Two dogs and a ball....or three

As those who know us will also know, we rescue critters as well as people. Here thus we have two dogs and two cats, all rescues from varying appalling situations.

Life is never boring thus.

Both dogs are high energy breeds; a collie and a JRT/Bassett cross.

Sometimes there is just not the strength left for a long walk; we are blessed with fields we can run them in when cattle are not there.

So, as in one House where we were hemmed in by sheep, all that is needed is a ball.

Wee dog will chase and fetch ad infinitum. Collie will not fetch but she will chase alongside wee dog thinking wee dog is going to play with her. So by association, ball means fun.

And it is the interaction that makes this play so utterly meaningful and enriching. There is eye and face contact, response to the owner. Far more so than simply walking alongside the dog.

Many years ago, when I thought of a dog, a refuge owner told me this.

It is so very simple. No need for long runs, for agility training. The dog only finds these fun because YOU are there, giving him your undivided attention. Dogs are humblingly simple. All they seek is YOU.

A ball or three? Well, two balls have.... vanished. No doubt they will be found at some stage....
We are not at the shops often, so this was a trial, and no, an empty plastic lemon will not serve. Nor a stick or a stone. ONLY A BALL.

So we triumphantly brought home a large, brightly coloured Thomas the Tank Engine ball. Try hiding that, wee dog...

It was loudly and thoroughly killed in five minutes flat. Dead, crushed. oh boy dis wee dog enjoy it!

So today we have for her a very large white ball that is strong. Hilarity as she dribbled it around, barking the while. And then a coloured tennis ball to fetch, that is carefully inside now.

Both dogs are blissfully asleep now having played to exhaustion.. until a little later.

They renew, and renew us with their needs, and their adoration and their simplicity.

Murky and damp here, the weather man says poetically... So thankful to have escaped the snow and hard, harsh frosts in the UK and Europe...

So we light a candle and work on. Working now towards a supply of Plumpienut for the needy wee ones abroad.

Blessings and peace

The local hounds

Some moonlit nights we hear them howling.. a comical sound.. We know there are hounds as in winter sometimes a tiny local hunt rides up the lane.

Then, one day coming back from market a slightly different way, rounding a bend on a narrow lane, there they were.

A multitude of wagging tails all on leads, surrounding a wee leprechaun of a man. What I called a hairy whippet - a lurcher I know now!- was riding shotgun,. offlead. Warning traffic.

Of course we stopped, and opened the passenger door. Asked permission to welcome, which you must always do with dogs. And the bliss of noses and tongues, bright eyes and wagging tails. All so fair and cared for. Harrier hounds he told me; all working dogs. A credit to him.

So it was with a smile and a warm heart we drove on And that echoes when we hear the baying in the night. Our neighbours...

The smell of money?

Becalmed in green fields generously anointed with liquid slurry, ie cow/bull shit..

Somoen in the US said that they call it the smell of money there.

They came to advise us of the event, but we had already.. smelled the activity in the fields opposite..To make sure we had no washing out..

An act of love..

And as a recompense, there was one with a chainsaw to cut up the branches they brought in weeks back, a job offered months ago.

Irish fashion of course, and to survive here you have to get used to this. Never, ever rely on folk for food, fuel, water etc. Always make other provision, and always take the intention and offer as the kindness of the deed. This is how they are and always will be. And often they start a job then just wander off as happened yesterday. By working alongside them stacking the wood, it is possible to make the work last longer. Living here is an art form and an act of love.

They carried on bringing the tanker of slurry in until darkfall. The doors and windows were firmly closed, but even so the stench insinuates itself in. It is like no other. Cloying and suffocating.

Rain has helped but we have nowhere to run the dogs until it is washed in.. Ah well; an extra feed will help keep them settled. Always a way to live peacably and unruffled. Another act of love.

A mild winter... the garden amazes and provides. We were given some late planted seedlings last autumn; rainbow chard, celery etc, and these are starting to sprout again so today's soup will be rich in flavours. Also we have raggedy jack kale, cabbages of all kinds, even a cauliflower this week. That was from seedlings given eighteen months ago that had lived on and been left. Our mystery green leafy brassica plant is set to feed us another year.

And now a good patch of soft fruit bushes.. all given over the whiles. Gooseberries, chokeberry, goji, raspberry, blackcurrant. From these will come cuttings now. And the strawberry patch is good.

For now, work for the hands...knitting, beading, stockpiling for markets later.

So many acts of love... Given to us so we can give to others.

For religion is worthless unless it bears fruit in acts of love. Religion for its own sake is not of Jesus.

Acts of love are of Jesus. What use ritual and rote prayers else? Unless they fill us with so much love it showers sweet rain on all we meet? Perfumes the air. Spreads ripples of beauty all around.

