling. There was a tingle of excitement. Neighbours stopped and had a chat

“how’s it goin Tommy?

“ahh sure grand Jimmy, grand, tis a fine spell of weather we’re havin’”

“Ahh sure Tommy you couldn’t beat it and it’s been a great oul summer”

“Aw stop! The hay is saved and Tipp are in the final”

2010-09-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

Oh, I passed mt bee science exam. 70% pass mark, only one in my class to do it, am feeling very clever

2010-09-13T14:02:00.001-07:00

We went to Donegal and lost our camera. That’s why there have been no blog posts for the past many months. Without a camera there are no pictures, without pictures there is no blog. The pictures we post on the blog are few and far between but the pictures we take on the camera are many and act as aide memoir for the blog. So I’m here writing this blog trying to think of everything we’ve got up to in the last 6 months. Well there was lots of planting, and a whole lot of digging, everything else is a bit of a blur. It has been an excellent summer, we saw sunshine on numerous occasions and as I write this we’re enjoying a balmy September. We’ve had house extension planning granted and then we changed our mind about it so we’re back to the planning permission stage. We’re just about to finish installing the central heating and moving into the 20^th century (the 21^st century will have to wait for a while). We’ve acquired more cats, they breed like rabbits. We’ve attended the village vintage field day in a vintage vehicle. We’ve thrown the odd BBQ. We’ve reconditioned the mobile home (it’s almost weather proof). We cut and saved hay, then TJ our neighbour with the tractor took a second cut for haylage with our blessing (we’re just glad to keep the grass down). We went camping in a camper van, there was even surfing, yes we surfed and I’ve lost none of my style I tell you, I still look just as awkward and out of control on a surfboard as I ever looked.

D is thriving and is usually good. She’s now really picking up the few words of Irish from the play school we send her to. This combined with her baby voice pronunciation and my complete lack of understanding for the Irish language is causing occasional difficulties. The other day for instance while being installed in a car seat she got quite upset and started complaining about her “browah”. “browah?” I said “what is browah?, you mean brother? You don’t have a brother, whose brother are you talking about?” “browah Daddy ma broawah!” she wailed, waving her legs and now quite upset. Thankfully F was there to translate browah into bróga into shoes. How the hell am I supposed to cope with a bilingual daughter?

Did I mention the chicks? After sever failed attempts to hatch eggs with an incubator we finally gave mother nature a shot and having acquired a broody bantam and some fertile eggs (obviously our own hen eggs are no longer fertile since I had the falling out with Chuckey the killer cockerel),we duly acquired 4 now additions to the flock. SUCESS! Clever chicken. Now my hope is that one of them will turn out to be a rooster of a reasonably docile nature and we can get right back to the breeding program.

OK that’s my lot for now; we’ve bought a new camera so hopefully there’ll be a bit more blog.

to bee or not to bee

2010-05-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

I start with a confession. I am a wuss. I am scared of almost everything and this is particularly troubling because I am interested in almost everything as well. For instance, I like to go surfing....am scared of the water. Love to be making things.....terrified of power tools. So also it is with the bees. Bees are fascinating. What other activity gives you the opportunity to become so intimately acquainted with the life style and habits of an insect. More than that they give us honey, which is very nice. The one sting in the tail is of course the sting in the tail. Now I was always a bit scared of buzzy flying things but last year one of them (from what I like to call the hive of death due to their aggressive nature), managed to get inside my protective bee veil and though she didn't manage to sting me did send me running and flapping about in a frenetic attempt to divest myself. It's taking me a long time to get over the shock of being nose to nose with a chitin clad warrior and so in truth I haven't been able to work my three bee hives since.

Working bee hives is quite important. The idea is you open up each hive and go through it, essentially breaking up the colony only to re assemble it. you check for signs of disease and seeing how they are doing generally but of course the bees just think your trying to destroy their home and so they attack. Given my traumatic experience I hadn't been able to get more than half way through any hive so far this year before I lost courage and ran away. So it was that on a fine sunny day last week I looked up from where I was tinkering with a wind turbine suddenly aware of a loud background hum. I turned round and looked up to see the sky filled with a few tens of thousands of bees. One of my hives was swarming.

Bees are what is known as a super organism. This means that we don't think of the individual bee as an organism in it's own right (cause it can't survive on its own), rather we look on the colony of bees as the organism and like all organisms it wants to reproduce. This is achieved by swarming. Basically a new queen bee is produced and the old one buggers off with half the colony. usually more than one new queen is produced and each successive queen leaves the hive with a chunk of whatever bees are left. This can continue until the hive is abandoned and from a beekeepers point of view is highly undesirable. Fewer bees means less honey and besides with a colony of bees costing about €100 there is no point giving them away for free. Action had to be taken and so shamed by my inaction I donned my new bullet proof bee suit and went in. The problem was I'd let my bees build up their numbers far too quickly and they had run out of room in their hives. As I opened each one I discovered queen cell after queen cell all nearly ready to hatch and take flight. The hive that had swarmed I split to make a new "nuc" hive, the hive of death hadn't swarmed but was also full of queen cells so I broke them down (smashed them to bits), and hive number three needed no action. I patted myself on the back, I had finally managed to get through all my hives and do what I should have been doing since March. Unfortunately this was not the end of the tale.

