So; We'll Talk About The Weather .....

I mean, there's fuck all else to talk about right now. Because of the weather! It's 'The Barren Time' alright. Days are short, hurried and largely just taken up with the usual chores. In fact, it can now be a job in itself to even get all the basic chores done before dark. Today I actually left a small barrow load of shit in the horses pen. Light was going so fast, I'd have been slinging it on the heap in the dark. No point.

And, with the shortening days, we've had the rains ~ naturally. The rains are never far from us here. Not that they've ever particularly effected me, I'm happy to say. The people who built my cottage chose their spot well. The rains come. They pour down from the mountain. They surge down the ditches and swell The Styx far below me.

That, in turn ~ this year at least ~ over spills and floods out the basin of land I sit on the side of. Here's the result. None of the water ye see below has any right being there. All that land I used to traverse in ankle boots. When it's like this? I wouldn't venture out there in rubber boots. Miss a fence and I could vanish into The Styx for ever!


Nigger, bottom right there, would be kicking up water spray on my Home Acre. Cross the deep, dry ditch beneath him and he'd be into Pat's land proper. Over the dark, central band marked by the tree is what I refer to as " The bog ". Pat's lower ground that runs down to The Styx. He used to run his cattle on that. Right now he'd Swim or Wallow them there.

The adjoining part of (part of) Pat's land. Same story. I pursued a rutting Red Stag around the centre right area of this shot, a season or two back. I barely even got the soles of my boots wet. Now? I'd be wading.



Not a complaint. Just wanted to show ye what can happen round here. And I would say 'We're used to it.' Only, we're not. That's to say; I can accept it. Because it doesn't impinge on me. I live up where the shots were taken from. My ground's sodden. Not under feet of water. And, I've only been here less than four years now. I 'know no different'. Likes of Pat, born and bred here, are gutted. They've never known the likes.

Can't help thinking though; If this were england? How long before some well connected shit head Property Developer with friends in the council and the building industry came along and made Pat an offer he'd be stupid to refuse? Then a whole new estate of 'des res' little properties would spring up down there.

And people would buy them. To 'escape to the countryside'. And then the rains would come .....

Fascination With The Enemy .....

Well, this aviary's proven worth every day of a life times ambition to own one! I have it sited right outside the window I'm sat beside. Thus I have only to look left and there it is, about fifteen foot away. And I expect this damn post will take me 'for ever' to write because of it; I just can't keep my eyes off that damn aviary!

Sadly, " Peck, Peck " simply couldn't acclimatise in there. Too much space? What ever. He was rough as fuck ~ a really dirty, shabby ball of feathers ~ by the time the damn thing actually got here. He was a Dead, dirty, shabby ball of feathers inside of forty eight hours. Poor little mite.

I genuinely feel the absolutely constant, torrential rains we've been having since ..... well, since I can remember, in all honesty. I feel the weather put paid to him. Having now observed my remaining bird, and considered the wider environment? I'm seriously wondering what effect all this has been having on the wild population of magpies around here too.

See, I'm now in the privileged situation where by I'm able to closely observe my birds every reaction to a variety of subtle stimuli. Most especially, any 'change' in the weather. And, for the purposes of my own little bit of 'rough science', I feel this bird is a recent enough capture to still be exhibiting the most natural of responses.

Frankly; Ye should see that bird when it's chucking it down like stair rods out there! He creeps in under his little slate lean too and just sits there. A perfect picture of misery and dejection. That's when I watch him and expect I'll lose him too.

But when, like right now, we have a rare break in the down pours? What a different bird! Out he comes. Hops up onto one of the lower perches. Flies about between the higher ones. Preens like mad and has a good feed. Earlier, to my amazement and delight, he even took a damn good bath in his water bowl!

Right now, having done all that, he's sat on the corner shelf I put in there. And that's at the perfect height to allow him to watch what's going on, across the hedge there. So, this bird's displaying an interest in life and a fastidious predilection with personal grooming. Just as any healthy bird should, indeed must.

But, let's look again: When the rains hit, my bird has a completely water proof shelter. He stays bone dry, yet just the situation clearly depresses him. How about a wild bird, hunkering down in a tree? Depressed. Unable to feed. Still getting more or less rained on too. That'd make him cold, and a cold bird needs to eat. Not in the cold rain .....

And, comes that break in the weather? My bird needs only skip over to his food bowl. It's all there. Laid on and waiting for him. No need to search, thus using up yet more sparse energy reserves. Not like his wild brethren.

In fact, that is one Lucky Magpie. His every comfort is assured. He only needs to keep his own spirits up, against this chilling, cold, damp and depressing weather. I'm doing my best to help him. No one's going to help the wild ones.

And ye know what? There barely are any wild ones around here nowadays! I watched them breed. I saw them fledge. Now they've all simply vanished. My whole area is pretty much devoid of wild pies right now. And, it wasn't me!

See what I'm saying ....?

This Poxy Fucking Weather!!! (Űber Rant!)

I was talking to my sister, last night. She's been away for a month so I'd heard nothing. Last night she told me how they're backing in an immense heat wave?! FFS! I told her to look out for what we're having. Constant, torrential, unbelievable fucking Monsoons!

This may be Eire. But it's fucking July, for chris'sake! Yep. Just glanced out the window right then; It's raining. Not hard ~ not yet! ~ in fact, I could hardly see it at first. But the ground's all soaking wet and, sure enough, as my old eyes focused, I could see the pelting rain drops. They're gathering in strength even as I write this. Here we go Again!

