In which Tiny the hen is either a cockerel, or she’s playing a teeny vuvuzela
So yes, yes, I know… two chicken posts in one week potentially makes me a chicken bore. But wait. I have exciting news…
With the departure of Mr Nutty, things have been a bit quiet round English Towers way, and then, suddenly, there was a funny, squeaky little noise in the garden…
The Death Wish Child grabbed the video camera and…
Turns out little Tiny the hen could possibly be Tiny the cockerel. Either that, or she’s cleverly concealed a teeny vuvuzela somewhere about her person.
‘You’ll meet me halfway, so?’
Poor Mr Nutty’s head situation isn’t getting any better. I started to leave him out at night (he prefers to roost on the top of the hen house with his missus), figuring that death by fox or having your head eaten by your bitches are pretty similar on the ‘ouchy’ scale.
What did become clear while we were away was that he was getting a bit miserable. Poppy’s Mum was worried as he’d stopped cockadoodledooing and seemed a bit listless. I bet it bloody hurt. When I could catch him, I was treating his head with antibiotic powder, but let’s face it, he was never going to mend whilst billetted with the mean girls so eventually I decided to pop an ad in an online ‘buy and sell’ marketplace.
My first phone call wasn’t promising. He sounded about twelve, was shouting at the top of his voice and kept leaving yawning gaps in the conversation:
Shouty Fella ‘WELL…’
(A lot of Irish people start a conversation with ‘well?’. I’m never quite sure of the appropriate response. For a long time I went with a very English ‘yes, I’m fine thank you’, but I don’t think it’s actually an enquiry into your health, so now I just say ‘well’ back and hope for the best).
Me: ‘Well…’
*MASSIVE SILENCE*
Me: ‘Hello?’
Shouty Fella: ‘I’M RINGING ABOUT THEM BIRDS. ARE THEY LAYIN’?’
Me: ‘Well one of them is’
Shouty Fella: ‘WHY?’
Me: ‘Well, the other one is a man’
*MINUTE OF SILENCE*
Shouty Fella: ‘ARE THEY RELATED?’
Me: I don’t think so – I bought them as a ‘breeding pair’. Surely they wouldn’t want to do that sort of thing if they were related…’
Shouty Fella: ‘I’LL COME HAVE A LOOK AT THEM, SO?’
Me (pacing kitchen and explaining where I am in Cavan): ‘I said I’d deliver if you’re local’
Shouty Fella:’ I’M FROM GALWAY’
Me: ‘Well that’s not exactly local, is it?’
*HUGE PAUSE*
Me (increasingly exasperated): ‘Hello?!’
Shouty Fella: ‘YES?”
What fresh hell is this?
Me: ‘I said IT’S NOT EXACTLY LOCAL!’
Shouty Fella: ‘YOU’LL MEET ME HALF WAY, SO?”
Me: Well, no, because you live in GALWAY. I was thinking more like if it was the next town…
Shouty Fella: ‘IT’S QUITE A WAY, SO?’
Me (losing will to live): ‘Cavan to Galway? Yes, yes it’s a very long way.’
*VERY LONG PAUSE*
Shouty Fella: ‘WHAT COLOUR ARE THEY?
Me (suddenly feeling the urge to match his volume): ‘The colour they are in the PICTURE on the WEBSITE. In the same advert where it says I live in CAVAN’.
Shouty Fella: ‘YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO DROP THEM TO ME, SO?’
Me: ‘No, no I’m afraid I won’t.’
Shouty Fella: ‘DO YOU KNOW A COURIER THAT WOULD BRING THEM?’
Me (silently banging head against kitchen table): ‘No, no I don’t. Maybe you could look into arranging it and ring me back if you get it sorted’.
Shouty Fella: ‘I’LL ASK MY FATHER’
Me: ‘Right, bye then’
*YAWNING SILENCE*
Shouty Fella: ‘BYE’
If he actually rings back, I’m going to kill myself.
