I really wanted to go to the west of Co. Cork while I was in Ireland (southwest of the country) because it is supposedly one of the prettiest areas of Ireland. But I was unable to find a host in the area at the time that I was able to be there. So instead I went to Cork City. Cork City is considered by some in Ireland to be the most internationally leaning city in Ireland. This is because it is located close to several international harbors and homes one of the international airports of Ireland. Just walking the streets you could see that people of many more racial backgrounds were represented in Cork.
I arrived in Cork on Thursday night and met some people at the hostel. After talking with them in the common room for awhile they invited me out for a drink at the pub. Since it was a walk away (easy and safe to get back on my own by catching a taxi), I agreed and we went. There were two girls from Canada (Sydney and Allie - studying in France), an Irish guy (Nyle - no "S"), an Aussie (Josh - typical Sydney surfer type), an American (Bibino - from Arizona), and Simon (quiet guy, never really got his story).
Usually when you go out with people you met in hostels it is a hit-or-miss situation. Hit, you love the people, you go to a great place, you are sad when the night ends (like my night in the Bath hostel). Miss, the people are ok yet more interested in drinking then talking, but the place you go to is a dud, and the music sucks. The night in Cork was a miss. Thankfully, the night ended sooner rather than later.
The thing is that the people at hostels are usually just the kind of people that you want to meet. Interesting travelers around your age from all parts of the world. And it's wonderful to meet them. But sometimes the situation is just a miss. Nothing goes wrong, but you find that your not exactly having fun either. And you wish you had stayed in bed for your Skype date with your family. Oh well.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
All Posts for October
Last Days with Kate
My last two days with Kate were very busy. Besides the packing and cleaning (general getting ready to move on to the next place), we were busy. Friday I met Steve, a friend of Kate's, who is both a musician and an artist. He swims ocasionally (though it sounded like he did this sort of thing pretty often) in the Ocean off the coast of Wexford County. He said that not only was the rainy Friday the best sort of day to go swimming, but that September is the best month of all to swim in because the seaweed releases high levels of Iodine in late September, early October, which is good for preventing colds. I don't know if he was stirring the soup (and Irish expression for making trouble) or speaking the truth, but Kate, Steve, Chica, and I gathered our swimming gear and headed towards the ocean. All I have to say is that it was cold.
After swimming, we found some blackberries on the path leading back up to the car and on the road back to the Peninsula. We picked and ate them as we walked back to the car, and it wasn't long after we were driving down the road that Kate got the brilliant idea of making pancakes to eat with fresh blackberries. So she stopped the car in the middle of the road so the three of us could pick blackberries and gather them in a small plastic bag we found on the floor of the car.
On the way back to the house we stopped at the local fishmonger to get cod and salmon for dinner and to pick some pears. Back at the house, Kate made plate sized pancakes, which I proceeded to eat with fresh blackberries and raspberry jam.
Some friends of Kate's came over for dinner after Steve had left. A couple and their foster daughter ended up staying the night after we all had a bit of wine.
My last day at Kate's, I woke up and walked from the shed where I slept (where I usually slept in the loft "apartment") to the house, where I discovered the eight year old girl wandering the house while the grown-ups were still abed. In an attempt to distract her from bother the adults, I suggested we play board games. We ended up completing two puzzles before anyone else made an apperance for breakfast.
Later that day, I did most of the packing. I finished packing the next morning before I took Chica on our last walk. Kate and I packed up the car, and we set out for my next host in Co. Wicklow. We stopped for lunch at Sue's new house. Sue is a co-worker of Kate's who lives close to Gorey, a city where Kate works. We talked about her next door neighbors and the difference between a herd of liquid cows and a herd of cream cows (liquid cows produce milk all year round and the milk is usually used for drinking milk, cream cows produce milk during the season when they are also eating fresh grass and their milk is usually used for cheese or cream).
E-mail to My Family
Hey guys-
Just wanted to let you know I'm at the new place in Ireland, which is great. There is another WWOOFer here as well, which is nice. There won't be many blog posts this week as the internet is a bit spotty. So I'll write when I can and then post at the end of the week. Just wanted to let you know so you don't freak if you don't hear from me until next Saturday. On Saturday, I'm going back down to Wexford to babysit for a family I met while with Kate, so I at least know I'll have internet then. If you want to contact me, email and I will check periodically via my Kindle.