I don't like to moan ~ No. Seriously! ~ but, this is just fucking stupid! I mean, shit like this matters to us, out here in the country. We live by the pulse and rythms of nature. Not because we're some tree hugging, good lifing bunch of wankers keeping chickens we refer to as our 'Girls', and calling vermin " Mr Rat ". We don't. I don't even have any chickens. I call rats a potential job. And what I get up to in the privacy of my own home is nothing to do with you fuckers anyway!

But, we tend to hole up in winter. Winter, out on the bogs, really Is just about down to survival and getting by. We get damn cold. So, we use shit loads of fuel. Days are shorter than hell, so we work like men posessed to just get the everyday chores done. Cleaning out our animals and dragging in stored fuel can amount to a days practical work in those times.

And the winds come. Good ones we may refer to as a " Tin Tester ". Because so much of what we have here is made of 'Tin'. Corrugated Iron is the back bone of rural Co. Leitrim. (Come to think of it? I don't know if Any part of Leitrim isn't rural?!) And those winds, combined with the cold and the rains will sorely test what ever we have. Sheets get lifted. Gutterings buckle. Drains block. Leaks appear. Half of it goes gradually to rat shit as we hunker down and sit it out.

Then the summer comes. Out we all dash, into the bright sunshine. Only, no fucking sun bathing for us! No. Apart from the fact that the fucking Clags (Horse Flies to you) would eat us alive if we tried. There's just no time. See; We have gutterings to fix. Tin sheets to replace. Leaks to sort out. Loads of stuff to repaint. Hay fodder to harvest. Fuel to gather, cut and store, ready for the next round of this never ending battle.

And now ye see why I'm so pissed off? This, basically, constant, unremmiting rain since ..... god knows when it was last Not raining for any appreciable length of time? This rain means we can't get Shit done around here! My gutterings are simply ~ and quite literally ~ breaking down around me. Down pipes are fracturing and bursting open. Horizontals, unable to cope, are over flowing and drenching my walls. Those walls are Desperate for the paint I planned to, now long to, give them. But it's fucking pissing it down here, day and night.

Now; Make my fucking day. Tell me This is " Natural "! I had That shit off Dean O', just the other night. FFS. We were having a sly fag, out the back of the pub and, naturally, the fucking heavens opened. I said something about, " And still the fuckers say Global Climate Change is as normal, recorded and expected as night and day. Well, This shit ain't fucking Normal. Not on the first of fucking July! "

Oh no? Hell, I hit a wrong button there! Dean O', self styled " Man Of Science " just sort of hung his head and went into some weird kind of fucking robotic voiced litany! Some shit like; " It Is natural nothing's wrong it's all been recorded before it's like the Ice Age we've had it before it'll come again there has been global climatic variation since The Big Bang this is all a conspiracy governments are making big money out of all this by telling people it's man caused man can't cause this it's just natural ..... "

I'm just sat there, listening to this shit in open mouthed amazement! The guy's going on like a fucking parrot! Every word so patently obviously learned, by rote, from some fucking web site somewhere. He was actually droning! Didn't have to think what he was saying - god forbid he should. Then maybe he too would realise what unsubstantiated, unsubstantiable, utter shit he was coming out with!

I mean, this is a youngster, less than half my age. By his own free admission, he's not really aware of ever having had a cognative thought during a time when a computer wasn't there in his life. So, he wasn't even Born when it all started to break down. When I remember the wrong birds starting to sing at the wrong times of year, as the wrong plants came into bloom. My mate, 'Man of Science' wasn't even born then. But now he's telling me this is all quite normal? Because a web site told him so?

Uh huh. Like a web site will tell us Lee Harvey Oswald took out JFK. That the Yanks had men walk on the moon, flags 'n all. That scientists ~ just last year, wasn't it? This year even? ~ replicated " The Big Bang ".

Well now; I was told, as a kid, that some cunt called " God ", who was Always there - and don't you Dare question that! - one day decided to make 'Man'. So he made one out of clay. Then he ripped one of his ribs out and turned that into a woman, tits 'n all. Man fucked woman and they had two sons. One son killed the other fucker. Then, one can only imagine, had twos up on Mum and god alone knows who fucked the resultant offspring! Da Daaaa! The whole damn human race is born! Bet I could find a web site purporting That shit to the hilt too! FFS!

No. Ye'll have to forgive my cynicsism here, people. Only I'm just a simple man. I listened to all that 'God' shit and saw it for what is is; A load of bollocks one's supposed to just choke down and live with. No Questions Asked. I see much of what modern " Science " tries to palm off on us in much the same way.

" They recreated The Big Bang. " Says who? The fucking 'Sun' ? And how does the Sun know? Because a guy calling hiself a 'scientist' told them? Sent them photo's of a load of pipes in a huge 'Laboratory' and said that's what they were doing there? Were We around at the time of the first " Big Bang "? No. So, as they weren't either; How the fuck do they know Anything they might have figured they'd did Was anything like a real Big Bang? Bollocks!

Now, it's stopped raining now. But it'll come again. Experience of all this is teaching me that. And it's natural? It's all happened before so shall happen again? Like the Ice Age?

Listen, you cunts; When I look out there and see a herd of Wooley Fucking Mammoths cavorting on the home acre, or maybe a Brontosaurus wallowing in the bog? Maybe then I'll treat the sort of shit our Dean O' puts such faith in with a bit more credance.

Right now, I'm gonna dash out there and grab a quick inventory of how much new guttering I need to buy. Though, fuck knows when I'll get a chance to put it up, without drowning myself!


There. Is there Anyone I haven't upset, in some way, with some part of that? Fuck the lot of ye! The fuck else do ye come here for?!