Expats in Ireland

November/December 2011

2011-12-11T08:01:00.001-08:00

So far it's been mild, despite predictions that we were in for another arctic winter like the last two years. The temperatures have mainly been in the 40's and low 50's F with a few clear frosty days early in December. Mostly we've had grey brooding skies, rain and very short days - sunrise now is not till 9 am and the sun sets at 4:30.

Sligo

At the end of October we drove north about 4 hours to County Sligo for the Sligo Live music festival - lots of free music of all genres in pubs and cafes throughout the city plus a fantastic solo concert by Elvis Costello at the local college (one of our musical favorites that we've been wanting to see for a long while). It was pretty wet most of the weekend so not very good for hillwalking in the beautiful Sligo mountains. We went to an interesting historical site with many prehistoric stone tombs and a huge mound of stones called a barrow tomb (the long mound in the distance in these two photos). This one pre-dates the pyramids, and like the pyramids it was an impressive tomb for someone of the highest rank.

Archaeologists opened up an entryway into the stone mound which is now reinforced with wire mesh so you can walk into the center of the mound.

In the very center of the mound there was a stone dolmen that once held human bones inside.

At the same site there were dozens of stone dolmens scattered around the hills. These also were for burial and would have been covered with a small mound of rocks at the time.

We walked to the top of a small mountain that has another barrow mound at the very top that is supposed to be tomb of Queen Maeve of Ulster. You can get an idea of the size by this picture of me standing by the base of the mound. It was a misty day and kind of spooky around all these ancient tombs, especially as that day was Samhain (pronounced 'sow-en') the pagan festival day when the spirits of the dead walk the earth (and the origins for Halloween).

On our way back to Clare we took a side trip to the Céide Fields in County Mayo, the oldest known field systems in the world, over five and a half millennia old. The remains of stone field walls, houses and megalithic tombs are preserved beneath a blanket of peat over several square miles and show how developed and sophisticated the agricultural system was then. There is a very good interpretive center and the guided tour around the site brought to life the community that lived and farmed in this region over 5,000 years ago.

I was also surprised to learn how low-tech is their method for locating the ancient walls of houses and fields that have been buried under the blanket bog. They simply insert thin rods into the bog about a foot apart in a straight line until they hit rocks down below, then they can see the locations of walls below from the profile of the rods. The guide said that modern sensoring equipment doesn't work in these wet boggy soils.

Sea cliffs near the Ceide Fields in County Mayo.

A County Mayo lough

Back home in Scariff we've been relatively quiet. In November we were cleaning up the veg garden and planting cover crops in the outdoor beds and salad greens, spring onions and broad beans in the polytunnel.

The Scariff Community Garden held a Harvest Festival and I entered this zucchini into the funny vegetable contest and won first place!

Notice the wire rim glasses and brown beard and moustache - remind you of anyone you know?

Our dogs Woody and Oscar are best friends and like to squeeze into the same comfy chair together.

In November we took the dogs for a walk through some nearby hills and bogs to a lake.

In December we had a dusting of snow and the dogs loved playing in it.

Trad session at our Thanksgiving party

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Ireland!

October 2011

2011-10-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

Northern Ireland

After a busy September at Seed Savers with preparations for our big Apple Weekend (over 1,000 attendees), I was ready to get away on a road trip in early October. Northern Ireland was an area we still hadn't visited so we took a week off to go exploring.

Mourne Mountains

We crossed into Northern Ireland at County Down, where we had time to do an afternoon 'hill-walk' before continuing on to Belfast. The Mourne Mountains are jagged on top unlike most of Ireland's rounded hills, due to the presence of granite in these coastal mountains.

Belfast
We only spent one day and one night in Belfast, and found it to be a friendly, clean and fairly prosperous city, not unlike Dublin in a lot of ways. Our hostel was in the Queen's University area, so first we walked around a botanical garden and history museum near campus, then walked through the city to the renowned murals commemorating events from the Troubles, as well as murals in solidarity with other causes like American civil rights and the Palistinians.

The murals are in a Catholic working class neighborhood that borders the Protestant working class neighborhood. There's a huge wall topped with barbed wire between them, and the gates in the picture below can be used to close off the road and the sidewalk at night or during times of violence.

This is one of the few murals on the Protestant side, with the Red Hand of Ulster on the left. Creepy story about that symbol - supposedly the first boat of Englishman was landing in Northern Ireland (it's only 12 miles between the two islands here) and the captain announced that whoever was the first to touch the shore would own that land, so one greedy bastard cut off his hand and threw it onto the shore in order to be the first.

Glens of Antrim
We left Belfast and stopped for a walk in Glenariff, one of the nine Glens of Antrim that run from the mountains down to the sea.

The glen and waterfalls reminded me of a Finger Lakes gorge trail but with wooden boardwalks instead of stone.

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge
The next morning we went to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which was originally constructed by fisherman so they could stand on it and drop nets for salmon, but now tourists pay a fiver and cross it for a thrill. Crossing the bridge is exciting enough on a calm day, but the day we were there tropical depression Ophelia had crossed the Atlantic and gale force winds were slamming into the Irish coast.

Bill crossed first while I got his photo, then I went across. Not too bad going over, just don't look down!

It's a very tiny bare island, not much to do but walk around and get a few photos before heading back across the bridge.

Meanwhile the winds were picking up. Bill crossed first. When he was halfway across the bridge the winds started gusting so hard his glasses started to blow right off his face! He stopped to take them off and shove them in his pocket, then crouched down and crossed the rest of the way quickly.

My turn to cross. I looked at the bridge bucking up and down and side-to-side. No way was I going across that. The bridge-keeper came out of his little shelter and motioned to me and the four others on the island to stay where we were. He kept checking the wind speed with a hand-held anemometer and shaking his head no. Finally the winds lessened briefly and the bridge-keeper was able to scurry across the bridge to where were were waiting on the island, and when there was a slight lessening of the wind he escorted each of us across one by one. Going across two at at a time was better - more weight to hold it down!

Once I was back on the mainland and the winds and my heart had calmed down I went back across the bridge one more time - for the photo opp!

The Giant's Causeway

A few miles further along the coast is the Giant's Causeway, one of Northern Ireland's top tourist attractions and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Causeway is a natural formation of basalt columns that are hexagonal in shape and stacked tightly together. The columns were formed 65 million years ago when there was intense volcanic activity in this region. The molten lava hit the sea water and cooled very quickly, and the columns were formed in much the same way that mud can develop symmetrical cracks as it's drying.

The columns descend to the sea like the ramp of some long-gone bridge. Legend claims that the giant Fionn MacCumhaill (Finn McCool) built the Causeway from the North coast of Antrim as a pathway to the Scottish island of Staffa (which can be seen on clear days) to confront his enemy Benandonner. The existence of similar basalt columns at Fingal's Cave on the island reinforced belief in the legend.

We walked along the coastal trail and came upon more basalt columns higher up. These were buried under another layer of rock that had been deposited on top of the columns, which you can see in this view looking straight up the columns.

And a little further along the trail, a completely different type of rock, so red and shiny it hardly looked real. A very interesting area geologically.

The gales from tropical depression Ophelia were still really intense. The winds funneled around this rock promontory creating a Bernoulli effect that lifted me right off my feet and into that fence, the only thing between me and a several hundred foot drop. Getting blown around is a chronic problem for me here: light frame + wind-resistant jacket = a kite!

This is a happy-to-be-alive smile. Chrys - 2, Ophelia - 0.

The next morning the storm had cleared to blue skies and lavender clouds, and we took a walk on another section of the Causeway Coastway with cool stone arches and rock formations.

This castle was built on a high rock outcropping and is only accessible by the stone bridge. What a great location for defense.

Strokestown Park House
After leaving beautiful Northern Ireland, we drove south to Strokestown, County Rosscommon for a traditional music festival. Bill's paternal grandmother's people were Cullens from County Rosscommon, and it's interesting that Rosscommon is known for flute players. Bill has been an avid flute player (classical and Irish music) for many years.

While in Strokestown we toured the house and gardens of Strokestown Park House, the former estate of a wealthy family that once owned 30,000 acres here. They were bad landlords, treating their tenants very poorly and forcing most of them into emigration, and as a result the landlord was assassinated in 1847 at the height of the Famine. The Irish National Famine Museum is now located in the stables of the house and tells of that terrible period with accuracy and sensitivity.

The lady of the house was such a snob that she would walk along the galley at the upper right and drop down the menu for the day to the servants below, so she wouldn't have to make verbal, physical or even eye contact with them.

The last member of the family to live in the house had the old kitchen walled over and a modern 1950's kitchen installed. When a local man purchased the house in the 1980's to restore it, he was astonished and delighted to find the perfectly intact kitchen, including cooking pots and cauldrons, behind the false wall!

And no 18th century kitchen would be complete without a jar of leeches.

The walled pleasure garden

In the veg garden - glass houses for growing tropical fruits like peaches and pineapples.

These peach trees have been trained to grow almost horizontally on wires. Those are hot water pipes running underneath to provide heat - peach trees can grow outside here, but they need the heat to develop and ripen the fruits.

Summer 2011

2011-10-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

Just a few highlights from our summer, which flashed by in a whirlwind of travel, work and gardening. A lot of big projects were happening at my job at Irish Seed Savers this summer. We finished construction on our new apple-potato barn (funded by an EU grant); held our first ever East Clare garden tour with 6 private gardens open to the public; put on our annual 2 day Apple Weekend event in September; and applied for and received another EU grant for a new seed bank and processing facility to be constructed at Seed Savers this fall and winter. In between we managed to get away on a few holidays and mini-breaks.

Grassroots Festival
We splurged on a trip to the Grassroots festival to celebrate both of us turning 50 this year. It was really stinking hot, over 100 degrees F, but it was wonderful to see our friends and family and a lot of excellent live music as well.

Antique fire truck cooling off the festival goers

We spent a lot of time swimming in our friend Danny's pond......

.....and hanging out in the shade by the pond (l-r: Bill, Heather, Eileen, Danny, Naomi)

Staying cool in the shade at the festival

Bubba, Margot and Sharon

Portumna Castle
Later in July we drove to Portumna about 20 miles north in County Galway. We visited a restored castle in a rose garden, a walled vegetable and flower garden, and walked in the old forest on the shores of Lough Derg.

Our Garden
Despite being the first year, our new garden totally rocked. The soil here is very good and well drained on a limestone base, and the garden has been in use for decades so the soil is dark brown and crumbly. We had a great veg harvest despite the coolest summer in Ireland in over 50 years.