Love,
Elaine
At my New Host's
My new host is Katriona (pronounced Katrina to us Americans). She lives on a horse farm with her two daughters, Sarah and Laura. Her other daughter, Clara, has moved out of the house. They are a very welcoming family.
There is another WWOOFer staying here as well, named Abby. Abby and I are doing most of the horse care as the family went to England to celebrate Laura's 16th birthday.
10 Simple Steps to Learn How to Drive a Manual Car
1. Learn how to Drive Automatic when 16 years old.
2. Get your International Drivers License from AAA when you 22 and are planning a trip around the world.
3. Go to a random horse farm in Ireland, where most of the citizens drive manual cars. Be sure to go to a farm where one of the daughters owns a car that is manual and she doesn't mind if you learn on hers.
4. Meet another American working on the farm who drives a manual car at home, but who doesn't have an International Drivers License.
5. Have the host family abandon you and other American on the farm.
6. Create some need to go into town (for example: grocery shopping, phone card credit buying, etc.)
7. Have other American explain to you that she cannot drive into town because she does not have Internationl Drivers License.
8. Have other American offer to teach you so that you both aren't stranded in the middle of Ireland.
9. Be taught basics of manual driving by slightly nervous looking American who is not quite sure you are her best option for getting off the farm.
10. Practice on the roads of the farm for hours because you are petrified that when you drive into town you might hurt someone (Note: Always make sure that you are driving on the right side of the road [rather, the left side], because not doing so is a sure way to hurt someone).
11. (Optional) Find out that you are still stranded because the Irish car insurance system is really messed up.
Differences
The family we are staying with is back from England.
It's funny how you can connect with people completely different from you if you purposefully forget how different you are. I think that is part of the charm of WWOOFing, everyone comes in with different expetations of what they want to get out of it (WWOOFers and hosts alike), but they are open to the different people and cultures that they might be exposed to.
Sometimes you miss what you were used to back home, but mostly you are intrigued by the opportunity to become a different person and experience this other world.
The Pub
Drinking in the local Pub in the town of the highest altitude in Ireland with Sarah, Kara, and Abby. Does alcohol affect you faster at a higher elevation?
The Dogs
The family that I am staying with has three dogs: Toby, a mix between a blank and a blank whose favorite activity is planting his dirty front paws on my clean shirts first thing in the morning, Fly, a beautiful greyhound who must be kept on a lead at all times because if not she will take for the hills and not come back for hours, and Mini, a cute little black Whippet who thinks she is a cat. She insists on climbing into your lap for a pet.
I have taken to walking the dogs, not daily as with Chica (I miss Chica!) but every couple of days. Toby and Mini streak off into the fields surrounding the back lane that we walk down barking at horses and wild ducks, but Fly, who is restricted to the area around me by the lead, looks after them longingly, and then looks up to me with her large pleading eyes. I feel bad keeping her in check, but I know I would feel worse if I lost someone else's dog.
We usually walk up in the hills behind the house were you can look down over the town of Wicklow and see the Irish Sea in the distance. The hills, called mountains by the Irish, cradle the town, so it is almost as if I am looking through a valley.
One time I tried to make it to the top of these so called mountains. To get there you have to pass a gate marked as a wildlife area. Sarah told me to climb over these signs to get to the top, so I did. In Ireland, people don't seem to think twice about trespassing on the neighbor's fields. This was the same in Wexford, where Kate told me to feel free to ignore the fence to Tintern Abbey's walled garden which read "No Trespassing" in big letters. Kate said people went in all the time. I never did.
I was nervous all the way up to the top of the mountian that some Irish farmer would come after me, but I made it to the top without incident. On the way back, however, Toby disappeared and I lost the path. After a bit of bumbling through the hedges, getting scrapes that covered my legs from the knee down, and a reluctant reliance on Mini's keen, yet spacey, sense of direction we made it back to the main path, Toby, and the ranch house.
