A Rusty Old Bike Frame On The Sheeps Head Way?

I went for a walk again yesterday.  Its been two or three weeks since I damaged my heel.    I noticed a rusty old bike frame in the middle of a bog.  Perhaps it once belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh?  Well he did once live in Youghal.  That's it: he discovered potatoes and I discovered (found) his bike frame!

The rusty old bike frame in the bog.  I risked limb and life to take this photograph.

The ever changing scenery and flora on the Sheeps Head Peninsula.  Walking in the footsteps of my ancestors and many, many sheep.

Seeing that its Saint Patrick's Day.  Here's a song by Gary Moore.  He was once a member of Thin Lizzy, my favourite Irish band.  I once saw Thin Lizzy in Manchester in 1981 and the late and great Gary Moore at the Garden Party in Milton Keynes in June 1986.  When nineteen of us piled into the back of a Ford Luton van and spent a weekend watching great rock bands and drinking lots of dirty beer.  Its all in my yet to be published book!  Might have some Guinness and Irish coffees tonight!

Homemade Log Rack.

Number one son made this log rack the other week.  Its very strong and I put it in front of our Stanley range for your eyes perusal.  Obviously its not very sensible or practical to leave it in front of the oven door.  I think it looks rather good when its laden with logs.  A practical place where they can sleep like a log.  

There Are Even Rushes In Our Garden.

A photograph of part of our very weedy garden (at the moment) outside the kitchen.  The soft rush seed no doubt came  from the field behind the Fuchsia hedge and Phormium.  no doubt the birds and wind and rain brought the seed.  

A plastic sheep peering through the weeds.  Behind it there is my drainage rods.  I keep these handy for unblocking any blockages in the septic tank.  I installed an 'Armstrong' plastic manhole cover to make the rodding possible.  

In front of the rushes is a log that I placed in the range and it was too big and the lid wouldn't go back on so I dumped it on the garden.  The terrier is a garden ornament to remind us of our terriers.  

We had a terrible wet and windy night last night and its still too wet and cold to start weeding the buttercups, Montbretia and RUSHES!  You wouldn't believe that under half of the garden is Mypex landscape fabric covered in gravel.  It's hard to keep the weeds down when its cold and wet and you're surrounded by fields .  

I don't like using weedkillers and I always give my plants a good dollop nay barrow of well rotted cow manure.  Cow manure is a cold manure and the weed seeds don't get too hot and die like they do in horse manure.  

They are forecasting snow for St Patrick's Day.  Hope we don't get it.  Although I prefer it to the rain.

Do you use weedkillers or do you hand weed like me?  I keep saying I will buy a weed torch?  Anybody recommend a good one?  Are they any good?

Ruddy Rushes.

I have been cutting rushes down with my petrol strimmer today.    Its good for the field but not for my back.  Last year was the wettest year in Ireland since records began.  Rushes love the wet and acidic Irish soil.  Amazingly their seed is said to be able to live in the soil for up to sixty years.

Weeds that grow in your field or garden are said to be an indicator of what the ground is like.  I think the land needs liming and possibly a few new land drains.  It doesn't help living on a very often windy peninsula.  I have topped them in the past but my tractor is currently being renovated and its too wet to think of putting machinery on the fields.  

I recently  talked to a Dairy farmer who sprays his rushes every year.  He told me that he never gets rid of them, 
its just a way of controlling them.  I think rushes aren't keen on lots of granulated fertilizer either.  

When I have been to Spain and Portugal I have never seen a single rush.  My dad used to plait rushes and make bull whips out of them.  I have also heard of them being used for rush lights and mats.  

How do you control rushes?  I have thought of buying a gas flame gun for pernicious weeds and rushes.  The idea is to not let them seed.  Its difficult though if neighbouring farmers don't control their rushes and they love the rain.  

Some people spray them with MPCA and with Roundup.  Do you think there should be organic weedkillers or perhaps you think all weedkillers should be banned?  One good thing about the EEC is the banning of so many harmful weedkillers and pesticides..

Your thoughts please?

Writing Books And One Of My Characters: Harry Napalm!!

I have wrote an amusing book of my anecdotes yet to be published and I am still waiting (twelve months) for a reply/rejection.  It will be the fourth one for this particular book.  What do you do with books that will never get published?  Should you turn each anecdote into a blog post or should you try again?  Any way here's one of the characters I met when I use to rent an allotment in dear old Blighty!

Harry Napalm or Harry Weedkiller wasn't his real name.  Like most nicknames given to people.  The person in question, doesn't know they are called it!  

Harry or Harry for short.  Was a man aged about sixty.  He use to let the grass and weeds grow amongst his vegetables for six months of the year.  Then come the merry month of April?  Harry would apply weedkiller ("NAPALM") with a knapsack sprayer on his back, to his allotment jungle.  

Harry, his real name was Harry I think.  Would crank up his Howard Rotavator (like the one on the Good Life) and turn his brown frazzled vegetables into the ground.  The soil would be lovely and friable and he would sow his vegetables and plant his spudatoes.  Then he would apply bags of granulated fertilizer like a Dervish and sit on his allotment deckchair supping cans of lager for the rest of the summer.  Whilst I toiled and sweated and weeded...

Result:  His vegetables were enormous and no doubt tasted like crap!  

Singing A Song By One Of The Famous Four.

Who is your favourite Beatle?  No not the lad (Beetle) who lives in your garden and eats the aphids in summer.  I am talking about the most famous group in the world: The Beatles.  Working class lads from Liverpool (and of Irish descent) who rocked the world.  

My favourite Beatle is John Lennon.  He even bought an island off Galway in the nineteen sixties for one thousand and seven hundred Pounds.  Anyway I am going to see a new singer soon, who I recently discovered called Father John Misty.  Hes very good and here he is covering a famous John Lennon song.  I don't think he likes Star Wars!  listen to the words!

Do you believe in God? Do you like this version of the John Lennon song?

Giving The Frozen Water Pipes The Hairdryer Treatment.

I woke up this morning.  Attempted to fill the kettle (citeal) with Adam's Ale or Corporation Pop and nothing happened.   Old Jack Frost had been painting his frost on the water pipe from the well to the houses.


So we couldn't brew up or light the range because the pump would start banging and we couldn't or shouldn't flush the toilet.  Oh the joys of rural dwelling.

The wife being a chappess duly opened some bottles of Lidl water and made us a cafeteir of ground coffee.  Why didn't I think of that?

Then she went outside with an extension cable and her Hairdryer and duly gave it the Sir Alex hairdryer halftime talk to the water pipes.

About at least that much of time and a bit more.  I turned on the cold water tap/faucet thingymajig and out spurts some rusty h20.  It was like that Iron Bru advert:. Made from iron girders!  Then the water ran clear and we lit the stove!

Aren't women clever?