Malachy the big Man.

Malachy is a hill sheep farmer. Sheep farming is not a job for the faint hearted, farming on the Wicklow Mountains takes stamina, this time of year especially, and it’s a constant fight against the cold changeable weather. He is a big bear of a man, with a mop of curly hair and a full face beard to match. Malachy is certainly built for the job, he is as tall as he is broad, with hands the size of shovels, he has no problem carrying a sheep over each shoulder. It’s usual to hear Malachys hearty laugh or his deep booming voice before you see him. His personality is as big as himself and he is always good humoured. He walks miles every day looking after sheep and most of the time it’s just him, his dog and the sheep. The lambing season is just starting now so it’s a 24hr job for the next few weeks.

Malachy called to us a couple of days ago. There has been a lot of snow and he usually gets a load of straw from us at this time of year, so he can start lambing in the shed. When he was loaded up, as usual he came into the kitchen for a bowl of stew. My kitchen is very warm and everyone leaves their boots and jackets in the porch. Malachy settled in at the kitchen table with my husband. I was standing at the cooker with my back to Malachy when suddenly there was a high pitched scream, it sounded like a woman screaming in terror. I looked around to see Malachy screaming, waving his arms about and standing on one foot doing a pirouette like a very tall, overweight, hairy ballerina. On the end of his swinging foot was our little cat (we call her little puss). She was firmly attached to his toe by her sharp teeth and claws. I grabbed his swinging foot and pulled her off it. I could see the relief in Malachys face straight away, I couldn’t look at him, I was trying not to laugh, I have to say much to my shame now, when I brought the cat outside I had a good giggle. The sight of Malachy screaming and spinning around on one leg was very funny, but when I went back to the kitchen he had his sock off and his foot was bleeding. The cat had bitten into the middle of a very painful chilblain on his toe. My husband was busy administering first aid bandaging the toe. Malachy was very good humoured as usual and was laughing it off.
What happened was, when he sat down at the table little puss was asleep in her usual place on the chair opposite his. Malachy started to wiggle his toes because of the chilblains, apparently when they get warm they get very itchy and sore. Little puss loves wiggly toes, they are her favourite play things, and his toes being so big, wiggly and in front of her was just too much to resist. She launched herself wholeheartedly onto his foot and bit into the chilblain immediately. He swinging her around only made her bite harder and dig her claws in deeper. Malachys foot thankfully was o.k., he is back walking the hills again. I think he will probably leave his boots on in our house from now on.  As for little puss as you can see in the photo she still enjoys toes.

Little puss

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Hey horse why the long face?

Sad Jerry

When I meet a friend looking a bit down in the mouth, I would say to them, “hey horse, why the long face?” and it would usually get a smile or a laugh and you would have a chat about what was troubling them.  During the Christmas break  I would think of that expression every time I  looked at Jerry the pony.  Obviously he has a long face because he is a pony, but he just wasn’t himself.  He had a cold before Christmas and made a full recovery so he wasn’t sick he just seemed to be missing his spark.  My friend was away on holidays over Christmas and her ponies were staying with us while she was gone, usually Jerry gets on well with them, they are two geldings, this time he didn’t go near them at all, every time I went out to the field he would be standing on his own looking kind of lonesome.

Dinny the donkey was away in Santa’s village all over Christmas.   My guess about Jerry’s mood was that he was missing Dinny.  Dinny didn’t come home until the week after Christmas.  Jerry was in the field over by the fence when we brought Dinny home.  We let Dinny out into the opposite end of the field from Jerry.  Dinny started to trot towards him, when Jerry saw him coming he jumped backwards like someone had just said boo.  Jerry started to shake, instead of running towards Dinny, Jerry ran around in a circle like he didn’t know what to do with himself.  Then, without warning he jumped over the fence clean out of the field.  Dinny was still heading towards Jerry and Jerry was now on the other side of the fence.   Poor Jerry ran up and down outside the fence trying to get back in, I think he actually couldn’t figure out how he got out of the field in the first place.   He literally jumped for joy when he saw Dinny and his jump landed him out of the field.