Mr Nutty, the Mean Girls and the Croydon facelift
Poor Mr Nutty the cockerel. He doesn’t have much luck. Having been bullied by other cockerels in his last place of residence, I think he finally thought he was going to get the chance to live the live of Riley, presiding over his own set of ‘hoes’ (thank you, Twitter, for that little beauty).
Alas, it was not to be. Whether the already patchy bald bit was too tempting, or whether the girls just really are mean, the head-pecking has started again. Mr Nutty’s lush Las Vegas showgirl head-dress has been reduced to something more akin to an Elizabethan ruff, whilst the top of his head is now completely red and bald.
And it’s not that he’s a bad cockerel or anything. Mr Nutty seems to be well-liked amongst his little flock. He takes his protector duties very seriously and is often to be seen goose-stepping (chicken stepping?) round the garden, his little oddly-shaped harem in attendance. He’s funniest in the veg patch, where he scrapes the ground away to uncover all manner of yumminess, then stands proudly back whilst his ladies get the pick of the tasty morsels. When I see it, I always imagine him going ‘g’wan girls, tuck in’.
Here he is with his rather odd-looking babes (sorry you can’t really see him here, I think he was scratching his bottom at the time). You can also see Holly, far right, who has morphed from quite a cute little chick into some sort of prehistoric turkey/velociraptor hybrid, bless her:
I don’t think it’s spite, particularly, I just think when they’re all huddled up in the hen house together at night, those naughty girls just can’t resist a little peck at his newly emerging feathers.
Anyhoo, something had to give, and #2 had the bright idea of pulling up Mr Nutty’s remaining feathers into something akin to a pony tail, to protect his bald bit while his new feathers get a chance to grow.
Mr Nutty took some serious chasing, and when we finally grabbed him, an unseemly struggle ensued. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to hold a furious chicken while trying to tie his head feathers into a pony tail (no? Thought not), but it’s not easy. First I got it too tight, so his eyes were bulging, and the poor thing couldn’t blink (kind of like a chicken version of the Croydon facelift), then it was too loose and pinged off. Next attempt was secure enough, and not too tight, but a bit wonky. By this stage, Mr Nutty was very ‘pinged off’ himself, so we decided we’d leave him with the slightly off-centre hairdo.
I think he looks rather rakish. What say you?
The Friday video: SHUT UP!
Sorry for the wobbly video, but I thought you’d like to hear Mr Nutty in full ‘doodle’. Have a great Friday!
Random things I have learned this week about rural living
1. The joy of taking the laptop into the kitchen to work in a sunny spot can sometimes be hampered by extreme cockadoodledooing in the garden.
2. Cockadoodledooing is not conducive to any form of concentration.
3. Concentration can then be further hampered when a straying dog decides to attack a sheep in the field right outside your back garden.
4. Running out into the back garden in your pyjamas (the ones with the pink lollipops all over them) and shouting obscenities in a manic fashion whilst windmilling your arms will scare dogs away from attacking sheep.
5. The sight of a grown woman with mad, Russell Brand hair and lollipop pyjamas running towards them screeching like a banshee would probably scare anyone, to be fair.
6. Trying to walk over to the sheep to see if it’s alright will also scare the sheep away.
7. Phoning your friend in hysterics and jabbering incoherently about dogs and sheep and screeching in lollipop pyjamas and stuff in a ranty way is a very good test of friendship (thank you, Poppy’s Mum, you passed with flying colours).
Where was I? Oh yes….
8. Opening the patio door and shouting ‘WILL YOU SHUT UP!’ has absolutely no effect on the aforementioned cockerel or the amount/volume of his cockadoodledooing (but does give your nearest neighbour a good laugh).
9. Bursting into tears when trying to recount the dog/sheep incident to your children is a very good test of the teen/parent bond. Being patted on the head and told you’re a ‘bit of a knobber’ is A Good Thing.
