Rain, rain go away….

To try and beat the rainy blues this weekend in the shop we have some special deals like;

Durras Og cheese is on special offer

Spend €20 and get a FREE mini Easter Creme Egg

Spend €25 and get a FREE takeaway cup of coffee or tea!

We would also like to introduce you to some of our new products. Drum-roll please…..

Recent arrivals to Waterfall Farm Shop are the delicious, locally made, Julie’s Jams range, which is not only the divine Raspberry jam and Mixed Berry jam, but also the zingy fantastic Marmalade, scrummy Tomato Relish and we anxiously await the arrival of the super popular, always sold out, Onion Relish!!Other new products include several different types of cakes from another local producer Sam’s Cookies and their traditional Tea-Brack, and for those of you with a sweet tooth why not try the yummy Meringues Shells. If you are feeling like a healthy snack we also have Paddyo’s Granola bars or pick up a Multigrain Spelt Bread (from @tibothebaker).

 

Nestled in beside the jars of delicious Irish honey are jars of beautiful Manuka honey which, like its Irish counterpart, comes directly from the farmer who makes it. Now you have two healthy honey options to choose from!

 

Don’t forget the farm fresh eggs and ‘to-die-for’ delicious sourdough bread along with the farmhouse cheeses and fresh vegetables! So, don’t be shy, come on up and say hello to all baby farm animals and check out our new arrivals in the Shop!!

Irish Country Living Article

We are pleased, delighted and honoured to be the Irish Country Living magazine’s cover story for the St. Patrick’s weekend 2013! Maria Moynihan wrote a beautiful article all about the farm and the shop, and our life here on Waterfall Farm. If you didn’t get to see it, don’t worry, call into the Shop and read it on our notice board, or click on the link above!!

Easter Charity Egg Hunt

On Saturday 30th of March Waterfall Farm Shop is pleased to be hosting a super family fun-filled Fundraising day for the three primary schools in the Enniskerry area; Curtlestown, Powerscourt and St. Mary’s & Gerard’s National School. There will be egg hunts for all ages of children, as well as egg rolling, egg & spoon races, face-painting, egg painting… Fun, fun, fun!!!

The day will run from 10am to 4pm. All profits will be going straight to the three schools. Please come and support this charity event and have lots of fun and eat lots of chocolate while you’re at it!

Fudge & Her Family of Kids!

Lots of you will be familiar with ‘Fudge’ our little brown nanny goat. Fudge is a Pygmy goat, so she’s quite a small, dainty little lady, and very friendly. She loves getting a treat like an apple or carrot. This year, in January, Fudge gave birth to four little kid goats.

The 4 Kids a week old

This is not the first time she has had a set of quads, but it isn’t really the norm, although Pygmy goats do have two or three kids regularly. Initially we had Fudge and the kids in a shed by themselves for a few days to make sure everything was okay and that the kids were good and strong before they made their appearance on the world stage! Well once these little guys got to the Pet’s Corner they were show stoppers and had everyone swooning over them and marveling at their tricks and skips about the pen.

Kid On Fudge’s Back

Their favourite trick was to jump on Fudge’s back, while they were small two could fit on at one time, but only for a second so it was hard to get a photo.

When they first went outside they were a bit unsure of themselves, but you should see them go now!

Fudge & Kids 1st Day Out!

Now that they are outside the big rock in the paddock and the bank provide endless entertainment for them, and us! But they have also perfected the act of jumping on Mummy, and staying on while she’s walking around. Pretty cool, eh?!!

Get Outta da Way!!!!

Pygmy goats are very cute, but they are little rascals too and while these guys are small they have taken to squeezing in the pop-hole into the hen shed and either eating all the food or going to sleep in the nesting boxes which are nice and warm!

Kid Robbing the Hen Feed!

Well they won’t stay this tiny forever so do call up and see them while they’re at their most fun (and we’ll notice if you take one away in your pocket!!).

Pancakes

In honour of Pancake or Shrove Tuesday I decided to share this nice recipe for American style pancakes with you. The traditional Irish pancake is lovely, but this is nice for a bit of variety too! Don’t be afraid to experiment with it and mix it around a bit, adding fresh or dried fruit to the recipe can really liven it up. Each to their own and all that!!

