I picked stones for weeks on end on a farm in waterford run by my uncles. We got the very tail end of it. My galway cousins were older and had the back broken on it overy previous years
They still talk about it
I thought that only Connacht had proper stony fields.
Rustling is a new angle. Fascinating occupation.
Very rewarding and low risk given that the likes of @Breaking_my_balls will be investigating.
I was out with the old man and one of the brothers yesterday evening, turning the turf with hay rakes.
The turf bank, which has been linked to the family farm for over 150 years, is one of the EU’s conservation and heritage designated bogs, so for the past few years the farm contractor has had to go in under cover of dark and cut. As a result, we don’t have much, if any, leeway regarding what weather conditions we cut in; this year it rained for two weeks solid after it was cut, leaving it in a fairly poor state. That was the second time we had turned it in the past week, but it’s finally coming good now.
I used to hate the bog when I was young. Back-breaking work, and conversations among the grown-ups that flew right over a kid’s head. I have to say, I’m pretty partial to it now. There’s something about the stillness in the bog that causes all the problems of the modern world to evaporate. You just get on with the work, with your eyes on the prize.
At 8.30 we had 2 hoppers left to turn. “Will we go?”, asked the old man. “No”, I said. “We’re here now, so we’ll finish it.” The mantle had been passed.
Well done mate, that’s you in pole position for todays Seamus Heaney award.
It’s funny you should mention Heaney, as ‘The Tollund Man’ popped into my head on more than one occasion while writing that post.
"Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head…"
Did you ever pull anything of mild interest out of the bog mate?
@Brimmer_Bradley pulled the stomach out of himself below in the bog the morning after Liz Howard had a Basic Instinct moment on the sunday game back in 1991.
That did happen.
Why, did you rape or murder one of them? Stick a load of Grade A Narcotics up their holes?? Are they involved in subversive activity causing offence to the state or involved in gang related criminal activity?
I almost cried reading the end of that
“Fetch a priesht” real life moment there
Went down well I’d say
Not too many words were spoken at the dinner table.
I know the craic… The oul’ fella would be the same way, say nothing only fit to ate the cutlery over it…
That did happen.
Well fuck ya @ironmoth I logged in and replied immediately to @KinvarasPassion lovely dig without reading the rest of the thread, now I feel like an idiot.
In other news. We baled 9 acres this morning, all good quality hay from a field just reseeded 2 years ago. I was mad to take a picture but the brother did all the mowing and turning and the made a bollix of the headlands and didn’t rake it in properly, it’s like a field of maize that a hurricane passed through. That Galway lad would put me to shame with his nice tidy bales and raked up grass. ( Posh cunt)
I wouldn’t be surprised if the brother was drunk when he mowed it and then drunk again when he was lotting it up.