We are at our third wwoofing farm now. I did write a post about the previous one, but I didn't post it. I guess it was one of those situations that you want to get through before you admit out loud that it wasn't so great!
Nonetheless we had plenty of fun and beauty out of it, the only problem was that the boss was a miser, which was sort of unpleasant. The lucky thing was, he was also stingy with the work. He didn't want to feed us (except for potatoes mostly) or let us use electricity to get hot water, but he also didn't give us much work, so we walked alot and saw the towns around. At least we were exercising! And there are a lot of very skinny Irish men around, attesting to the idea that eating potatoes all the time might be a good weight loss method? Anyway, we ended up splurging on steak sandwiches at the pub. It seemed like the right thing to do. We didn't mind sharing a steak sandwich between us. Yarrow loves mashed turnips and carrots! And potatoes, of course.
I had a lovely Mother's Day there too, going out on the River Shannon in a boat with a local lad who took us for a "one mile" walk that lasted about 6 hours. He knew the names of everyone and what their kids were doing and who built this and what the story was behind that. Here's an example: ruin beside the road: that's an old lime kiln. One time two bulls fell down in it and we had to get a tractor and ... (adventure story)... so now he's built the walls higher around it, see there?
The reason we went out on the boat was because while we were having our tea and biscuits at the dock, Dessie noticed a rental boat was stuck on the rocks, so we went out to make sure they weren't sinking. They weren't, as it happened. Three big fat German guys on a big rented-for-the-week boat. They said they did have some beer on board, but they didn't share it. Harumph. However, the views were lovely from there.
The WWOOFing place we are at now is glorious, with the atmosphere of a yoga retreat, nearly. It's owned by a dad (the mom lives in town now) with a flock of homeschooling kids, through three are grown and only the 15-year-old is here during the week, and the two littlest are in town during the week but they'll be back on the weekend.
One of the sons is going to sell the van for me, which is a huge relief off my shoulders. And the food is gorgeous (as Eddie, the boss, would say -- he uses "gorgeous" and "brilliant" a lot and is a lovely person to be around). The first night we were here, Yarrow and I sort of stared at the table and thought, that's more food than we've seen in a week! (or 10 days in fact!)
For work, we are weeding, weed-whacking (that's Yarrow) (actually it's called "strimming" here). Yarrow's enjoying the power tool, me, I prefer the quietness of weeding, as does my gimpy right hand, which is not keen on power tools, nope, not at all she is not. But I am feeling much less achey since being here. It's sort of a magical place, it really is.
It has quite a sound track. When the wind is right you can hear the church bells nearby, and there are cows and sheep in adjacent fields, and there are three funny chickens who make sweet little cooing sounds (except today Yarrow cleaned out the chicken coop a bit and the big chicken went inside and screamed her head off, so he went in to see if she was okay, and she laid an egg right then! So Yarrow saw a chicken lay an egg). Is laying eggs always such a screamy business?
There are also a ton of birds who sing. I haven't been anywhere this noisy with wildlife since Costa Rica, I think!
I have taken plenty of photos, but they're just so much easier to post on Facebook, than here.
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