{"id":18496,"date":"2021-09-27T12:36:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T16:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=18496"},"modified":"2021-09-27T12:42:11","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T16:42:11","slug":"fwd-episode-438-irish-pictures-and-stories-cows-were-a-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=18496","title":{"rendered":"Fwd: EPISODE 438 IRISH PICTURES AND STORIES… COWS WERE A NIGHTMARE"},"content":{"rendered":"

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NOTE TO MY READERS:   I WILL BE OFF LINE FOR SEVERAL DAYS I FEAR.  COMPUTER PROBLEMS BIG TIME.<\/div>\n
SO THERE WILL BE NO MORE EPISODES FOR A SHORT TIME.<\/div>\n

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 EPISODE 438     IRISH PICTURES AND STORIES…  COWS WERE A NIGHTMARE\u2026THEY ATE OUR BASE LINE<\/div>\n

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GROUP 9    CURIOUS CATTLE \u2026 LOTS OF PROBLEMS \u2026 ATE OUR BASE LINE<\/p>\n

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OUR biggest problems in Ireland were the herds of cattle.  The cattle were curious and omniverous.  And stupid!  They thought our copper base line looked good to eat.<\/div>\n
And practically every day we had a sudden cessation of signals as a cow chomped through the yellow sheathed base line and<\/div>\n
then gobbled up a few feet of wire before regurgitating the wire in round balls about the size of baseballs.   When the signals<\/div>\n
stopped we had to send crews to find the cut and repair the line.   This happened often.  Sometimes several times in a day.<\/div>\n

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The farmers were angry naturally.  Some claimed their cattle were knocked out  by the live wire.  I do not believe that<\/div>\n
happened\u2026never saw a flattened cow.   But we found lots of balls of copper wire that had been vomitted.   I think someone<\/div>\n
paid the farmers for damages\u2026but I don\u2019t know if it was Dr. Stam or the Irish government.<\/div>\n

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Sometimes breaks in the line were caused by cars and trucks but most of the time it was cattle.   <\/div>\n

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In the Canadian wilderness we rarely had problems like this.  Moose, deer, wolves, wolverines did not like a diet of copper wire it seems.<\/div>\n
Red squirrels might nibble a bit.<\/div>\n
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CALF CONVERSATION<\/div>\n

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\u201cMY that long line of yellow spaghetti looks edible.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOuch\u2026bit of a sting to it.\u201d\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s gobble up a chunk.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLook at mom\u2026over there\u2026she\u2019s vomiting the yellow stuff in big balls.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSpit it out\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHere comes one of  the lads with a big roll of spaghetti on his back.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not chewing.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s take a chomp just for the hell of it.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWait until he moves along.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNow!\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cOuch\u2026hot\u2026stings\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHere comes the lad running back here yelling like a damn fool.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLook innocent\u2026look like you are not interested in spaghetti.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cToo many hot chill peppers in the spaghetti.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Our base line was a mile or more in length.  Straight of course which meant the cable was put down on many Irish fields where cattle<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

roamed\/
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Calves were just as curious as their mothers but  not as hungry for swaths of our base line cable.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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GROUP  10    THE CASE OF THE COW THAT DISAPPEARED A CENTURY AGO<\/div>\n

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We heard quit a few stories about ghosts and mysterious happenings.  It seems the 19th century miners, some of them, spread a story<\/div>\n
about ghosts in part of the mine.  Apparently that was intended to keep curious people away from a \u2018high grading\u2019 operation where<\/div>\n
rich chunks of copper ore were hidden.  True or not?  Who knows.  John Hogan told tales of such High grading in Canada.  And a<\/div>\n
few years later I worked in the Yukon where and immense amount of silver ore was stolen from an abandoned part of the Elsa mine.<\/div>\n
(see Episode – Fell from the Moon).<\/div>\n

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One story told to me by Barney Dwan and others turned out to be true. We had a large anomaly when working an area near the Mahon river<\/div>\n
… a small valley (boreen is the Irish term I think) angles away from the river.  Let me say what happened in dialogue form.<\/div>\n