10. This rural/self sufficiency lark is not as easy as I thought.
Mr and Mrs Nutty: Big Bird’s illegitimate offspring
Sunday saw us travelling north – practically into Northern Ireland, in fact, to pick up two chickens that the Death Wish Child had set his heart on. Admittedly I’ve done weirder things, but meeting up with the seller on a country road – surreptitiously passing a squawking bag between us and then stealthily exchanging cash did make me feel strangely guilty.
‘Wow!’, said the Death Wish Child breathlessly as we drove away, ‘that was just like a drug deal!’.
He really wants to breed chickens, but I’ve always been slightly reticent about having a cockerel. I know they can be pretty annoying.
Anyhoo, Mr and Mrs Nutty have arrived – looking like the bastard child of Big Bird and Animal from the Muppets:
… and also despite their ridiculous behaviour (the run around like loons, and yesterday, in a triumphantly comic moment, actually ran smack bang into each other), they’re settling well.
Mr Nutty is rather proud of his new flock (I think he was bullied at his previous home as he’s rather bald on top), and settled himself happily atop the hen house last night to guard over his new ladies, only to be a bit cross when I nabbed him and stuffed him into the coop with the others (well, there are foxes round here).
Next up on the wish list, is a new chicken house. And while not quite convinced by the ‘nogg’ (you heard it here first: http://www.nogg.co/):
…there’s a lovely man locally who makes gorgeous chicken coops:
…and then we’ll keep the small ark for a little nutty lovenest (or a ‘naughty ark’ as DWC suggested). We travelled happily home talking of naughty chickens (‘go to your coop!’) and dreaming of little nutty chicken babies. How cute would they be?
New chicken babies!
It’s been a very weird few days here at English Towers.
I’ll start with the good news. We got new chickens! We drove to the other side of Bailieboro and met with a lovely man called Percy, who had possibly the biggest bird obsession (feathered, natch) that I’ve ever witnessed.
Percy lives in a house pretty similar to ours – a newish built house set in about an acre of land. His acre, though, is completely covered in sheds, bird houses and coops of all shapes and sizes. Wandering through the birds with his lovely girlfriend (whose name I missed at least three times and was so embarrassed I didn’t like to ask again), we passed a beautiful pair of peacocks and a huge pair of breeding turkeys, proudly puffing up their feathers and warning us that this was their patch.
Percy specialises in all sorts of weird varieties – I’ll never be able to remember the names, but there were some kind of ‘Polish‘ ones with mad headdresses, and others with furry feet, hugely long tails, and even brightly coloured ones that hardly looked like chickens at all.
We settled on three babies who will grow with us, and hopefully be tame enough to succumb to the odd cuddle (what? we like cuddles). All three are Wyandottes, but there is a certain amount of colour mixing, so they’re not ‘pedigrees’ or anything. We think Tiny, (top), the smallest of the bunch, and Lucy (below) are possibly the ‘blue-laced’ varieties, as their undersides are a beautiful shade of blue/grey, and their feathers are red, tipped with blue:
But the third one, Holly, looks more like more a turkey than anything else (hence her name):
The sad news is that after a good six weeks of trying, poor Millie was not getting any closer to enjoying life here. The obsessive pacing and total terror of being outside made life for her (and us) pretty hard, and after a nasty incident where she bit #1 in the face (he’s okay – more shocked than anything, but to hear a snarl and find your son with blood pouring from his nose was a bit of a shocker), I had to contact the rescue and say I couldn’t keep her.
Poor Millie. Happily, the couple that found her are going to give her a home (they don’t have children, but do have other dogs – maybe she’ll be better with company). We all feel a bit of a failure, but as my lovely friend Liz pointed out, ‘sometimes dogs are just too damaged’. I hope that she’ll settle and live out her life in peace, but have to accept that it won’t be with us.
Food trends for 2011: what foodies predict for the New Year
And so to 2011.
