Look How The Chicks Grew!

 Remember the newly hatched chicks on top of the vivarium next to the snakes and we made a run and they have become big and two legged lawnmowers.  They are also feeding the grass in the process.

We don't know whether to keep the hens for eggs or even to fatten them a bit more and eat them.

We are also thinking of getting some broiler hen and some Turkey chicks.  I don't fancy killing them but I suppose I could pay the butcher to do it for us  in the same way we send other livestock to them?

Anyone else thinking of fattening some birds?  Could you kill them and eat them?  

The Golden Retriever And The New Kitten.

 

No not a new new name for a posh pub like The Slug and Lettuce.   Or even  the Bird and Baby (Eagle and Child). I am reading a book about The Inklings at the moment.  

Here's a new arrival to the smallholding  this week.  She's adorable and Rosie the Golden Retriever thinks it's her baby.  

That mean we will now have 3 cats and a kitten.  We will pay to get her injected and neutered like the other ones and that should keep any rodents at bay.  

When my dad was a lad growing up in rural Ireland would trap rats and take their tails to the council office and the officials would count their tales  or even tails😊 and give him a couple of bob  for his rat killing work

Ours get tins of cat food, milk and delicious treats.  

Aren't they beautiful?

Yet Another New Potatoes Treasure Post.

 We dug all the Charlotte new potatoes yesterday from the second hand potato growing  bags that we bought at a carboot a few months ago.  Once again it shows that you do not need to have a garden or veg plot to grow vegetables.

The Hellmann's Mayonnaise bucket is three quarters full.   

The colander runneth over after the potatoes were given a bath and a scrub.  

I read today that you can freeze new potatoes if you get a glut.  Have you ever frozen new spudatoes?  

Charlotte is a delicious new potato and it's good to have your own homegrown and chemical free new potatoes.

Take A Look At My Plant Plugs Now.

 Do you remember when I posted a blog about me purchasing 20 plant plugs from B &Q in Cork for 4 Euros? 

I potted them up individually in very good potting compost.  I have finally realised that cheap compost contains little or nutrients.  So I bought two and get one free bags of Shamrock potting compost.

They have lived in my polytunnel and I have potted them on twice and regularly watered them.

It's certainly not 'flaming' June down here on the Irish Riviera and I think we could all soon have webbed feet.  

Any road today I have decided to let my cheap plants enjoy the showers and experience outside life in the countryside next to the sea:

They turned out well in fairness and if I over winter them in 'Portugal' my beloved polytunnel they will live for years.  I could even make some cuttings in September. Hmmmmm 🤔.

Remember The Potatoes We Planted In Growing Bags In The Polytunnel?

Here is the contents of the first bag:

We are going to eat them with a piece of roast Aberdeen Angus and carrots.  Washed down with a big jug of homemade Sangria.

Have you harvested your new potatoes yet?  

I have neglected (not really had time) my veg plot this year.  Next year will hopefully be different.  At least we have grown some veg.

More Carboot Finds.

A very old Lustre 'Present From Bantry 'made by Bavaria.  Twelve Euros.

A baking mixing bowl. We bought our last one in Wilkinson's in England but it broke many moons ago. Cost 5 Euros.
 
Two very old porcelain figurines.  8 Euros.

A bronze squirrel doorstop. Three Euros.

It was a good day and  I bought a George Best Book for a Euro and a Rock music book about Cork musicians  and the wife bought her self a woollen poncho for when we go out at night when we visit the Algarve again later this year.  

A Nice Thing For Not A Lot Of Money.

We went carbooting again this very morning at a carboot sale in Rathcormac.  It felt very cool and probably the coldest June I can ever remember.

 I picked up this oil painting and asked the lady seller how much was the painting?  She said something and I wasn't sure what she said and a lady next to me said: "I think she said twenty Euros". 

I asked the seller again and she said:"two Euros.  It's worth that for the frame". 

I didn't haggle and handed over a two Euros coin.  

The oil paint is signed G Truman I think?

It reminds me of the corrugated roof cottages you sometimes see in the Irish countryside.  Please click on the picture to enlarge it.

More carboot treasure finds another day.

A Fight Between The Pigs And The Compost Heap Who Gets The Hedge Clippings.

 I have been cutting my hedges today.  They are Griselina mixed with Fuchsia.  Both are not poisonous so I collected and raked the 5 big  tubs of hedge clipping and fed them to our pigs.

They devoured them and it gives them a mixed diet to vi with their pig 'finisher' ration.  They also get vegetables and a neighbour gives us their vegetable peelings.

Sometimes I get out my petrol strimmer and strim the long grass in one of the fields and feed it to the pigs.

My compost heap is not looking very bulky since we bought the pigs.

I will show you a picture of them in another post.

Carboot Planting Troughs Bargains.

