Author Archives: annebennettbrosnan

About annebennettbrosnan

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

Enjoy them now

There’s always an older woman around when you need that crucial piece of advise. I’m sure I’m not being ageist or sexist when I say it, I assure you. Maybe it’s coincidence but I think not for there she is, the older lady with nuggets of wisdom to dispense at just the right moment. They are mothers, grandmothers who no doubt wait by phones for sons to call or wave grown up children off of a Sunday evening urging you to enjoy every second of your time with your young children. It is well meaning for that I have no doubt and comes from a place of empathy but happens within earshot of most young mothers normally at the end of their tether, far too frequently. Allow me to illustrate.

Now, rest assured, the following incidents are purely fictional and thereby serving to illustrate my point. I mean at no point yesterday afternoon did I personally find myself at a local library with three young sons you understand. No, no son of mine was emptying the read-it-yourself shelves and upsetting the alphabetical order of things while his brother begged his mother to read another of the Mr Men series. Nor was I drawed upon, ahem, she drawed upon to find Wally at the same time. No, I’m sensible like that. No, this was an altogether different mother. All characters remember are fictional, all but the lady who appeared just when the poor mother at the library was about to throw a tantrum herself and pack three said boys into the people carrier, lo and behold, there from behind the cookbooks appeared the older lady like an appartition ‘Aw’, she said ‘enjoy them now, these years go by in a flash, You’ll miss them.’ The mother almost huddled in the corner trying to realphbetize a row of Horrid Henry‘s while simultaneously trying to hold a trying toddler, smiled and nodded, really appreciating that little nugget of wisdom. I’m sure it was the first time, even that day, she had heard it.

That same sorry mother an hour later in the supermarket encountered another angelic vision who might have popped out at her from the cereal aisle to whisper ‘oh, their problems only get bigger.’ as she cajoled her eldest along who had gotten his finger stuck in the trolley. Is that so? I better get home I thought, I mean she thought, before the third vision appeared telling her that she had her hands full and that indeed boys are a handful and then inevitably there would appear the ‘wouldn’t-it-be-worse-if-he-were-thrown-down-sick’ fairy who somehow finds the perfect time to deliver the most useful line with perfect timing. Is there nothing to be said for awkward silence anymore?

Then today, that same mother found herself watching her three boys tumbling down an outside slide in fits of giggles, watching them standing up in turn to blow her a kiss at the window where she watched on, knowing instinctively, that she will miss the days when they were young, full of fun, carefree and naughty. And funnily, no-one had to tell her that.

Feeding Time

Leave a reply

On the farm. Cooking was never a huge priority for me before becoming a farmer’s wife. I loved to cook and it was often fancy but I could get away with the odd take away or frozen meal. Not for this farmhouse I’m afraid. To start with, the farmer is spoiled rotten and he’ll tell you that himself. The priorities for cooking are as follows; it has to be wholesome, feeding men who are working intensively for hours outdoors.

Then it has to be in great quantity, you have no idea how much farmers can eat and as for the small little boys coming up behind them, a gallon of milk a day goes nowhere. There has to be enough in the fridge/freezer/pantry at any time to feed an extra if one should one arrive for feeding at the door. The meal has to be of good quality, for the health benefits, farming families who milk twice a day, 365 days a year cannot afford to be sick, so it’s meat, vegetables, carbs and dairy to fill the bellies. We buy our meats, fish, vegetables and other as locally as we can. We bring in milk from our own dairy. Lastly, it has to be varied and tasty, varied because we sit together everyday at the table and it’s good not to be able to predict the day’s dinner and tasty because, life my friends, is short.

Breakfast is porridge, wholesome brown bread, tea and fruit. Lunch this time of year is most likely homemade soup and is eaten after first milking at 12pm when our four year old comes in from playschool. Dinner that we’ve now moved to 4.30pm to accommodate our school goer is a hotpot, meat-and-two-veg, curry or whatever takes the farmer’s wife’s fancy. It’s one pot for all generally in the farmhouse, the children eat a smaller portion from the pot. There’s no time for special orders. The eldest lays the cutlery, the second ‘does the cups’ and the baby decorates the floor. We eat together everyday. After dinner, there is tea with biscuits, icecream or if you’re very good, a cake. Fresh cake does every occasion make. Sponge cake for a birthday, chocolate gateau for a visitor, carrot cake to carry out visiting.

