Author Archives: annebennettbrosnan

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About annebennettbrosnan

Farmer's wife, mom, language teacher, baker, stand in gapper, good friend (that's the intention), bon viveur...

Buona Domenica

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It’s been one of those weeks in Hearthill, everyone from the tetchy toddler, sick older brother, cranky mommy and patient farmer need a dose of tender loving care.  And so, administrating the dose, I refer as always back to the Italians in praise of all things bright and beautiful. They do it all so well; abundance, style, living, delight.  As an Italophile I try to bring a touch of La Dolce Vita into our home as often as I can moreso to remedy any lack of lustre that the Spring might impose. Just for today, Indulge me……

The Italians take the ordinary and translate it into the exquisite on a daily basis but more so on La Domenica, Sunday. It starts on Friday evening, down the little sidestreets, at the clink of the espresso cup on saucer after the obligatory fix of caffeine coming home from work, on collection of pastries for weekend treats, you begin to hear the echo of ‘Buona Domenica’ in big cities and small villages alike throughout Italy. ‘Buona Domenica’, ‘Have a Wonderful Sunday’ and even though it’s Friday, that Sunday moment is brought forward to signal the beginning of something special at the end of a week’s hard work.

Here, in Hearthill, Sunday is the day when the wellies are abandoned, fresh coffee is brewed, hot French toast is placed alongside the Sunday newspapers. There is normally a walk on a local beach, a leisurely chat with neighbours, delayed milking. It is a day for homemade pasta, fresh herbs, bambini covered in tomato ragu, leisurely dinner time. As with all good things alas, the moment when the milk machine is fixed onto the udder arrives and the familiar thrup, thrup, thrup of the milk machine comes echoing from the parlour signaling the end of a lovely Sunday and the beginning of a new week of work on the farm.

Buona Domenica….

Faraway Fields

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From where I’m sitting the grass is green. But the farmer isn’t happy yet. Not green enough, not dry enough. A bit too soft for the girls (his cows). An after dinner tour of a field with his young sons has him perturbed. From the house, I see him walk in the field, shaking his head with his sons in order of height shaking their little heads in sympathy after him. This time last year we didn’t have enough grass in front of the cows, this year it’s too wet. It’s as if he himself is responsible for the earlier bad weather that has left ground drenched. There are a number of factors governing grass growth that fall within a farmer’s remit but the weather is in God’s realm as it were.

Farmer’s, for the most part, work in isolation. They spend hours in the milking parlour, in fields fencing, in tractors alone with too much time for thinking. There is, as with other businesses, a lot of competition. However, unlike other businesses, you are not for the most part, in competition with other farms for profit. This has allowed for many profitable cooperatives to grow over the years in this country. No, It is a different kind of competition that pushes farmers at times. Have you got the cows out yet? How much are your yearlings making? Have you still got fodder for cows? All your manure spread? Pride.

My job as farmer’s wife is complex. Like the priest in the confessional, I listen to what he percieves are his farming sins. I let him talk about all he believes he is doing wrong, farm wise, before offering my tuppense worth, some perspective. I’m the coach in his corner, spurring him on, reminding him of the bigger picture. The accountant, advising him when to be prudent when the milk cheque is stretched. The partner, keeping the flag flying on the home front, some delicious dinners, a creamy sponge, a chat about what his little boys have been up to. The girl, sprinkling his life, when needed, with some joie de vivre and therefore reminding him that faraway fields are not necessarily always greener…

 

Mother’s Day

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The first day I realized I could do this mothering bit was on Mother’s day, 2009. Philip was six weeks old. I had him dressed up in his finery, placed him in his red pram and ventured the Listowel Farmer’s Market which has since become a weekly treat for young Brosnan boys.  First it was Philip, now Daniel and I wonder who will be next to join our merry jaunt?

On that Mother’s day, some five years ago, I didn’t want conversation; it was a test. Could I get him out in the world and keep him safe? Trepidation. I was weak. If someone looked in the pram, I held my breathe for their judgment. Was he tiny? Cold? Please, just say handsome. I was missing my own mother acutely having just moved to the countryside and therefore felt very uncertain as I took tiny steps into this unknown world of motherhood practically blindfolded. So after hearing some praise, I bought some daffodils to place on my pram. A picture of peace, daffodils to remember the day.

I decided Philip might like to treat me for Mother’s day so we went to the Listowel Arms Hotel. Looking for reassurance, I asked the lady at reception if I could feed him. As only another mother who spots a nervous first timer can, she leads me to an inviting foyer with black and white chequered tiles and dainty tea setting. I feed my handsome little boy and tuck him under my arm lovingly while I finish my first cup of ‘civilized’ coffee since giving birth.  Philip stares up at me in awe while we share a peaceful moment in the warm foyer.