Horseback Riding
Sarah, Kara, Abby, and I hacked out (rode out) today for a ride in the hills. i rode Rachel, the sweetest, and laziest, pony around. But I was the self-acknowledged amatuer rider and it was only fair. I did discover, however, that somethings you never really unlearn, and those 5 odd summers of horseback riding where right there in my muscle memory (even for trotting).
After a good trot through the back roads of Ireland country we headed back to the ranch house for a good rasher? (the traditional breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, etc.) though I only ate eggs and toast.
The Horses
There are 15 horses on the farm that I am staying on, and each has a distinct personality. From Barney who refuses to be caught to Mabel who is a bit wary of women, each horse displays different habits. Sky is a grey male horse, who I think is my favorite, cause he is the sweetest. I seriously don't think he has a rotten bone in his body. He just wants to figure out what you want and do it.
The Travellers (weird spelling I know)
Elsewhere known as gypsies, the Travellers of Ireland are a group of people of ethnic Irish descent. They are a traditionally nomadic people with their own set of traditions and language.
I have asked Kate a couple of times whether there were social problems concerned with race in Ireland, and she indicated that there aren't really any prevelant racial minorities in Ireland, so most of the social problems come from differences in religions (Protestant and Catholic) or prejudices against the Travellers.
Travellers are typically a poorer subset of the Irish population and a study published in 2007 suggested that 50% of Travellers die before the age of 39 and 70% die before they are 59. European Parliament Committee of Enquiry found Travellers a a group to be facing more discrimination than other social groups. (If you want to know more check out the Irish Travellers Wikipedia page) A lot of people in Ireland refer to them as "knackers."
There is also a segment of Irish Travellers to be found in the United States, which I had never heard before. But ever since I have been in Ireland, I continue to hear good and bad stories about Travellers no matter where I go.
Hay/Straw
Hay is for feed, Straw is for bedding. Remember that.
Boswell
There is a major horse stud, called Boswell, right up the road from the farm I'm working on. And this Saturday and the past Saturday Abby and I went up to the other farm to work with Kim, who runs the horse backriding lessons for younger children. This meant a lot of tacking up horses (putting on their bridles and saddles) and leading unruly horses in walking, trotting, and jumping crossbeams.
It was interesting to see a bigger farm in Ireland as this place hosts serious horse competions. Laura, the daughter of my host, was actually was up there one Saturday to compete on Bobby O, one of the horses from my host family's stables. It was great fun to see a competion as well as an operation with a huge budget.
Mucking Out
You would think that mucking out (cleaning horse manure out of the stables) would be an unpleasant job) but plug into my iPod and I can clean a stall in little over ten minutes. Its hard work, and there have been plenty of nights where I have gone to bed with sore arms. But it also feels nice to go to bed feeling like you've accomplished something that took hard labor. No matter that you will have to go back out the next day and do it all again, cause in the end, everybody poops.
Abby
Abby is the other American staying at the horse farm. She's also from the United States, from Kentucky. It is weird, after kind of being on my own to have another American with me. I don't have to explain abscure cultural references and I don't have to always be asking "what do you mean by "Póg mo thóin?" FYI: it means "kiss my ass."
Abby knows a lot of things about a lot of stuff and is always sprouting off abscure facts. But now I know that 1 mile is 1.609 km. And that's always good to know.
Leaving Ashford
Am leaving Ashford today to head to Tipperary County in the middle of the country. Am actually really sad to be going. Although the family that I'm staying with is so different from the family that I grew up with, I have somehow found a niche with them. When I came, I was only planning on being here a week. I have been here for almost three. I'm going to miss them.
Tea
If you are going to set up house in Ireland, invest in tea. Even if you don't like it. 'Cause you will end up buying loads for visitors. I don't think I've hade this much tea ever. Sometimes I feel as if I'm going to float away on tea.
At my New New Host's
It feels weird that I haven't posted online in almost a month. Both Katriona and my new host have limited internet access and I would feel like I would be intruding on their resources if I put my computer needs above theirs. Especially since it is taxes season in Ireland. Or rather "personal assesment" time for self-employed people in Ireland.
It seems to me that most of the WWOOFing hosts are self-employed. All of mine have been at least partly self-employed.
