Time for my monthly blog update. Its not Kelly again...
Tomorrow is our last day on the farm and I can not believe we have been here a month. As Kelly has already expressed, this farming experience was much different than us working at the shop in Cork; waking up early and working hard all day long outside. We have really enjoyed the family and the farm and it will take some adjusting to get out of our daily routine, but I know we are both itching for some more traveling and are ready to move on. Our plans for the next week include traveling to Belfast then Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland.
Now for a little update on the past week and a bit. Last weekend we went to Wicklow National Park. For those chick flick fanatics, it is where they filmed PS, I Love You starring Gerrard Butler and Hilary Swank ( legit one of my favorite movies. so good. go see it if you haven't). I was obviously obsessed with this fact, and the whole time picturing being in that movie, or at least meeting myself a Gerrard Butler. We left on the Friday and stayed until Sunday at a hostel in Glendalough. Glendalough is one of the main towns in the park even though it consisted of a hotel/restaurant/bar and hostel. We spent the day on Saturday hiking through the park and even though the forecast called for thunderstorms it was a beautiful sunny day. I don't know if Kelly has told you, our luck with weather has been incredible. It is ALWAYS sunny when we need it to be ( i.e. taking a day trip), always defying the forecast. Ireland likes us :)
Saturday night we went to a restaurant in the next town ( 15 min walk away) and had a nice little dinner date. It was here that it became apparent we have absolutely nothing to talk about, that we have been spending way to much time together to remotely attempt any conversation. Our conversation went as follows: " How is your food?" "good, wanna try?" "Sure...oh its good...wanna try mine?" "No thanks." and we were sitting for almost two hours. no joke. After dinner we just hung out at the hostel watching movies, which is something we have been craving, so that was nice. On Sunday, we got up and left, stopping off in Dublin for a few hours before coming back to the farm. Monday we lounged and rested before another week of work.
The week went by as per usual...weeding, picking raspberries, harvesting onions, garlic and peas.
This weekend we decided to have a last hurrah in Dublin. We arrived on Friday to Emer's house and just hung out and caught up on the past 3 weeks. Saturday we walked around the city, got coffee and food and sat by St Stephens Green. We then went to Emer's friends bbq/party which was lots of fun. We met a bunch of her university friends and spent the night listening to music, drinking and chatting.
On Sunday the girls ( Emer and Aibhe) went to a music festival but we decided not to join, but instead hang out ( we are often very tired after the long weeks of work)...however our plans changed. As we were sitting outside on a bench in our Pajamas ( well, I was ACTUALLY in my pjs...we were only down the road from Emers house and just left to get a quick coffee) a friendly dude came and sat next to us. We ended up chatting and he invited us to this boat party. We didn't have time to change as it was leaving but still, Kelly and I spur of the moment decided to go. I am so happy we did because it was easily one of the funnest days of our whole trip yet! We spent the afternoon ( again BEAUTIFUL and sunny) outside on a boat, dancing and making new friends. After we joined our new friends and went to this really cool bar. We eventually got back to Emer's around the same time we did and hung out for a bit reviewing our days before bed.
Monday was sad as we had to say goodbye to Emer and Ailbhe for good :( :( ....well until they come to Canada :). after our Goodbyes we got the bus back to the farm.
This week has been the same ol routine except Wednesday we got the opportunity to go on a Farm Walk. This is basically when farms open up for an open house/tour sorta thing. One of the farm owners educated us on what we were seeing as we were walking by as people asked questions and made comments. It is a really great way for farmers to share information and learn from one another. It was also very interesting for us to see a different farm, one that was 10 times the size and very different than Moyleabbeys ( where we are working now).
Anyway, I think that is all for now. Hopefully this post will suffice until next time ( probs in August at some point). xo
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
farm photos
Computer is super slow here, we just spend an hour and a half trying to book a flight to Amsterdam. Oh yeah, by the way, we now have WWOOFing placements in Veenhuizen, the Netherlands, and Mallorca, Spain!! check out the Spain place and be jealous: www.pedruxella.com
Basically, we are never coming home. Just kidding, we will probably be home mid-september. Anyway, pictures.