It was a little step for woman and baby but a giant step for this first time mother. The ladies in the Arms know us now and I have it timed. These days, I waddle to the counter with young Daniel, order a coffee, some scones and half a glass of milk (so as not to spill!). The natives smile at my jam-smeared son’s face and we flick through the pages of his latest ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ comic. I know I need to finish my coffee by the last story.  I do so in order to maintain some semblance of civilization in this busy mothering life.

The boys, as gentlemen in training(!), somehow know that this is a big deal to their quaint mother and oblige more often than not to humour me for the quarter of an hour it takes to have that coffee before running wildly, as is right, back into their world.  Somehow along the way, my young trainees have guided me, though not always gently, along this mothering route and I smile at the memory of the terrified young mother who had just discovered the delight of a stolen moment of calm with a young son.

Happy Mother’s Day to you who are, loves or remembers a beloved mother.

My First Trip to Hearthill

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When first invited to visit Hearthill, I saw it in it’s worst light. It was one of those drab and dark days that only us Irish know how to do so well. So, weather wise, I was under no illusions. It was bleak and it looked lonely. What’s more, farming smells are even more pungent in bad weather and the dampness added little to my farmer’s efforts to coax me out of my comfortable city existence.

By this stage, however, I knew that I was going to spend my life with my lovely farmer. He had, after all told me at the end of our first date that he would think of me while milking the cows.   I’ve realised since then that a dairy farmer couldn’t pay a girl a higher accolade. Dairy time equals thinking time.

On that faithful day, some ten years ago, I stood on the roadside of the farm and nodded, I might have uttered a ‘very nice’ not wanting to commit but knowing, as he did, that this was a deal breaker.  The pessimist and city girl in me wanted to run back to my car and get back to ‘civilisation’ as fast as the wheels would carry me but the optimist and country girl in me decided to roll up her sleeves and imagine how our life would be.  Thinking ‘right, how will I make the most of it, how will I design a life that works for us?’

Eventually, when the question arose, I chose my farmer. It didn’t take long for Hearthill to become home, it has been my consistent friend even on the days when I’ve felt worn by the challenge of this completely new life.  It has played its’ part in helping me to make the best of the everyday, in gloomy days as well as glorious.

On Becoming Practical

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Of all the prized traits in rural Kerry that a girl could possess, being practical is the most highly esteemed. If you are a practical Kerry woman, you will be forgiven all manner of ills. Unfortunately, whilst I’m wonderful in many areas (ahem), practicality may not have always been one of my strong points. I come from a long line of wonderful women who have never matched a pair of socks.

On a scale of one to ten, one being the girl who backpacks around the hotter climes of the world with a faux fur coat acquired en route as well as carrying several Russian (and therefore weighty) novels and ten being the woman who gives birth and then milks the cows, I can safely say, I started life in Hearthill at zero.

My initiation into rural farming life in practicality terms, was therefore brutal. The following is a short list of tasks put to me during my first weeks in Hearthill that served to highlight my impractical nature.

Running the gauntlet, I had to;

1. Catch a runaway calf.

2. Understand which way to run when the mother in law shouted ‘Go West’ in order to catch same calf (without the aid of a compass!)

3. Know how to avoid being pucked by a calf and thereby spilling the contents of a milk bucket when feeding probably the same errant calf.

4. Guess how much straw is needed to lay under a stall of calves. Carry the bales in and then spread the straw under the calves (trying not to be pucked until black and blue).

5. Invent ways to reuse the blue string tying up straw bedding so that they’re not left lying around.

6. Make sure you don’t find calf chewing and therefore choking on the blue string.

In the early days, I was determined not to let my new husband down but there are somethings that a girl doesn’t see coming, like a pucking calf or a sceptical mother-in-law. Yes, in Kerry, us city girls really have to earn our stripes especially when the farmer marries outside of the county bounds! Since then, however, I’ve gradually and unwittingly become more practical in nature. I may never reach the dizzy heights of milking cows immediately post partum but hey, if you need it, I can tell you what happens to Anna Karenina!

The Walk Back to Sallies

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In the villages, towns and cities of Italy, ladies and indeed gentlemen put on their Sunday best of an evening and stroll up their main street or piazza. They are there to be seen, to have an icecream and chat, often dressed in their finest Gucci (a flurry of Italian past-times all in one walk). Our tribute to La Passeggiata in Hearthill is the stroll back to Sallies. The Wellies replace the Gucci alas.