Lynn, my new host, is a artist as well as a farmer. She makes beautiful baskets out of willow branches that she soaks for hours and then twists into creative baskets, shapes, and animals. Apparently, she is quite known in Ireland for her mastery of basket making techniques. I was lucky to catch her in her studio. Usually, Lynn lives on Bear? Isle in the very west of West Cork (which is the very west of the Co. Cork, located in the very southwest of Ireland). This week she is at her home in Co. Tipperary, located in the middle of the country. She is here because this is where her studio is located and she is currently working on a community project for the famous lace-making town of Kenmare. This week I will be acting as her assistant.
Lynn is originally from England, in Lanchester. She tells all these stories of growing up in the urban environment with her love of animals and Ireland. She finally moved to Ireland in 1996.
This weekend she held a willow weaving learning session for a women named Cara, who was from north of Dublin. Luckily for me, there was no work to be done in the gardens (it was pouring rain from Friday evening through Sunday) and very little to be done around so I got a free williow weaving seminar over the weekend.
I will be at Lynn's for about a week, and then the plan is to move onto Cork for a little while.
Jam Session
Lynn invited some neighbors and friends over for a good ol' Irish jam session in her kitchen. She played the tin whistle, Michael played the flute, Eddie played the guitar, and Julie sang and played the banjum?, the traditional Irish drums.
The music was so lively and beautiful. There are times when I feel like I have simply arrive in Ireland, and sitting in the warm kitchen lit by candles on the shelves listening to traditional Irish music until midnight was one of those times. You can't help but tap your feet and laugh at the jokes about Kerry men (Kerry being a county in Ireland. Lynn explained that in Europe people make jokes about Irishmen and in Ireland people make jokes about Kerry men. I believe they are the equivlant of dumb blonde jokes. For example: AKerry man named Paddy came upon his neighbor, Mich. Mich was sitting in a boat in the middle of his field. Paddy said to Mich, "Mich, are you daft?... If I could swim I would go over there and make bait out of you.")
I was invited to sing and did so nervously. But it was all good craic (Irish for fun, prounounced "crack", people here use the term so regularly that I find myself thinking it and saying it frequently).
When they left, I found myself invited to another Irish music session on Wednesday. If I'm still in the area I might have to go.
Kato
Kato is a young puppy who is a cross between a collie and a golden laberador. She's a lot fo fun, but also a huge responsiblity that I'm glad I don't have. She still gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and unlike a baby she can't just do in her diaper. While we are working with willow (Lynn is a basket maker who works primarily with willow) Kato plays around our ankles growling and snatching up the lose pieces of wood that fall. I have been able to help Lynn with training Kato to walk on a lead, which is actually harder than it sounds because you want the dog to walk with her head at your knee instead of pulling ahead or falling behind. But Kato has the attention span of a 5 month old pup, and she hasn't quite got the hang of it.
She's a bundle of energy until the late afternoon when she curls up on her bed and sleeps until dinner time.
Amelie
The first day that I was here at Lynn's her older dog went outside and almost immediately began yowling. When Lynn when outside to investigate she found that her dog had ran into a piece of steel sticking out of the ground. The dog had basically opened its shoulder so that the muscles and veins were exposed to the air.
Immediately, Lynn put the Amelie, the dog (collie and black lab), in the van and came to get me and the towel. On the way to the vet, I held the towel over the wound trying to stop the bleeding, and more importantly, trying to keep Amelie from worrying the opening with her mouth. It was a very stressful, yet exilerating experience.
The vet took one look at the wound and noted that it was in a very sensitive area. The vein that we were able to see right on the surface was Amelie's and if she had opened it with her tongue, Lynn and the vet would be having a much different conversation.
Amelie was immediately taken into the back, tranquilized, and stiched up. But we were not able to take her home until two days later.
Yesterday, we brought her home. She seemed a bit depressed as she was without Lynn for a couple of days and she was forced to wear a muzzle and a cone collar so that she wouldn't open the wound. Besides that, however, the opening was stiched cleanly shut and seems to be healing very well. Amelie is able to put weight on the leg to stand and walk. The only thing is that we have to watch her all the time to make sure that she doesn't open the wound when messing around with the collar and muzzle, if she does, she could mess with that vein there, and do more damage. So at all times, either Lynn or I am in the room with her, keeping an eye out.
The doctor says that every day that Amelie keeps the stiches closed is a day closer to her complete recovery.