Two days later coming in the driveway I noticed that the hive which had swarmed was very very quiet. There were no bees to be seen. I went round to the yard to look over the embankment to get a better look without the bother of putting on a bee suit. True there were very few bees outside the hive, but there was a curious hum in my left ear. I turned as if in slow motion and there in-front of me hanging from a branch of a blackthorn hedge was the biggest bunch of bees I have ever seen in my life. Studies have shown that at times of extreme stress, perception can be distorted so I think it's fair to say that the swarm in-front of me was not in fact three times the size of my head. Nor was it a mere six inches from my nose, no these were erroneous perceptions brought about by the fact that I was suddenly scared shitless. If I had run a mile it would have been in under four minutes but as luck would have it I only had to make it to the house. I donned the suit taking care to put extra duct tape over the smallest gaps in the Velcro fastenings. I calmly collected a large blue bucket, a sheet of plywood a ladder and a pair of hedge cutters. I took my time to position the bucket beneath the swarm. I placed and ascended the step ladder. Now I really was six inches from a huge swarm of bees and they were't entirely pleased to see me. Fortunately I'd seen this done on YouTube so it couldn't be that hard. They were suspended from two sapling branches which I cut. Snip, snip, frump, buzzzzzzzz. Quickly I got off the ladder and put the plywood on the bucket. I'd just caught my first swarm. Elated I left them to their own devices and went to inspect the other hives. It was then that I found swarm number two. Smaller and definitely more aggressive these lads I suspect had issued from the hive of death. They had chosen to lodge on a thick branch and so couldn't be snipped off with clippers. They couldn't be sawn off either as I discovered when I tried it. The vibrations drove them mental and they attacked with furry. I thought perhaps a good swing with an ax would break the branch but in the end I just gave it a thump and they all dropped off into a waiting box. Hot bee suit, high stress and just the hard work of it had left me exhausted so I called it a night and left them to settle down but I knew I had some hard work ahead. I had no hives for the swarms to go into and knew I would have to make an early start the next day.

Baby D provided the 6am start and so after a bottle and a nappy change (D not me), I went out to the shed and 4 hours latter had produced two "nuc" hives (a nuc hive is a small hive used for starting colonies off). Persuading my captured swarms to go inside was not however as straight forward as it is on YouTube. In theory you set up your new hive raised a bit above the ground with a plank leading from the ground to the entrance. over this you drape a sheet and then simply chuck your bees in the middle of the sheet. They then spread out until following their natural tendency to go up, they find a nice new hive and start signalling to the rest of the swarm to come inside. It didn't quite happen like that. I heaved them out on the sheet and they gradually bit by bit took to the air and congregated on the corner of a mobile home. I placed the hive on top of the mobile home but they pointedly ignored it and flew off once again to congregate back in the hedge, this time on a sturdy branch. It was about this time that I got my first bee sting. What a relief, I didn't drop dead from anaphylactic shock. It was about this time

also that help arrived in the form of Mark whom had been assigned to me as a kind of bee mentor. It has to be said the local association here is brilliant. With Marks help we housed both swarms and checked all my hives again for queen cells. As I stood beneath the hedge while Mark got up a ladder and shook bees down to the hive I was holding in my hands I took a moment to reflect that at the start of that week I hadn't been able to look at a bee hive and here I was with angry bees raining down on my head, crawling all over me and filling the air around me. I had finally channelled my iner bee keeper, gone from three colonies to six and I was still looking ok for getting some honey. What a week

Is it not better to surf than live life entirely on dry land due to an irrational fear of drowning? Is it not better to tinker with wind turbines regardless of the risk of arc eye or angle grinder injury? Bee keeping is tough work. There are stings and swarms and angry bees buzzing and bouncing off your head. Bee suits are hot and claustrophobic and exhausting to wear on a hot summers day. and there's allot of heavy lifting, smoke in your eyes and sore backs from all the stooping over to look in a hive. But despite all that it's a fascinating thing to do and you do begin to love your bees so I suppose the question is, is it not better to bee than not to bee?

The story of the killing of Chucky the rooster

2010-04-30T01:58:00.000-07:00

The following is the story of Chucky the rooster, who unfortunately had to meet an untimely demise. Due to the epic nature of the struggle and in honor of Chucky who was after all fine bird I have decided to post this months blog entirely in verse. Homer eat your heart out.

This is the story of Chucky the rooster

It’s a story that might shock

Its about his life, his loves, his hates

And how I turned him into stock.

