A Rural Smallholders Wish List.

I have been thinking ("oh no!") today.  What would I like to improve my quality of life living in rural Ireland next to the sea.  Here's my wish list on a wild and windy January day:

1.  A Pub.  One of those friendly old fashioned pubs that serve 'real ales'.  Probably need to go to England for that!  A pub that served Irish alcohol would suffice.

2.  Public Transport.  Oh to jump on a bus and travel around.  Even if I met a nutter on the bus who said to me: "Eek as anybody seen my camel?"

3.  A shop and a post office.

4.  A community centre with lots of different groups who offer: gardening, smallholding, tractor mechanics, home brewing, creative writing, progressive rock music studies, English Literature...classes.

I have just been asked why women aren't catered for in the above classes?  They are if they like the above.

OK then: knitting, sewing, baking, painting, wood chip wallpaper hanging five pounds per roll...?  Yes I am joking!

5.  Local jobs.  Just part time jobs that you don't have to travel miles too.

6.  A new back.

7. Street Lights.

8.  Pavements.

9.  No Potholes.

10.  Local Football Club. That sold meat and potato pies and somewhere you can call the referee a "nincompoop".

What are we doing living in the countryside?

What would you add to my list?

Cleaning Out The Barn And More Work For The Cider Mechanic.

I have been cleaning out the barn today.  We still had 7 big round bales of straw left over from last year.  I verbally bartered and sold the bales.  We no longer have loose bedding and the cattle now live on top of the slatted tank.  I saved one round bale of straw for beds for future pigs.  

There was quite a lot of spoilt straw so that got barrowed away to use for future compost projects.  I noticed the gnawed boards on the ground and got number one son to give it a run of the tractor spike, in case any ratty friends had decided to take up residence in the back of the barn.  

Then I did push my trusty (got that from John at Going Gently) wheelbarrow, and proceeded to shovel (long handle Celtic shovel - English one had a day off) and use the four prong pike to pick up the waste straw.  Fido the terrier was nowhere to be seen.  Typical mizzle day in Ireland.  Even your beloved tripe hound decides to have a lie down on top of the tiles, in the kitchen, over the warm pipes from the range.  

The barn is now swept clean and free of straw detritus and old ratty and his wife have hopefully left for foreign shores.  Never, (we will fight them on the beaches) will any big bales of straw or little bales ever live in the barn again.  

My back is killing me and the tractor clutch in the Ford 3000 looks like it is broken. It will cost about 150 Euro for a new one   At least number one son will fix it for a few tinnies of cider!   Anybody know how to make some cider with supermarket apples and any tips how to make it?  Ta very much!

Cheap Smallholding Soup And Fruit Soda Bread.

We have been making some fruit soda bread and some leek, onion and parsnip soup this morning.  The soda bread MIX only cost 48 cents and the vegetable soup cost nothing, apart from the fuel in the range and the leccy to liquidize the soup.  Not bad hey?

I think we liquidized the soup too much.  But it filled an hole and I bet it's full of vitamins.  Do you make soup?  What's your favourite?  

Wall Wrecking And A New Fence And Hedge On The Smallholding, Pigs Tucking In And The Polytunnel Gets A Tidy Up.

We pulled down the garden wall on Monday afternoon.  It always stuck out and farm vehicles and lorries always had difficulty getting round it.  The concrete blocks will be broken up and used for hardcore or drain materials.  We replaced the cavity block wall with sheep wire and fence posts and a griselinia hedge.  I grew the hedging from cuttings and we already had the fencing materials.  So it didn't cost anything except for me having a terrible back pain.  Still have it, but we all have our war wounds don't we?  The lawn could do with a mow, but it's never dry enough to cut it.  Thinking of buying a couple of lambs to help with the gardening this year.  Plus it's more meat for us to eat.  There aren't many lawnmowers that you can eat are there?

 The pigs are very nearly ready to go to see the butcher.  They have grown really quick and we will get some weaners in a few week.  I don't know if we keep all the meat but we can always barter some of it.  I don't really like selling farm produce but perhaps we might sell or give some of it?  My grandparents use to (seemed) to eat bacon, cabbage and potatoes for every meal.  We had it for tea last night and it was a case of: "It's not what your body wants, it what it needs."  After a good days working outside, it's the perfect meal.