There are, of course, all manner of predictions being thrown around for the New Year. Food-wise, there’s an awful lot being talked about ‘conspicuous thrift’. I also saw someone on twitter declare ‘cupcakes are dead! Long live the pie’. I thought I’d ask a few of my foodie friends what they thought we’d see in 2011.
Here’s what they thought:
Tom Aikens, Chef Proprietor of Tom Aikens Restaurant, Chelsea:
I think that people are still wanting more down to earth simple food that is more accessible and easy on the eye as well as the wallet ….
Catherine Phipps, food journalist, Guardian Word of Mouth:
The combination of rising wheat prices and interest in South American food will equal increased interest in different types of potatoes for our carb of choice. I also predict intelligent marrying of locavorism & fusion along the Momofuku line: local ingredients given a twist. Finally, everyone will start replacing their wooden spoons with spons! www.thesponco.com.
Journalist and food blogger Aoife from myadventuresinveg.blogspot.com:
I think 2011 will see people move even more towards veggie food. I think that more people will start experimenting with vegan (and vegetarian) meals – even if they don’t totally adapt their diet or lifestyle, they might dip their toe into the veg pool. With famous folk like Biz Stone (who founded Twitter), Olivia Wilde, and Ellen Degeneres spreading the veg word there could be a rise in people seeking out information on vegetarianism and veganism. Hopefully for most it would be more than just a ‘trend’ though. For me, it’s not about a ‘them and us’ situation with people who are veggie and who aren’t, so my ideal would be that people have more access to vegan food when eating out – I predict that more restaurants will cotton onto the growing popularity of vegan food and people like myself won’t have to drive waiters (and our friends) crazy asking for things without goat’s cheese! In other trends, I foresee American health food trends like agave syrup, chia seeds, green smoothies, brown rice syrup and nutritional yeast moving to the mainstream in Ireland and Europe.
Foodie and blogger The Glutton at gluttonyforbeginners.wordpress.com:
I fancy trying out more Middle Eastern food this year – I think it is time I dusted down Claudia Roden’s Arabesque. I suppose one thing I see more of is online speciality food ordering and I hope to do a bit more of that in 2011. Obviously a lot of people now do their food shopping online but I think more are moving towards buying certain things, like meat and veg, from specialist online providers rather than do an entire shop with one big supermarket. It reminds me of the way my mum used to shop years ago when I was a kid – going to each individual shop like the bakers, greengrocer, butcher etc but I will do it online rather than take a trip down the high street.
Food blogger likemamusedtobake:
I predict cake: lots and lots of yummy cake!
Food blogger Gráinne at upliftingfood.com:
I predict many gyms membership numbers going up from people reading the Irish Foodie blogs and eating all around them
Food geek/blogger, Jules who runs a business teaching children about the wonders of food and blogs at thebutcherthebaker.wordpress.com:
I think that due to the current financial climate the trend for comfort food is going to conutinue with a big resurgence in both sweet & savory pies (hurrah!) also cakes like carrot cake and banana bread are going to get prettier and take on cupcakes, it’s about time a cake that doesn’t require tonnes of sickly sweet icing takes off. In the summer the trend for edible flowers is going to grow and become more mainstream with edible flowers being more readily avaliable in shops.
Food blogger Cathy from homemademummy.net:
I predict 2011 will mean More but Less. More time and attention paid to creating fantastic food, but splashing out less often. That way we can still have fabulous treats but keep an eye on tightening budgets.
Helen, food writer and foodie gift expert at The Foodie Gift Hunter:
I’m going to go with hopefully a more successful punt this year on Finnish food having a moment, based on Turku being one of the European Capitals of Culture. Also the fact that a generation may have had the Moomins cookbook for Xmas which is an intro to Finnish food.