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\u201cAlan, there is an old story about this boreen.?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cGhost story?\u201d\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo\u2026just a story passed down from the old times\u2026the mining days\u2026the 1870\u2019s or later\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cInteresting story?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cApparently there was a mine entrance up here long ago and a cow<\/div>\n
wandered in and got stuck so the farmer filled in the opening with trash and dirt.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAbout where we got the high readings?\u201d\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYes, that\u2019s why I thought you might be interested.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDo you know the exact spot?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cI do\u2026right over there where the  gorse patch grows.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLet me see what Dr. Stam thinks.\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe could dig out the hole.  We are already digging trenches down to bedrock where we have<\/div>\n
got high readings.\u201d  <\/div>\n
” The story may or may not be true.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just hire a man \u2026.have him dig out that patch of Gorse.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSort of secretly?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYes,  I don\u2019t know what Norm Paterson would think of us spending money on a story that is 100 years old.\u201d<\/div>\n

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The patch of Gorse was about 4 times larger than this patch.  It seemed to be a waste of good farm land.  Not used as a fence line.<\/div>\n
Just a patch on a slope.<\/div>\n
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The floor of  the adit after the draining ceased was covered with pieces of timber. This was the first skull we found\u2026a young calf perhaps.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why was the skull here?
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This may or may not be the boreen.  The location was very nondescript;   Look in the far distance where a patch of Gorse is growing<\/div>\n
on the valley slope\u2026tiny in the distance.  The location was much like that.<\/div>\n

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Here we are inside the hillside adit.  Barney and John Hogan (whose picture is not flattering) \u2026 both are studying the wet sides of the<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

adit looking for oxidized green copper staining.   If I remember correctly  this bit of exploration helped Dr. Stam determine<\/p><\/div>\n

the workings were so badly faulted that there was no point trying to reopen the mines.  A great disappointment to the local people<\/div>\n
who were hoping Bonmahon would see boom times again.
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This is NOT the Irish adit I am describing. Later in the 1960\u2019s the company sent me to the Yukon territory where we entered this abandoned<\/p><\/div>\n

mine site which was half filled with ice. These ice crystals formed in the absolute stillness.   The Irish adit that we broke<\/div>\n
into never froze but filled completely with water.  Pressure. No release of that pressure until our man opened the adit with his pick.  That last<\/div>\n
swing of the pick triggered a deluge and a roaring noise as the water gushed forth.  Our man ran.  It took three days to drain<\/div>\n
the adit before John Hogan, Dr. Stam, Barney Dwan and I entered.   And that is when we made a big discovery.<\/div>\n
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There she lay.   The cow.  At least her bones.  Her head  especially.   Some bones must have washed out as the adit drained but<\/p><\/div>\n

her head and other bones were trapped in the mud and pieces of water logged timber.  So the story must be true.   The cow wandered<\/div>\n
into the adit\u2026got her hips sick\u2026could not turn around\u2026and died or was humanely killed there.   Something like<\/div>\n
that.   A kernel of truth…the skull.

GROUP 11    THE FOLK MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN IRELAND<\/div>\n

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Several years later, Marjorie and I toured the southern counties of Ireland and were given an escorted tour<\/div>\n
of this folk museum\u2026agricultural machines were a big interest\u2026at least to me.   <\/div>\n

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When that dead cow was<\/div>\n
alive the machines below were brand new.  And the farms were small except for those owned by the huge estates<\/div>\n
whose owners were often English.   The great disparities in wealth were a prime cause of the civil war that raged<\/div>\n
in Ireland in the 1920\u2019s.  Many big estate homes\u2026almost castles\u2026were put to the torch.
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END OF PART 3:  NEXT EPISODE WILL BE  A) THE CLIFFS OF MOHER   B) EXPLORING OLD MINE ADITS ON HANDS AND KNEES<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n


<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE TO MY READERS:   I WILL BE OFF LINE FOR SEVERAL DAYS I FEAR.  COMPUTER PROBLEMS BIG TIME. SO THERE WILL BE NO MORE EPISODES FOR A SHORT TIME.  EPISODE 438     IRISH PICTURES AND STORIES…  COWS WERE A NIGHTMARE\u2026THEY ATE OUR BASE LINE GROUP 9    CURIOUS CATTLE \u2026 LOTS OF PROBLEMS […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}