Basically, we are never coming home. Just kidding, we will probably be home mid-september. Anyway, pictures.
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| Driveway into the farm, the house, apple trees, and our mobile home |
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| home sweet trailer park |
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| The Moyleabbey market stall in Carlow |
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| Hoeing onions |
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| Lots of onions |
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| Of course, the raspberries |
Thursday, July 14, 2011
real farming
As you may have guessed from the relatively long period of silence, we are actually on a farm now! We have been at Moyleabbey Organic Farm, near Ballitore, Co. Kildare, since the 4th. And we have been busy! We are working 9-6 monday-thursday, with weekends plus monday off. So the days we work feel long but the break is long too! Its a sweet life really, working outside all day, eating incredibly delicious fresh food, and falling into a deep, exhausted but satistifed sleep, usually before 11 pm!!
And we are pretty great farmers, if i do say so myself. Planting, weeding, watering, more weeding, harvesting, cleaning, selling...eating...more weeding... Weeding seems to be the main thing, everywhere, all the time. We have also been kept very busy by the raspberry patch, spending 5 hours or so twice a week picking them. Afterwards i close my eyes and see raspberries.
I have discovered that I have a deep phobia of slugs. I have always hated them but here they are about 5 inches long and very plentiful. At home they arent usually much longer than an inch. I guess the dampness in Ireland is amenable to slugs. Unfortunately they seem to like me, because the other day we were pulling out old plants in the greenhouse and tons were coming up out of the holes in the black plastic where the plants had been, but sarah wasn't seeing any where she was working. Gah. Such a dumb thing to be afraid of since they literally do nothing except slime around the garden. I was trying to tell myself to picture them as tiny cats. Didnt work. I used to get nightmares about giant slugs.
Anyway enough about slugs. The most ferocious organism in the garden is the nettle plant. They are also giant and they are everywhere and we keep brushing up against them accidentally and then it stings. a lot.
Oh one more creature to talk about. Our first few days we were awoken around 5 am by some angry sounding creatures on the roof of our little mobile home/camper thing. It sounded like raccoons fighting, and it sounded like they were inside. So we were a little freaked out until we found out that there are no raccoons in Ireland, the closest thing to a raccoon is a badger and they wouldn't be on our roof. So, it turns out that it was just a couple birds, magpies.
In our free time we have rediscovered the joy of reading. We brought along a few books but quickly went through those last week and over the weekend. Now we have a few novels as well as some gardening and macrobiotic books on the go. For our weekend we basically just read, and walked. The weather has been really really good since last friday so we went for several long walks. This weekend we are planning to go hiking in wicklow national park, but seems like the weather is turning so i'm not sure how ambitious our journey will be.
So thats about it for now. We are happy and healthy and loving it here.
Sarah says hi.
And we are pretty great farmers, if i do say so myself. Planting, weeding, watering, more weeding, harvesting, cleaning, selling...eating...more weeding... Weeding seems to be the main thing, everywhere, all the time. We have also been kept very busy by the raspberry patch, spending 5 hours or so twice a week picking them. Afterwards i close my eyes and see raspberries.
I have discovered that I have a deep phobia of slugs. I have always hated them but here they are about 5 inches long and very plentiful. At home they arent usually much longer than an inch. I guess the dampness in Ireland is amenable to slugs. Unfortunately they seem to like me, because the other day we were pulling out old plants in the greenhouse and tons were coming up out of the holes in the black plastic where the plants had been, but sarah wasn't seeing any where she was working. Gah. Such a dumb thing to be afraid of since they literally do nothing except slime around the garden. I was trying to tell myself to picture them as tiny cats. Didnt work. I used to get nightmares about giant slugs.
Anyway enough about slugs. The most ferocious organism in the garden is the nettle plant. They are also giant and they are everywhere and we keep brushing up against them accidentally and then it stings. a lot.