Food blogger and restaurant reviewer Elizabeth at Elizabeth on Food:
Burgers, burgers and more burgers. It’s been burger madness in London in 2010. Bar Boulud, Corrigans, Hawksmoor. It will be a matter of time before other restaurants (even Michelin starred ones) and countries will follow this trend. I’ve written a post on this subject a few months ago called: The hamburger, fast becoming slow food. http://elizabethonfood.typepad.com/elizabeth-on-food/2010/08/the-hamburger-fast-becoming-slow-food.html
Irish Blog Award winning food blogger The Daily Spud:
Naturally I predict that, together with a general trend towards more traditional dinners, potatoes will be the must-have accessory for the discerning diner in 2011 (and yes, I would say that, wouldn’t I!)
Photographer and food/parenting blogger Cara from frecklesfamily.com:
I predict meatballs are this years must have!
Food blogger Louise from usingmainlyspoons.wordpress.com
Wholewheat flour as a trendy new ingredient – see Kim Boyce’s book from last year, and Alice Medrich’s new cookies book as examples of baking that highlights wholewheat and different flours as having their own flavours. Plus, has the advantage of being cheap to experiment with.
Whoopie pies and macarons were clearly very 2010. Maybe 2011 will be year of the traybake, seeing an increase in sales of Australian Women’s Weekly publications?
Chocolate is going to get expensive, so maybe there will be more attention paid to where the beans are from, to help justify the higher prices that are going to have to be charged. Cadburys et al with Venezuelan varieties perhaps.
Donal Skehan, cookbook author, TV cook and food blogger at donalskehan.com:
Lots of very exciting predictions and things to be excited about in 2011!
Firstly the follow up to Nigel Slater’s amazing Kitchen Diaries will be out later this year which is most likely to be the highlight of my cookbook collection in 2011.
Of course the release of my AMAZING new book “Kitchen Hero: Bringing Cooking Back Home!” will be out in April alongside its 13 part series on RTE. The book and series will have lots of very tasty and easy dishes for everyone to try.
Last year there was a huge surge of interest in growing veggies at home, so I think this will increase again this year, growing your own is definitely on the rise.
Keeping chickens! I’m hoping to keep some chickens this year, when I finally convince my girlfriend, but it is something that is becoming more and more popular.
Lunchboxes: people aren’t spending what they used to on coffee and a sambo, so I think people will start looking back towards the kitchen and making their own lunchboxes. So expect lots of lunchbox envy in 2011!
Amy Lane, writer, cakeshop owner and food blogger at amylane.wordpress.com
I think there will be a big upsurge in home baking this year, with another series of the Great British Bake Off providing yet more inspiration. I predict that the regular cupcake will go mini in 2011, with the bite-size version becoming more popular. I also think people will become more experimental, trying out some baking that is a little trickier in particular macaroons and artisan breads.
Nick Coffer, radio presenter, food blogger (and vlogger!) at mydaddycooks.com and cookbook author:
I think one of the big trends in food blogging for 2011 will be… more food blogging! Setting up a food blog is such a quick, cheap and easy process – you can be up and running and publishing posts literally within minutes – that I think that food blogs will become ever more numerous. Which is great news for readers because it gives us the opportunity to enjoy content from brilliant foodies and great writers who would not have had a similar forum to express themselves on, even barely a few years ago. My advice to new food bloggers is to find a unique angle. I know that is easier said than done but standing out from the crowd is key to building a following. And blog because you want to. The most successful bloggers launched their blogs as labours of love rather than as a means to earn income or become writers. I launched my own blog to stay sane at a time when I was a stay-at-home dad, struggling to find new creative ideas after my business was hit in the recession in 2009. I had no idea that it would take off as it did and I think that a key part of this was the fact that it was launched as a piece of fun rather than with a master-plan. The best blogs are the most natural as this is what will engage your readers most. I am fortunate because blogging has opened up a new career for me (the “My Daddy Cooks” book is published via Hodder & Stoughton in May 2011 and I present a weekly food show on BBC Three Counties Radio) but the most important thing remains to produce interesting and vibrant content which people will want to read. If you do that, people will follow you and your blogs!
