Welcome to a week in the country

In this week’s Meet the Maker, fibre artist and illustrator Sarah Niland of Rudaí Olla and the heartfelt journey behind her business.

Father and Son

By Ann Marie Foley

In a thread of light he reaches to the rust crusted barn

that once held hay and straw

for horses, cows and cattle.

He farmed like his father and father and father back

before tractors and ‘ways of doing things’.

Trailering dung, seed sacks, and feed

in and out the yard as long as there was light,

and after, propped by a bale,

or leaning over the stable half door,

chat with neighbours, time to weigh

the pros and cons of the local team,

some finer points of growing beasts,

the cost of feed and prices at the mart.

Now the empty barn and fields await,

the next farmer from travels and college returned,

his car comes and goes

leaving the dust of the lane behind.

In a ray of light on a spring evening

father reaches from the past,

to feel the ‘bit of kindness’ in the air

the first growth of grass,

to feel the plough and reins,

see steam rise up from the horse

and brown shiny soil in his wake.

He wills his son to start full of hope

for warm days and soft rain

and a harvest to feed all,

turf to warm dark days.

(Published in “Words Un-Laoised” 2015 and “Voices from the Land” 2022).

Ann Marie Foley writes poetry, prose and non-fiction and works as a journalist and on the family farm in Laois.

A lack of knowledge around food production processes leads to a lack of trust in food prices associated with local food. If consumers were to have more direct contact with their food produc­ers, they might learn to put more value into the food.

Dr Jennifer Attard on the agroBRIDGES programme

with Katherine O’Leary

There are always several jobs underway in a busy house. The aim must be to complete as many of the tasks as possible. Did you ever notice that when you start a tidying or filing job, things often have to get worse before they get better! So, when you set out to begin yet another job; decide on the outcome you want to achieve. Assess how you will do the task and estimate how much time it will take to complete the whole job.

If you are tidying a big area, you may need temporary storage solutions such as flexi-tubs or cardboard boxes to organise your belongings. That will enable you to leave the task and return to it when you have another slot of free time. This strategy will allow you to finish the job efficiently before moving onto the next one.

with Dr Catherine Keena

Teagasc countryside management specialist

Look out for primroses, a well loved sign of spring, their latin name primula meaning first rose. Flowers have five petals, pale yellow with deep yellow centres arising from a basal rosette of large oval crinkled tongue-like leaves. They grow on hedgebanks and woodland margins. In herbal medicine they were used to treat gout, rheumatism and headaches. In Irish folklore, primroses were used to protect animals and milk from the fairies. In areas wild primroses are threatened by people digging them up and also by hybridisation with ornamental garden primula. Used by bumblebees, moths and butterflies in particular the brimstone butterfly, primroses are part of our native Irish biodiversity.

The number in euro that truffles currently trade at per/kg. See how you can start your own truffle farm. Tracking the scent of success