Colorful livingstone daisies grown from seed.

Spuds, corn and pumpkins in the front garden

The back garden and polytunnel

Dunmore East
We made our third annual expedition to a bluegrass festival in the seaside village of Dunmore East, County Waterford. We spent a morning following a new trail on the seaside cliffs before hearing some great bluegrass and playing a few tunes ourselves.

Check out this youtube video from the 2010 Bluegrass Festival Someone else filmed this and we just happened to find it on youtube recently while looking at videos from this year's festival. The first minute is of Bill and I playing Cluck Old Hen outside one of the Dunmore East pubs. It was a beautiful day, the publican kept bringing out free pints for the musician, and Bill was in full flight on this tune.

A field of purple heather in bloom

The pale lavender flowers in the foreground are sea asters. There are many types of wild asters in New York State, but this is the only type we've ever seen in Ireland.

June 2011

2011-06-28T14:31:00.001-07:00

Monica and Matt's Wedding

My daughter Monica and her fiance Matt had a lovely wedding in a pretty San Diego park in early June under blue skies. It was a perfect day and they did a fantastic job organising the whole event. It was a happy occasion and really nice to see so many of my family and also to meet Matt's side of the family.

Matt walking down the aisle with his mother Liz

Me with one of the groomsmen - I was happy but trying not to cry. Behind me are bridesmaids Amanda and Adrienne.

Here comes the beautiful bride!

My mom and my sister Eileen

Eileen's kids Madison, Ryder and Cate

Madison at the dessert table. Monica and her bridesmaids Amanda and Adrienne made the wedding cake and all of the other desserts.

My sister Eileen and her husband Ryder

If you want to see more (and better) photos from the wedding, go to the photo gallery on Monica's Facebook page:

The day after the wedding, we took a nice walk along the San Diego harbour with my parents.

Balboa Park
Bill and I stayed in San Diego another week so we could be there for Monica's graduation the following Saturday. Monica had a couple of finals that week and had to study, so Bill and I explored San Diego on foot and on bikes. Of course there are museums and other cultural things to do, but the weather was so beautiful that we wanted to spend every minute outside. Balboa Park is a huge park in downtown San Diego with different gardens, museums and the famous San Diego Zoo.

Above is a lath house in Balboa Park that's filled with tropical plants.

Spotted orchid in the lath house.

Spider orchid

Cacti in the Desert Garden

I'm standing under a huge cactus tree

Torrey Pines
After recovering from the wedding and in-between finals, Monica and Matt had time to take us to Torrey Pines, a park by the sea with hiking trails in the nearby hills.

Beautiful wildflowers growing in the sandy soil. San Diego has a 'marine layer' on some days, similar to the fog in San Francisco, and this gives moisture to the plants. There's a green belt within a few miles of the sea, but further inland it's much drier.

Mission Hills Park

The most amazing place we went to that week was Mission Hills Park, 13 miles inland from the city. San Diego has a great bike lane system, and we cycled most of the way on separate bike trails and the rest on roads with a striped bike lane. A huge improvement over Ireland where there aren't even any shoulders on the roads!

Lots of hiking trails in the park.

San Diego had a lot of rain last winter so rivers were flowing and the canyons were green and lush.

May and June are peak months for the desert wildflowers. The hillsides facing west (toward the sea) get moisture from the marine layer and are much greener than east-facing slopes.

We also saw a rattlesnake right on the trail! I was fumbling with the camera so it's not a great picture, but you can just see the striped snake slithering away into the brush, just above and to the right of center. We definitely saw the rattle on the end, and carefully watched every footfall after that!

Looking east

Heading back down - wooden steps make it a lot easier on the loose sand and gravel.

Sweetwater Reservoir
Another day we cycled to Sweetwater Reservoir. The foggy marine layer was hovering over the city, but 11 miles inland it was warm and sunny.

Barrel cactus

Desert shrubs in bloom

Hot!

Cabrillo
Another day we all went to Cabrillo National Monument, a park at the end of the peninsula that protects the SD harbor.

Another fine day! The weather is San Diego is perfect almost year-round with winter temps in the 50's and 60's and summer temps in the 70's and low 80's. We didn't know much about SD before we went there but we really liked it - the climate, the greenness of the city and surrounding area, and the laid-back attitude.

At the tidal pools

Hanging out in Monica and Matt's apartment.

There are eucalyptus trees outside their apartment where hawks are nesting! This is the mother hawk taking a break from the kids.

Graduation Day
Monica graduated suma cum laude from UCSD (University of California at San Diego). Smart girl - we are so proud of her!

On our way to the graduation ceremony. UCSD has a nice campus with few roads and lots of pedestrian walkways and eucalyptus trees.

On Monday following the graduation, Monica and Matt flew off to Hawaii for a two week honeymoon, and Bill and I flew back to Ireland. to our green, green garden and roses in bloom.

Spuds galore!

April 2011

2011-05-08T13:23:00.000-07:00

Belgium

Two Seed Savers staff members and I were going to a conference in Brussels on the proposed new EU seed laws, so Bill and I took the opportunity to go over a few days early and do see some sightseeing. The weather was fine and the outdoor cafes were buzzing with residents and tourists enjoying the spring sunshine.

Of course we had to sample one of Belgium's most famous products. Here's Bill mentally preparing himself for the Five Belgian Beer Taste Test.

We chased the beer with Belgium's other famous comestible - chocolate!

Brussels is a fairly big city but very walkable. We spent a long day just walking around and saw some fancy buildings arranged around a big square.......

....pretty flower plantings and public parks.....

...the EU Parliament building (Brussels is the seat of the EU government)....

....a small castle in a park....

...giant flower pots (or else tiny people)....

...and an inexplicable sign.

Bruges, Belgium

The next day we took a day trip to Bruges, about an hour away by train. Bruges is known as 'the Venice of the north' for the canals that crisscross the historic part of the city.

Bruges is in north Belgium, and the culture and language are Dutch, whereas in Brussels the language and culture are mostly French. The buildings around the main square in Bruges have the stepped gables typical in the Netherlands.

A wide canal separates the historic center of Bruges, essentially an island, from the newer parts of the city.

And of course we had to sample the local brew!

International Seed Swap

Back to work. The first day of the conference was an international seed swap, with seed saving groups and organisations from Poland, Germany, France, Denmark, Greece the UK and the Netherlands with seeds to share with each other and with local gardeners. My colleagues Peter, Matteo and I were giving away seeds of Irish veg like Balbriggan Brussels sprouts, Gortahork cabbage and Tipperary turnip.

The EU laws governing the growing and sales of seeds are confusing and inconsistently applied by each member state (country). At Irish Seed Savers Association (ISSA), about 30% of the vegetable and grain seeds that we grow are of Irish origin and thus fall under a less regulated category known as 'conservation varieties'. It is for the research work and maintaining a seed bank of these Irish varieties that we receive funding from the Irish Department of Agriculture.

The other 70% of the seeds produced at ISSA are of non-Irish origin, but are varieties that are well adapted to our cool, maritime climate, such as tomatoes from Canada and Russia. According to current EU seed legislation,varieties that are not from the region of origin are supposed to be registered, which of course costs money. One way we've gotten around this at ISSA is by giving free seeds to people in exchange for becoming members of our organisation, but we do increasingly sell seeds to the public through shop sales and our website.

Free seeds for all! This group brought a beautiful display, and we picked out a bunch of new varieties to try out in Ireland.

The reason no-one has been bothered by what Seed Savers does is the lack of big seed companies in Ireland. There are only two, and we are the biggest. The climate is simply too moist for large scale seed production, and many our seed crops have to be grown in plastic greenhouses to keep the seeds from sprouting or going moldy on the plants.

The big seed growers are located in hot, dry countries like France, Spain, Italy, Turkey and Germany. The French seed saving organisation Kokopelli has been fighting a lawsuit for years from a big seed company which claims that Kokopelli has an unfair market advantage because they did not register their seed varieties.

The EU is now looking to 'harmonise' the seed laws, and no one is sure which way this is going to go. They have presented five different scenarios that stakeholders can comment on, ranging from a two tier system that liberalises the laws on heritage and 'niche market' varieties, to a centralised system that requires registration by all breeders and growers.

Seed saving groups stress the importance of keeping varieties that have been adapted to local climates, as well as maintaining open-pollinated seeds. The commercial seed industry is increasingly dominated by hybrid and GM seed, which cannot be saved to sow again the following year. Only open-pollinated seeds will produce a next generation of offspring that are 'true-to-type', and keep the option for seed breeding and production open to all gardeners and farmers.

It's as if Microsoft were trying to stop people from using open-source Linux, claiming unfair competition.

Seed Sovereignty Demonstration March

The second day began with group discussion and presentations in the morning, and in the afternoon a march with approximately 500 participants to the EU headquarters of Monsanto, Bayer and the European Seed Association. 58,000 signed petitions demanding the right to traditional and heritage varieties were handed over to Members of the European Parliament.

Music for the march

Representing the American corporate interest

Monsanto headquarters. The riot police were ready but it was a completely peaceful demonstration.

Achill Island, County Mayo

Another work-related trip in April, this time to the Museum of Country Life in County Mayo to give a talk and demonstration on planting Irish potato varieties. We went a couple of days early to spend some time hiking on nearby Achill Island.

The view from our hostel window - the grass really is neon green at this time of year.

We walked to a very sad 'famine village' consisting of the ruins of over 50 cottages, with the potato ridges of the unharvested blighted potatoes still visible in the adjacent fields.

Beautiful cliffside walks to the top of Achill Island, 2,000 feet above sea level.

Numbing my tired feet in icy waters after a six hour hike.

Leaving Achill - a defensive castle.....

...and a beautiful roadside combination of wild heather and gorse.

The grounds of the Museum of Country Life

Jan-March 2011

2011-03-20T05:46:00.001-07:00

Spring! The ever-increasing light of the sun warms up our house and outbuildings.

Wwoofer Work
Spring is a super busy time of year for us with our work and our home gardens, so we've had no travels or done anything too exciting lately (other than acquiring another new dog! But more about that further down).

We hosted a wwoofer in early January - Massimo is Italian and he was at the end of his 3 month wwoofing stint in Ireland. He was only here for a week, but he did a lot of hard work digging out rocks from the beds in our new polytunnel.

This is just one of many rock piles from the tunnel - where we sited the polytunnel must have been filled with stones at some point because we found plastic under the rocks. The soil here is beautifully loamy and well-drained, and with loads of aged cow manure from the farm next door we should have an excellent garden here.