We never asked for Chucky

He arrived one day for free

From a man who offered him as gift

Then turned on his heal to flee

Chucky started out quite lovely

A fine upstanding cock

His held head high, his feathers sleek

And a willie hard as rock

He set about his duties

With gusto and abandon

But pretty soon hens weren’t enough

he started shagging things at random

First it was the ducks

And then it was the drake

And I’m pretty sure he had a go

At kitty by mistake

Now Chucky was the rooster

He knew he was the boss

But that wasn’t enough for Chucky

And he started getting cross

His aggression levels building

He terrorized the cat

Then turned his eyes to human kind and though

“I’ll have a piece of that”

At first it was my father in law

Then it was my Dad

The rooster terrorised them both

And drove the oul lads mad

Then he just attacked at random

It soon became a farce

When you bent to weed the cabbages

You had to watch your arse

We couldn’t step outside the house

You simply didn’t dare

Then we though what happens if

He meets our wee girl when where’re not there

That thought was terrifying

Enough to make you cry

Chucky’s time had come at last

The rooster had to die

Killing something isn’t easy

A rooster might be the worst

Because before you get to killing

You must catch the fecker first.

I tried to chase down Chucky

To pin him to the ground

But while I could match his straight line speed

He could beat me turning round

Then I though I’d wait outside his coop

And grab him when he came out

But Chucky wasn’t stupid

He knew what I was about

He fixed me with one beady eye

Twitching in its socket

And when I made my move on him

He bolted like a rocket

Twice I tried the ambush

And twice he leapt and fled

This was going nowhere

I’d try something else instead

My standing as a “real man”

Was quickly running out

My wife was getting impatient

As the rooster was still about

She said “I want the rooster gone

before the end of day

I’m sick of playing watchdog

when the child goes out to play”

The game was really on now

No more messing round

Chucky had to meet his end

The cock was going down

I hatched a plan to get him drunk

Put whiskey in his meal

What a waste of whiskey

The bird was made of steal

Instead of getting sleepy

And going to his head

It went straight to his testicles

The bird was seeing red

He was a lousy lover

And his sex drive was excessive

And it turned out when he’d had a few

The bird got more aggressive.

By now I’d lost my patience

I was getting thick

I cursed and swore and dammed the bird

And went and got my stick

Chucky was a coward

That became quite clear

When faced with farmer wielding stick

His crest fell with the fear

Three times I chased him off the farm

Three times he did return

And on the third returning I cursed

“will the fecker never learn”

He must have been exhausted

I know I was nearly bet

But finally I caught him

With an Aldi fishing net

I grabbed him by the ankles

I lifted him on high

He flapped only a little

He knew he was going to die

If you want to kill a rooster

You must at first catch it

But when the chase is over

Just hit him with a hatchet

Chucky started flapping

His prognosis very poor

But I smashed his head against wall

Just to make dammed sure.

To kill a thing upsets me

though that might sound absurd

But killing Chucky was sheer relief

“Die Die Die you bastard bird”

An Air of quiet now pervades the farm

The air tastes sweet and free

The child can play without a care

Or fear of foul Chucky

The chickens regard me with new respect

The ducks are happy again

Now I’m the only rooster

My wife’s a happy hen.

Only one thing worries me

And that’s the bloody cat

I think he’s turned transvestite

I’m not sure how to handle that.

Chucky the rooster 2010 ~ 2010

2010-03-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

After a long and bitterly cold winter hibernation it seems things are finally beginning to stir on our wee farm. Daffodils are struggling to push up to the sunlight despite the continuing cold conditions and I see with some relief that the bees are busy and apparently healthy, so far so good. The bees are going to bee a big thing this year I hope. I’ve got great plans to beecome a small scale commercial producer but this will all bee dependant on me getting the industrious little monsters through the rest of the winter. If you had asked me a week ago how my bees were doing I would have exuded an air of smug confidence. “Endless talk about colony collapse disorder, varroa mites and winter starvation would make you think that bee keeping was difficult”, I might have said. “My bees are fine, better than fine, they are great” I’d chuckle, my head filled with recent observations of my clever bees returning to their hives with legfulls of pollen despite the biting cold. A week is a long time in bee keeping and I’ve since learned that legfulls of pollen or not, now is the time of year when bees starve to death. Because of this I’ve decided to feed them and it was while doing this that I discovered what a bad beekeeper I’ve really been. Lots of modern beehives come with a metal mesh floor under which is slung a removable hardboard drawer. The purpose of this is to count varroa mites (little vampire buggers that weaken bees). The drawer on my best hive had sagged a little and left a gap at the front of the hive which it appears the bees have for months been mistaking for their front door. What a scene when this week I realised what had been happening and removed the drawer. There must have been thousands of bees all dead (and frankly a bit mouldy), piled layers deep on top of the drawer. I must have killed half the colony with my complacency. Bad, bad beekeeper. Despite all this it has to be said the bees seem OK and if we get through to mid April hopefully we’ll get some honey off them this year.

