The Wandering Sisters: What Goes Up Must Come Down

The cows in Ireland are cute too

Kiki

I am so jealous that you will see Sofi in a few days. I miss our Swedish travel buddy. Oh, and you have been with Michelle for a month now. I came to Ireland to see her and you get to see her in India. It is just not fair. On a health note I can not believe that you let a strange Indian man stick non sterile things into your ear. If I had been there I would have advised against it. You know me though, always cautious. I don't understand why people think that I am the crazy one.

Anyway I have been busy getting into the Irish culture over here. Last weekend I went to see traditional Irish music in Clonakilty. There is a fiddle player there that is one of the best around. I got to Clon early because the last bus is at 6:50 and the session was not until 9:30, so to pass the time I went to O'Donavan's Pub to get a beer. There was a rugby game on and I sat at the bar (I later found out that it is inappropriate for women to sit at the bar) to watch and drink my beer. A Dutch guy sat next to me and ended up buying me two more beers (these are pints 500ml/half liter). I probably should have said no, but I did not have anything else to do so why not. By 9:30 I was buzzing and I walked down the street to the other bar where she was playing and ordered another beer. I was sipping slowly because I did not want to drink anymore, but I also did not want to sit without a drink. The music was great. Lots of musicians came to jam. Everyone takes turns starting a song and then everyone else tries to join in. There is just something to that kind of playing. With old men singing with there eyes closed and the whole bar joining in at the end.. The bar which is called Teach Beag (pronounced top yug means little house in Irish) is a small cozy bar with plants growing through the walls and warm lighting. It was really what I had been expecting in an Irish pub. Toward the end of the music I met a couple from Atlanta, Georgia that now have a house in town. I talked to them for a while and found out that he used to play music at Millsaps. What a small world. He also bought me another beer since I had finished my last one. Just so we are clear on the count that would be the fifth beer of the night, so yes I had 2 1/2 liters of beer. I am surprised I could still put sentences together. I knew a Danish couple who were singing with the fiddler and they graciously gave me a ride home but not before I randomly gave my email to this guy. I still do not know why I did that. The Atlanta guy told me to give him my email and at the time it seemed like a totally logical thing to do. I am pretty sure that I was trying to get a wwoof job at a fly fishing lodge but who knows. Luckily or maybe unluckily I have not received any emails yet.

The famous fiddler

The jam session

And now for farm news not related to my drunken outings. Wednesdays are always crazy. We have to fill the supermarket and restaurant orders before 11:00 in the morning. It is almost impossible to get everything picked, packed, and in the car by then. Plus after this we have to fill another big restaurant and supermarket order. This is usually the tricky part because we have to wait for a delivery of out of season veggies and fruit so that we can mix salad for the delivery. This week the delivery was 2 hours late because the driver over slept. He arrives and we are all waiting to help unload. We watch as the man trys to get the huge palate over a little hump on the lift at the back of the semi. He pushes it and it awkwardly tilts to the side and then back down and then it tips over the side of the lift. In slow motion we watch as the palate flips in the air, apples and carrots flying, to land upside down in the pond scummy creek/ditch. This is about 1500 dollars worth of ORGANIC produce sitting in green slim. Yeah nobody said anything for what seemed like ten minutes until Meriel (Sara the owner's daughter) said, "This is going to take hours to clean up." At the sound of that Sara starts picking up loose apples and telling people to get boxes from inside to put them in. At some point she gets a camera and snaps a few pictures to send to the company. After about an hour of trying to salvage as much as possible we had everything in the shed and had sent John with the delivery to Cork. At this point it is 8:00 pm the order is late by 3 hours and we have been working for about 10 hours. We still have to put the hens to bed and put all of that produce in the cold room. It is another hour before we are done with everything. Oh and just to top it off earlier in the day Remi busted the shit pipe while digging in the front yard and messed up making cement to fix the hen house. I was crouched down planting chard and lettuce for about 5 hours. It was just too much in one day.

the shit pipe Remi broke

Meriel and Remi surveying the damage

Remi and I sorting everything

This weekend I went to market and I think that I got a job as an au pair for the month of may. It is really strange how things work out. I hope that I get it because at this point I need some income to keep myself going. I also got a free plum flapjack from a very cute young baker. He told me not to tell Ingrid, the owner, but I doubt she will read our blog. After the market, Remi and I went with John and his son Oisin to watch the rugby quarter final of the Heineken Cup in the local pub, Nolan's. It was a great game and I had three beers and by the time I got home I was embarrassingly intoxicated. I could not cook dinner but Remi was there to save the day. Both John and Sara stopped by to give us stuff and I was drunk talking to them. I think that they found it funny. That is me trying to make myself feel better about it. Though on Sunday it was not really that big of a deal so now I feel a little less like a total idiot. Sorry that the following picture do not follow the blog. I wanted to share them but there is too much to talk about. They are from a walk to the lighthouse I went on the previous weekend.

obviously the lighthouse

Remi and I after 20 min of trying to use the timer on my camera

Eating a burger and drinking a beer at Nolan's after the walk

The neighborhood

The neighbors (they are such chatty cathys)

Sunday I made hamburgers with the kids and then Remi and I joined Sara and her two daughters Meriel and Aisha for a walk on a beach. We skipped stones and tried to climb on rock formations on the beach. Then we sat around and made daisy chains in the grass and ate oranges. I laid down in the grass trying to get as much sun as possible since it is so short lived in this stormy Irish climate.