Somedays, I feel like I spend my days cooking and then I remember I do. Feeding five, six people a day is no easy task. I am like every mother and some fathers who do the same every day for their families there is no doubt. But, somehow, it seems different in a farmhouse, you’re fueling a hard days work on the farm and I am the train driver throwing coal into the engine fire from my very own stove. Eating out is a real treat that we really delight in (if it’s good) and I relish any cup of coffee that I don’t have to make myself. Feeding time on the farm; an all consuming, sometimes funny, delicious, family affair.

After Dinner

2 Replies

You’re on the final sprint by after dinner. Homework done, dinner eaten, you can taste the freedom. The boys kick about, watch television, chase each other outside on fine evenings. To wash up now or later. Later, later. The house has the appearance of a day’s living as dinner smells settle and activity levels wind down. The farmer kisses all goodnight and heads out the door to milk the cows. It’s a solitary half an hour drinking coffee, reading, surfing the internet, procrastinating, making a phone call while all the household goes about their own business for a little while.

What comes after is work. Cajoling into pajamas, co-ercing into tidy up, washing faces, teaching how to brush teeth, listening as the milk machine goes across the road. Lights are on in the farmhouse earlier now, we cosy into bed and settle into stories. We visit castles, old Ireland, swim underwater, sail pirate ships and say a little prayer. How much do you love me? Oh, that’s a very long way. Sleep now. Sleep.

Mostly they oblige, three little heads peeking above the blankets as they drift into dreams after a hard days work. I resist the urge to sleep myself and drag myself down the stairs to nighttime radio, washing up, baking bread if needed and organizing. I boil the kettle for the farmer’s supper, switch on the outside light waiting for him to come home. There is much living in a day around here. Rightly so.

Twilight

2 Replies

Ah, October’s dying light begins early on a Sunday night. Everywhere, the fields are tinged with orange as the mist descends on County Kerry. It is the habit this time of year for farmers to stop milking Sunday evening to have a full on family day. A farming holiday, unofficially.

This evening, as I drive from the local town home to the man and boys in my life, the country holds its breathe. When Ireland plays we’re like a country of first cousins. Can we do it? Surely. Our country plays rugby against France and later soccer against Poland. We’ve one game down, the collective ‘we’ have beaten the French. We did it. As the cousins gather in front of the television sets in awe of the crowds singing the ‘fields of Athenry’ thar lar; the countryside is almost abandoned.

I run in the door just in time to celebrate the final try by Ireland, we beat the French. It’s a great country you know. The light is all but gone now and the country is reawakening as the farmer walks out the door farming the green fields that inspire our song.

He waves as he runs out the door and I call him back and say it quietly. Imagine. I know he says, don’t say it he says holding his hand up. Imagine if we did it? Shhhh, imagine if we won the World cup? And for tonight in this Irish orange mist and twilight, anything is possible.

Imagine.

Andante, andante

Leave a reply

If September is the composer’s marking ‘allegro ma non troppo’, in October, he instructs ‘andante, andante’. What’s the rush? The cows aren’t in a rush. Walking them in from the field these days, we’re not to proud to plead with them to come into the parlour. If you’d be so kind girls to leave the field and produce some milk. We’re the kind of household that are very in tune with our cows. They’re slowing down, go on so, put on the kettle.

During the busy period of the year, with young children climbing out of every crevice, or so it seems, and paperwork mounting up, it was a sink or swim sort of situation. Dinner prepared the night before scenario, busy planning Sunday night for the week to come, sorting cow’s cards, filing the incomings and outgoings. It was the first time in almost nine years of marriage, the accountant saw us before the deadline with accounts in order. Who are these people?

I mean, we’re not home free, work will still be done, in fact if you’re a visitor watching the poor farmer come and go while you sip your tea with the farmer’s wife, you mightn’t see the behind the scenes slowing down. The worries don’t subside, you still have to keep an eye on the food ahead of cows for the winter, there are still evenings of planning for the year to come. He’s still milking twice a day, but he’s not spreading fertilizer or feeding calves or making silage or or or. No, have a biscuit, he’ll be on soon.