I purchased these two plastic terracotta looking plant troughs from a carboot sale on Sunday morning.  The man seller said someone was taking them to go into the landfill site and he rescued them.  I paind the kings ransom of one Euros each for them.

Yesterday morning.  I was outside in the polytunnel planting them up with Cape Daisies or Osteospermums which I have grown from cuttings with a little help from Mother Nature.

Apart from the compost and my time the plants cost me nothing:

They will fill out and look rather attractive in a week or two.

I have said it before.  You don't need to even have a garden to grow plants or vegetables.
 

Promise not to mention carboot sales until at least Sunday.😊

A Good Home Wanted For Four Whisky Drinking Highland Terriers.

 Just for a change we had a run out to another car boot sale on Sunday morning.  

It was ten o'clock when we got/arrived there and I suspected most of the bargains would have been sold.

I also spotted an old "Black and White" pub sign for sale.  It's in an old frame and I imagine it's 1950's ish?  

I loved it and said to the lady I would have a walk and think about it.   

I was starting to slightly panic and much to my relief it was still there then when I got back to the lady.   I bought the picture.  Perhaps I was a Jackdaw in another life? If I like it I buy it! 

Did you get any carboot treasure at the weekend?

They will go next to my two Black and White dogs which I featured on here in August 2017:

Browsing And Rooting Round The Charity Shops Again.

Myself and the one who must be obeyed (remember Minder?)  decided to jump into the Audi and have a run out to some towns where there are a few charity shops.  Well it's not until Sunday when we can go car booting yet again.

Looking for bargains is like my old Coarse fishing days when me myself and I (Joan armour plating, I mean Armatrading song) would spend four hours waiting to catch something and I would look down and there would be a big mangy rat eating bran or sawdust out of my maggot container and old ratty would look up and say: "Have you caught out Dave?"  Most Rattus Norvegicus creatures have north country accents dear readers. I would pick up my basket, bait box and fishing rod and reel in the line and run like I was starring in Chariots of Fire.  Many a time I never caught anything.

I digress.  We didn't  find much at our first port of call a part from some leather flip flops for my other half.  I couldn't even find any literature or summat to read.

At our next charity shop we bought some CDS (six for a Euro) and wifey spotted a brand new pair of Trespass hiking boots.  They were size 12 and in the "half price" sale for ten Euros.

I slipped one on my foot and I was like Cinderella: "you shall go to the hiking ball".

The not very friendly woman behind the counter 

said: "You can't return them for a refund".

Why would I want to?

They are in the words of Pop Larkin:

" Just perfick!"

Those boots were made for walking".

I will tell you about another great carbootsale find another day folks.

"The Loneliest Boy In The World-he has only seagulls as playmates".

 I  have read another book about the Great Blasket Island in Kerry off Ireland's southwest coast.  

The book captures the unique childhood of the last child growing up on the island.  His nearest person in age was his uncle who was thirty years older than Gearoid Cheaist O Cathain.

He grew up on a island with no doctor, priest, school or electricity.  

His memories describe a rural way of life that is now only memory.  He was loved and seemed to have a very happy childhood.

One day a newspaper reporter visited the island and took his photo and articles were printed in several national newspapers with the headline title of this blog post.

His family became famous through out the world and the post boy was often seen walking up their path with a bag full of presents and letters.  His mother had parcels of clothes sent her and Gearoid opened presents of toys.  

People from America offered his father a new life and a job but he declined the generous offer.  One American couple offered to adopt him and accommodate him and his parents and one day he would inherit their home place.

The book is set around the same time my father was growing up here in West Cork.  Well about twenty years later to be precise. It must have been a similar rural/coastal  lifestyle living in the countryside next to the sea, digging turf, shearing sheep, catching lobsters, going to the nearest town for the messages, making hay during long glorious summers and enduring the mizzle and gales of an Irish winter.

The family and the remaining islanders emigrate or move to Dunquin on the mainland.  

The book describes the author's education and his life there and visits back to the ruins on the island:

"These gentle souls no longer teach or toil,

Their ruins all that remain,

The barren slopes no more welcome their deeds,

All are gone just like the evening breeze."

Anon.

The book is a fascinating read into a way of life that's gone forever.  At least the memories live on in the Blasket Isles books and stories.

More John Skelton Prints Of The Kerry Seascape.

I said yesterday that we bought two more of his prints set in the Kerry seascape on Monday.  JayCee who lives in the Isle of Man and who writes Diary of a Nobody blog.  Asked me in a comment to see the new prints. You can see the other ones by going into my blog search and typing John Skelton prints.

Here goes JayCee:

Two more prints.  We already have the bottom print but that can go in the other house. We paid 4 Euros each for them.

The first print entitled 'Landfall'  which we purchased in Cahersiveen on the Ring of Kerry at a carboot sale in 2020.  We paid 5 Euros for it.