Blessings and peace...

Into Christmas, and the turning of the year..

Always interesting that the year turns soon before Christmas...Gone is the shortest day and the birds and singing loud now.

Wild and wet this Christmas Day. Thankful for this, after the hard snow and ice of the last two winters.

Markets over for a while; the last one was yesterday, Christmas Eve. Novel to be out on that day. Time afterwards to sit on a friendly bale of straw in the crib of a busy church. Flowers being brought in; folk queuing quietly for confession.. a pair of wee girls at the crib and the candle stands full. Warm and dry...

In Canada, hampers are all out, and in India our wee ones will feast on chicken with their rice and vegetables, and a treat of oranges!

Hard indeed that any baby does not have the simple peace of a full belly, a clean body and a loving mother. Yesterday, watching a stallholder with a tiny baby and knowing how simple the needs of a four month old are.

An honour and a privilege to be able to help; for if we truly know and love Jesus, then at this time above all others, it is He Who starves and wails with hunger and cold and destitution. A huge lack and sorrow that we cannot do more, save more, feed more.

Here, we have all. A gift of coal means the house here is warm. And there is food and more than enough. Brussels sprouts from the garden and baby carrots too, and sage. A healing and a gentling to have these this year.
Small gifts of food that are not small.
Simple, wholesome.

So now a pause from markets. Not from work, as stock has to be made always. But from outgoing a quietude. Time to gather Prayer; time also to work the garden ready for the growing this year.

So many new ideas for knitting and beading and making, that there has not been time to work out.

There were eight markets in 2o days, most of then new to us. An intense time indeed, So many new friends and so many old acquaintances.

Scattered now to their homes.

So we turn to the Nine Lessons and Carols, grace a the internet. Candle lit here, in the Christmas quiet.

Blessings and peace

Please pray this for us?

Novenas do not usually appeal here, but this one has a special place in my own heart.

http://www.catholictradition.org/Advent/advent18.htm

It is simple enough; I make 15 knots in a piece of string.

Please, kind folk, would you pray this for our urgent needs as we strive to save and nurture in a world where love grows cold.. Please, pray for the miracles we need. Thank you and bless you.

This year we have managed to click onto the Christmas Fairs and markets we somehow largely missed out on in our newness here last year. And it is the knitting that is feeding our babies. We have worked a lot of smaller items eg knitted hairbands and elastic hairbands adorned with crochet. And it is lovely to see so many wee girls in the markets wearing them. Small. pretty things. As they say in Scotland, many a mickel maks a muckle...

And this week a large, large box arrived from Springwools in Dublin. They save oddments for us and they have thus supported our work for many years. Opening the box, this time so large I could barely carry it, is like unveiling a treasure chest. It really is awesome. The kindness begin it warms the heart and encourages.

So while the winter gales howl and rage. snug here with work for hands to create. Knitting food and medicine and life and hope with each bright hat...

In our ten years of trading in Ireland, we have developed a style and grace that in unique and attractive.

Blessings and peace this wild day!

Ireland, death... and of birth or death in other lands.

Often we are asked to assist in genealogy enquiries and it is work we grow skilled in.

Often it emerges that folk who live in other lands and are seeking their in other lands do not realise the way things were here in times past, and thus they seek what can no longer be found.

This recent photograph of one of Ireland's old Burial Grounds will elucidate.

Each stone, looking like broken teeth, and each mound, is a grave. Maybe of many generations of a family. For graves were reused over and over again, in times of hardship and when folk were not as squeamish about death as we are today. For in a poor country and a poor family ...

The dead are greatly treasured and loved here. If you look at a graveyard, you will see great adornments there. The ruins of old abbeys and churches are the most valued of burial places; the holiest places nearest where the altar was.

Families would do anything to avoid a pauper's grave... And families would often dig the graves themselves, a practice only outlawed this year.

The utter desolation of the famine years was that thousands were never buried but simply lay and rotted where they died. And as this was often entire families, all the sacred rites and custome were perforce abandoned. The last living family member, surrounded by his dead, would pull the house down around him, an easy feat in hovels, before he died. Burying his precious kin.

And when emigration hit epidemic proportions, entire families left, so there was no one left to care for graves, and the rough stone markers eroded and were broken.

Tracing folk is made impossible as so many areas kept no burial records.

Often folk cannot take in that there was simply no one left to preserve graves. Let the dead bury their dead... Needs must.

The way the Irish treasure burial traditions and family burial places is seen in these old paces, where rich modern graves appear among the snags of stone.

The distinction between birth and death blurs in many lands. As life is held less than sacred and as the great gods money and sex prevail for so many.

A baby is lucky to avoid being murdered before birth; a few years ago the figure of a million abortions in Israel saddened and horrified.