Green house use

Although we’ve had night time temperatures that have frequently hit –10°C there is a small piece of An Feirm Beag that is forever Tuscany. Walk into the greenhouse on any day where there’s even a glimmer of sun and you can just bath in its heady polycarbonate warmth. The prospects for propagation are very exciting. So far though we’ve only planted courgettes (Fiona planted and they are thriving), and an entire tray of basil (I planted, probably dead). Now we are warming up for the real challenge, tomatoes, big juicy ones. Now if only there was a plant that grew mozzarella balls and pizza dough we’d be really sorted.

A bit of hedging

To be fair to F the place was looking a bit scruffy and overgrown. Given that this is my own natural state it’s not really surprising that I wasn’t too bothered but F was and so finally, having accepted that I in fact wasn’t ever going to “get round to it”, I relented. And so men were called. They were big men and they arrived with tools, big tools with many teeth and motors. Big motors and…..yeah you get the idea. Two days work and the place is looking a bit tidier but not to be outdone (and probably because their chainsaw was bigger than my chainsaw), I decided I had better have a go myself. There’s a row of small trees along the south end of our vegetable plot that I’ve be threatening to thin out since we first arrived. I started out with the notion of thinning out the whole thing in a day, but the first tree, a tall and spindly ash took me that long to fell and scared me so much that I called it a day before I’d even finished cutting it up. Most of the branches are still out there as I write reminding me that some things are best done by big guys with big chainsaws.

Raspberries & hops

One of our friends gave us five raspberry canes in exchange for some eggs. You have to love the bartering. Anyway not only will these canes produce, we hope a bumper crop of raspberries but it also gave me an excuse to produce yet another ridiculously over engineered construction with which to support the raspberry bushes. Naturally I stuck it up in the hops garden (now a Mecca of ridiculously over engineered horticultural construction) and my hope is that it will be the first of three or four rows of fruit bushes. The hops are still not showing much. Doubtless they won’t show their head until we get milder weather, but they are at least still alive, I think.

Digging with the rotavator

I’m actually very fond of my rotavator. I bought it last year for €80. It didn’t actually work when I bought it but having taken it home and given it some TLC it eventually chugged into life and has been chugging away reliably ever since. Rotavators are not the easiest thing in the world to use. They tend to skim over the surface bouncing erratically like a drunken Duracell bunny only bigger and made of metal but once you learn how to control them (it took me 6 months), they can be a life saver. For reasons of weed control you should never ever use a rotavator to break new soil. It tends to chop up the roots of dandelions and docks which only makes for more dandelions and docks. For reasons of expediency I’ve been using mine to break new soil. I’ll worry about the weeds next year. To get the thing to dig down to any depth I’ve discovered that you need to rock it from side to side, move on a bit and repeat. This is tough work no doubt, but it’s easier I think than digging and it does break up the soil. Inevitably however having just about got the hang of one contraption I’ve begun to harbour an ambition to get something a bit bigger, more powerful and possibly dangerous. I’m slowly but steadily nurturing the idea of getting a wee tractor for the wee farm. Something small and cheep that could pull a plough of harrow. As they say round here, a Massey would be sassy but a Zetor would be better.

Problems with planting

Not for the first time this week cries of “THAT FECKIN ROOSTER” could be heard on the wee farm. Our rooster is a gobshite. As it turns out Speckled Sussex roosters are known for their viscous temperament. Known that is by everyone but us and perhaps by the guy who gave him to us as a free gift. It may not be polite to look gift horses in the mouth but if you are ever given a gift rooster it might be wise to look him up on Google. Apart from his usual sneak attacks when your back is turned and always amusing assaults of my father in law, the foul pecker (rooster not father in law) has taken to leading all the chickens into the vegetable patch to dig up anything and everything we put down. He has to go and soon. We of course rang the man who gave him to us in the first place thinking to offer him first refusal, but it seems he isn’t keen to take him back. He has a rooster of his own which he tells us is doing unspeakable things to his drake. It’s made me even more nervous of turning my back on our fella.

Duck production.

The hens it seems have switched from egg production to vegetable destruction and the egg count is way down. The ducks however have gone into egg overdrive. Ovumdrive perhaps. In any case they are now churning out an egg a day each which is nice though we don’t really know what to do with them all. The Mammy in law has started selling them on the black market. Apparently there’s loads of people out there with a terrible addiction to duck eggs.

Belated December 2009

2010-01-04T11:41:00.000-08:00

First of all a belated merry Christmas to all of you. I hope you all had a good one and I hope you all have a great 2010.

So it’s been almost two months since you last heard from us and we’ve had a few highlights. There were of course the birthday celebrations for baby D. we had a lovely party but I think it might all have gone over the wee girls head. Nonetheless the cake was tasty so I enjoyed it even if D was a bit baffled by all the fuss. Naturally to mark such a momentous occasion and as a symbol of her new found ability to walk she had to get shoes. I think D was a bit confused by the whole concept of shoes to start with. Why does one need shoes after all? But when she saw the flashy lights and shinny toes she was won over and now acts like she can’t be seen in public without them. Why shoes should have flashy lights remains a mystery. Thanks to D’s auntie N for buying the shoes.