Oh one more creature to talk about. Our first few days we were awoken around 5 am by some angry sounding creatures on the roof of our little mobile home/camper thing. It sounded like raccoons fighting, and it sounded like they were inside. So we were a little freaked out until we found out that there are no raccoons in Ireland, the closest thing to a raccoon is a badger and they wouldn't be on our roof. So, it turns out that it was just a couple birds, magpies.
In our free time we have rediscovered the joy of reading. We brought along a few books but quickly went through those last week and over the weekend. Now we have a few novels as well as some gardening and macrobiotic books on the go. For our weekend we basically just read, and walked. The weather has been really really good since last friday so we went for several long walks. This weekend we are planning to go hiking in wicklow national park, but seems like the weather is turning so i'm not sure how ambitious our journey will be.
So thats about it for now. We are happy and healthy and loving it here.
Sarah says hi.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Gourmet hobos in Galway
Woohoo blogging! Its been a while, and as you can see we've been a few places, so we have a few stories to share.
First of all, I am happy to note we have had many nights of warm cozy sleeps without having to resort to whiskey blankets. Hostels are generally pretty toasty. Tonight is our last night staying with friends in Dublin, so we are both reallllly hoping the farm with have warm sleeping accomodations.
It was sad times to leave the little cafe in Cork, and on our last day it seemed like Pat was contemplating how he could kidnap us and keep us working in the shop so that he could go off to India. But we did leave in the end, and he sent us on our way with some of our favorite tea and chocolate covered rice cakes.We spent the last night in town so that we could get an early bus to Killarney. Most nights that we were in the city we would go to a pub with live music and have a pint, but we had never experienced real Cork nightlife so we decided to go big for our last night. After the most delicious pizza i've ever eaten (so amazing after 2 weeks of very healthy food) we got dressed up and went out. We soon discovered that our definition of dressed up (clean clothes and a bit of eyeliner) was extremely dressed down for Cork saturday night standards... The girls wear 5 pounds of makeup and everybody looks like they want to be on Jersey Shore. Later we found out that that was actually true, they legit idolize Jersey Shore. Yikes. We met this guy who is moving to Vancouver in a few weeks and he couldn't understand why we couldn't help him find a place to live. Not sure he's ever seen Canada on a map before.
The next day we hopped on a bus to Killarney, which is a tourist town in county Kerry that is on the edge of a beautiful National Park. We had some great walks through the park. On our second day there we took a bus tour of the ring of Kerry, which goes around the Iveragh (?) Penninsula. I've already started thinking about coming back to Ireland to hike or bike that area because it was so amazing.
Next we had a quick stopover in Limerick, which we learned later has the nickname "stab city". Awesome. We walked around looking for dinner around 8 and the city was completely deserted, except for a couple sketchy characters on street corners. The most interesting thing about Limerick is that it has gridded streets... and that was only interesting to me because im such a nerd about little urban planning things. But i honestly felt like i was in Detroit or something.
We only really stopped in Limerick because we couldnt get a direct bus to the Cliffs of Moher. We heard the Cliffs were awesome and they did not disappoint. So beautiful and so fun to hike along the edge, beyond the barrier.
After the Cliffs we got to Galway! Galway is totally the opposite of Limerick, a really vibrant fun town with tons of pubs with live music and a beach promenade. We had a lot of fun exploring the town and drinking to the sounds of fantastic musicians. We thought about taking a boat to the Aran islands on our second day, but the weather was bad so we stayed in town. And then we discovered that Galway can also be pretty boring. We had been to all the sights the day before, so there was nothing else to do, and besides the weather was crap. So we drifted from coffee shop to park bench to window shopping in the mall. We bought some olives and dips from a nice grocery store but had nowhere to sit, and then it started raining, so we smuggled our snacks into a mall cafe and hoped we wouldnt get kicked out. Hobos with fancy tastes. Anyway that seems way it is in Ireland, the quality of your day is highly dependent on the weather. We've generally had great weather while traveling though so can't really complain.
Finally, we made it to Dublin! We've been staying with Sarah's lovely friend Emer. Its been sunny and warm and we had a great time. We brought a Canadian flag out to a club for Canada day and made lots of friends.
