Smallholder Knitters Of The World Unite!

I thought I would show you some of the knitting projects that my other half makes every night.  Picture the scene.  The calves have been fed, we have been fed, the range is lit and we are sat watching 'A Place In The Sun'on Channel 4 and the knitting starts:

Click, click, click."

This is repeated for the next four hours or so.  It's driving me to drink.  Not that I need any excuse mind.  Oh to live near a pub and to escape for a few hours.  The joys of rural isolation what!



Three lovely cardigans.  They are rainbow pink and rainbow blue and peach.  The wife knits them and gives them to any expectant mother she knows.  She's making five at the moment.

Wish I had a night time hobby other than watching the telly, checking and reading blogs and supping cans of Newcastle Brown Ale.
 
What do you do at night?  I mean in the living room or kitchen diner if you are like us.

Sunshine To Flood.

It's been mixed weather on our smallholding here in West Cork.  The last weeks been like an Indian summer.  I mowed the lawns, dug over some of the potato plot and spread half of the compost heap on top of the soil, strimmed, lots of weeding and trimmed the hedges for the fifth time this year.  

The calves have been grazing in the field and we have even started renovating one of the tractors.  The weather makes such a difference when it's nice.  

Yesteday (Friday) was quite a contrast.  We had a biblical like deluge.  Puddles became lakes and streams became rivers.  Tarmac floated down the roads and if it wasn't for living in between two bays (Bantry and Dunmanus) we would have been flooded out.  

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 A four inch deep puddle.  Makes you wonder why we pay our road tax doesn't it?

The Diary Of A Smallholding Blacksmith? A Wheel Tidy For A Van.

Number one son was busy making a wheel tidy for my brother's van the other day.  He made one for somebody who liked the one in the van.  Now he's making another for somebody else.  

The wheel tidy welded and cut and ready to be bolted (fitted) into place over the wheel arch.  No longer will the owner of the van search for the spare wheel or climb under it to unbolt it.

The spare wheel securely in place in it's new home.  

How much would you charge somebody for a product like this?  Perhaps this could be the start of a smallholding enterprise.  Suppose you could make it out of wood.  A lot of industries and businesses started on farms.  

All The Way To County Clare For A Second Hand Wheelbarrow.

"Didn't we have a lovely time the day went to - hmm.. Clare!"

The ancient Chinese invented the wheelbarrow.  I Googled that fact.  So it must be true.   I didn't know we would be coming home with one.  

Monday was a day off from the farm.  So we went over the Cork ("there's whiskey in the jar") and Kerry mountains for some retail therapy in Killarney.  You know normal things like buying kecks (trousers) from Penneys (Matalan), trainers (they call them "runners" here in Ireland) and some hoodies for the two lads.   Which we always disapprove of and say they look like scruffy monks.  

We went in 'Dealz' (Poundland) for Vimto (Northern English cordial), deodorant, crisps, pens for school and wool for new babies.  Anybody want a cardigan knitting?  The wife seems to be making them for everybody in West Cork at the moment (another baby boom?) and the clicking of needles for me to endure whilst watching the television of an evening.  

Then we went to some of the garden centre's looking for me Japanese onions sets.  We were told:

"They will be in another fortnight."  

Back to Kerry in two weeks time, I guess?  So we did journey on to Tarbert and to the Kilmer ferry over the river Shannon.  This cost us 28 Euros return and I had a Mars bar from the tuck shop.  You don't get that on the Queen Mary, do you?  

On reaching land. We drove for a few miles or so and stopped at a second hand dealers who sold me a wheel barrow?  Fifteen Euros an't bad for a new/secondhand wheelbarrow is it?  

Do you remember this song?

More Make Do And Mending On The Smallholding.

Is it it me or is everything you buy these days made of cheap materials?  The other day myself and number one son managed to buckle a trolley jack.  The jack cost 200 Euros and number son wasn't an happy bunny.

Did he throw it on our scrap metal/ treasure recycling pile?  Oh no.  He gets out the gas and cutting torch and cuts out the weakened steel.  Then he got some 12 mill plate steel and cut out two replacement pieces and even reinforced it with additional steel.  Half an hour later, much welding and the jack was back at work under a tractor.  

The jack back at work.  It's a lot stronger and just needs a lick of paint.  A welder and a cutting torch are useful pieces of equipment on a smallholding.  

A Mixed Week On The Smallholding.

It's been a mixed week here on the smallholding here in West Cork.  The weather's been a let down like the summer and a calf died, sadly.  

I think April was spectacular, a few days in June to make square bales of hay and a odd few days here and there.  Make up the summer.  

Here's a few pictures of what we and Domino have been up to the last week.

 Some times the sun shines (for 5 minutes) and Domino makes the dry stone wall into a sun lounger.

 The plants nursery.  We have split perennials and rooted over two hundred cuttings.  I will sell them and make some more next year.  Dogwoods are dead easy to root.  Just get your secateurs and make yourself twenty, fifty or an hundred cuttings.  Take the leaves off them and plant the plant like pencils in the ground.  Come next spring they will be sprouting leaves and they will be ready for potting on.

Lots and lots of onions harvested and drying in the poly-tunnel.  "Any body want some onion soup?"  We sometimes have a mad fit and peel a load of them then chop them up ("where's the gas mask?") and place them in plastic freezer bags or a carrier bag and throw them in the freezer.  

 Intensive car unit in the poly-tunnel.  These are fragile perennials and root cuttings.  We have also got some some Rugosa rose hips seeds sprouting in trays.  I read that you are supposed to freeze the seeds to make them germinate.  Ours are sprouting already.  

Not Blogged For A Week.

I have felt a bit guilty of not posting much at the moment.  So what have we been up to on our smallholding?  We bought some more calves, cleaned some of our copper and brass collection.  We decided to lacquer the one's that are permanently on show to us.  A brass goat and a horse a miners lamp once belonged to my late dad.  So I have them in the kitchen/diner next to the television.  

We also cancelled Sky and I am regretting it very much.  There is no proper sport on terrestrial television.  I had to listen to the BBC Test coverage on You Tube and it's Football league highlights on Channel 5 on a Saturday night.   
We only really watch the Beeb channels, Channel 4 and 5 these days.  Except for Sky Sports and some of their other channels. So with an heavy heart we cancelled our 120 Euros a month subscription/mortgage.  It's a lot of money but when you don't live near a pub or have a social life (isolated life on a smallholding) it was worth paying it. Was it? Now I have just found out ITV aren't showing the Champions League this season.  Bloody hell!  Me thinks I might have to listen to my beloved Manchester United on the old web.   

The miners lamp came from the miners lamp company in Eccles (where the cakes come from) and I think it must of been a retirement gift because it doesn't show any scratches or dents.  It's sad (in a way) that the only reminder of our mining heritage is mine memorabilia and brass bands.  

Watched a BBC 3 or 4 documentary about Sellafield the other night.  Those eery lakes full of discarded isotopes, fuel rods ands nuclear waste left me thinking what a crime it was for the Tories to close down the mines.  There are said to be 200 years of coal still under the ground in the UK.  

Time for a song.  The Unthanks (the band I keep playing at the moment and saw live the other week) singing the: The Testimony Of Patience.  It's about a lady miner.  

The music reminds me of Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles.  Do you agree?  Who was your favourite Beatle?  It's John Lennon for me.  What a guy!  Till next time folks!