The Cuckoo is back!

The Cuckoo is back! Less than an hour ago we saw and heard the first cuckoo this year.

It's always so thrilling to have them back. They will be calling here for the next couple of months or so, as they prey on the local meadow pipits which will be laying and incubating eggs just now.

Cuckoo, you may be a predator but it's great to have you back. Both you and the swallows darting about the blue sky above River Cottage mean to us that the Summer stage is set for the official first day of summer on friday, May 1st, 'May Day'.

Have a great week.

April News

Mark is pleased to have finished the fencing that needed renewing. The bottom land boundary is now secure again so that we can concentrate a little more on growing plants and shrubs for sale at Achill Country Market ( see http://www.achillcountrymarket.blogspot.com/ ).

We shall now aim to re-establish both the soft-fruit garden ( blackcurrants, rhubarb, gooseberries, strawberries, and apples (baking and eating) and a growing-on area for pot plants and cuttings. We had been holding back previously because we were not stock-proof. There are plenty of sheep on all sides of us.

Our garden has established well over the past few years. We consciously decided to develop a more coastal theme as well as planting and encouraging native species of trees and shrub. We wanted a garden that would contain plenty of evergreens to provide structure and colour throughout the year, as well as big plants that would establish quickly and could put up with salt storms.

We planted Torbay palms and lots of variegated New Zealand flax five years ago and they have established very well. The palms flowered for the first time last year and are now 10 feet tall. The flax are similar in height, big dramatic specimens that throw up their exotic flower-spikes to 14 feet or so.

We have been blessed with good weather and so we have been busy gardening and making plans for further projects - paddocks in the back acre. In addition we have to try and finish the chalet interior at least partly - a ladder, a kitchen, something to sleep on!

For now the sun is shining and the days long - we're not making hay but we're busy.

Eileen is keen to get oil-painting again and I need to start some raised beds in the front garden.

Best Wishes,

Mark

Fencing, sowing, & butterflies

The Grasshopper warblers are back from Africa. We have seen peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflys about that have come out of hibernation from last year now the mild weather is here.

Eileen has sown broad beans, french beans, dwarf french beans, and courgettes - yellow and green.

Mark has been busy putting up a new boundary fence and setting more willow slips along our boundary. Eileen weaves willow baskets occasionally. We have been blessed with sunny, dry weather.

We need to source some wine yeast so we can begin making country wines again. In the past we have successfully made nettle, carrot, gorse, beetroot, and fig and rosehip.

Happy Easter!

Eileen and I were out taking the air on the Atlantic drive here on Achill island last evening. We are fortunate to have some of the most beautiful scenery in Europe on our doorstep. The deep blue of the Atlantic ocean stretched away to the horizon, only interrupted by islands now and again; close by, Achillbeg island and Clare island, further out, Inishturk. Fulmars wheeled about the cliffs beside us, and the ringing calls of choughs were clearly audible. Lambs were crying, wheatears were flitting from boulder to boulder, and meadow pipits were performing their lovely 'parachuting' song. Our inner wells were filled again.

In addition, Eileen had a great time at The Achill Country Market for whom she is Public Relations Officer. The advertising poster she had designed and we had posted up all over the island seemed to have paid off. There was plenty of custom and plenty of goods on offer. All our baking and hen and duck eggs sold. See http://www.achillcountrymarket.blogspot.com/

Today, I shall be planting more potatoes and Eileen is keen to get her leeks and beans sown.

A marran hen we thought had stopped laying for good has started laying again. Sometimes there are these nice, unexpected surprises; marran eggs are very deep brown and the white and deep yellow yolks shine out in perfect contrast. I'm off to have breakfast.

Have a lovely Easter!

The 1st Swallow of Summer!

Here at River Cottage it's a beautiful sunny day and we have just seen our first swallow. That is the earliest we have known them back from South Africa in the fourteen years we have lived here.

Eileen thought she saw one two days ago but wasn't certain. And yesterday was rain all day. But today they are out racing about a blue sky and along the trees by the river. Welcome back swallows - harbingers of summer!

Willow warblers, carrot sowings, and straw bedding

Hi everyone, busy up the hillside at the back of us collecting dead grass for straw for duck and hen bedding. This is the last chance to collect and store, as after this the new growth takes over.
Sowed five rows of carrots as the weather was fine and sunny.
Mark has been busy digging fence-post holes ready to re-fence some of the boundary at the front of our land which was taken down for machine access when we were building Fuchsia chalet. We have approximately an acre and a half of land here at the cottage, as well as an acre by the shore, and a one-acre bog to cut turf from for fuel.
We heard the first willow warbler back from south Africa, singing their sweet sad tune from our neighbour's just leafing alder trees beside us this afternoon. The skylark's were busy with their own singing, high up like dots in the blue.
Have a wonderful week.