I’m sorry this episode is a day late but I’ve had rather an interesting 24 hours. As most of you know we live deep in rural Ireland and that means we are surrounded by fields. This being Ireland thas also means we are surrounded by cows. Lots of cows. Last night not long after midnight Charlie, our youngest dog, started barking. It was a proper alarm bark, not just ‘Oh, there’s a car on the road’ sort of bark. A quick glance outside and we realised we had about eight heifers milling around our front drive.
I ventured out to see what had happened and was surprised to see all the gates were closed and latched. Grabbing a large and reassuringly heavy tree branch I decided to check in the orchard though I couldn’t see how they had got in, down the steps and past the shed in the dark. Well, they had. My trusty head torch gave out half way up the steps and I stumbled along in the dark. As I reached the gate another cow loomed out of the lane and began to scramble over what was left of a part of our wall. Shouting and waving the branch persuaded it to make off along the road, fortunately.
I know cows can be tricky and even a heifer is as tall as I am so I followed the cow down the road at a safe distance and opened the main gates from outside. The cows immediately made a dash for freedom and I beat a hasty retreat through the smaller gate and locked them out from the inside. We did try to contact the farmer but only managed to reach his voice mail. Shaken but relieved, it took us a while to settle down again.
The next morning I looked at our trail cameras and one of them had captured the escapees in the back field pressed up against our fence. Taken at 12.45 am, they look very disturbing with glowing eyes as they loom up against the fence. Truly zombie cows! Inspecting our orchard and drive we found a lot of hoof prints, some charming cowpats and the front wall much reduced in size. As we mused on how to secure the orchard on a Sunday there was another flurry of alarmed barking. Yes, they were out once more, this time several dozen at the front and ten or so at the back.
The farmer came out again and herded them back to the field, finally identifying a hole in the hedge they presumably used to escape. So, despite the creepy picture not so much zombie cows as Houdini cows at midnight.
I am waiting for our fence man to call me back as the gate in also now out of kilter and we need to secure the land urgently.
Apart from that bit of excitement we’ve had a fairly restful couple of weeks. The snow melted away and it got much milder very fast. This was good for some work around the gardens and Andy came last week and did a wonderful job clearing the overgrown front beds. I’d forgotten we had a path around there! Well, we have one again. We also did our regular log collections and I ventured around the wood path to see how it was looking.
Much to my surprise there was a large white bag lodged over the old log that has been home for various animals over the past few years. This was about 10 metres back from the path and behind the intentionally wild and overgrown section. Foolishly I decided to investigate, clipping brambles and struggling through heavy growth. I finally reached a large seed bag wedged in the log and dragged it back up the wood path. The whole thing took almost half an hour and I know now it was a mistake. My already weak shoulders are now very sore again so it’s back to the basic exercises for me.
We are forecast more snow later this week but the unseasonable warmth has accelerated some of the spring plants. There are tiny flowering violas in one pot, the daffodils are already appearing in places and primrose leaves are sprouting in the wood and garden. If we start to get flies again I will know the seasons are out of kilter!
Some evenings we watch some programmes from RTE, the Irish equivalent of the BBC. Last week there was a report on “Ear to the Ground” about a charity called “Free Trees Ireland”. Several times a year groups and individuals can apply for bundles of mixed saplings, all native trees. They donated 54,000 trees last time, an amazing achievement. We are looking into the scheme but I need to establish whether the numbers (5 minimum, 30 maximum) relate to bundles or individual trees. We have some clearer space and can clear more but I’m not sure we could cope with 50 trees in one go!
Well, that’s all for the start of the year from me. We are hoping for no more snow – or zombie cows. Thank you for reading. Your support means a great deal.
Stay warm, take care and I hope to see you again soon.
Jennie.