I was on You Tube  last night and found this video of his son's art.  Talk about a chip off the old block:

Another Oriental Carboot Find.

Regular readers to this little blog will know I am a bit of a Womble and I have collected several Oriental items over the last few years.  Plates, pictures, statues and this week we found another picture:

The lady booter said it was painted on silk and she wanted 5 Euros for the picture.

I didn't haggle.  I also bought two more John Skelton Kerry fishing scenes to go with my collection of his prints.  

I was like a pack horse carrying our new found car boot treasure the long way through the multitudes and back to our ever patient waiting car.

It was well worth the trip.

Book Finds And Talking About Kansas And Shadowlands At The Carboot Sale.

We went to an enormous carboot sale in Blarney on Bank Holiday Monday.  The world and the wife was present or so it seemed.

So what did you buy Dave? I bought: a metal garden roller that you fill with sand or water, some Rock CDS, bottle openers, a shovel for a friend, a tent (for the festivals), a watch, a Japanese picture which I think is made of silk and three books:

A book by Malcolm Muggeridge.  I once saw the great man speak at Manchester Free Trade Hall. I read the book in half an hour and it's about how he had moved to Russia to sample Communism and he didn't like it and he reported the famine in the Ukraine and he visited Galilee and the Holy Land and his thoughts in growing old, turning to God and his thoughts on death and the after life.  Rachel mentioned Malcolm Muggeridge only last week on her blog,

A Biography of CS Lewis.

I bought 3 books from an American man.  We talked about the band Kansas and their Christian influence on songs like Dust In The Wind and Carry On You Wayward  Son.  We also talked about CS Lewis and the film Shadowlands and how he had visited Hay on Wye and I said we had visited Symonds Yat and we both said we found the film cathartic and I have watched it 23 times and I quoted the teacher saying " We read to know we are not alone" and how amazing Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins were in the film.

He offered me a free bible and I paid 3 Euros for 3 books.

It was a very enjoyable morning in Blarney and a great conversation.

A Signmaker Who Had A Drink Too Many Or Perhaps They Aren't Good At Spelling?

 

Do you think they allow cats?

When was the last time you took some beer or whisky to a carboot sale?

Every one makes miss takes 😊 or even mistakes.

Well it made us laugh rather like when we looked at a sign in a Algarve cafe advertising beaked beanz.

I may tell you about our car boot bargains soon!

Another Ireland On A Island.

 Remember in 2020 when we visited Dunquin and Peig Sayers Grave?

I have been wanting to visit the Great Blasket Isles for a while and I have started reading books about the people who lived there up until the nineteen fifties.

I found this book for free on Kindle last week:

It's incredible how many verbal and written stories that have being written by former Islands residents and residents of these islands.

It's the pragmatic stoicism which resonates to me.  I live on the Atlantic seaboard and one thing I do not  like is Gale Season.

The islanders survived many storms, famine, a delining fish industry and the unemployment that goes with it.  

They would row to the mainland to go to church and many a time the island would be cut off from supplies for days and weeks.

There are stories of women crashing boulders down on to bailiffs and  believing that God often sent shipwrecks in order for them to survive. Cargoes of wheat kept them alive.

During WW1 a British Naval Frigate was spotted landing on the island and women folk hid the young men so they wouldn't be enlisted for conscription.  It transpired later that they had only landed to get a supply of clean water.

It is my intention this summer to visit the Blaskets Islands.   I am  going to read some more books because I find these remarkable people fascinating.

Could you live on an island and  survive by what ever you could catch to eat and farm and grow whatever crops you could? 

Remarkable people.

Pictures Of Flowers From Our Garden In The Countryside Next To The Sea.

 The flowers are putting on their summer frocks and enticing the bees to pollinate them.  They don't dance around their handbags they just sway in the breeze.  Not saying that flowers like to show off.

It's supposed to be showery from tomorrow and all next week.  Typical bank holiday weather.    So much for flaming June.

A Chicken Run Made For Next To Nowt!

 Sol at Be Sol Be left a comment the other week  saying she would like to see our new chicken run when it is made.  

Remember when we found those rolls of green mesh at the recycling centre and they said we could take them for free from the skips?

Number one and number 2 sons set to work on making the new chicken run yesterday.  It only took about an hour for them to complete the task.  It's fifteen feet long and very heavy and hopefully fox proof and 'Little Miss proof.

Here's some pics:

The girls try out their new ark.  See Little Miss spying on them?

Two legged lawnmowers.

That's the ark and I even managed to take a shadow of yours truly.

A couple of half rolls of square metal mesh, some pieces of plywood for the sides and hen house, a couple of brass hinges and screws for the door and some old decking planks to hold down the wire and some netting staples. 

Yet another rural solution and tight wad repurposing of old materials. Best of all it cost nowt or nuffink!