American Pancakes

Ingredients:

300g Self Raising Flour

1 tsp of Bicarbonate of Soda

2 eggs

290/300ml of Buttermilk

4 tbsp of milk

85g of melted butter

Pinch of Salt

Method:

1. Sieve the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and gradually whisk in the eggs and buttermilk,  followed by the milk and melted butter. Mix until the mixture is smooth and free of lumps.
2. Using a non-stick pan, melt butter and when hot add 1 or 2 ladles (per pancake) of the batter to the pan. Depending on the size of your pan you can fry one or several pancakes at a time. Cook for 2-3min until bubbles appear and the underside is set and golden. Flip the pancake and cook for another 2-3min.
3. These pancakes are lovely served in a stack with Highbank Orchard Apple Syrup drizzled over them, so when cooked transfer them to a plate, cover with greaseproof paper and keep warm in a low oven. When you have enough for a nice sized stack, don’t hold back!

To make this recipe more fun add; 2 eating apples grated &/ 50g dried berries to step 2 when the mixture is smooth.

Meet Henry!!

As our followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook already know, we have an orphan lamb (awh) and he is called Henry. Poor old Henry was the second half of twins and he’s a little survivor (so far) as his sibling didn’t make it! So we have been bottle feeding him since he was born and we put him in the Pet’s Corner so the customers could feed him too! First of all we put him in with the goat kids so he’d have company, but they thought it was great fun to play rough with him. Four against one isn’t fair really. So then we tried the rabbits, Max & Ruby, this seemed to be going okay until we found them using Henry for hurdle practice and whizzing up and down the enclosure jumping over him at top speed! During the week Henry thought he had a new Mommy, but she wasn’t keen on him and beat him up a bit. So today Henry was in a pen all to himself and he had lots of visitors and lots of little children feeding him and cuddling him. When eventually goes out to the fields he accost any human out walking and demand a feed!!

Feeding times for Henry are approximately 11am, 1pm and 3pm on Saturday and Sunday if you would like to come and visit him. Be warned, if a Mommy becomes available for Henry we will not discourage it and you may miss your chance if  you don’t come soon.

Snow, Snow, Snow!!!!

Glencree Valley has such beauty and you can really see it on a day like today! This picture is taken from the crossroads, so I’m standing right at the foot of the Valley looking up towards Kippure in the distance and the clouds are covering the mast. From this picture the snowline is very obvious, in fact for quite a bit it is above the level of the road (on the left of the photo), and then as you gradually get higher up the Valley, beyond Crone Wood, it covers the road too. On the right hand side of the Valley you can see Knockree Youth Hostel has still got green fields below it and whiter ones above it. If you were on the other side of that mountain, climbing higher above sea level, the snow starts covering the road around Barnamire, and gets much thicker at Cloon Wood and keeps on getting deeper the higher you go!! So you now have prior knowledge if you decide to take the Glencree Drive this week. Keep in mind though Michael’s tractor is in a million bits in sick bay and is in no condition to pull anybody out of ditches!

But that’s enough of the geography lesson. Lots of people love coming out to see the snow, try their hand at making a snowman and get over enthusiastic tobogganing! These guys were having great fun this afternoon, after all the homework had been hastily done!

Most of the fields have no stock in them as they are inside for the lambing. So Michael is really busy looking after all the little ladies on the maternity ward. I help him to feed the ones who have given birth and are now in a ‘private suite’. Like the human equivalent you only get a short stay inside after giving birth before you are unceremoniously kicked out into the real world. Although not in this weather!

The baby goats are starting to show their characters. They are really playful little rascals and now spend a lot of their time hopping on and off Mum. Only a few days ago they were still small enough that two could jump up on her at the same time. But now they are that bit bigger and only one gets to be ‘king of the castle’!!

The little fluffy rabbits are also getting more friendly and we now have decided on names for them ‘Max and Ruby’! Although we still have to confirm which is which!!