The romantic in me loves that we have a field named ‘Sallies’, named as far as I can gather after a lady who once had a cottage there named Sally (Funnily enough) in the late 1800’s. It is exactly a quarter of a mile from our red gate and it has been a Passeggiata of sorts for us, the newest generation of Brosnan’s, since 2009. 

Generally, our Passegiata starts out as an escape from the house,  a venture out into nature, a ‘wearing them out before bedtime’ or simply a walk out of the madness for Mommy.   Sometimes, it involves actual work when cows have to be accompanied back the road when grazing there. Even then it is relaxing saunder with cows whose tummies are full and whose udders are empty and therefore not in a rush back to pasture. I cherish the memory of Summertime when the living is easier.

This morning’s stroll took myself and and young Master Daniel back the road. For the two year old whose vocabulary is widening by the yard and whose curiosity is awakening in every step, the walk back to Sallies is a wild adventure.  Our entourage also extends to our two farm dogs, Sammy and Pepe, with the occasional cat wandering along too. There are times, like this morning,  when the stroll home is not always as carefree.  One of the strollers had to be cajoled into leaving an interesting corner of a field having found a family of ladybirds and so the the quarter of a mile home seems more like a marathon to a mommy who is getting heavier by the day.

Our stroll is an exercise in manners, learning to wave to a passing neighbour whilst also being lucrative with blackberries on offer and wild flowers for picking at various stages of the year. This Passeggiata is a nod to my favourite Italian pastime, in appreciation of ‘La Dolce Far Niente,’ the sweetness of doing nothing which in itself is so much. Adapting to life as a country girl has meant a slowing down in pace, strolling alongside seasonal changes and understanding the value of the country childhood where children chat with animation about new discoveries with the freedom to run around a much loved field.

A Quick Run to the Village…

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The labour ward is filling up, with two cows currently occupying the stalls, it’s a busy day in Hearthill. Our Chief Gynocologist came in to grab forty winks (long night in the labour ward too) and I decided to run to the village for supplies. Here is what I love most about the village.

  1. I get the local gossip. I have little or no interest generally in gossip but other peoples’s fortune/misfortune is currency in rural Ireland! (I’m sure there will be more of that anon – stay tuned).
  2. People in the village love my children too. They know where Philip got his name and knew the Philip that came before him. They’re interested in how they’re growing and it feels somehow like they have a vested interest in my boys.  In the words of Hilary Clinton, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’.
  3. I grew up in the city and didn’t know many people. Here, I’m the Corkwoman. A quick trip to the village means a guarenteed chat for this naturally chatty girl.  My escape means I get to chat to other adults(!) about any subject under the sun, once we’ve dispensed with the obligatory weather talk that is.
  4. I feel part of a community, that I am among friends and know where there is a network of  support nearby should the need arise.

People often ask me ‘How do you like it around these parts?’ While there is much that I miss of my life as a city girl and there are the days when living in a rural community is trying,  honestly, I can often reply; ‘I like it very much.’

Back in Hearthill, our farmer, despite being pounced upon by two small boys during my absense, needs awakening.  He’s back out into this lovely March day to care for the two cows bellowing in the haggard. Another fine Spring day.

Dinners – Moveable Feasts

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A trend swept through Ireland in the ’80’s leaving us innocent and dreamy city girls who read everything in the local library, fodder for the future farmers of Ireland. The trend was country and it’s leader was Alice Taylor.  Alice Taylor, and don’t get me wrong, the lady is still a hero of mine, has a lot to answer for. I ravished her books like a grass starved heifer; Longed for the day when I would inherit an auntie’s tea set for Stations, bought all she was selling on the frolicking through the countryside front, and so, fed on a diet of “To School Through the Fields,” my lovely farmer SAW ME COMING.  

No amount of literary loveliness could prepare me for the drudgery of cooking the dinner. Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook and I have to admit am pretty good at it, not surprising considering the amount of practice I get. I’m not even talking about the scary silage dinners, nope, just your everyday dinner. I know my city sisters are equally afflicted because let’s face it, no matter how many exceptions you are going to throw at me, we girls do the majority of the cooking. A hangover from a past life living as a student in France and Italy has left me pernicky about cooking from scratch, always on the look out for good ingredients so mea culpa, I’ve asked for it. I still have the same ten things I make over and over but I like to know that in the half an hour I allot myself for cooking the dinner, it is well made and tasty. But it’s the everydayness of it. Luckily, I’m not even dealing with fussy eaters (though they do cross the threshold on occasion), I’m talking about the routine of it.