Massimo also helped Bill put up a dog fence around the back yard, and he lined the bottom edge with rocks to keep Oscar from digging out.

Massimo was also a keen cyclist and he took a few trips while we was here, including one with Bill to Killaloe on the shores of Lough Derg.

Two Dogs Are Better
This is Oscar, the dog who showed up as a stray at Seed Savers before Christmas. He is a lovely dog, filled with high energy and very playful. He gets a lot of play time in the big field behind our house.

But even with exercise every morning and access to a fenced-in yard through a dog flap, Oscar was really bored and lonely during week when we were at work. His original household had five other dogs so he wasn't used to being left alone. He started showing a lot of anxiety - chewing paper and cardboard during the day and acting very clingy when we were home in the evening. Any time he did get to romp with another dog he was ecstatic and wore himself right out, so we knew that it was time to get another dog.

We waited a few weeks to see if a dog would 'show up', like they usually do when I'm thinking about getting one, but it didn't happen this time so we drove to an animal shelter in County Galway to pick out a friend for Oscar.

On the way to the animal shelter we stopped at a lovely public forest with walking trails, just a few miles north of our town.

Oscar getting worn out on the trails.

Spring anemone, one of the woodland harbingers of the season.

A majestic oak on the edge of the forest.

And heeeeeres Woody!!
So named because we were walking in the woods before we got him that day, also we both like the music of Woody Guthrie. (The staff at the shelter had named him 'Blake' but that sounded too posh and he didn't really know that name anyway.)

We did not pick him out because of his resemblance to Oscar - he just happened to be the dog we were shown when we said what kind of dog we were looking for: one that was young, high energy and ready to play all day. When she said she had the perfect dog we couldn't believe the resemblance. She put both dogs in a big outdoor pen to see if they were compatible - well, they had a blast together and we knew he was the right one.

Here they are on Woody's first night at our house - probably the first time he's ever slept in a dog bed next to a warm fire. Woody was picked up as a stray and had lived at the shelter since October.

Romping in the fields by our house.

Oscar and the first daffodils of spring.

Woody and our new polytunnel.

Wresting in the easy chair.

Tuckered out!

There are some little stone edged gardens at the house, with primroses and daffodils now in bloom.

And I put in a new perennial garden by the fence between the sheds and the veg garden.

I've been getting a lot of new bed space dug up outside. With my sedentary job Mon-Fri I am the primary earth mover on weekends, while Bill takes care of the sowing and planting.

The tunnel is filling up fast with early potatoes, broad beans (aka fava beans), peas, and salad greens.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-29T09:29:00.000-08:00

Munich, Germany

Bill celebrated a significant birthday at Christmastime, so we decided to treat ourselves to a proper holiday, spending a few days in Munich followed by four days of cross-country skiing in the Austrian alps.

Munich is a beautiful city in the Bavarian region of southern Germany. Heavy bombing in World War II destroyed most of the city, but when they rebuilt they stayed true to the original architecture rather than that grim industrial post-war style that you see in other cities that were ravaged by the war.

December is a nice time of the year to visit Munich with its famous Christmas markets. In all the town squares and plazas these temporary stalls, shops and outdoor cafes set out their wares, and the streets are full of people shopping, socializing and drinking hot spiced wine called glühwein, or 'glow-wine'.

This market was set up like a medieval village with miniature wooden buildings.

Some of the stalls were beautifully decorated......

.....and the stall holders all dressed in medieval garb.

This stall specialised in little fairies and gnomes made from felt and floss.

Some nice architectural details on the buildings, like this funny waterspout.....

....and another waterspout that was somewhat sinister.

One of the markets was just for all kinds of food, with beautiful produce displays.

Exotic dragon fruits like small sculptures......

....and apples that were a work of art (achieved by sticking a small heart shape, with a smaller heart cut out of it, onto each apple. As the apple ripens the part that is covered stays yellow while the parts exposed to sunlight turn red. Clever!)

Seefeld, Austria
After two days in Munich we took a train 3 hours south to the Tyrolian region of Austria. These are the Austrian alps as seen from the train window.

Seefeld is about 10 miles from Innsbruck, host of the winter Olympics in 1976. The area is renowned for an excellent network of cross-country ski trails, with over 100 miles of well-marked trials in the mountains and valleys.

We rented a small apartment (with a kitchen) on the outskirts of the town.

The day we arrived we had time to rent ski equipment and get in a few hours on some nice easy trails. It had been 3 years since we were last on skis so we thought we might need some warming up, but it felt totally natural to be on the long boards again!

The next day we had more time to check out the town which was full of skiers and holiday-makers. Seefeld is snow-sports heaven, with downhill ski lifts dotted throughout the valley, and miles of walking trails that are cleared of snow daily. A real family-oriented place with something for everybody.

Many of the buildings are beautifully painted.

A small Christmas market in Seefeld

Out on the ski trails. Some days were gray and snowy (yay! fresh powder!)

Other days were crystal blue with great mountain views.

There are little huts in the mountains that sell hot foods and ice cold beers. These huts can be reached by cross-country trails, downhill ski lifts and cleared walking trails. After drinking one of those tall German beers at our lunch stop here, I proceeded to strap on my skis and very ungracefully fall right on my ass in front of everyone sitting outside - class.

Another way people get to the mountain cafes is by hiring a horse-drawn sleigh and driver.

There are a lot of little summer huts and cabins scattered through the Austrian alps - this tree hut was by far the coolest.

Munich Again
We returned to Munich for one more day before catching our flight early the next morning. We found this memorial to Michael Jackson on one of the city streets - all four faces of the monument are plastered with photos, poems and letters to him.

We had asked the hostel clerk to recommend something to see on our last day there, and he suggested the Residence, former home of Munich royalty for many centuries. It didn't look like much from the outside.

But inside, yowza! Ninety rooms of gilt, gold and decadent excess. And almost all of it rebuilt after WWII to look exactly the way it had looked before. This greatroom had an elaborately painted ceiling, no two panels alike.

A room where all of the decorations were made of seashells.

A 'giraffe' piano.

Another elaborate ceiling.

Inlaid stone and wood doorways.

And another fancy ceiling. Really, every room was a work of art and these photos represent just a tiny amount of the bling. After a while my eyes hurt from looking at it all, and I could not imagine living in a place like this.

The strangest room was near the end, and those who had bling-fatigue and bailed out early missed this. This room had a display of reliqueries - elaborate glass cases containing bones that supposedly belonged to saints. Wealthy people in those days believed that spending time near a saint's holy remains would help counter their own sins of greed and gluttony. This one contains hand and finger bones, supposedly of some saint.

A 'holy' leg bone.

The top of this reliquary contains an entire skull.

The king and queen bid us aufwiedersehen.

So what the heck is going on with Ireland's economy anyway?
I know the news is really dire out there, and yes, the economy has been on a steady downward slide since we arrived in 2008. But most people we know are still employed here, and those that aren't seem to get pretty good benefits (dole, rent relief, fuel allowance, medical card, etc) from the government. The safety net is still very wide here. On the other hand, young people can find no jobs and are emigrating to other English-speaking countries like Canada and Australia for work. Unemployment is about 14%, but unlike the US they actually count everyone who is unemployed, and not just those who are still looking for work.

Bill and I are still gainfully employed and doing fine. Seed Savers is actually doing quite well these days, with continued financial support from the Department of Agriculture, and some big grants we got recently to construct a new seed bank this summer. Seed sales and fruit tree sales are good as more people turn to growing food to cut their own costs. Bill has been tree planting, pruning, and installing a new landscape at a new train station this winter. He also has some indoor cabinetry work that he can do when it's very cold or raining.

An election has been called for March, but there is so little difference between the two big parties that it won't really change much. They even sound the same: Fianna Fail vs. Fine Gael. People are annoyed about the way the country's wealth was sucked up by those at the top (bankers, politicians and developers), but they don't seem too depressed about things. This is a country that has seen far more bad years than good over the centuries, so most people here are good at tightening the belts and doing what they need to get by, while still having the craic!

November-December

2010-12-19T11:57:00.001-08:00

Parties
We moved in November so other than a trad fest in Ennis, we didn't do much other than pack, unpack and work at our jobs. We had one last party at the old cottage on Thanksgiving.

The five bearded men of Clare. Beards are not as popular in Ireland as they are where we're from in Ithaca (which I can't figure out with the cool weather) and it's unusual to see so many in one room.

We hosted a Seed Savers staff party at our new house in Fossabeg, Scariff.

Woofer
Then we unexpectedly got a dog!! One day a skinny, shaking dog scratched on the door at Seed Savers. His ears and nose were all scratched up and boy, was he happy to be indoors! We've been having unusually cold weather again this winter and I was not going to turn him outside for the night, so I took him home while I tried to locate the owner.

We had been thinking of getting a dog again (it's been over a year since Sonya died) but we always seem to be traveling and it's easier without pets. But this little puppy was so sweet and friendly that I was really hoping we wouldn't find the owner so we could keep him. I started calling him Oscar (as in Oscar Wilde, an Irish author).

I was disappointed when we found a photo and description of him on the SPCA website, but we knew we had to do the right thing and contact the owners.
His owners told me that the puppy's name was Badger, he was four and half months old, and he and one of his siblings had been missing for two weeks in very cold weather. Seed Savers is 6 miles from their house. The female puppy had come home the night before by herself. They were very relieved to hear that Badger was alive.

I told his owners, Carol and Graham, that if their dog ever had another litter of puppies we would be interested in adopting one. They said that Badger might be available to adopt, but someone else had expressed interest in him and they had to follow up on that first.
They were lovely people and obviously real animal lovers - they told us that they have 5 dogs (plus the puppies), cats, chickens and horses, all of which are let into the house occasionally, even the horses!

Well, Carol called the other interested party but lucky for us they had changed their minds about getting a dog, and now Oscar is ours. We went on calling him Oscar because we just liked it better and he responds to it anyway, maybe because it ends with the same 'er' sound. We are just so happy to have a dog again!

Wwoofers

About the same time Oscar showed up, we got a couple of two-legged wwoofers as well. Lulu and Patrice are Western Canadians traveling around Europe for their 'gap year' before starting university next autumn. They are good workers, fun and easy to have around. They've been a big help digging up new garden beds and helping us set up our new polytunnel, despite the frosty weather almost every day. On the weekends we've been taking them to see some other parts of Clare. Last weekend we drove to the west coast of Clare along the high cliffs and sea stacks.