Irish Hospitality
The only problem with Irish Hospitality is that if a visitor comes over while you are cooking dinner, and you don't have enough to feed him you can't eat in front of him without offering him some. And you can't rush him out the door. Even if he doesn't leave for about 3 hours. And then when he leaves it's 10 o'clock. I'm hungry.
Hosts
At first, I didn't think that I really meshed Lynn. There was nothing specific about her that I disliked, in fact by the end I came to like her. We just didn't seem to be kindered spirits. And I won't lie and say she was my favorite host or even a life-long friend, but after the week at her house I can say that I truly respected her. I learned a lot about art and the life of an artist from her. She was a women with a strong personality and a concrete sense of morality. Furthermore, she opened her home to me and fed me for a week, so I'll be thankful for that.
My last two days with Kate were very busy. Besides the packing and cleaning (general getting ready to move on to the next place), we were busy. Friday I met Steve, a friend of Kate's, who is both a musician and an artist. He swims ocasionally (though it sounded like he did this sort of thing pretty often) in the Ocean off the coast of Wexford County. He said that not only was the rainy Friday the best sort of day to go swimming, but that September is the best month of all to swim in because the seaweed releases high levels of Iodine in late September, early October, which is good for preventing colds. I don't know if he was stirring the soup (and Irish expression for making trouble) or speaking the truth, but Kate, Steve, Chica, and I gathered our swimming gear and headed towards the ocean. All I have to say is that it was cold.
After swimming, we found some blackberries on the path leading back up to the car and on the road back to the Peninsula. We picked and ate them as we walked back to the car, and it wasn't long after we were driving down the road that Kate got the brilliant idea of making pancakes to eat with fresh blackberries. So she stopped the car in the middle of the road so the three of us could pick blackberries and gather them in a small plastic bag we found on the floor of the car.
On the way back to the house we stopped at the local fishmonger to get cod and salmon for dinner and to pick some pears. Back at the house, Kate made plate sized pancakes, which I proceeded to eat with fresh blackberries and raspberry jam.
Some friends of Kate's came over for dinner after Steve had left. A couple and their foster daughter ended up staying the night after we all had a bit of wine.
My last day at Kate's, I woke up and walked from the shed where I slept (where I usually slept in the loft "apartment") to the house, where I discovered the eight year old girl wandering the house while the grown-ups were still abed. In an attempt to distract her from bother the adults, I suggested we play board games. We ended up completing two puzzles before anyone else made an apperance for breakfast.
Later that day, I did most of the packing. I finished packing the next morning before I took Chica on our last walk. Kate and I packed up the car, and we set out for my next host in Co. Wicklow. We stopped for lunch at Sue's new house. Sue is a co-worker of Kate's who lives close to Gorey, a city where Kate works. We talked about her next door neighbors and the difference between a herd of liquid cows and a herd of cream cows (liquid cows produce milk all year round and the milk is usually used for drinking milk, cream cows produce milk during the season when they are also eating fresh grass and their milk is usually used for cheese or cream).
E-mail to My Family
Hey guys-
Just wanted to let you know I'm at the new place in Ireland, which is great. There is another WWOOFer here as well, which is nice. There won't be many blog posts this week as the internet is a bit spotty. So I'll write when I can and then post at the end of the week. Just wanted to let you know so you don't freak if you don't hear from me until next Saturday. On Saturday, I'm going back down to Wexford to babysit for a family I met while with Kate, so I at least know I'll have internet then. If you want to contact me, email and I will check periodically via my Kindle.
Love,
Elaine
At my New Host's
My new host is Katriona (pronounced Katrina to us Americans). She lives on a horse farm with her two daughters, Sarah and Laura. Her other daughter, Clara, has moved out of the house. They are a very welcoming family.
There is another WWOOFer staying here as well, named Abby. Abby and I are doing most of the horse care as the family went to England to celebrate Laura's 16th birthday.
10 Simple Steps to Learn How to Drive a Manual Car
1. Learn how to Drive Automatic when 16 years old.
2. Get your International Drivers License from AAA when you 22 and are planning a trip around the world.
3. Go to a random horse farm in Ireland, where most of the citizens drive manual cars. Be sure to go to a farm where one of the daughters owns a car that is manual and she doesn't mind if you learn on hers.