The light is creeping away on us, a chill is most definitely in the Kerry air. It will carry us through the high and low notes of this Winter’s sonata. And in he walks, as if he can smell a hot cup from down the high field. And he does like cake. Andante, andante does it.

Ten ways

Leave a reply

For the days you’ve lost the plot, can’t find the remote, need to pay more attention to your spouse, redecorate your bathroom or play with your kids, there are always ten ways;

Ten ways to keep all your children entertained at the same time
Ten ways to tell your children to ‘stop jumping on the couch’
Ten ways to spend more time with your spouse
Ten ways to cook minced beef
Ten ways to give the middle child more attention
Ten ways to use leftover pizza dough to entertain the children
Ten ways to stop reading blogs that make you feel inadequate as a mother
Ten ways to occupy the children while you’re trying to cook the minced dinner
Ten ways to keep your sanity when they’re all crying at once
Ten ways for you to keep calm when you just want to roar at them to ‘keep quiet’
Ten ways to use alternative words to ‘don’t
Ten ways to relax once they’ve gone to bed
Ten ways not to eat the contents of the fridge
Ten ways to make the most of your evening
Ten ways to get ready for the next morning
Ten ways to stop reading advice on childrearing and to use your own mothering instinct
Ten ways to start afresh each day
Ten ways to count your blessings

I’ve lost count. I might just be starting a new trend.

September 23rd 2015

1 Reply

There’s only one place for boys who have feasted on birthday cake and sweets of an afternoon; the outdoors. Late September provides them with the playground that pacifies all their senses. Waylaid from their evening escursion to bring in the cows, they meet another intrepid adventurer on the way to see a haunted house with his brother and abandon the trip to the cows.

I walk with the still young boys on their adventure aware that I’ll not accompany them for much longer on these trips, they speak with animation of rat-holes, goblins, ghosts and thorns making their way through the briars guarding their haunted house. As I eavedrop, I know that imagination will accompany them on as they create the story in their minds that will colour their evenings chat.

At the farmgate, they wave goodbye to their neighbour and fellow ghost buster and head down to help Dad bring in the cows. ‘Bye so Mom’, ‘I’ll have the dinner ready so, mind your brother.’ ‘See ya later.’ ‘Be careful.’ ‘Right so.’

Off they walk into the crisp late September evening as I watch them take to their next adventure. Off they go, I think as wonder what to make for supper all too aware that they’ll take it more and more themselves from here.

Denny Street

2 Replies

Where did I go wrong? A good Cork city woman putting two of my sons in Green and Gold today for Kerry day at school. They start the brain washing young these days. I gest, or maybe not. Don’t forget I tell them, you’re half Cork. ‘Yeah, yeah Mom.’

If you have nowhere better to be or your team alas has not made it to the All-Ireland, ahem, there are fewer places better to be the Friday morning before the football final than your nearest Kerry town. This morning I found myself in Tralee, trying to fit my youngest Kerry son into his first pair of shoes. New shoes on we strolled up the street to suss out the craic in the town for the weekend that’s in it. And there they were gathered in little groups, looking for any excuse to walk up the Mall to talk about Kerry’s chances; the Kerrymen.

My inner Corkwoman dancing on the spot at the audacity of these people lining their main street in Green and Gold for the Homecoming. With their guesthouse places in Dublin booked since before the Munster final for the third weekend in September.

I take my newly shoe-ed buachaill for a cup of coffee to The Grand in Denny Street to get to the heart of the football speculation. You’re sure to spot a former footballer and watch the natives talking in code around the subject of tickets.

‘Not a ticket to be got.’

“Like Gold dust.’

And you know that it’s in a very rare and unavoidable incident that will be talked about for decades when a Kerryman doesn’t get into Croke park of an All Ireland Sunday. Remember ’86 when I had to watch it from Quinn’s. You poor thing, almost as bad as the, is anyone listening, the defeat to Tyrone. Say nothing.