A winter picnic by the sea. Here we discovered one of the best sandwich combinations in the world: crunchy peanut butter, homemade jam, dried whole apricots, and Nutella.

We walked out to the natural stone arches known as the Bridges of Ross.

A sea stack at Loop Head, the tip of Clare. This is where the River Shannon meets the sea.

Bill, Lulu and Patrice worked hard setting up our new polytunnel. These guys spent days pounding in stakes for the frame and digging the big trench around the exterior to bury the edges of the plastic.

This is the day we put the plastic on, and Patrice (right) and Lulu (left) are filling the trench back in. The sun is setting and it's only 4:30 pm.

Yay! The first plants to go in the polytunnel - a winter sowing of salad greens.

The polytunnel team

Another very cold weekend we drove to North Clare and the Burren. Just outside Gort we stopped at the monastic ruins at Kilmacduagh, with ruins of churches from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, and a crooked round tower that the monks used to hide in from the marauding barbarians.

The tower leans by a difference of two feet off center.

Then we continued into the Burren where we climbed the snow-dusted rocks to the top of Mullagh Mor.

Even in winter the cows graze in the Burren.

Moonlight over Mullagh Mor.

October 2010

2010-11-14T12:28:00.001-08:00

Skellig Michael

Skellig Michael is a splintery little shard of an island 9 miles from the coast of Kerry. This wild and remote place was inhabited continuously by monks from the 7th to 12th century. Now it's a World Heritage Site, and it's been high on our list of places to go while we're living in Ireland.

The island is a 45 minute trip by boat from the end of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry. You can only provisionally reserve your place on the boat - the voyage is weather dependent and the boats don't go if it's windy or foggy. When we arrived the captain said we were very lucky - no-one had been out to the island for two weeks.

Last view of the mainland.

We took the boat with the cute little mascot dog, Nini. She spent the entire trip on passengers' laps.

Even on a calm day it was still pretty wavy - note the angle of the water in the photo below! It didn't look possible to land on the island, but if you look closely you can see a small cove at the bottom left of the photo with a stone staircase built into the side.

Before we started walking up to monk's huts at the top, we were greeted by a guide who actually lives on the island from April to October. The first thing he said was 'Boy, am I glad to see you people! There haven't been any boats for two weeks!' (Maybe it was just the sun in his eyes, but I swear I saw his face twitch when he said this.)
He then went on to warn us of the dangers of the exposed walk to the top of the island - there have been fatalities, most recently an American woman who left the stone path to get a better photo. He warned that as long as we stayed on the steps and paid attention we'd be safe, and off we went, up 600 stone steps.

The island is carpeted almost exclusively by this ground hugging plant, which not only survives but thrives on steep rock and salt water spray.

It looks like a species of Campion.

Up, up and up one of three stone staircases that the monks constructed. The other two sets of stairs are mostly intact but closed to the public.

You can just see some tiny people starting their climb far below.

Little Skellig in the distance

The monks built up these stone walls near the top of the island to enclose the plateau where they settled. These outer areas were used to grow food. Note the stairs down to an opening in the wall - these lead to one of the other staircases that goes to the shore, hundreds of feet down.

The monks lived in round 'beehive' huts at the top of the island, clustered around the ruins of a rectangular chapel. These amazing structures are built using a technique called corbelling. The stones are laid in a circular shape, gradually sloping inward until they meet at the top. It's an incredibly simple yet durable way to build - there are hundreds of these stone beehive huts all over the west of Ireland that have been standing for over 1,000 years.

There's a raised-bed cemetery in the middle of the enclosure.

The earliest monks in Ireland believed that God was found in the most remote and wild places, and that he dwelt where the sun set in the west. There are many early monastic sites in the west of Ireland, but no doubt this one is the most remote. The monks lived on fish, eggs from their hens, and vegetables from the small garden. They traded with passing ships for candles, fishing line, cloth, and other things they couldn't produce. They must have spent a lot of time working with stone in addition to meditation, prayer and singing.
After 5 centuries of continuous habitation on the island, the monks finally moved to the mainland after they were raided by Vikings three times in 10 years.

The island sat empty for hundreds of years, then in the 1860's two lighthouses were constructed on the island. The builders lived in the beehive huts for six years during construction of the lighthouses. Housing was built for the lighthouse keepers and they lived there until the 1980's, when the lighthouses became computer controlled. Now the island is very empty with just two guides in residence for 6 months of the year.

This is inside one of the huts looking out. It felt very sturdy and cozy inside.

Looking down to the little boats that brought us, far below. Access to the island is limited to just a few small boats daily from April through October. There's another one of the stone staircases wiggling down the hill.

Going back to the outside world through the opening of the enclosure wall. It really felt like a world apart.

Yaaaaaah! This was the scary bit!

There is another tiny little hermitage-for-one near the top of this peak. I think this is where the monks got sent when they had to do 'time-out'.

Goin' down.

We were the last ones to the boat, as usual, but at least it didn't leave without us and have to come back (see Aran Islands blog, June 2010).

As a special bonus, this boat goes over to Little Skellig island, which has the largest population of gannets (a sea bird) in the world. By this time of year 2/3 of them had already migrated to Africa.

We also saw some seals lolling around in the surf.

There is this cool little cut-out at the end of the island that seems to mirror the shape of Skellig Michael in the distance.

Benbulben, County Sligo
We went back up to Sligo town for a really good arts festival, and decided to have another go at climbing Ben Bulben, the flat-top mountain nearby. This is the hill that we had a white-knuckle climb up last spring, when I had an interview at the Organic Centre. We were hoping to find a less hair-raising way to the top.

Last time we went up the sunny south face of the hill, this time we drove around the nose of the hill and went up the north side. We had to watch out for a local character nicknamed 'Bull', who hates hikers and according to hill-walking websites has chased people in the past. Beware Ben Bulben Bull!

It looks hairy, but we just kept angling left......

below those escarpments.....

until we came to a climbable grassy slope. Easy peasy!

Views from the top.

The top is boggy peat with occasional pools of water.

We saw these people heading for an easier way down, so we followed them. Now we know the truly easy way to get up Ben Bulben.

Croagh Patrick

On our way home from Sligo, we took a detour into Connemara to climb Croagh Patrick. This is considered a very holy mountain from pagan times and now associated with St. Patrick. Every year on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday in July, between 20,000 and 30,000 'pilgrims' climb to the top (reek means 'mountain' in Irish). Hundreds climb barefoot as penance. They must have been very naughty.

We decided not to go up the usual 'pilgrim's route' but instead to go the back way, up the small peak in the foreground first then up Croagh Patrick.

Croagh Patrick is near the sea, and in the distance we could see the steep profile of Clare Island, which we visited with the crew from Seed Savers last April.

The top of the mountain is covered with scree. I did say barefoot.....

It was seriously freakin' windy - I thought maybe St. Patrick himself was trying to blow off the two pagans who were trying to sneak up the back way! In this photo I am wearing a total of 4 layers of head covering (three hoods plus a hat).

At the top - a dumpy little church that in no way matched the grandeur of the setting. And it was locked to boot. However, it made a good windbreak to huddle by and snarf down our PB&J sandwiches and say 'Howdy, Pilgrim' to anyone who walked by.

Views from the top.

Scree-surfing

Out of the Old Place

Yes, it's true, we are actually moving away from the dear little cottage that has been our home in Ireland for almost 3 years. I have been driving almost an hour each way to work on bad roads and in the dark for the winter months, and we were offered a place that was hard to pass up - within walking/cycling distance of my job. Here are some of the last photos of the cottage garden in October.

We grew the South American grain quinoa for the first time - it's native to mountainous regions and thrives in Ireland's cool summers.

Unfortunately, we should have harvested it right after I took these pictures. The next weekend we went to Sligo and it was very wet in Clare, and when we came back the grains were sprouting right on the plants. Bad farmers!

The gardens in autumn. Lots of food still there, so we are still going back to the cottage to harvest.

And Into the New

Our new house is another old house (built in the 1800's), but more modern than the old cottage. Now we have central heat, an electric shower, and two spare bedrooms for guests or wwoofers! Hello 20th century!

The sitting room

The kitchen

Stone sheds in the back with workshop space, wood/turf storage, and storage for bicycles and gardening equipment.

The vegetable garden space - Bill started digging it up and it has beautiful soil (said as a true tree-hugging dirt worshipper!). We're going to have wwoofers stay with us this winter and spring to help us dig up the garden in exchange for room and board. We don't want to have to spend another 3 years developing a garden from scratch!

September 2010

2010-10-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

Visit to Ithaca NY

McIntosh apples and goldenrod in bloom - must be upstate NY!

We had a fantastic, and long-overdue, visit to Ithaca where we got to spend time with lots of friends and family. First we spent time with Bill's family - here's Bill with his mom Helen and sister Carolyn, cooling off at Danny's pond.

The Carini-Sanford Clan (plus me): Bill, Helen, Daniel, Randie, Ariana, Carolyn (hey, where's Eric??)

We visited our friend Stephen, owner of Cummins Nursery and also u-pick fruit and veg farm.

Steve planted about 60 different varieties of unusual apples about 3 years ago, and a lot of them were fruiting for the first time. We got to walk around tasting apples like kids in a candy store, even wastefully dropping partially eaten apples in order to taste the next one (although I must admit to stuffing the ones I liked best into the pockets of my sweatshirt to save for later).

The guys weren't too crazy about the taste of this apple. (I think Stephen is actually spitting it out.)

How's this one?

A winner!

My daughter Monica and her boyfriend flew in from California in the middle of the week, and we spent some time walking around the Ithaca Commons.

New York pizza on the Commons!

We went up to Penn Yan to hang out with my brother Tom and his wife Martha and son Ian. We played some music on the porch and drew out a couple of old-timers who live two doors down.

My parents drove up for the weekend as well.

Tom and Martha took us on a beeeautiful walk in the High Tor Management Area, near their house in Penn Yan.

There was a huge canyon near the path, stunning but a bit nerve-wracking with a 7-year old along!

Tom and Martha on the High Tor trail.

Lake Keuka in the Finger Lakes

We were lucky to be in Ithaca the same weekend as Porchfest! This cool event has musicians playing on porches in the city neighborhoods, and you just walk around following a map to hear all kinds of live music. This is our friend Heather (left) playing in her group Sundown Sally.

Mom, Dad and Ian at Porchfest

Ian in a hollowed-out tree trunk

Thanks to Margot Pollikof for this lovely photo of Monica and I at Porchfest.

We stayed at our own house in Newfield with our friends Eileen and Heather, who are renting it while we're away. It was good to see our old house and do some repairs and maintenance.