Whew. And thats it. This post was a little on the dry side, but I had a lot of things to cover, and still a bit hungover so having a hard time recallng the funny anecdotes. Farming for realzies starts tomorrow!!!
First of all, I am happy to note we have had many nights of warm cozy sleeps without having to resort to whiskey blankets. Hostels are generally pretty toasty. Tonight is our last night staying with friends in Dublin, so we are both reallllly hoping the farm with have warm sleeping accomodations.
It was sad times to leave the little cafe in Cork, and on our last day it seemed like Pat was contemplating how he could kidnap us and keep us working in the shop so that he could go off to India. But we did leave in the end, and he sent us on our way with some of our favorite tea and chocolate covered rice cakes.We spent the last night in town so that we could get an early bus to Killarney. Most nights that we were in the city we would go to a pub with live music and have a pint, but we had never experienced real Cork nightlife so we decided to go big for our last night. After the most delicious pizza i've ever eaten (so amazing after 2 weeks of very healthy food) we got dressed up and went out. We soon discovered that our definition of dressed up (clean clothes and a bit of eyeliner) was extremely dressed down for Cork saturday night standards... The girls wear 5 pounds of makeup and everybody looks like they want to be on Jersey Shore. Later we found out that that was actually true, they legit idolize Jersey Shore. Yikes. We met this guy who is moving to Vancouver in a few weeks and he couldn't understand why we couldn't help him find a place to live. Not sure he's ever seen Canada on a map before.
The next day we hopped on a bus to Killarney, which is a tourist town in county Kerry that is on the edge of a beautiful National Park. We had some great walks through the park. On our second day there we took a bus tour of the ring of Kerry, which goes around the Iveragh (?) Penninsula. I've already started thinking about coming back to Ireland to hike or bike that area because it was so amazing.
Next we had a quick stopover in Limerick, which we learned later has the nickname "stab city". Awesome. We walked around looking for dinner around 8 and the city was completely deserted, except for a couple sketchy characters on street corners. The most interesting thing about Limerick is that it has gridded streets... and that was only interesting to me because im such a nerd about little urban planning things. But i honestly felt like i was in Detroit or something.
We only really stopped in Limerick because we couldnt get a direct bus to the Cliffs of Moher. We heard the Cliffs were awesome and they did not disappoint. So beautiful and so fun to hike along the edge, beyond the barrier.
After the Cliffs we got to Galway! Galway is totally the opposite of Limerick, a really vibrant fun town with tons of pubs with live music and a beach promenade. We had a lot of fun exploring the town and drinking to the sounds of fantastic musicians. We thought about taking a boat to the Aran islands on our second day, but the weather was bad so we stayed in town. And then we discovered that Galway can also be pretty boring. We had been to all the sights the day before, so there was nothing else to do, and besides the weather was crap. So we drifted from coffee shop to park bench to window shopping in the mall. We bought some olives and dips from a nice grocery store but had nowhere to sit, and then it started raining, so we smuggled our snacks into a mall cafe and hoped we wouldnt get kicked out. Hobos with fancy tastes. Anyway that seems way it is in Ireland, the quality of your day is highly dependent on the weather. We've generally had great weather while traveling though so can't really complain.
Finally, we made it to Dublin! We've been staying with Sarah's lovely friend Emer. Its been sunny and warm and we had a great time. We brought a Canadian flag out to a club for Canada day and made lots of friends.
Whew. And thats it. This post was a little on the dry side, but I had a lot of things to cover, and still a bit hungover so having a hard time recallng the funny anecdotes. Farming for realzies starts tomorrow!!!
Friday, July 1, 2011
Roaming the West
In Dublin!! Not much time to write now, but thought i'd post some pictures....
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| Bedtime uniform |
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| Blarney castle |
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| Recovering from kissing the damn stone |
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| Tim Ho's in Cork city. Sadly no ice caps. |
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| Cows in Killarney National Park |
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| Killarney national park |
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| Cliffs of Moher |
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| Limerick- the most exciting element was the gridded street layout |
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| Entering Galway |
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| New friends in the coolest pub in Galway, so much sweet stuff all over the walls |
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