Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hello God, it’s me, Girl in Wellies

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Dear God,

Obviously, I’d like a healthy baby, world peace, an end to world hunger etc. etc. but there’s this little lotto ticket in my hand and there’s this lovely Relais Blu hotel somewhere between Naples and Sorrento who I’m sure would love the opportunity to pour me a post partum Martini with the solitary green olive.

So, I’m just saying, if you have a minute, and you’re not too busy, well, you know yourself, it’s been a long Spring. I’ve been a good enough mother (which is apparently all you ask). I didn’t really make too much of a fuss of the 160-tiles-blown-off-the-roof thing in February and I have tried to keep my complaining about cows calving under the 140 character twitter allowance. But if you can’t, that’s ok, thanks again; you are good to me.

Anne

A New Story

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I watch my boys run along a ditch outside and while the mother in me has her heart in mouth for fear that they might fall, the city come country girl in me is acutely aware that these little boys are creating their own story. The last children to run the ditch, were my husband and his sisters while their own mother held her breath at the thought of their falling and I become aware, yet again, that these indeed are hallowed grounds.

Walking onto ‘the land’, on marrying into the country, you come to know that you are indeed walking into another person’s story. Sometimes as an unwanted tagline in a family’s history as it readjusts, begrudgingly at times, to fit you into it’s storyline. For families are exactly that, once actors but now bearers and collectors of a generation or more of stories; stories of love, happiness, disappointment, hilarity, joy, mourning, tragedy. I too, carry my own stories, mostly cherished but at times difficult to bear.

The truth is being a Cork city girl, I owned the banks, streets and bad paving of my beautiful city. It was all mine. The ground most trodden was mine in the way that we claim ownership over something we know and love. I own the street where I walked home from school with my sister, the pavement where my parents met for their first date, the no.3 bus route, the chimneys of the local brewery, the path to my Nana’s house. At times, now I too begrudge, the friends and family who get to walk in my hallowed home, acting out their lives on my territory.

While not so easy to begin with, it is easier for me to see now how marrying into a farm was difficult for the last generation. How frustrating it must be for the past generation to watch a new story unfold, in it’s own way, over a treasured childhood playground. As a young newly wed, I had no idea, and I wince at the memory of awkward encounters with this family treasure trove of stories and land. But I too, am just passing through Hearthill, granted and please God, for a long life, and I am one of the newest generation of family storytellers. Loving this place, bringing new actors onto it’s stage as my family take on their own roles watching our new drama unfold. With respect, there is room for everyone to be written in, newest generation and old.

 

 

Teaspach

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Only a few more cows left to calve telling me that soon it will be my turn. I feel a lot of empathy with my heavily expectant counterparts; the slow and laboured march to the water trough and the constant grazing. Like their own calves, my two little boys are full of teaspach (a local term used to describe the exuberance and spirit of young calves when new straw is scattered around them or on hearing the familiar splash of creamy milk reaching their bucket, a wholly bucking, jumping, break dancing show).

Teaspach to the heavily expectant mother is the most challenging. While one doesn’t want to break their spirit, a mother has to use up some of the battery life on some exercise that ensures everyone in the farmhouse gets a full-nights sleep. I find living on a farm helps; obviously, there are safety concerns that young cowboys have to adhere to but the farm is a veritable childhood obstacle course designed (in my mind) to help the farming mother harness some of that exuberance.

There is no shortage of adventures. Provided with a knapsack that includes a biscuit, toilet roll binoculars and a fascination for any insect/rodent/small animal or bird that moves; little boys can safely tour the perimeter of an adjacent field in full view of their mother. And every little find provides a relay back to the same mother to show their findings or perhaps a little kiss for a nettle sting. Spirit in tact, they wander back on their expedition.

Bringing the cows in for milking is another luxury in the world of heavily expectant mommying. There are few calls as welcome to a mother who has just prepared the dinner and washed up as ‘Boys, do you want to bring the cows in for milking?’ Oh yes they do! Suitably attired they walk out the door behind their father as I flick on the kettle for my real cup of tea; the ‘cows come home’ cup. An utterly bovine experience that allows me to sit for a moment while my ladies in waiting chew the cud outside the window in harmony.

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…

 

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.

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.

Baby Talk

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Being a mother wears you to the skeleton. Takes away during your most vulnerable times (when they’ve screamed and roared for something other than yoghurt ricecakes and told you in no uncertain terms that they are not having a bath), your ability to think in a straight line. There should be a test when you’re going out into the world without a child attached; You’re about to converse with other adults now, have you collected yourself? Indeed, think along the imaginary straight line for a moment.

Even beyond the first year when, and I’m sure you’ll agree, on lucky days, you’ll check you don’t have a baby wipe hanging off the sleeve of your jumper, that there should be a checkpoint for mothers to go through. A policing for our own sake; have you reverted albeit for the duration of your children’s absence to the mature, intelligent being you once were. Hazzah, why not an oath? Do you solemnly swear to at least make an effort not to talk obsessively about your offspring for the length of your tall skinny latte?

There are those that I have granted leave of absence to, sense wise (I’m good that way), in the hope, nay, certainty that they will come back to their senses once their youngest goes to school. I will let them away with a multitude of silly talk, inane twittering about, take your pick, any subject currently clogging up rollercoaster or mumsnet.  Knowing that one day, they will come to and remember how they actually can survive without the scaffolding of kinder talk; That they can converse and thrive outside of the, admittedly, narcissistic bubble of motherhood.

As mothers, today, we live in isolation. Generally, we no longer have the extended family to help out or indeed rein us back in, however abruptly, when we stray outside the parameters of sanity. We can no longer rely on the soundboard of family to gauge whether or not we’ve passed from plain boring to obsessive when it comes to our children. Just as we often don’t have the support of the wider family to come to our rescue in times of influenza or exhaustion, we don’t have the voice of reason to whisper the odd ‘pull yourself together love’ when your baby filter might have, by chance, become a bit clogged up.

Anne