4. Meet another American working on the farm who drives a manual car at home, but who doesn't have an International Drivers License.
5. Have the host family abandon you and other American on the farm.
6. Create some need to go into town (for example: grocery shopping, phone card credit buying, etc.)
7. Have other American explain to you that she cannot drive into town because she does not have Internationl Drivers License.
8. Have other American offer to teach you so that you both aren't stranded in the middle of Ireland.
9. Be taught basics of manual driving by slightly nervous looking American who is not quite sure you are her best option for getting off the farm.
10. Practice on the roads of the farm for hours because you are petrified that when you drive into town you might hurt someone (Note: Always make sure that you are driving on the right side of the road [rather, the left side], because not doing so is a sure way to hurt someone).
11. (Optional) Find out that you are still stranded because the Irish car insurance system is really messed up.
Differences
The family we are staying with is back from England.
It's funny how you can connect with people completely different from you if you purposefully forget how different you are. I think that is part of the charm of WWOOFing, everyone comes in with different expetations of what they want to get out of it (WWOOFers and hosts alike), but they are open to the different people and cultures that they might be exposed to.
Sometimes you miss what you were used to back home, but mostly you are intrigued by the opportunity to become a different person and experience this other world.
The Pub
Drinking in the local Pub in the town of the highest altitude in Ireland with Sarah, Kara, and Abby. Does alcohol affect you faster at a higher elevation?
The Dogs
The family that I am staying with has three dogs: Toby, a mix between a blank and a blank whose favorite activity is planting his dirty front paws on my clean shirts first thing in the morning, Fly, a beautiful greyhound who must be kept on a lead at all times because if not she will take for the hills and not come back for hours, and Mini, a cute little black Whippet who thinks she is a cat. She insists on climbing into your lap for a pet.
I have taken to walking the dogs, not daily as with Chica (I miss Chica!) but every couple of days. Toby and Mini streak off into the fields surrounding the back lane that we walk down barking at horses and wild ducks, but Fly, who is restricted to the area around me by the lead, looks after them longingly, and then looks up to me with her large pleading eyes. I feel bad keeping her in check, but I know I would feel worse if I lost someone else's dog.
We usually walk up in the hills behind the house were you can look down over the town of Wicklow and see the Irish Sea in the distance. The hills, called mountains by the Irish, cradle the town, so it is almost as if I am looking through a valley.
One time I tried to make it to the top of these so called mountains. To get there you have to pass a gate marked as a wildlife area. Sarah told me to climb over these signs to get to the top, so I did. In Ireland, people don't seem to think twice about trespassing on the neighbor's fields. This was the same in Wexford, where Kate told me to feel free to ignore the fence to Tintern Abbey's walled garden which read "No Trespassing" in big letters. Kate said people went in all the time. I never did.
I was nervous all the way up to the top of the mountian that some Irish farmer would come after me, but I made it to the top without incident. On the way back, however, Toby disappeared and I lost the path. After a bit of bumbling through the hedges, getting scrapes that covered my legs from the knee down, and a reluctant reliance on Mini's keen, yet spacey, sense of direction we made it back to the main path, Toby, and the ranch house.
Horseback Riding
Sarah, Kara, Abby, and I hacked out (rode out) today for a ride in the hills. i rode Rachel, the sweetest, and laziest, pony around. But I was the self-acknowledged amatuer rider and it was only fair. I did discover, however, that somethings you never really unlearn, and those 5 odd summers of horseback riding where right there in my muscle memory (even for trotting).
After a good trot through the back roads of Ireland country we headed back to the ranch house for a good rasher? (the traditional breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, etc.) though I only ate eggs and toast.
The Horses
There are 15 horses on the farm that I am staying on, and each has a distinct personality. From Barney who refuses to be caught to Mabel who is a bit wary of women, each horse displays different habits. Sky is a grey male horse, who I think is my favorite, cause he is the sweetest. I seriously don't think he has a rotten bone in his body. He just wants to figure out what you want and do it.
The Travellers (weird spelling I know)
Elsewhere known as gypsies, the Travellers of Ireland are a group of people of ethnic Irish descent. They are a traditionally nomadic people with their own set of traditions and language.