On the farm I’ve been doing all ot of indoor work so progress has been a bit slow. We’ve managed to cover about a third of one vegetable plot (this is in order to suppress weeds etc) and have created 4 raised beds (also now covered, thanks for the help Pat). I’ve also finally finished the greenhouse frame and now it just needs some glazing, which hopefully we’ll get done over the holidays. A greenhouse will be a real boon and I’m really looking forward to a decent crop of tomatoes.

There’s a lot of life and death goes on on our wee farm. We’ve got ourselves an incubator and I’m really looking forward to hatching our own chicks in the New Year. Our poor turkeys have however gone from free range to oven ready; a process that involved killing, plucking gutting and hanging. Not for the squeamish and yes it would definitely be easier to buy them in Tescos’ but that would be cheating.

Thanks are due again to P&P for their help. Some other new life arrived last night in the form of a stray kitten. He showed up demanding food and shelter, Well I couldn’t turn him away, ‘tis the season of good will and all that, a fact I’m reflecting on now as I nurse the finger the little feral monster has just sunk his teeth into.

Speaking of reflection, We’ll be doing some of that ourselves in the coming weeks. We started off the year with a new house and a new baby and the goals of trying out a little of everything on the farm and trying not to be disastrous parents. I think we’ve done ok on the former but I’ll hold judgement on the latter until I see if D needs therapy for chicken phobia in later life. Mercifully we haven't yet been flooded, frozen, bankrupt or repossessed and it has been a really glorious year for us. Here are two pretty shots of the recent chill, one from Carcassonne and one of an feirm beag.

Thanks for looking in and I hope 2010 is as good a year for all of you as 2009 has been for us!

A bit of peace and quiet

2009-11-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

This has probably been the quietest, least active month since we've been on An Feirm Beag. I say that, of course but it isn't true, it's just that little or nothing has been done outside and consequently there are few if any pictures. Sorry folks you're just going to have to put up with me rattling on without many visual aids.

The big news of the month is that baby D is walking with conviction and has all the bumps, bruises and mild concussion to prove it. You don't know what adrenalin is until you see you baby falling backwards towards something hard and pointy only to see her recover and land on her bum. Covering up hard and pointy things has become the new going out but all the padding in the word doesn't dampen that thrill of blind panic you feel when she discovers some new and interesting way to toy with disaster.

One reason it's been such a quiet month on the farm is that it's been a busy month in the office. Web sites have been updated, training courses have been created and delivered, quotes have been issued, invoices have been posted and business plans have been pulled out of drawers, dusted off, messed about with and then promptly stuffed back in draws until the following week. The long and the short of it is that I seem to have found myself some reasonably predictable and somewhat stable employment. It's all having a very serious impact on my quality poultry time and I do love my ducks. Speaking of which HALLELUJAH!! we have duck eggs! I was convinced they were all male and just a bit gay but no we have fully fledged heterosexual ducks that actually lay eggs and a drake that likes girls, wonderful. Now all we need to do is prove he's not a Jafa

It was the dog attack that did it of course. Nothing like the treat of being eaten alive by a manic canine to concentrate the mind on the need for reproduction. The first thing I heard of course was F screaming. This is now quite a common occurrence, it will be "J the pigs are escaping!!" or "J get out of bed the poor ducks are starving!!" or in this case "OH MY GOD J THERE'S A DOG ATTACKING THE TURKEYS!!!". Now as this occurred at a time when I was holding a baby and was also in fact barefoot (honestly, chained to the kitchen sink most days), there was precious little I could do about it. I had to watch helplessly out a window; screaming baby under one arm, shoving shoes on with the other while my wife set out to do battle with the mutt, armed only with a sweeping brush and a look of steely determination.

The next half hour was a bit of a blur. I'd managed to get into some welly boots and was still holding the baby but had got outside to where turkeys, ducks and broilers were being scattered to the four winds by what seemed to be a small fluffy white husky. by the time I got there F had more or less chased the brute but in his wake he had left demented ducks, baffled broilers, traumatized turkeys and me, frog marching up and down, cursing and mumbling "getting a f@*#in' gun" and "shoot the f#&@er". it may not have been very helpful but it made me feel good and it was all I could do as for some reason I was still holding a baby.

As panic subsided we took stock. The ducks had all escaped injury, mostly by discovering an ability to fly which till then they had kept secret. The broilers, chicks really, had also escaped injury because they had been small and gone to ground and not moved. The turkeys however were in bits. Big, flappy and with a good turn of speed they were Fido's idea of a fun thing to play with. They were scattered all over the place and I thought I was going to have to spend the night ringing necks but in the end the casualty list was mercifully small. One by one they were persuaded to stand up and walk though I don't think the mental scars will ever heal (mine not the turkeys).

So Christmas has been saved, our baby is now a toddler and I'm rejoining the ranks of the gainfully employed. Like I say, it was a quiet month.

October 7th 2009

2009-10-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hens and chuckie:

Here he is apparently a Mayo lad to boot. Thanks Tom for passing on the hen that turned into Chuckie. He's pretty impressive when it comes to cocks, a fine size and performing all his duties including evening dallies where he brings a couple of his lady friends off around the yard.