When men desire perfect boy babies and refuse to allow their wives to use birth control, girl babies become dross.

To be born in these lands is to face death with only suffering in between these events. As to be born in lands where man-made famine exists. As it was in Ireland in those years.

In China, a healthy baby risks being stolen from a loving family and sold to foreigners who think they are doing good.

In Vietnam, street children are rounded up and euthanised; unless they can be adopted. A lady called Christina Noble here in Ireland is doing wonderful work among them; if you see her book, read it! She has a website.

The ones who are doing most are the so called little people; caring strong in their hearts and their lives given in passion.

Often they are those who have suffered in their own lives; Christina is one such as she and her siblings were "guests" of religious orders here and had appalling childhoods.

In India, babies born to prostitutes face terrible lives; we are among those working in that land.

When a society shuns and breaks the laws of God, evil creeps in in many forms and life as He made it and loves in endangered.

When anything becomes more important than His love and His laws, when men twist and pervert the Word of God for gratification of any kind.

Holland was among the first to legalise abortion, drugs, prositution, to welcome homosexuality; now it kills off its old in vast numbers because life has become less than precious.

Expediency is all to them.

The weak, the sick,... useless they say.

Let us treasure and support life in the vulnerable and needy. Let us protect the frail and vulnberable in the Name of Jesus. Let us not walk past on the other side and pretend that all is well, Itis not well and we can each and all help and support. Not roll our eyes heavenwards and say sanctimoniously that God will provide.

Through our compassion, our hands, our hearts, He will indeed provide.

Blessings this night.... calm day and sun...

The parcel saga....

On Friday shopping etc was needed and a lovely day in between weeks of storms and fog. And the thought of a third day waiting and waching palled.

So an auto - message was left; put the parcels over the gate or post them. We made sure the gate sign, very large and clear was in place...

A day filled with blessings and when home was reached, no parcels and the weekend was here. So a philosphical shrug...

Then a car horn sounded loud and clear.. this is how we ask all to announce themselves as we can hear it wherever we are in the house. Our big gate is firmly locked; our Enclosure limit.

And there was a very embarrassed and agitated stranger. Who started explaining that he grazed cattle in a field up the road. .I wondered what was coming; our dogs are never out... etc etc etc.

He and his wife had gone to feed the cattle and had found.... two large boxes sitting there. One still had our instructions and he said that they were so clear and they knew immediately where... They must have thought at first that someone was dumping rubbish...and anguished what the boxes were doing there and what to do with them.

His wife then got out of the car.... Kind folk who were so distressed and distraught. They live nearly a mile away and were horrified when I told them the story. And off they went to bring the boxes then....

They kept saying that if they had not been to feed the cattle... No oen would ever have thought to search so far away..

They were blessed and thanked; they know of our work and our enclosure and it must have cost them to come like that. He kept saying it was going to rain and they stuff would have been ruined; so anxious. So caring and concerned and it was balm indeed.

When I finally opened the computer, there was a long email from the franchise holder of the sender branch of Fastway... Sent earlier in the day.. That he had just heard from the local manager that the driver had followed my instructions to the letter, found a gate and put the boxes over, sounded his horn and was away.......

Would I please confirm that delivery had been made so that future parcels .... The sender is a very good customer and they are scared of losing that contract..

Knowing the neighbourhood now I know where he went. Instead of the junction, where there is a wall of fluoresescent arrows which make a clear landmark, he had for some reason turned off the road a quarter of a mile sooner. Found a gate and there he dropped the load.... No resemblance to the instructions and he would have found a maze of steep winding lanes up there.

The first courier delivery we had when we came here was a supplier in Dublin. He was a day earlier than expected and an unexpected hospital visit had been needed. Yet he found the house from the same directions, and when we were out, found the folk he needed etc.

Needless to say Fastway have been informed of the situation... And a suggestion has been made that the area man drive that route himself to see how clear the instructions really are.

Short of talking him in on his phone there was nothing we could have done. We wonder if he is a poor reader etc?

So we have the generous and wondrous gifts now, that will help us to feed our babies, and to put food to Dublin for the increasing homeless problems there. All to be given, for we have all we need and more and so many have nothing and less than nothing.

Trading is slow as the weather is so bad; storms today. Time to build stock and prepare for Christmas sales and next summer...

So an indoor day apart from running the dogs between deluges and bringing vegetables in from the large and very fruitful new garden we have here. The last of the runner beans, cabbages, rainbow chard, brussel sprouts and large purple topped turnips still to come.. and still Sweet William to pick next weekend for market. A delight to sell cut flowers and surplus vegetables. And something that will be a stronger feature next year as the perennials come into flower. All the old fragrant favourites...Irresistible...

The gale has calmed and the rain has ceased so the night wil be in quietude now.. God be praised for His peace and safety.