Farmers by nature are creatures of habit. It took me six torturous months to get my man out of eating his dinner at one o’clock. And that was only because it suited our family timetable better (see I’m still trying to justify it). Added to this, the men (often two but it can be more), take off their wellies and sit down to eat as formally as they ate in the ’50’s. So I find myself serving food up to men, who in fairness, come in from difficult labour themselves to rest their weary bones in my dining room for a while. And so it falls to me to give them a decent meal and send them on their way. It’s the setting the table, putting out the cups of milk or water, handing out the dinner, making the tea and biscuits or the odd dessert that make the whole process a bit of an ordeal. I have tried on occasion to make it easier but nought has worked thusfar. My latest endeavor has me roping in the children to help out. ‘Philip the table!’, ‘Daniel the cups!’,  Just in the last week, Philip who will go along with any make-believe adventure has come to answer to ‘service’ if I cast him as the waiter!

Lately, I did reread my well-thumbed “School Through the Fields” and did find hints of the drudgery in amongst the fields and I realize now, that my younger self was blissfully unaware (as one should be at a young age) of real-life down on the farm. For better though, farming households throughout the country are changing and the mealtime routine that for many years was set in stone is now evolving to suit today’s farming family. Alas, for this girl in wellies, for a while longer,  I remain for the most part in the heart of my kitchen dreaming up new ways to make mealtimes easier. Garçon!

Stormy Weather

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So, the builders have come and gone and left a pile of 160 broken tiles in their stead. Just a mean reminder of an unforgiving storm and an invitation for all those passing to comment on what a bleak patch we live in. “Was it the design did they say?” “Will it happen again next winter? Probably.” Very legitimate questions, which I asked myself later that night during the wee hours when I couldn’t settle the children to sleep.

I was pondering on the misfortune that rattled my lovely home as I fell off the couch with Dan asleep on the floor next to me to break my fall.  We were camped downstairs around the stove to keep ourselves warm and I was trying to stay awake long enough so that in the absence of phone alarms, I could nudge Dan awake to go out and check on the calving cows (we had three in the labour ward that night). Apparently, it is a farmer’s wife duty to nudge one’s spouse awake at ridiculous o’clock to check on the cows. I wouldn’t mind confirmation on that, if only there were a manual.

Luckily, Mother Nature obliged where Electric Ireland had failed and the bellowing mothers awoke me for nudging duty at 4am. So I struck a match to offer some light to the weary farmer who had to go and tend to ‘the girls,’ ushering in another Valentine’s Day in Hearthill. Romance, as they say,  is not dead and we have survived another storm.

Anne

How many days to Spring?

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It’s a farmer’s wife dreaded time of year. The Spring.

For others, it promises new life, buds pushing through the ground, lengthening days, but not generally for the busy young mother and farmer’s wife. Reality down in the farm, the Spring takes our husbands away. Makes them absent, hairier and more likely to fall asleep in obscure parts i.e. the dinner table.

It means keeping up with paperwork, parenting alone, worry over sick animals, rushed conversations in the back kitchen. This is my eighth spring in Hearthill and whilst I’m becoming used to it’s tempetuous ways, we have not yet made friends. This year especially when the season finds me heavily pregnant whilst running around after two little boys, I’m certainly not a fan.

Especially brutal is the fact that just preceding the Spring are the two months where my husband turns into a househusband, putting the kids to bed, letting me have a lie in, cuddling up on the couch for rubbish tv and generally being there whilst the cows are dried off. Bliss.

So, how this year, do I survive the Spring as I feel the Winter sprinting away from me. My survival kit;

1. There’s still time to hibernate. Catch up on lost sleep, early to bed, late to rise. Long snoozes during the day. Christmas programming means there’s lots of films for the children to enjoy whilst you all snuggle up on the couch and store up energy.

2. Try not to complain about it too much. Ops. Make it pleasant for everyone, though deeply frustrating, we’ve got to play the cards we’re dealt. Even if it means ignoring the fact that your partner may not remember your name during those sleep depraved weeks, try not to complain too much. Instead of mourning the loss of Valentine’s day, make a romantic supper for two for whatever hour he might appear at your threshold, though pinch him if he falls asleep into said romantic meal! Just a small pinch.

3. Take the children to see Dad; there are lots of safe ways to have fun on a farm, if you are blessed with little boys, you know they love nothing more than donning the wellies and getting mucky. Feed the baby calves. Let them see a cow calving. Turn up in the milking parlour to help feed the ration. Later on the spring, bring a picnic to Dad in the fields as he’s fencing. A shared flask and fairy cakes can mellow all the family’s frustrations during that busy time of year.

4. Look ahead, the season can’t last forever.