Harvesting continues:

We picked from the same elder bush and made wine. Given the deliciousness of the elderflower champagne, the tasting session is awaited with baited breath.

The hops didn't do too badly either imagine 7grams! None of which were wasted and are in the beer that's also occupying the hot press.

The barlotti beans are delicious and definitely one to grow as they taste very like butter beans yum!

We hosted a few friends on Sunday for lunch and were able to provide all our own food definitely a feat to be proud of! The Brussels sprouts were my favourite part! The pork coudn't be beaten either (mouth watering!)

dinner for 3 the first of the bangers and mash dinner with our own bangers!

Bee Keeping:

After the direct experience of the meaning of the phrase "making a beeline for" and finding a bee buzzing around inside the veil, farmer J is now the proud owner of a fancy new bee suit. (check it out!) Putting on your business suit has new meaning around here!

Lurkie Turkey:

Well the fowl are all a growing and the turkeys are looking decidedly less lurkie and much more ugly. Roll on the dinner for Christmas!

Still no sign of any eggs from the ducks, we're waiting patiently.

More projects:

The glass house is still ongoing the soil is prepared and ready to go just one more side to be welded together- if only it were so simple..

We hope to set up the raised beds in the coming weeks though getting rid of the docks is a challenge!

Check out our resident hog- at least one that won't end up in the pot!

4th September 2009

2009-09-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Harvesting Continues at an Feirm Beag:

Gladly, things still seem to keep on growing well, except the spuds, which were smothered by the weeds so had poor yields. So we are all eating carrots Bugs Bunny would be proud to get his teeth into. The parsnips are impressive especially considering our book says they can be notoriously difficult to sow. We have a mountain of courgettes and the recipes are being researched all the time with some cooking going on too!

The sun-less July also meant no opportunities to weed but we have resigned ourselves to letting the veggie patch run this year. A recent course on polytunnels at the irish seedsavers has provided much inspiration and information to last a few years!

There’s also been another type of harvesting of late this time elderberries following the delicious success of the elderflower champagne (with slight recipe issues!)

Home to Roost:

Lots of news on the hen front: One hen mysteriously reduced to a little heap of feathers, diagnosis: a bird of prey(?)

New addition: a fine rooster thanks to Tom. He looks like a fine lad and appears to be performing all appointed duties. He is a bit of a softie though and has to be lifted into bed each evening as he decides the best place to roost is on top of the gate. His crow is also inoffensive so far but he’s still probably only a teenager. (photos to follow next month)

Next purchase possibly an incubator..

In the meantime Baby D likes the look of the hens too.

Pork and Bacon:

The pigs are now loaded into our massive deep freeze and by all accounts have turned into tasty meat (yum.) Overall it was a good learning process. Farmer J especially found out what 25 kg sausages looks like!

More expansion:

We have 6 turkeys and to round the figure off farmer J went for 4 broilers; they were so delicious the last time he figured why not. The turkeys appear unusual quiet and ghost-like for the moment but time will tell. It’s a sure sign Christmas is coming.

Well deserved rest:

A timely break in the sun after the pigs were done. Thanks to Pat and Pauline and PJ all was well on our return. Baby D tasted ice-cream and it sure was cooling (well she's cool looking anyway!)

Bees:

The bees are being fed on a regular basis now to increase their stores before winter.

08.08.09

2009-08-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

8th August 2009

Harvest Time:

Despite the terrible weather it's time to harvest and we're happily eating baby carrots, courgettes, onions and shallots, cauliflower (only one), peas beans and radishes and lettuces. All eaten so no photos available!

Weed or no weed cont:

An exciting week of harvesting continued this week with the picking of all the onions. Of course those hidden by weeds and grass will make for very interesting peeling because they’re so small. Otherwise what a bumper crop! Now they’re drying off ready for storage- glad we have so many sheds we should find somewhere for them, probably beside the big deep freeze that will be full of pork soon.

Guess which ones were not weeded?

The Three little pigs:

Because it was a bank holiday week they have had a stay of execution this week but next Thursday will be D day. They have been taken for a little walk for the past 3 days with farmer J to the hops garden and they have rotavated the post spud patch nicely. Hooray for electric fencing so the precious hops were not in any danger. It was fun to bring them up and down the drive though. On the first occasion farmer J got a taste of a stubborn pig who at least did go home again jiggedy jig.

One man and his pig..

Follow the bucket or not..

Moo ving in:

4 lovely Angus cattle are currently grazing the front field. Unfortunately they are the neighbours but possibly next year? We’ve been sampling the delicious beef from the Armagh Dexter’s- definitely tasty.

How're ya horse?

New addition:

Kitty; found in the ditch by the guys who cut the grass around the village and outside our front! Farmer John was approached to see did he want it, how could he refuse? Well Kitty did turn out to be male but hasn’t been renamed really, not to worry I’m sure he doesn’t mind.