In the garden - monarch butterfly on New England aster

Last night out with Sharon and Bubba

Our silly friends Heather and Eileen

Apple Day at Seed Savers

On the last weekend of the month Seed Savers held it's annual Apple Day - an opportunity for people to come and taste some of our 150 apple varieties, and purchase 1-year old grafted apple trees. We also had local food producers set up with their wares, talks on seed saving and the science of apple rootstocks, demonstrations of coppersmithing, spinning, weaving and basketry, horse ploughing demonstrations, and children's activities. Oh yeah, and a TV film crew filming a cooking demonstration by Irish chef Richard Corrigan.

Due to last year's huge turnout(before I started working there) the staff had decided to make it a 2 day event, with the Saturday primarily for the members of Irish Seed Savers, and the second day for the general public.

Saturday was bright and sunny, and about 300-400 people came out that day. This is the children's activity area, set up for kids to make nature crafts, get their faces painted and see a puppet show.

Me with Matteo, Seed Savers orchard coordinator, ready for apple tree customers.

Fresh apple-juicing demonstration

Pizza makers at the cob oven

The Fake McCoys

Richard Corrigan is travelling around Ireland and seeking out the local foods, and doing cooking demos with the local ingredients at regional events. The episode featuring Seed Savers will air on Wednesday November 10, and meanwhile you can check out some of the other episodes at Corrigan Cooks Naturally.

I think some of these local birds might have featured in the cooking demo, but that was more info than I needed.

The apple-tasting tent was busy on both days - people could taste dozens of apple varieties and take notes on which ones they like best, then proceed directly to the sales area to buy their favorites.

Coppersmithing demonstration

On Sunday it was gray but dry, and we had big crowds - over 1,000 people - but they were all spread out over the different areas of our 20 acre farm. We had a couple of dozen volunteers helping on each day - at the admission area, the pizza oven, the apple tasting tent, the juicing display, and pushing wheelbarrows with purchased trees to the holding area (here they call it a 'creche')at the front gate. Having a large number of volunteers really helped the event run smoothly and everybody left happy!

People waiting to buy apple trees.

Harry and his draught horses

Summer 2010

2010-07-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

June Drought

6 weeks in Ireland without rain = drought. Dry lakebeds in the Burren, watering restrictions, and the painful sight of sunburnt Irish skin.

Daisies were the only Burren wildflowers that enjoyed the drought. The orchids and other wildflower of June were mostly absent this year.

Irish Seed Savers - June

Entrance to our shop with plants lined up for sale.

This used to be my office, but the doors on the right face the carpark so visitors were always trying to come in this way. Plus this room was larger than I needed, so we turned it into a garden shop.

My new office

The last Friday of every month is Pizza-and-Music night at Seed Savers, with home made pizza baked in an outdoor clay oven and local musicians. It's good crack and we raise a little extra money for Seed Savers.

The flower and veg seed gardens

Weeder geese in the orchard

Grafted trees ready for sale

Willow sculpture

Our gardens in June

Bill did some nice stone paving jobs for landscaping clients.

A garden we planted last year for someone.

July - Soft Fruits Bonanza

The climate in Ireland is ideal for 'soft fruits' - raspberries, currants and jostaberries. These are black currants. We planted little plants a few summers ago, and now they are large bushes and were covered in fruits this year. We ate a lot and froze the rest for future use in pancakes, crumble and jam.

Red currants

Jostaberries - a cross between gooseberries and currants

Plus red and yellow raspberries (upper right)

Irish Seed Savers - July

Seed gardens

Ripening apples

Polytunnel crops

More seed gardens

Seed Savers is growing quinoa for the first time this year - it's a South American grain but it thrives in Ireland's climate.

The volunteers helped put in a small pond.

Cabbage grown for seed

Wheat ready to harvest. This wheat will be used for an upcoming event called 'Grow Your Own Bread' - participants will see wheat harvested, threshed, ground into flour, and made into bread that's cooked in our outdoor clay oven.

The cob house and gardens

Festival of World Cultures

We went to a cool festival in Dunlaoghaire ('Dunleary'), just south of Dublin. Great performances from all around the world, held at a number of stages along the waterfront.

One of the groups at the festival, a mix of Irish and Eastern European musicians.

The pier at Dunlaoghaire.

Looking back at the town from the pier.

Some great festival do's.

August - My American Cousins

My Uncle Jimmy brought 3 of my 4 American cousins to visit. From left to right: Jimmy, Tara, Michael, Tara's husband Don, and Kerry. It was Jimmy's 70th birthday, and bringing his kids to Ireland was on his 'bucket list' (things to do before you kick the bucket). I think they went to every pub in Ennis

We had a good time hanging out with them the week they were here. Unfortunately it was a particularly gloomy week and I think they saw about 5 minutes of sunshine. One of the cool things we did was go to the medieval banquet at Bunratty. It starts with a mead reception and singers in the great hall, then proceeds to the banquet hall where the meal is eaten without forks.

We visited my Aunt Patsy in Limerick, and a few of our Irish cousins were there as well. In the back, Seamus, Liz, and Liz's son Kim. Patsy is sitting next to Jimmy.

Jimmy and Patsy.

Our Garden - August

Lots of beautiful butterflies this year

A giant white cabbage out of our garden.

May 2010

2010-06-06T00:44:00.001-07:00

A 'Wee Fundraiser' in Donegal

A few months ago a man with a charming Donegal accent rang me at work and told me that he wanted to organise a 'wee fundraiser' for Seed Savers in his garden in County Donegal, right up at the tippy-top of Ireland. Patrick is a long-time member of Seed Savers and grows our vegetable varieties and apple trees in his organic garden.

In early May Bill and I loaded up the Seed Savers van with seeds, fruit trees, veg seedlings, brochures and membership forms, and embarked on the six-hour drive to Donegal. When we arrived, Patrick showed us around his very lovely garden with a view of the water and County Derry beyond. Scotland is just visible in the far distance; it's only about about 10 miles across the sea.

Patrick has a very organized and productive raised-bed vegetable garden.

The front garden in bloom.

The fundraiser took place over Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and both days we were blessed with fine weather. There was an admission fee to tour the gardens and view demonstrations in sowing, composting, beekeeping and basketmaking. Patrick had also organized a pony trap and facepainting for the kids, and the garden tour ended at his sister Marion's house next door, where she had coordinated a 'tray-bake' - baked goods and coffee for a small donation.

Patrick, in the centre of the photo wearing a tan sweater, talks veg gardening with visitors.

About 120 visitors toured the garden over two afternoons.

Working the Seed Savers merch table.

A local basketmaker demonstrating his craft.

Relaxing with Patrick in the glasshouse after it was all over.

On one of the mornings we were there we took a quick trip on the ferry across the harbour to County Derry, which is in Northern Ireland (UK). If you look back at the first photo on this page you can see a headland across the water - that's where this photo was taken.

Looking back to Greencastle on the Inishowen Peninsula (where the garden tour was held), and the narrow gap where the ferry crosses.

Climbing Mt. Errigal
We've been hearing about Donegal ever since we first visited Ireland - the Irish themselves speak about it as 'a world apart' and 'the real Ireland' - so we were delighted at the chance to combine work and pleasure and do a little adventuring up there. We left Patrick's and drove a couple of hours west to the Derryveigh Mountains near the west coast, where we stayed at a big modern hostel right at the foot of Mt. Errigal.

This is the view from the back door of the Errigal Hostel.The white stuff is gravel scree, not snow.

We were lucky and the next day was clear and dry - perfect for climbing the highest mountain in Donegal (2,500 feet). We ascended along the ridge on the left side of this photo.

Twin peaks at the top.

A mountain lake and the sea beyond.

Descent from Errigal. The Poisoned Glen is visible in the distance.

Another view of Errigal from the hostel, glowing red in the setting sun.

Glenveagh National Park

Just 5 miles from Mt. Errigal, Glenveagh National Park is a lush, semi-tropical garden and castle set at the edge of Loch Veagh.

Acres of informal gardens surround the castle. The woodland gardens are built into the hillside and connected by small paths and stone steps, and are planted with exotic species intermingling with native trees in a very naturalistic style. The giant rhododendrons were in bloom.

Chilean Flame tree.

Yellow and lavender azaleas.

An Italianate garden in the forest.

A level lawn and and gardens by the lake.

Another giant rhodie.

Semi-tropical palms and cycads. The surprising thing we noticed is that despite the fact that Donegal is a 6 hour drive north from Clare, they seemed to have a less severe winter than the one we just went through. These subtropical species didn't survive this past winter. Donegal has a long, deeply indented coastline which gets maximum benefit from the warming effect of the Gulf Stream.

Finally we came to the castle, cleverly hidden from view of the gardens.

A walled garden behind the castle.

The gardener's cottage, and one of Seed Savers apple trees in the foreground. We saw several dozen Seed Savers apple trees in the garden, all thriving.

Looking up at the castle from the lakeside.

Above the castle, a path called 'The 67 Steps'........

.....which led to a nice overlook of the castle on the shores of Loch Veagh.

The Poisoned Glen
Such a creepy name for a beautiful place. There are conflicting theories about the name - one source says it was mistranslated from the Irish name which means 'Heavenly Glen'. Another guidebook states that people used to put poison in the water to catch the fish, and a third says that a poisonous plant called spurge grows on the riverbanks and the toxin leaches into the water. Take your pick.

An abandoned church at the entrance to the glen......
....with a quartet of perfectly posed seagulls on top.

We tried to go up this slope so we could get a view of Glenveagh Valley on the other side. But when we got up to the rocky part at the top we felt it was just too wet and slick, so we used common sense (or chickened out) and turned around.

This is as high as we got, with a view of the valley and Errigal in the distance.

Down in the valley.

We took the scenic route home.....

...and saw the highest sea cliffs in all of Europe - 2,000 ft. from peak to sea level. The colors on the rock are big patches of lichen. This overlook is at some distance to the cliffs, so it was hard to get a sense of how big they were until we realized that some white specks (not even visible in these photos) were sheep.

Then we drove past flat-topped Benbulben, County Sligo, which we climbed last spring.

Famine Walk, County Mayo
In the middle of May ten Seedsavers staff (plus Bill) participated in a 10-mile walk to raise funds for a not-for-profit called AFrI (Action from Ireland). The walk commemorates the deaths of 600 local people who died during the potato famine in 1847. They walked from Louisbergh to Delphi on a 10-mile stretch of snowy, mountainous road with the promise of food at Delphi Lodge. But when they arrived at Delphi they were turned away, and hundreds of them perished of starvation and hypothermia on the return walk to Louisbergh.