I have asked Kate a couple of times whether there were social problems concerned with race in Ireland, and she indicated that there aren't really any prevelant racial minorities in Ireland, so most of the social problems come from differences in religions (Protestant and Catholic) or prejudices against the Travellers.
Travellers are typically a poorer subset of the Irish population and a study published in 2007 suggested that 50% of Travellers die before the age of 39 and 70% die before they are 59. European Parliament Committee of Enquiry found Travellers a a group to be facing more discrimination than other social groups. (If you want to know more check out the Irish Travellers Wikipedia page) A lot of people in Ireland refer to them as "knackers."
There is also a segment of Irish Travellers to be found in the United States, which I had never heard before. But ever since I have been in Ireland, I continue to hear good and bad stories about Travellers no matter where I go.
Hay/Straw
Hay is for feed, Straw is for bedding. Remember that.
Boswell
There is a major horse stud, called Boswell, right up the road from the farm I'm working on. And this Saturday and the past Saturday Abby and I went up to the other farm to work with Kim, who runs the horse backriding lessons for younger children. This meant a lot of tacking up horses (putting on their bridles and saddles) and leading unruly horses in walking, trotting, and jumping crossbeams.
It was interesting to see a bigger farm in Ireland as this place hosts serious horse competions. Laura, the daughter of my host, was actually was up there one Saturday to compete on Bobby O, one of the horses from my host family's stables. It was great fun to see a competion as well as an operation with a huge budget.
Mucking Out
You would think that mucking out (cleaning horse manure out of the stables) would be an unpleasant job) but plug into my iPod and I can clean a stall in little over ten minutes. Its hard work, and there have been plenty of nights where I have gone to bed with sore arms. But it also feels nice to go to bed feeling like you've accomplished something that took hard labor. No matter that you will have to go back out the next day and do it all again, cause in the end, everybody poops.
Abby
Abby is the other American staying at the horse farm. She's also from the United States, from Kentucky. It is weird, after kind of being on my own to have another American with me. I don't have to explain abscure cultural references and I don't have to always be asking "what do you mean by "Póg mo thóin?" FYI: it means "kiss my ass."
Abby knows a lot of things about a lot of stuff and is always sprouting off abscure facts. But now I know that 1 mile is 1.609 km. And that's always good to know.
Leaving Ashford
Am leaving Ashford today to head to Tipperary County in the middle of the country. Am actually really sad to be going. Although the family that I'm staying with is so different from the family that I grew up with, I have somehow found a niche with them. When I came, I was only planning on being here a week. I have been here for almost three. I'm going to miss them.
Tea
If you are going to set up house in Ireland, invest in tea. Even if you don't like it. 'Cause you will end up buying loads for visitors. I don't think I've hade this much tea ever. Sometimes I feel as if I'm going to float away on tea.
At my New New Host's
It feels weird that I haven't posted online in almost a month. Both Katriona and my new host have limited internet access and I would feel like I would be intruding on their resources if I put my computer needs above theirs. Especially since it is taxes season in Ireland. Or rather "personal assesment" time for self-employed people in Ireland.
It seems to me that most of the WWOOFing hosts are self-employed. All of mine have been at least partly self-employed.
Lynn, my new host, is a artist as well as a farmer. She makes beautiful baskets out of willow branches that she soaks for hours and then twists into creative baskets, shapes, and animals. Apparently, she is quite known in Ireland for her mastery of basket making techniques. I was lucky to catch her in her studio. Usually, Lynn lives on Bear? Isle in the very west of West Cork (which is the very west of the Co. Cork, located in the very southwest of Ireland). This week she is at her home in Co. Tipperary, located in the middle of the country. She is here because this is where her studio is located and she is currently working on a community project for the famous lace-making town of Kenmare. This week I will be acting as her assistant.
Lynn is originally from England, in Lanchester. She tells all these stories of growing up in the urban environment with her love of animals and Ireland. She finally moved to Ireland in 1996.
This weekend she held a willow weaving learning session for a women named Cara, who was from north of Dublin. Luckily for me, there was no work to be done in the gardens (it was pouring rain from Friday evening through Sunday) and very little to be done around so I got a free williow weaving seminar over the weekend.