Kitty doing his own rotavating

Busy Bees:

And then there were 3. Three busy hives are now in the orchard with the bees apparently happy and doing all the things bees do.. makes for a happy beekeeper too J

Bzz can you spot the bee.

Meanwhile a certain little lady has taken to crawling and standing and pulling everything- makes for fun times. but this time in the workshop on a rainy day in July she is safe and sound.

Why does the rain turn everything on it's side?

TUNE IN NEXT MONTH :)

July 1st

2009-07-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

Happy sunny days!

Busy Bees:

At last the bees have arrived and are busy (we hope). Two nuk’s arrived wrapped in cardboard boxes all the way from Gorey. The boxes sounded like something boiling over inside. Anyway with not too much use of the smoker they were transferred to the actual hives and will be visited by the intrepid bee keeper in 3 days. Meanwhile the hens haven't batted a wing at their new companions in the orchard- pecking order and all that.

Hens:

happy hen Whose egg is it anyway?

The hens are as ever happy. They have found a mystery escape point from the orchard and tend to roam in the evenings or when hunger strikes. Unfortunately they can’t find their way back in again. See encl for another hen mystery-whose egg is it anyway?

Ducks:

Can you believe how big they are? They still love their ‘ponds’ i.e. sand pits but seem to be drinking less; probably just another sign they are fully mature and ready for the oven well no eggs to date so maybe not quite so mature or else Farmer J’s diagnosis of 5 ducks and 3 drakes might be mistaken?

Hey Hay:

Hooray the hay is saved and solved the problem of what to do with the grass. A total of 160 bales (square ones) not bad for 2 acres. It was great to feel part of the farming community too not to mention have an opportunity to drool over farm equipment (farmer J).

Pigs:

Suffice it to say they are getting bigger and maybe lazier. On rainy days they seem to sleep more except for a strange game of tag they seem to play in the evenings. They are now allotted significantly less space and seem to be showing that they can truly root up all right. A recent visit to Dunmore East’s food festival gave some ‘food for thought’ to Farmer J on how to roast a pig.

Veggie Plot:

Weed No weed (can you spot the onions?)

Despite some mystery no shows of carrots, leeks and chives to mention a few we have done some replanting and delighted to begin to eat mange tout, radish, rocket and onion and emergency spuds when we discovered no spuds for dinner. Currently there’s a bit of an unintentional experiment on weed versus no weed. One bed of onions quickly was regained by grass and weeds and weeding was given up on. Despite this, so far they seem to be doing as well as the other onions. The only drawback is finding the onions maybe? Hopefully next year we’ll have the glass house up and running. Right now we have the frame erected but have still to make sides for it. We have a load of polycarbonate waiting in the shed to glaze it. The weather has been a bit poor and that has slowed things down but we will get there.

The veggie patch is coming on!

2009-05-20T23:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Finally the obligatory baby photo

Early April

2009-04-17T08:53:00.001-07:00

It's been another mad couple of weeks. April crept up on us while we were doing other things and suddenly we had allot of planting to get done and very little time. It became clear very quickly that the 4 vegetable beds we had prepared were not going to be adequate (we've used 4 of them just to plant onions), so we needed to up our game a bit and decided to enlist the help of a rotivator. First thing Monday morning I rented the beast and spent the next 4 hours pushing and pulling it round the small paddock at the side of the house. It was like wrestling an epileptic goat and when after lunch the horrible thing spluttered to a halt and refused to restart I confess I was a bit relieved.
We got a replacement rotivator late that afternoon (still don't know what happened to the first one), and this one was much better, I was able in an hour to do what had taken me all morning. That said I was only able to do an hour’s work before calling it a day in a state of exhaustion. I'm pretty sure that was the toughest days work I've ever done.
The next day I did another hour or so but wasn't really up for much and I had managed to make a significant impact on the paddock. We've been planting ever since. The rotivator only really churns the top inch or two of soil so there is still allot of digging to do but it has made the job much easier.

I am delighted to say that our hens are finally laying. We got our first two eggs on the 5th and are now getting a steady four eggs a day. We also had to fence in our hens. Free range is one thing but it was getting to the point where you couldn't step outside the front door without being beset by a bunch of over friendly chickens. Also they were in the vegetable patch and leaving dropping everywhere so it had to be done.

The broilers are coming on, getting nice and big, four more weeks should have them really big. Unfortunately one of them developed a limp and had to be dispatched early. Obviously I was dreading this job but in the end it wasn't so bad. I grabbed him by the legs, grabbed him by the neck, thought of Brian Cowan and wrung his neck (the chicken, not Cowen). Plucking also turned out to be no big deal but doing the gutting, well that's just nasty. Still, it didn't stop me eating him, and very tasty he was too.

Our latest arrivals are nine, long awaited, Aylesbury ducks which are the cutest life form on the planet. I'm not quite sure how easy it will be to pull their neck, but I do love a nice roast duck.