Before the walk there were talks and music next to Doolough, the lake at Delphi. This is some of the Seedsavers crew: from l-r, Tomomi, Matteo, Eoin, Bill and Peter.

Seedsavers was one of two groups who had been asked to lead the walk. The other group is Trocaire which raises money to combat world hunger. The banner links the two groups with the slogan Hunger in a World of Plenty: Sowing the Seeds of Hope.

A beautiful route for the walk.

Seed bank curator Jo Newton planting Lumper potatoes at the Famine Memorial.

The walk organizers had asked us to bring some Lumper potatoes from Seedsavers collection of over 50 potato varieties. The Lumper is the potato that was being widely grown during the Famine because it produces big quantities of spuds (not a favorite for taste, however - it was a matter of quantity over quality).

The reasons for the Famine are many - political oppression by England, lack of land ownership, wet weather conditions that favored the fungal disease, but very important was also the lack of genetic diversity in the crop. One of the primary aims of Seedsavers is to maintain the genetic diversity in food crops as the huge agri-biz farmers only grow a handful of varieties of each type of plant, leaving us very vulnerable if there is another widespread blight.

Clare Island, Mayo

After the walk we made a mad dash for the ferry to Clare Island, where we had decided to extend our Mayo trip and have a little R&R. L-r: Matteo, Bill, Jo, Aine, Peter, Eoin. We all stayed at a yoga centre - the owners are members of Seedsavers and have a lot of our fruit trees and veggies. (Regrettably no photos,but here's a link to photos on their website: Clare Island Yoga Retreat).

The next day Bill and I climbed to the top of the island. It's the remnants of a mountain that used to be a lot bigger before half of it slumped into the sea.

The view from the top - Achill Island in the distance.

Home Sweet Home

April 2010

2010-05-02T01:36:00.001-07:00

The Aran Islands
Three islands make up the Aran Islands, arranged like beads on a necklace extending from the shore of County Clare (although technically they are part of Co. Galway to the north.) We had already been to Inisheer, the smallest island and closest to the mainland, when we were wwoofing around Ireland in 2005. We've been wanting to go to Inishmor, the biggest island, for ages and when a weekend of perfect weather was predicted we booked two places on the ferry.

The ferries that go to the islands are quite small and do not take cars - just people and bicycles. (People who live on the island often have two cars - an old one to get around the island, and another newer one on the mainland to make longer trips around Ireland.) It takes an hour to get from the pier at Doolin, County Clare, to Inishmor, about 16 miles from the mainland.

The other way to get to Inishmor is by plane. The island has a small airstrip and its own airline, Aer Aran, with a fleet of two.

Visitors to the islands can rent bikes or bring their own (as we did) or hire a pony trap and driver to tour the 8-mile long island.

Gaeilge (Irish) is the main language on the islands - the sign above this beautiful horse and cart says 'Yield Way' in Gaeilge.

We dropped our stuff off at the hostel right near the pier and took off on our bicycles along the flat road bordered by tiny patchwork fields on the north shore of the island.

The north shore of the island slopes gently to the sea with occasional white sand beaches.

The mediterranean-blue water looks inviting (and in fact there were a couple of people swimming) but it was approximately the temperature of melting ice cubes and Bill waded for about 3/10 of a second before running back out.

Dun Aengus

This is one of the big attractions of Inishmor - the remains of an enormous triple-wall ringfort built on the high cliffs of the island's southern edge. The walls date from around 2,000 BC but were rebuilt by archeologists in the 1800's.

There are two theories about the cliffside location of the fort - some believe that it was deliberately built as a half circle terminating at the cliff edge for the ultimate defense. Others say it was originally a complete circle but thousands of years of ocean weather have eroded away the cliff and with it half of the fort.

Approaching the entrance to the inner wall of the ringfort.

Doing this made my stomach feel really funny.........

......but Bill said it gave him a funny feeling in a slightly lower part of his anatomy.

Click the play button on the lower left corner to watch a panorama of the ringfort walls and cliff edge.

Outside the ringfort wall there are thousands of rocks stood on end and wedged into cracks in the rocks below. This is another line of defense called a 'chevaux-de-frise' and it's designed to keep horses and humans from charging at the outer ringfort wall.

Looking back at the three walls of the ringfort, and the chevaux-de-frise beyond.

Sheer cliffs all along the south edge of the island.

Dun Eochla
After leaving Dun Aengus we cycled about 5 miles to another ring fort. This one is set on the highest hill in the middle of the island, not near any cliffs so it's still completely circular.

Inside the ringfort there's a raised area that might have been used as an altar.

Totally knackered after all the cycling.

One more stop at a megalithic tomb before heading back to the hostel/pub for dinner and some well-deserved pints.

Dun Duchathair

The next morning we cycled to another part the island to Dun Duchathair, or Black Fort. I liked this one the best because it was off the beaten track - we had to park out bikes and walk the last 1/4 mile or so along some very beautiful coastline.

It's called Black Fort because as you approach it the sun is in your eyes, so the ringfort stones always look dark.

The huge triple wall terminates at the cliff at both ends, so it too is likely a victim of erosion of the land. Within the fort are foundations of circular huts joined together condo-style.

We noticed an opening at the base of the inner wall.

Bill went in as far as he could go and took this looking back at to where he went in. He said he could see daylight through the stones at the far end of the tunnel, so perhaps it used to be an escape route?

Teeny tiny Bill on the cliff edge.

A little more time till we had to catch the ferry back to Doolin, so we found another nice beach to explore.

A funny thing happened on the way to the ferry.....

We were all packed up and within sight of the pier. I went into the hostelkitchen to take a few pictures of the cool chicken painting on one wall and the nice tiled table in the dining room. Then we headed off with bikes and bags to catch the ferry.

We got as far as here when Bill remembered that he left something back at the hostel, and while I waited for him I started snapping photos of this beautiful horse and carriage. We weren't too worried about the time because the boat had left from the Doolin pier an hour and half late the day before, due to the tides, so we figured it was the same kind of relaxed schedule.

While I was taking pictures of the horse and carriage, the horse's owner returned and insisted that I climb up on the carriage seat so he could take my picture. We got chatting, the usual stuff - where-are-ye-from, why'd-ye-move-to-Ireland, etc. Then Bill shows up, I remember that we have a ferry to catch, and look over at the pony-driver's shoulder to see the boat motoring away without us!

This was the last boat of the day leaving for the mainland, and while I ordinarily would have been delighted to be 'stuck' on the island for another night, I had something really important going on at work the next day and had to be there.

Bill looked at the ferry ticket in his hand and noticed that the phone number for the ticket office in Doolin was printed on it. I grabbed my cell phone and called the number, and when a woman answered, well, I didn't come right out and say anything like 'We missed our boat and we have a plane to catch tomorrow', but I'm sure the combination of my panic and the American accent might have led her to that very conclusion.

She said 'I'll call the captain of the ferry and see if he might turn around for ye,' and sure enough, as we headed out for the end of the pier with our bicycles and bags in tow we saw the ferry turning around and motoring back to us. Only in Ireland!!

We walked up the ferry ramp apologizing profusely to the crew and captain, and were greeted by a round of applause from the 30 passengers sitting on chairs on the sunny upper deck. After bowing deeply and blushing profusely, we exiled ourselves at the aft of the boat, back by the stinky engines.

The boat made a quick stop at Inishman, the middle island, topped by a castle and

In the Garden

The gardens burst into life in April after a chilly spring.

A floriferous primrose.

The veg garden is almost all planted.

A lovely pastoral evening.

March 2010

2010-05-02T01:21:00.000-07:00

We went to the little coastal village of Doolin for a trad fest in early March, and took a walk between sessions at the pub to watch this lovely sunset from the rocky shore.

St. Patrick's Day Parade
St. Patrick's Day isn't a big drinkfest like it is in the States. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that it's no more of a drinkfest than any other night of the year, and they wouldn't dream of dyeing the beer green.

It is a public holiday and a holy day, and some people start the day off by going to mass in honor of Ireland's patron saint. Every town and small village has a parade, and we marched with the Ennis Farmer's Market group.

Getting ready to walk with our wheelbarrows of garden produce.

St. Patrick and his minions.

Parading down the main street in Ennis. Bill and I are just visible behind the scarecrow.

Awesome hat - four creamy pints!

The Burren
We had some unexpected visitors in March - I got an email from the daughter of someone I worked with about 10 years ago. I used to carpool with Brian to our jobs at Cooperative Extension in Tioga County, and the last time I had seen his daughter Jenny, she was probably about 12 years old. She emailed to say she would be stopping in Ireland on her way back from spending 6 weeks in Jerusalem, and as she is interested in farming she was hoping to stay with us for a few days and help out in the garden. Jenny came with her friend Linus from Sweden. They spent the first day volunteering at Seedsavers, and the next day we took them for a walk in the Burren.
Bill, Jenny and Linus.

This is in the northern part of the Burren, overlooking Galway Bay and the mountains of Connemara in the hazy distance.

Looking down at the coastal village of Ballyvaughan, North Clare.

These little ponies (or are they miniature donkeys?) were incredibly cute. It's like they were trained to pose for the tourists' cameras.

As I started snapping, they moved closer and closer together.

They were working it like models on a catwalk!

In the flat limestone expanse of the Burren, we found this deep hole that is likely a blocked off cave entrance. The limestone is very porous, and it's riddled with caves. There are several large caves nearby that are open to tourists (Ailwee Cave and Doolin Cave) and hundreds of smaller ones that are explored and mapped by cavers. That's our friend Geraldine at the bottom of the hole.

And here's how the rest of us looked, gawping down at Geraldine down in the hole.

March - time to tear up the pea patch.

Turn up the volume and listen to this fantastic chorus of birdsong. Ireland is a refueling stop for birds that migrate from their winter homes in southern Europe and west Africa to their summer breeding grounds in the Arctic. The droning, watery sound in the background is from a huge flock of starlings (native here, not a pest like in the US) in a distant tree in the neighboring field. Over that you can hear a lot of other little birds that are in the trees right around our cottage. These trees have ivy-covered trunks and the little birds love the ivy berries and also the cover provided by the evergreen leaves.

February 2010

2010-03-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

Newgrange, County Meath
In mid-February we took a road trip County Meath in the east part of Ireland, not too far from Dublin, and home to Newgrange, the jewel in Ireland's archeological crown. This is an aerial view of the megalithic mound - the small dots near the recessed entrance to the mound are people waiting to go inside, so that gives you an idea of the size of the mound.