 We weeded and cleared out any old vegetables and I filled the wooden raised bed with well rotten fym for some early spuds.  Must get my seed potatoes.  Last year we bought them from Aldi because they were cheap.  We also buy our seeds from the two German supermarkets.  Seventy nine cents is very reasonable for a packet of vegetable seeds.  Must buy some big bags of compost to top up trays and for sowing seeds in.

Garlic growing in the metal tractor rims.  Home brew buckets used for carrying fym, homemade compost and weeds.  We gave up on trying to brew our own.  You can buy plenty of Newcy Brown Ale in Bantry these days along with Theakstons Old Peculier sometimes.  Gosh I love English ales, especially from the midlands and up north.

 One of the baths for growing veg in.  It needs topping up with compost and well rotten fym.  We use to keep coal in it when it was in the bathroom.  I am joking.

The last of the Mohicans/ parsnips even.  My lettuces are growing well in plant pots full of bought compost.  They are Lavendar cuttings, growing in the little pots.

Mucking Out And The Smallholding Inventor Makes More Projects.

 Who invented the myth that pigs don't pee and poo in their bed?  That's 4 wheelbarrows of strawy dung for the potato plot.  I wouldn't mind we made a slatted tank in their other room for them.

 Some of our mechanical pals.  The mini digger is parked next to the Ford 4600.  Number 1 son is making her a cab at the moment.  Besides her is the Fordson Dexta.  She was lovingly restored last year.  She's the same age as me.  For those of you are good at reckoning up.  She was made in 1963.  I wonder if she was made in Dagenham or Cork?

In front of the tractors are the home made log splitters.  The red one was his (number one son) first proto type.  The second one is designed for a compact tractor.  It's got wheels on it so that you can tow it to the tree.  Instead of taking the tree to the wood pile.  If you want one making leave a comment and we will give you my email.  Obviously we can't post it.  But we can find out how much a courier would charge.  You can always have an holiday here in West Cork and pick one up on the way home?

This is his latest project.  A tower ladder.  It's taller than the garage and guess who is typing this covered in red oxide paint ?  The wheel works to move the ladders.  It's got a brake attached to it!

 "Wish I was clever and could make Fings."

Day Out For The Cattle And A Look In The Polytunnel.

 We let the cattle have a day out in one of the fields today.  It was the usual 'cows disco'.  Jumping about and tails in the hair.  They really believed it was turn out time.  I used the opportunity of the empty stall and  cleaned the cows slats and collected two wheel barrows of dung for next years vegetables.

I noticed a puddle in ther field tonight.  Hope it's not a broken field drain.  Very soon the rushes will appear and show us where it is damp.  To quote Stan Laurel:

"We have had a lot of weather lately."

A picture of my Ford 3000 complete with fertilizer spreader.  She's parked next to the veg plot on the boreen that the cattle go up and down to the back field.  I used concrete pig slats for my veg plot paths.  Apart from the grass growing through them., they are very good and great when it's wet and for pushing a wheelbarrow along.

 The Nasturtiums to like the soil filled bath in the poly-tunnel.  I haven't got the heart to dump them yet.

Calendula.s flowering and general untidiness.  I think the wind upturned the watering can.  We left both doors open in the tunnel for the winter and so far it's survived the gales,  We made internal wind break doors to keep the rodents and birds out.

Signs of Spring.  Garlic shooting and sprouting in the compost filled tractor wheel ribs and wheel hubs.

Outside in the veg plot.  My winter onions ("Japs") are growing well despite the gales.

Snow In The Countryside Next To The Sea.

 We woke up to these snowy scenes from our kitchen window overlooking Bantry Bay in West Cork.  There is a sprinkling of snow on Sugar loaf and Hungry Hill and the rest of the Caha mountain range over on the Beara Peninsula.

 I think the overhead power lines and telegraph poles are a blot on the rural landscape.  There is supposed to be a big storm tomorrow night.  No doubt we will have our usual power cuts due to the wires overhead being blown down.   Do you think they should be buried underground?

Fido the terrier doesn't worry about the weather outside.  She would much rather roll on her back and have her photograph taken.   That's our Stanley range in the background.  It runs off solid fuel: wood and turf and smokeless fuel and coal.  It runs 7 radiators and we cook our meals on it.  What I like best is we don't have fuel bills and there is always constant heat because the radiators never go off, unlike oil and gas central heating.  If we fill it up with fuel before we go to bed, it's still hot in the morning and the house is warm and it's easy to revive with some dry kindling.