One man, shaking his head this morning, whispered into his coffee that they were putting on a ‘very strange team’ and if I didn’t know better, I think it was put there to rile the troops. I think I might have heard a spoon drop to break the silence in the wake of the non-believers comment. A strange team what have you. Paidi O’Shea was right you know, these fans, we’ve never seen anything like them. When Kerry go on the field, they do so with the might and force of a whole county, young and old on their backs expecting them to deliver the majesty that leaves the rest of Ireland open mouth-ed.

Yes, they’re ready for you Dublin, they’re on they’re way again to bring Sam ‘home’ again.

Sigh.

Bath time

2 Replies

I’m no stranger to bathing young boys, having three on a dairy farm. Now. There was an evening I gave my first bath to a young baby boy that will remain with me forever. We had our first boy in February, 2009. Yes February. I was a home alone farmer’s wife with a new baby as the cows reached their peak in calving taking the brand new Daddy from my side. I knew it was coming this baby bath. The nurse had made it look so easy. And hey, I had travelled the globe alone, mastered languages, taught fourteen year olds the past tense in French, how difficult could it be? All I had to do was put this small, neigh tiny, wriggly, slippery person into warm water and wash him.

I was away from my family home, making my own home without anyone there to supervise me immersing my little person in a bath of water. I had been given several different bath temperature devices to help me find the optimum warm water; Ducks, sticks, they all eluded me. I rang a friend. I can’t do it, I asked her to come out (a twenty mile trip to help me bath a baby), she would have only she had something on and besides I could do it.

The house we rented first was freezing, it was so cold we lived in one room, our bedroom. So I carried the bath of warm water to my bedroom near but not too near the electric heater. Scary stuff. I placed his little towel on the floor, hood up and reread the chapter on bathing a new born infant from What to expect the first year. I undressed him. I remembered how my mother put an elbow in the water to make sure and then did the same. I’m sorry about this I whispered as I placed his tiny little body into the warm water. I sang. He stared intently at me not really seeing me but knowing me, trusting me implicitly. Eeek.

After a ten second dip, he was wrapped in a towel, sang to as tears ran down my face. As I type, he has just run to me for his morning cuddle, so I am assured that he is well adjusted despite his first bath by an overwhelmed mother. I cuddled him that evening to me and whilst covering him in talc powder, put on a nappy, vest and babygro one-handed and then fell asleep with him breathing gently on my chest.

There are three of them now. The youngest is growing out of his bath now and I know I’ll miss these baby baths. This time to run a cloth over their slippery wet skin and take the chance to cuddle them tightly as I take them from the water. And maybe because it’s Sunday morning but more likely because he says it better, I leave you with Seamus Heaney in memory of that first baby bath and let us offer a moment’s thought for the poor daughter-in-laws out there.

Mother of the Groom

What she remembers
Is his glistening back
In the bath, his small boots
In the ring of boots at her feet.

Hands in her voided lap,
She hears a daughter welcomed.
It’s as if he kicked when lifted
And slipped her soapy hold.

Once soap would ease off
The wedding ring
That’s bedded forever now
In her clapping hand.

What was she thinking?

Leave a reply

I’m beginning to think Mother Nature, and I’ll say this quietly, might not have been a mother after all. Or at the very least, when she was considering a mother’s health, she might have been on the amber nectar. I mean, if it were well thought out, a mother would never have a cold at the same time as her children. Never.

This weekend, I found myself in the shaky, shivery stage of my cold. You know, headache, sore nose, coughing. Thing was the children were just ahead of me in the cold phase. I vowed , each time I dragged my weary bones out of the bed that there would be an illness workshop along these lines over the coming weeks;

Morning Session

How to blow your own nose
Where to deposit the tissues when you’ve used them (i.e. not everywhere)
How to be a good patient and avoid some woman someday accusing you of having the Man Flu
How to avoid spreading your germs everywhere (put your hand up to your mouth when you’re coughing for the love of God)

Afternoon Session

How to make your sick carer a hot whisky

It’s a bit like bolting the stable when the horse is sneezing his way out the gate. But who’d remember to shut the gate when you have three screaming small boys crying, ’tissue’ ‘nose’ ‘throat’ ‘Woe is me’ (ok, that was me).

And just when you’re starting to come around and you’re just about functioning again, opening your heavy eyes, you see the state the house has been left ‘in your absence’. I think I might just rest my head on the keyboard for a little sleep. Achoo.