Newgrange was built about 5,000 years ago, which makes it older than the Pyramids. The Boyne Valley in County Meath is filled with hundreds of these mounds - most of them are much smaller, but there are two others that are as large as Newgrange. The smaller ones are burial mounds, and the three huge ones were used for important rituals and religious ceremonies.

Looking up at the quartz facade on the sunny side of the mound. The mound was excavated by archeologists and the exterior rebuilt in the 1960's.

This is a picture of Newgrange mound taken in 1901, before it was excavated and restored. The entrance to the interior passageway is visible as a black rectangle at the base of the mound.

This is the entrance to the chamber before it was excavated, with the spiral-carved kerbstone at the entrance. You can also see some of the small quartz blocks were laying all around the base of the mound in an even distribution, leading archeologists to believe they had been used to face the front of the mound. When they restored the mound this way it was a bit controversial, but it does look really cool when the sun is shining and the quartz reflects the sunlight.

This is how the kerbstone and entrance look today. When they started excavating the mound in the 60's, they found a second entrance on top of the first one. Despite being centuries old, the stones lining the entrances and the passage to the interior of the mound were almost completely intact. The top entrance puzzled the leading archeologist on the site, Professor Michael O'Kelly, until he heard from one of the locals that it had something to do with the sun. Prof. O'Kelly could see that it wasn't positioned right for the summer solstice, so he waited until the winter solstice to test his theory.

Professor Kelly arrived at Newgrange before dawn on a clear winter solstice morning, and this is what he observed.The rising sun to the east shone into the stone-lined entrance above the passageway, and due to the angle of the sun and the angle of the passageway floor, the sunlight crept along the floor all the way to the chamber at the interior of the mound, where the sunlight rested in a bowl carved from a large stone. That's when Professor Kelly knew he was correct - Newgrange is one of the world's most sophisticated solar clocks.

In the interior of the mound, the passage widens to a circular chamber with more spiral carvings. (There's no photography allowed inside the mound, so I got these two photos and the aerial view from Google Images.)

There is a very good guided tour inside the mound where they turn off the lights and simulate winter solstice sunrise with a gradually increasing spotlight. But I really hope to see the real thing sometime:every year there's a lottery to choose the 50 lucky winners and their guest who get to witness this amazing spectacle (if it's not cloudy, that is) on the five mornings around winter solstice when the light show happens. I've put my name in the lottery for winter solstice, December 2010 - fingers crossed!

From across the valley - Newgrange and three black crows.

For more information about Professor Kelly and a first-hand account of the first winter solstice sunrise he witnessed in Newgrange, click here.

Hill of Tara
The Hill of Tara, about 20 miles from Newgrange, was once the ancient seat of power in Ireland – 142 kings are said to have been crowned and reigned there in prehistoric and historic times. In ancient Irish religion and mythology Tara was the sacred place of dwelling for the gods, and was the entrance to the otherworld. Saint Patrick is said to have come to Tara to confront the ancient religion of the pagans at its most powerful site.

The Hill of Tara is actually a collection of antiquities. There is an ancient burial mound from around 3,000 BC, like the one at Newgrange but much smaller. There are also earthworks and ditches built between 200 BC and 700 AD that create the double spiral pattern you can see in the aerial photo above.

When you're walking around Tara you can't actually make out this pattern. Of course the ridges and ditches making up the two spirals would have been much bigger before hundreds of years of rain and erosion. Recently archeologists found evidence of an enormous oval ring of oak posts around the perimeter of the Hill of Tara, approximately 200 yards across at the widest part. They are calling it 'Oakhenge' and speculate that it was a giant temple. In the 1300's a Christian church was built on the edge of the site. Since the beginning of memory the Hill of Tara has always been a sacred, royal and free place, owned by no man.

The Mound of the Hostages - blocked off with a gate so you can't go inside.

We spotted some of the Little People cavorting around on top of the mound.

Nicely carved Celtic cross in the churchyard. The Celtic cross combines the Christian symbol (a cross) with the pagan one (a circle).

Drogheda, County Louth
We stayed in the town of Drogheda, County Louth, while we explored the nearby Boyne Valley. Drogheda was a town that went to bed early and woke up late: we couldn't find any trad or any good music on Friday or Saturday night, and we were unable to find a place open for breakfast even at 9:30 am.

There were a few interesting sights in Drogheda, like this unexplained giant green gumdrop.....

....and a drive-through castle.

Bridges new and old.

And Millmount, another one of those 5,000 year old mega-mounds that then had a Martello tower built on top in 1808. These Martello tower were built all around the coast of Ireland in the early 1800's when they feared an invasion by Napolean's army. The mound itself sits on top of a big hill with a great view of the Boyne River flowing into the Irish Sea - a very strategic location.

We walked in some dunes at the mouth of the river, and met some friendly horses that wanted to eat my coat buttons.

County Down

We drove north into County Down in Northern Ireland before heading back home to the west. As we approached the border with Northern Ireland, we wondered if we would need passports to present at a border crossing. We hadn't planned on going into N. Ireland so we didn't have them with us. As we got to the border, the only indication that we had crossed was a sign saying that the speed limit had now changed to miles per hour instead of kilometres per hour. And yield signs were now more politely worded like this:
And other than those two things, and prices on signs displayed in pounds rather than euros, there was no way to tell that we had crossed into the UK.

We stopped for lunch at a roadside castle......

...and saw these pretty mist covered mountains across the bay. They are the Mountains of Mourne, made famous in a song ('where the Mountains of Mourne roll down to the sea...') and we decided to drive around the bay to walk in them.

We drove to the other side of the bay and walked in a beautiful oak forest in the foothills of the Mountains of Mourne.

Then we drove up and over the mist-covered mountains before turning our car westward back to Clare.

January 2010

2010-02-11T12:46:00.000-08:00

A Real Winter for Ireland
.....and the cats are not happy about it! This is Jenny, our friend Phil's cat. We spent most of January house/cat-sitting for Phil (short for Philomena) in Ennis. Phil taught in Uganda for 3 years in the 90's, and she went back for 6 weeks this winter to visit her friends there. She picked a great time to be away, and it worked out really well for us as our water was frozen at the cottage.

A lot of people here had frozen pipes for weeks. Since it's usually rare for it to go much below freezing the water pipes are buried just a few inches under the ground. We were lucky to be at Phil's house in town: central heating, municipal water, cable tv and walking to the pubs in Ennis for some late night sessions.

Jenny usually loves being outside but she couldn't deal with the cold white stuff on her paws.

Variegated holly with a dusting of snow

Frosty grasses

Clare Coast
One sunny weekend day we zipped over to Kilkee where there is a lovely public walk along the cliffs.

We hadn't been there long when a wall of fog moved in off the shore. For a while we walked right at the edge of the fog - as thick as pea soup on one side and bright sun shining on the other side.

Irish Seedsavers
Wow, it's been an incredible and intense first two months as manager at Irish Seedsavers. Working with a dedicated and passionate staff of sixteen, dealing with funding cuts, bank managers and the Department of Agriculture, and learning about all of the many interesting projects that take place there. I feel really fortunate to have such an interesting, challenging and meaningful position where I can use my past experience and also learn so much.

And to every boss I've ever whinged to (or behind their backs) - I'm sorry! Things look a lot different from this side of the desk!

So what do we do at Seedsavers, besides save seeds? Seedsavers is one of only two commercial seed farms in Ireland, and specializes in organically grown Irish seeds, potato and apple varieties. Seed crops are grown out on various parts of our 20 acre farm as well as on some off-site locations (to prevent cross-pollination within some species). We also graft and sell thousands of young apple trees each year, grafted with scion wood from our antique Irish apple collection.

Workshops run every weekend from February through November, covering a huge range of gardening topics plus classes on sustainable living, cooking, health, green building, etc. It's a busy, busy place, and with spring just around the corner we are starting to rev up now for seedsowing, apple tree grafting and spring planting.

C'mon and take a tour.......
This is our main building, with retail space, cafe and offices. This building is just three years old, it was built with 'green' materials and has solar water collectors on the roof.

Inside the shop/cafe - a retail seed board, tools and snacks/teas/jams along the back wall.

The other side of the cafe - books for sale and membership info. The kitchen is on the other side of the book display.

My office. It's shared with a few other people as needed.

Just outside the main building we have a cob oven that was built as part of a workshop a few years ago. It's used for making pizzas for open days and other events and it was featured on an Irish cooking show a few years back.

The cob oven sits under a living roof structure that was also constructed as part of a workshop.

Matteo, orchard manager, and Joe, land worker, checking out the newly arrived rootstocks for this spring's apple grafting.

Newly budded apple trees which will be planted out in the autumn. These trees will form the official Irish heritage apple collection, which Ireland is required to have by EU directive. This is one of the reasons we get funding from the Department of Agriculture. The new orchard will be planted in a field near the new building, with each tree labelled with variety name and place in Ireland originally collected.

The cob house, also with a living roof, was built as part of a series of workshops on green building. It's used for long-term ag student/interns and wwoofers that come to work at the farm.

One of the polytunnels that's used for seed production. The polytunnel has screened ends instead of plastic, for good airflow through the tunnel. It's important to keep the seed crops dry and well-ventilated when they are ripening, especially in such a moist climate. On the left is a winter pea, on the right, lettuce, and in the background a cover crop called phacelia.

The 'motherbeds' for propagating soft fruits: red and black currants, gooseberries, worcesterberries and jostaberries. Soft fruits love this climate and start producing one year after planting. They're good sellers for Seedsavers so we're increasing production this year.

Cuttings are taken from the mother plants and stuck right into the propagation beds, which have a layer of sand below the soil.

A gypsy caravan that's on loan to Seedsavers. It needs a little work but we would like to fix it up for a wwoofers other seasonal workers.

Spring cabbage that will go to seed this year. A lot of the seed crops are biennial and so must be in the ground for two years to produce seeds.

This is the Blue Building, which was the original place for offices, workshops and sales. Now it's used for seed packing, a staff lunchroom, and a little office space for the orchard and garden coordinators.

One our Irish apple orchards. I can't wait to see them in bloom in a few months.

These geese are part of a cool new project. Before mowers and weedwackers, geese were used in orchards to keep the weeds down while providing continous fertilizing! There are a lot of fox in the area so they are kept in a moveable pen that can rotate around different parts of the orchard with their night-time house in the center. They are doing a great job of keeping the orchard neat and are much more pleasant to see and hear than gas-guzzling machines! We want to expand this to idea to other parts of the land this year.