The Lincoln Film Premiere

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to attend the Movie Premiere of Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Wicklow’s Daniel Day-Lewis last night, the 20th of January 2013! The whole event was organised to raise money for the Wicklow Hospice Foundation. It was a great night and it was so wonderful to see and witness the generosity of the people attending and I don’t just mean the celebrity’s but the ordinary folk too. The film itself was superb, in the way that a film just takes you to another place and you forget everything around you and just get so involved and lost in the script! I gave my ticket up so Michael D (our President) could attend as the whole event was totally over-subscribed and they didn’t have a ticket for him!! The dinner was really nice and entertainment throughout was fabulous. Micheal O’Mhuircheartaigh was the MC for the night and he did a wonderful job and really added some dry humour to the task as well as good crowd control! I was particularly blown away by Sinead O’Connor. I’m not really a die-hard fan of hers, but she was AMAZING. Her voice and the emotion she put into her songs was just breath taking. Our neighbour Chris De Burgh also came along and sang a few tunes and got everyone dancing. Shane McGowan sang, aptly, Danny Boy. Athletes Katie Taylor and Fionnuala Britton attended, Katie Taylor’s signed boxing gloves went up for auction, making €2,700.

Bono and The Edge were also there and they got involved in a bidding war with Steven Spielberg for Bono’s “Peter and The Wolf” drawings, which I think Steven Spielberg clinched it in the end. It was very exciting with a big cheer going up every time a new bid was placed by any one of them! In the end the drawings sold for €42,000. The auction raised about €150,000 which I’m sure will be a great help to the Wicklow Hospice. They are such a good charity to support, as all charities are, it meant so much to me to be there and I am just so humbled by the generous spirit of everyone involved.

Meet Our New Additions!!

As I’m sure everyone is aware ‘Fudge’ our brown Nanny goat has had quad kid goats! They are all doing well and she has

been getting plenty of tasty treats, like apples and carrots, from all the visitors. The kids are now two weeks old and are real rascals jumping all around the pen and even balancing on Fudge’s back when she walking around! Sometimes two even manage to stay on at the same time. Patience is a virtue!!

The lambing started right on schedule with the arrival of a single lamb, and then a set of triplets and now there seems to be hundreds of them already. Michael has put a few sets of triplets in the Pet’s Corner to keep Fudge and her babies company.

In the Shop we are very excited to have delicious honey and homemade jam from Loughbishop House. Chris Kelly’s wonderful bee’s foraged around the Kelly farm and orchard on the wild flowers and blossoms. This honey is from blackberry and clover and is wonderfully runny.

When it eventually sets (as all honey does) it will be beautifully soft and spreadable. Mmm delish! Helen makes their jam from the excess fruit from their orchard. No food miles here! She made delicious varieties such as Greengage, Gooseberry & Elderflower or Damson Cheese all from their own fruit trees and berry bushes. Stocks are limited so get your skates on!

We have also expanded our cracker range and the fridge is home to more cheese varieties with more on the way as the Spring progresses.

Even though there has been snow today, the roads were fine and the Shop will be open as normal this weekend. The fields are empty of animals…. and full of snow. I don’t have a toboggan, do you??

The Season’s are Changing!!

It’s that time of year again. The clock’s change this weekend, falling back an hour, and this means that the Shop will close an hour earlier, at 4pm, from now until Spring. Along with the clocks changing the beautiful, mouth-watering sweetcorn season is now over. There is nothing like the taste of fresh sweetcorn and I hope plenty of you got to enjoy it. I guess what makes it so delicious is the very fact that it is seasonal. Like the Irish strawberries or raspberries. They are so delicious when they are fresh and in season, we all devour them. Of course it’s a bummer when the season is over but we look forward to it starting again next year. I think it makes them taste all the better. Other casualties of nature are the Glencree Grapes and the fresh herbs and tomato’s will be winding down shortly too.

What can we to look forward to???

Our delicious homemade soup is back in the Shop every weekend to help tackle those chilly days!! We also have an abundance of winter vegetables which includes pumpkins at the moment as we are coming up to Halloween. You can order our grass reared Lleyn lamb, this comes in whole or half lamb, processed in a local abattoir, bagged, labeled and boxed  for your freezer. The taster in the Shop this weekend will be Janet’s Country Fayre Basil Pesto, delicious on lamb chops or poached salmon! We also welcome the delectable Corleggy Cheeses to the Shop. This range of cheeses from Silke Cropp include a sheep’s, goat’s and cow’s cheese. They have all won two Great Taste awards….Each! The baby goats, Romeo & Juliet and Podge & Rodge are getting bigger and bolder playing lots of fun games. You are welcome to visit them and the other farm animals for free each weekend.