March 28th

2009-03-28T03:51:00.000-07:00

It's been weeks since my last blog so you would that we'd have achieved a huge amount of work given that this is March and the sowing season. Unfortunately it hasn't quite worked out that way. Excuses range from my being sick with a tummy bug for four days to my having a night out in Belfast that required two days recovery time but whatever the reason March has flown by and we find ourselves under pressure horticulturaly speaking.

So what have we been up to? Well to start with the chickens are settling in nicely and are beginning to look less like juveniles and more like proper hens. They are however stubbornly refusing to lay any eggs and this is quite troubling given the amount they are able to eat. I've taken to reading to them from Floyd on France, particularly the recipe for cock au vin but the threat isn't working yet. One of them has taken to roosting in the nesting box, despite my best efforts to block it off. She's a particularly fine looking bird but I can't honestly say her appearance wouldn't be improved by the addition of a knob of butter and a few shallots.

The Newcastle vintage association had one of their tractor runs this month. It was nice to see all the old machines in various states of disrepair or restoration. It has quite put me in mind of getting one (as if I haven't enough to do), I've managed to convince myself that it would really be a useful addition to the farm (no honestly it would).

This past week saw the long awaited return of moonbeam. I'm not sure if the NVA allows vehicles other than tractors in the club (though one member does have a small tank), but if they do we'd better sign up for membership.

There have been a couple of new investments this month. I've gone a bit chicken mad and bought eight broilers to rear for eating. they are growing at an impressive rate but are still a bit small to be let out unsupervised so we have them in one of the stables which seems ideal and gives them loads of room to scratch about. They eat a phenomenal amount though, I hope they are worth it. I also bought two beehives. Unlike the chicks these were not cheap items (cheep cheep ...get it?....oh sorry), but if we manage to get some bees and if we manage to get any reasonable amount of honey they will nearly pay for themselves in the first year. There are a few large if's in there. I've been talking to my local beekeepers association. Under normal circumstances it would be possible to get a nucleus of bees without too much problem but beekeepers are experiencing such heavy losses due to mystery colony collapse that any nuc's they've created they are very much keeping to themselves.

I was chatting to the chap who sold me the beehives about this and he told me some very disturbing stories. Firstly it is illegal to import bees into the republic of Ireland. This is an attempt to maintain the genetic integrity of the native Irish bee and also to prevent diseases being introduced. You can however bring them into Northern Ireland and no-one has explained to the bees that they can't cross the border. In addition to this beekeepers in the republic are having difficulties getting colonies of bees from native stock and when they do get them they have to pay like €200 for them which is incredibly expensive. So what are beekeepers doing? They are importing bees illegally and where are they getting them? Well believe it of not you can get them from Brazil for a mere €12 for a queen and a few workers. Now I know we're not quite comparing like with like here but €12 v €200 guess what's going to happen. I find this very worrying. Brazilian bees will be Africanised (meaning they are vicious little bastards) and they will potently be carrying lots of lovely diseases that our local bees have no immunity to. It's a bit of a disaster. I won't be getting my bees from Brazil or China or Eastern Europe. I'm hoping I'll either get a swarm or that someone at the BKA will be able to help me out but to stark with I'll be trying the half honeydew melon trick. Basically you scoop out the contents of a honeydew melon and leave the empty rind outside the hive. Bee’s love the smell and spontaneously decide to move in. If this sounds like an old wives tale that's because it is. I first saw this technique demonstrated by my mother. Naturally I thought it was ridiculous........until it worked.

Finally this week we did manage to get some planting done, we've now filled two of our four beds with onions and have begun to realise we need to dig over way more land. Digging soil for the first time; especially soil which has been trampled by horses and is full of perennial weeds, is no joke and we are running out of time. We have a kitchen full of chitting potatoes and no-where to put them. I think it’s time to get some mechanical help. An old Massey Ferguson, now that would be the job.

8th March 2009

2009-03-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

A busy week on our wee farm. We planted our orchard, dug our hops bed and took delivery of our first livestock (well in my book chickens are livestock).

I’d like to thank Pat and Pauline for their help with the tree planting; it makes the hard work of digging that much easier when you have someone to help.

Another day was devoted to creating a bed for the hops. This is a bit of an experiment, an expensive one at that but I’m confident that if we can’t actually sell the hops we can certainly use the hops.

This bed took the best part of a day to dig, I know you are all thinking ‘I could’a done that in an hour’ and all I can say is I’m getting better. All day long while I was learning an object lesson in the value of mechanical assistance, the local farming community were traipsing up and down the road in their John Dears and Massey Fergusons. They were taunting me I swear.
Finally on Saturday we took delivery of our chickens. Six Rhode Island Red / leghorn hybrids.

I’m amazed at how good natured and placid they are. If I’d been unceremoniously shoved in a cardboard box and driven across the bumpy roads of South Tipperary I think there would be allot more complaining. Maybe they were in shock but they went into the chicken coop without any bother and no one made a break for freedom. All that remains for us to do now is sit back and wait for the first eggs and hope we haven’t been sold a load of old cock.

Finally I'm delighted to report that our other livestock is thriving....bless