And for me? I think the biggest food trend will be a continuation along the path of responsibility: respect for the animals that provide our food (high welfare, free range) and support of local food producers (I love Catherine’s ‘locavorism’ term, above).
I’ll be continuing to embrace good food, cooked with local, sustainable ingredients, where at all possible (until they invent local lemons, I’ll still be buying those pesky flown-in ones). The only cookery book you will need, to support you on this most responsible of journeys is the beefy and quite amazing Food from Plenty by Diana Henry – helping you make the most of your ingredients, be they a saved-for free-range shoulder of pork, or a glut of windfall apples.
Oh, and this week I’ll be replenishing my chicken family too – watch this space!
Animal insults, rescue doggies, chicken slaughter and pigs.
We miss Bert. Yes, yes, I know he’s happy in his new home, and yes, he could be a growly old git and a sofa hogger, but still. The Ninja Cat of Death is much loved, don’t get me wrong, but with her penchant for climbing onto the back of the sofa and then attacking the back of one’s head with absolutely no warning, plus being blessed with the ability to explode, puffer-fish like, into a mass of needles when stroked in the wrong way, she is generally treated with the contempt she fully deserves.
I give you, for example, this little exchange from yesterday:
#1 to Ninja Cat of Death (in sing-song voice): ‘You’re such a cute kitty, yes you are. Shame you’re evil, you are, you’re evil.’
Ninja Cat: *blink* *purr*
#1: ‘And we’re going to burn you, yes we are, we’re going to burn you, yes, ‘cos you’re evil.’
And I’m not completely blameless in this. Yesterday, busy with the dinner and annoyed at her winding herself around my feet, I might possibly have told her to ‘f*ck off, you furry tosser’.
I did also once hear Hubby talking to her in the kitchen: ‘go away. Nobody likes you, you piece of sh*t’.
And yesterday, I heard: ‘get off my clean trousers you bloody animal. Shame there’s no fireworks here or I’d sent you up on a bloody rocket’.
But we love her really. Honest.
But I digress. It’s the dog thing. I work from home, see, and after waving de brevren off on the 8am bus to Cavan it’s just me, my computer and the unsociable cat. All day. I need a buddy. Plus I need to get my fat bottom out of this chair and down the boat road much more often.
So yesterday, with help from my lovely friend Liz, who has been coaching me in the ways of the rescue dog, I registered with a rescue charity. I had to fill in a long, complicated form with all sorts of random measurements like the height of my hedges, the length of my garden, the state of my front gate (ah, haven’t actually got one), and how often I shaved my legs, flossed and hoovered the lounge (okay I made a few of those up).
Today I learned that my application had been successful. Next, apparently, is the home visit. Uh oh. Note to self: make sure kids don’t call cat a tosser while home check in progress.
In other animal-related news, Mr Lovely informs me that his turkeys and broiler chickens are doing well. He’s also promised that I will be allowed to ‘lurk’ during the slaughter and preparation of said broilers (curiosity, not bloodlust, you understand). Yay.
Oh, and in other other animal-related news. I’m thinking of getting pigs. I shan’t be doing any home slaughtering though. Bleurgh.
The Friday Photo: what next?
So one of the downsides of moving back was that I had to give up my chickens. Happily lovely Madge and Bluebelle went to a farm where they’ll be well looked after and *gasp* meet a cockerel for the first time (brace yourself, girls).
So now we’re happily settled back at English Towers what’s it to be? I thought maybe quails, but then a friend said they’re ‘horrible little bastards’, and then I thought maybe I’ll just settle for normal chooks again. Or maybe I’ll get chooks AND a puppy (that’d please the Cat of Death)…
Pigs? Goats? Trouble is, I’d be no good as a smallholder as I’d never be able to despatch anything. What about you? What would you have if space (and time) allowed?