I will be at Lynn's for about a week, and then the plan is to move onto Cork for a little while.
Jam Session
Lynn invited some neighbors and friends over for a good ol' Irish jam session in her kitchen. She played the tin whistle, Michael played the flute, Eddie played the guitar, and Julie sang and played the banjum?, the traditional Irish drums.
The music was so lively and beautiful. There are times when I feel like I have simply arrive in Ireland, and sitting in the warm kitchen lit by candles on the shelves listening to traditional Irish music until midnight was one of those times. You can't help but tap your feet and laugh at the jokes about Kerry men (Kerry being a county in Ireland. Lynn explained that in Europe people make jokes about Irishmen and in Ireland people make jokes about Kerry men. I believe they are the equivlant of dumb blonde jokes. For example: AKerry man named Paddy came upon his neighbor, Mich. Mich was sitting in a boat in the middle of his field. Paddy said to Mich, "Mich, are you daft?... If I could swim I would go over there and make bait out of you.")
I was invited to sing and did so nervously. But it was all good craic (Irish for fun, prounounced "crack", people here use the term so regularly that I find myself thinking it and saying it frequently).
When they left, I found myself invited to another Irish music session on Wednesday. If I'm still in the area I might have to go.
Kato
Kato is a young puppy who is a cross between a collie and a golden laberador. She's a lot fo fun, but also a huge responsiblity that I'm glad I don't have. She still gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and unlike a baby she can't just do in her diaper. While we are working with willow (Lynn is a basket maker who works primarily with willow) Kato plays around our ankles growling and snatching up the lose pieces of wood that fall. I have been able to help Lynn with training Kato to walk on a lead, which is actually harder than it sounds because you want the dog to walk with her head at your knee instead of pulling ahead or falling behind. But Kato has the attention span of a 5 month old pup, and she hasn't quite got the hang of it.
She's a bundle of energy until the late afternoon when she curls up on her bed and sleeps until dinner time.
Amelie
The first day that I was here at Lynn's her older dog went outside and almost immediately began yowling. When Lynn when outside to investigate she found that her dog had ran into a piece of steel sticking out of the ground. The dog had basically opened its shoulder so that the muscles and veins were exposed to the air.
Immediately, Lynn put the Amelie, the dog (collie and black lab), in the van and came to get me and the towel. On the way to the vet, I held the towel over the wound trying to stop the bleeding, and more importantly, trying to keep Amelie from worrying the opening with her mouth. It was a very stressful, yet exilerating experience.
The vet took one look at the wound and noted that it was in a very sensitive area. The vein that we were able to see right on the surface was Amelie's and if she had opened it with her tongue, Lynn and the vet would be having a much different conversation.
Amelie was immediately taken into the back, tranquilized, and stiched up. But we were not able to take her home until two days later.
Yesterday, we brought her home. She seemed a bit depressed as she was without Lynn for a couple of days and she was forced to wear a muzzle and a cone collar so that she wouldn't open the wound. Besides that, however, the opening was stiched cleanly shut and seems to be healing very well. Amelie is able to put weight on the leg to stand and walk. The only thing is that we have to watch her all the time to make sure that she doesn't open the wound when messing around with the collar and muzzle, if she does, she could mess with that vein there, and do more damage. So at all times, either Lynn or I am in the room with her, keeping an eye out.
The doctor says that every day that Amelie keeps the stiches closed is a day closer to her complete recovery.
Irish Hospitality
The only problem with Irish Hospitality is that if a visitor comes over while you are cooking dinner, and you don't have enough to feed him you can't eat in front of him without offering him some. And you can't rush him out the door. Even if he doesn't leave for about 3 hours. And then when he leaves it's 10 o'clock. I'm hungry.
Hosts
At first, I didn't think that I really meshed Lynn. There was nothing specific about her that I disliked, in fact by the end I came to like her. We just didn't seem to be kindered spirits. And I won't lie and say she was my favorite host or even a life-long friend, but after the week at her house I can say that I truly respected her. I learned a lot about art and the life of an artist from her. She was a women with a strong personality and a concrete sense of morality. Furthermore, she opened her home to me and fed me for a week, so I'll be thankful for that.
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