I wouldn’t have believed it only I saw it myself.  I think we were kind of in shock because myself and the kids just stood there gaping at Jerry.  Em said “ did he really jump it”? not believing her eyes,   Tom was just sorry he didn’t have a camera.   Jerry is only a small pony, you can see the fence in the photo above, over the years we have had big horses in that field and none of them have ever jumped out.  We always knew Jerry was a super jumper but even I didn’t think he could clear that fence.  Tom caught Jerry and let him back into the field.  Jerry was finally reunited with Dinny.  They rubbed noses, kicked their heels up and had a bit of a run around, they were clearly happy to be back together.  Jerry never fails to surprise us; he is now back to himself and no more long face, just plenty of attitude.

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Dodge Dung

The Christmas holidays are nearly over and things are getting back to normal. It turned out to be a very busy time for us. We had a big family get together with lots of cousins, aunts and uncles and people returning from every corner of the globe. Two of my brothers live overseas and they were home with their kids which are all close in age to mine. Two of the cousins girls, live in New York City are age 10 and 12.  Two boys living in Japan aged 12 and 14.  None of the kids have experience around animals or farms so there is a huge novelty in coming to visit us.   My kids couldn’t wait to see them and were really looking forward to the company.
The weather has been very mild, with temperatures above normal for this time of year, which was great for the kids for being outside. Coming from cities the cousins are used to being supervised all the times, they love to just go out the door here and not come in again until mealtimes. It’s a freedom that we take for granted.  My kids are used to going around on the back of trailers, horseboxes, tractors etc. and are always surprised when other kids are so delighted to get a go on a farm machine. This is a quiet time of year on the farm for us because we are tillage farmers we are just ploughing, delivering hay and straw and general maintenance, my husband therefore has time to spend with the kids.
The first day that the cousins were here, my husband got them all into the horsebox. He told them to hold on tight and drove up and down the bumpy farm lane as fast as he could without losing the trailer.  The lane runs down the middle of the farm and is about 1km long.   He had the windows of the pickup rolled down so he could hear the kids. He was shouting out the window “what do ya want?”, I could hear the screams from the house, my kids shouting faster, faster and the others just screaming. I went out to see what was going on, not sure that it was such a good idea, the horsebox came barrelling and screaming around the bend into the yard, at a very precarious angle, I thought looking at it that some of the kids would be sick for sure. I was a bit worried, thinking that being city kids they might find it all a bit scary.
They pulled up and I opened down the back of the box.   All the kids came tumbling out. “are you all ok?” I said giving the husband a dirty look. “Oh. My. God. That was awesome, we have been in Disneyland twice, that was better than any ride we were ever on” said one of the American cousins. The two boys from Japan were smiling from ear to ear, said that it was wild and couldn’t wait to tell their parents. Aside from being covered from ear to ear in smiles, they were also quite liberally covered in horse manure. “What happened to your clothes” I said. “Oh Tom and Em just thought us this really cool new game called dodge dung.” they said. I looked at my two clean kids, they couldn’t look me in the eye. “let me guess, I bet you stand in the dung heap out the back, sling dung and try to hit each other with it, am I right?” I said. “Yea, its soooo cool and we had two teams and tom and Em were referees”. Yes I bet they were, I thought to myself.
It was lucky their parents had gone visiting because I am sure if they had seen the state the kids were in they would never leave them here again. I had their clothes washed and back on clean kids by the time they were back so until now they were none the wiser. Mind you, they all went to sleep straight away that night, no messing, out like lights and not a peep out of any of them until about 9am the following morning. Maybe horse manure has unknown sleep properties!

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The Old Dog For The Hard Road.

Scented Sacks and Mince Pies for Christmas craft sale

The Old Dog for the Hard Road, this saying best describes my neighbour Ann.  You couldn’t put an age on her; she is elderly but very active, sprightly, and young at heart.  Most people round here that want advice on farm animals don’t use Google they just ask Ann.  What Ann doesn’t know about animals is not worth knowing.  Ann never sits down, is always on the go, working hard.  She talks very fast always in a rush to get the words out.  She has no T.V. doesn’t see the point of” sittin down doing nuttin but lookin inta a box”.  Ann also has a wicked sense of humour and a wheezy cackle laugh to go with it.  It was no surprise to me that the story of the farmer’s wife(me) that didn’t know the difference between male and female ducks had spread countrywide.

Saturday was our local Christmas craft sale, it was held in the village hall.  Myself and Em had been busy all week baking and making our scented cinnamon sacks to sell at the sale.  It’s a great get together of local people selling crafts, bakes and locals produce.  We had our own little stand and arrived in loads of time to get set up and catch up on the local gossip.

Ann was also there selling her bakes and was set up within shouting distance of us.  Once the stands were set up, we sat down and waited for our customers.  I would best describe us as sitting ducks.  The first person to strike was the lady selling cheese, she had a plate of samples and offered us some, “would you like quackers with that?” she said with a giggle.  I could hear Ann’s wheeze/laugh, oh no I thought to myself, here we go, no escape, I will just have to grin and bear it.  It was amazing the amount of people who came over to us just to get the duck jokes in.  Some people had obviously been saving them up for days and approached our stand laughing even before they got the words out.  “Just ducked in to see you….  , who’s that behind you, I can’t tell, is it a boy or a girl?……put it on my bill….., you quack me up.. “ and on, and on.  Em was delighted and was really enjoying the whole performance; she couldn’t wait to see what was coming next.   I am not entirely innocent in all of this.  I would usually be the first one in with the smart comment so it was payback time, and we enjoyed the banter.

At the end of the evening Ann came over “you old devil you certainly spread the duck story” I said.  “Oh when you have a story like that, it’s like a lump of money burning a hole in your pocket, you just have to spend it to get any good of it ” she said.  Fair enough I would have done the same. We got chatting about the ducks and hens, mostly me asking questions,  as usual, talking to Ann was like opening an encyclopaedia, and she talking ninety to the dozen getting the words out fast as she could.  I was keen to get her advice also, some of my hens have stopped laying so I asked her what did she do when her hens stopped laying?.  “Oh, that’s no problem, I give them to Mickey Hickey, he does love them” she said.  “I didn’t know Mickey kept hens” I said.  No he don’t, he keeps greyhounds” she said completely straight-faced, eyeballing me.  My mouth fell open, no words came out, I couldn’t think of anything to say, the poor hens, I started to blush and with that she doubles over into her wheezing laugh.  Got me again.

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The backside biter.

Jerry’s surprise corner

Jerry the pony is better; his cold is gone so I let him out to the paddock for the first time today.  He had started kicking the stable door, so I reckoned it was time to let him out before he started climbing the walls.  He is now out with Bobby the pony, Jerry doesn’t care for him very much he usually ignores him, preferring Dinny the donkey, Bobby is a quiet, nervous type of pony the opposite of Jerry.  Jerry is off work and will be for another couple of days, he gets very bored when he is not busy.

About an hour after I let Jerry out in the paddock, I decided to do a little rope work with Bobby. It’s basically bobby on a long rope trotting around me in circles, just to keep him fit between being ridden.  Our paddock is in an L shape and we worked in the short part of the L, Jerry was grazing in the long bit around the corner from us.  Myself and Bobby worked away, he was steady as can be,  he settled into a slow trot.  Then, just as Bobby was trotting past the corner, Jerry came running out, trotted up behind Bobby, bit him on the backside, and then ran back around the corner again.  Bobby got such a fright he bolted to the fence.  I calmed Bobby down and went back to where we were working.  I checked around the corner to see where Jerry was, he was the far side of the paddock grazing away as if nothing had happened.   I started again slowly working Bobby, he was a bit jumpy at first constantly looking around but, after 5 minutes or so he was settled again.  Then, just when Bobby was relaxed and had passed the corner Jerry struck again, he sprung out from the corner, ran up behind Bobby, bit his backside and ran off.   He must have been around the corner the whole time waiting to strike.  This time I managed to hold unto the rope and took Bobby out of the paddock.  Jerry had returned to his grazing like nothing had happened.  I think Jerry has made a full recovery.

 

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Who is jumping on Santa’s bed?

Dancer and Prancer

Dexter cow and calf

Dinny and Dusty

Turkey,geese,hens, ducks

Alpacas and Jacob sheep

All the goats

Goat gets a hug

All the photos are from Santa’s Village Farm.  After a long weeks work, by Friday, most of the animals were in place on Santa’s Farm and the volunteers were putting the finishing touches to Santa’s Village.  Santa’s village is where Santa lives with all his elves.  Apart from the farm where the animals live, in the village there are all the things you would expect in any normal village except a few extras,  like the elves workshop, you can see the bedrooms where the elves sleep, Mrs Claus has her own kitchen where she spends most days cooking for everyone and makes buckets of hot chocolate with marshmallows.  In general the whole village is a busy hive of activity getting ready for the big opening on Saturday.

Friday morning got off to a bad start for us.  Jerry the pony has a cold and was not able to go to the farm.  Tom went to bring him in and he had a runny nose.  He has no fever and is not off his food, we decided not to take him to santa’s farm because we felt he could get worse and didn’t want to take a chance with his health.  We wrapped Jerry up in his winter rug and are giving him honey in his feed.  He is not too bad and I expect he will be better after a couple of days.  Tom was really worried about him, he was disappointed that Jerry wasnt able to go, I think he had been teaching him some new tricks, he was hoping to show everyone.   This left us with a couple of problems.  Dinny the donkey wouldn’t stay in the stall on his own because he frets without Jerry.   Jerry was supposed to transport santa to the Village in his trap.  I phoned a friend of mine and she loaned us Dusty the pony .  Dusty is very small like Dinny and they get on well with each other.  The local golf club loaned us a golf buggy,after some christmas decoration,lights and tinsel Santa arrived safe and sound on Saturday to cheering and applause.

Lazy Bones ,sleeping on the job

Lazy Bones Wakes up!

Lazy Bones Jumps on Santas Bed, Mrs Claus Giggles in the Corner

Santa’s village at night

Everything in the village is now running smoothly with Santa and all the elves working very hard, apart from one Elf.  Lazy Bones.   As you can see from the photos Lazy Bones is very fond of his bed.  He keeps sleeping on the job.  Every chance he gets he is either sleeping, or jumping on Santa’s bed.  Mrs Claus is so nice she never get cross with him, but he is very bold.  When the other Elves catch him sleeping on the job you can hear them shouting, “wake up Lazy Bones” that’s why he looks so surprised in the photo.  We will have to keep an eye on him.

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Santas Helpers

We have all been busy this week.  The weather has turned very cold, the first snows have started appearing on the Wicklow Mountains, it is starting to feel very Christmassy.  Every year in the town nearest to us there is a Santa’s village run by volunteers, all of the money goes to two charities, one is a children’s hospital the other for old folks.  As part of the experience there is a Santa’s farm.  That’s where we come in.

Jerry the pony gets the best job.  Santa arrives with Jerry on his trap to much cheering and excited Kids.  As soon as Jerry hears the crowds cheering, he starts whinnying.  He thinks all the people are cheering for him.   He loves all the attention when he is on Santa’s farm.  He spends his time stealing sweets from passer-by’s and his favourite trick, snatching woolly hats from small kids heads.  He particularly likes the ones with the bobbles on top, he leans out of the stall and swipes it off the kids heads, he is fast as lightening, then he refuses to give them back until someone goes into the stall and wrestles it from him,(usually Tom).  The kids love it and Jerry is delighted to be in the centre of all the action.

Any animals we dont have ourselves we borrow from other people.   For the past couple of days we have been collecting and gathering animals.  So far we have collected Dexter cattle which are the miniatures in the photo, deer, Pigmy goats, black turkeys and various other poultry.  Our animals, Dinny the donkey,  our Jacob sheep and alpacas all make an appearance.  Bobby the pony doesn’t go, he doesn’t like the crowds.  Tom and Em love the whole experience, they get to dress up as elves and help Santa with all the kids.   Em does face painting on the little kids; tom and dad look after the animals.

It all starts on Saturday and I will post loads of photos when I get more time next week.

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