Eoin and Geraldine are digging up beets, which will be replanted in one of the tunnels for seed production mode.

Looking across to the other side of Seedsavers land, which is spread out over two facing slopes with a road down the middle. The garden beds in the foreground are all either mulched with cardboard or planted with rye cover crop. In such a wet climate it's best to cover beds so they don't have nutrients leached away by rain. (Coming from a snowy climate, Bill and I didn't know this and have been leaving our beds uncovered in winter.)

The self-rooting orchard is on the other side of the sponsored native woodland.

The self-rooting trees have clusters of roots starting to form all over the trunks.

Close up of the root clusters. These trees used to be called 'pitchers', because you could simply pitch a branch onto the ground and it would start growing!

Five thousand rootstocks for March grafting have been temporarily heeled in to this bed and others.

Leeks that were grown outside, then recently moved inside where they will flower and go to seed.

A living willow structure. The new long growth will be woven into the roof.

Raised beds planted with winter rye cover crop.

More apple trees, and the seed drying building and grafting shed in the background.

Enda and Joe getting ready to take the tractor down the hill after a long day's work.

December 2009

2010-01-03T01:45:00.001-08:00

Out of the Flooding and Into the Freeze
Ireland went from the serious floods in November to a long spell of arctic weather in December. As of this posting on January 5th, the deep freeze continues with no end in sight.

A high pressure system from the arctic circle is sitting over Ireland, bringing snow, ice and very cold temperatures. Nighttime temperatures have been as low as 15 F, and daytime temps have been at or below freezing. (In a normal Irish winter it would rarely be below freezing during the day, and it would only dip just below freezing at night.) People are freaking out at how cold it is, and of course the roads aren't as well maintained here and some drivers slow down to 20 mph if they see a single snowflake on the road.

On the plus side, it's been lovely and dry, with lots of crystal clear days and dazzling sunshine - not a phrase you can use too often in Ireland! We ended up walking doing three different Burren walks in December.

The Burren, Mid-December
No snow yet - just cold and clear. These are from the top of Mullagh Mor.

The Burren, Christmas Eve

We escaped the last-minute Christmas eve shopping frenzy in Ennis for the calm solitude of the Burren. Our long walk began on this 'green' road near Mullagh Mor.

There had been a freezing fog, and everything was covered with geometric ice crystals. This is holly, and every point on every leaf terminated in an intricate ice formation.

The icy road passed through a forest tunnel of hazel.

Our goal was to get to the top of those cliffs in the distance.

At this point we left the green road and climbed to the top of the ridge. The road we walked up is marked by the snaking hazel trees in the foreground of this photo, and we headed towards the cliffs in the distant left.

Once we got onto the flat rocky surface of the ridge, we found that every rock surface was covered with these amazing ice formations. It looked like quartz crystal, or white coral, and we almost hated to wreck the beauty by walking across it.

After crossing the crystal fields we bushwacked through a dense hazel forest to the base of the cliffs.

The hazel forests always have a somewhat enchanted atmosphere, like you might see a leprechaun or fairy hiding somewhere.

As we were climbing up the cliffs (note to our moms: not snowy or icy in the slightest) we saw this strange fossil in the rocks. The ovoid shape at the center was about 2 inches long and somewhat separate from the rock that enclosed it. This area was all under the sea at the time these rocks were formed, so it's likely some kind of sea-dwelling animal or plant. Any fossil experts out there?

On top of the cliffs, with a nice view of Mullagh Mor in the distance.

Baaaaaaaa humbug!

We picked our way down a different part of the cliffs, then through farm fields, some woods and finally a swamp, before joining up to the green road again.

One last view of Mullagh Mor, in the glow of the setting sun.

Winter Solstice

We had a gathering for the winter solstice, and a few young musicians joined in the session.

Our friend Joe as an American cowboy.

The Burren, New Year's Day

This time we went to the north part of the Burren, near Galway Bay. This picture gives you an idea of winter road maintenance in Ireland - practically non-existent on the secondary roads. Snow is so uncommon here that there are no snow plows and just a few salt trucks. The highest areas of Clare had 4 to 6 inches of snow on New Year's Eve.

Cows are left outside year-round in the Burren, where the well-drained limestone soils usually keep pastures green and lush in winter months. Not this year. Poor cows.

I'm gesturing to the mountains of Connemara, about 50 miles away across Galway Bay.

Zoomed in the Connemara mountains. We climbed some of them when my parents were visiting last May.

Burren hills in the setting sun

I took this one from the lane to our cottage. It's Slieve Bearna, the highest hill in Clare, about 30 miles from our house.

That's enough photos for this blog, so next month I'll have photos of the land and buildings at Irish Seedsavers, where I started working last month.

November 2009

2009-12-07T03:01:00.001-08:00

Rest In Peace, Sonya

November was a month of downs and ups, starting with the loss of our sweet little blind dog, Sonya. She had been doing so well on the heart medication that we thought she would keep going for another year or two. She suddenly got very ill at the beginning of the month and it turned out to be renal failure, in part from the heart medicine and diuretics that were helping her heart, but also due to old age and a weakened immune system from all the health problems she had over the last few years.

It was so hard to let her go. She had a great life for her first nine years, running around in the hills of Newfield NY when we were hiking or cross-country skiing. And she was such a trooper about going blind two years ago and then being relocated to a different country.

It's the first time I have been without a dog in 26 years and it feels very strange. But it will be easier for us to travel now, so we are not going to rush into getting another dog any time soon.

Floods

November was also a traumatic month for thousands of people who were affected by devastating flooding, particularly in the western counties of Clare, Galway, Cork, Kerry and Tipperary.

Floodwaters poured over this wall at the grounds of St. Flannan's College, a private secondary school in Ennis. This is usually a grassy lawn and parking area.

Ireland is a watery place. Not only does it fall from the sky almost daily, but there are rivers and lakes everywhere. After a few weeks of moderate rains that completely saturated the soil, there was one particular day of intense rain that fell for hours and hours. Many of Ireland's rivers, like the Shannon, are tidal, and there happened to be a super high tide that day. So there was no where for all that water to go, and rivers all over western Ireland spilled over banks and retaining walls and filled towns and cities with several feet of water.

The town name Ennis comes from the Irish word inis, which means 'island'. The town is surrounded by the River Fergus, a tributary of the River Shannon. A higher flood control wall is being built next to the river, but it is not finished yet and the river flowed down the main street of Ennis, or as it was dubbed by the local paper, Vennis. (Someone else took these first four photos - I took them off a Facebook site.)

These businesses were severely flooded - bad timing with Christmas right around the corner. Insurance companies here are saying that with climate change flooding will become more frequent, so of course they are going to raise the rates for those in currently affected areas.

I took these daytime photos about 5 days after the flooding started. The water was still very high - right up to the bottom of this bridge in Ennis.

The River Fergus is now Loch Fergus. You can see how high the water is on the trunks of these submerged trees.

A schoolyard and tennis courts in Ennis.

Thanksgiving Party

After a tough month, everyone needed a lift so we decided to have a Thanksgiving party. Originally we thought we would have a small sit-down dinner, but it turned out everyone wanted to come to a real American Thanksgiving, despite the fact that it was a Thursday and no-one here has the next day off. Before we knew it we had 30 guests and were scrambling to borrow chairs from the neighbors!

These folks were quick off the mark and got to sit down while they ate.

Other people were still lining up for food.

After dinner and dessert (pumpkin, apple and pecan pies!)we had a music session around the fire - alternating old-time with trad.

Ballybeg Wood

We recently discovered Ballybeg Wood, a nice area with walking trails just a few miles from our house.

Partridge berry

Happy News!

At the end of November, after two rounds of interviews, I was offered the position of project manager at the Irish Seedsavers Association. I am delighted to finally find a suitable position for my background and experience, and Seedsavers is an amazing organization that is doing very good work, preserving and propagating the fruits and vegetable varieties that have been historically grown in this country but are in danger of being lost. They also run a very comprehensive range of classes and workshops throughout the year. My first day on the job is Wednesday, December 9.

Check out Irish Seedsavers' website for more about what they do.

I'll be driving about 30 miles each way to my job in east Clare. I bought a little 1998 Nissan Micra, which gets about 40-50 mpg, for my daily commute.

And on another happy note, here's a picture of my daughter Monica and her boyfriend Matt, on the California seashore. They recently relocated from Santa Monica further south to San Diego, where Monica is studying at the University of San Diego.

October 2009

2009-11-09T09:01:00.000-08:00

The first half of October followed September's trend of sunny, mild weather. The leaves don't really change color here - they stay green and then all just seem to be gone one morning, usually after a particularly windy night. Like these trees behind our cottage - they were green one day, bare the next.

The veg garden in early October - fall peas, cosmos and cabbage.

Climbing Carrauntoohil
October's clear skies invited us to take a day trip to County Kerry, just south of us, to climb Carrauntoohil, the highest mountain in Ireland (1,039 meters or 3,408 feet). It can be a dangerous climb if it's foggy or misty in the mountains (which is most of the time) and people have lost their lives on Carrauntoohil when bad weather conditions took them by surprise. We were lucky to have clear weather coincide with a weekend, and with the shortening days there was just enough daylight to drive to the trailhead and make it up the mountain and back down before nightfall. (Theoretically, anyway. More about that later.)

We started our trip on the car ferry that crosses the River Shannon between Clare and Kerry. This cuts off about 85 miles of driving the long way around through Limerick.

From the foothills, looking back to the lake where we started our climb.

Heading up the first hill. This ridge is shaped like a horseshoe, with Carrauntoohil, Ireland's highest mountain, at the apex of the horseshoe flanked by Ireland's second and third highest mountains on either side. This walking loop is 7 miles and ascends six different peaks. The next day our legs felt broken and we spent a lot of time sitting down.

Bushwackin' Bill leads the way. You can see the horseshoe shape of the ridge in this photo - we started by going up the first hill on the left, then continued from left to right across the ridge at the top of the photo, and back along the ridge on the right.

Sittin' on top of the world

On top of the second peak - the other mountains that we'll climb on the return trip are visible across the deep valley.

Resting on the peak of Ireland's second-highest mountain, with the highest, Carrauntoohil, looming behind me.

We had to cross this razor-back ridge (middle of photo) to get to the base of Carrauntoohil on the left.

There's a surreal, Tolkein-esque look to these mountains.

A cross at the top commemorates some of the mountain's victims.

Purple shale and green lichen form abstract patterns on the steep mountain sides.

And check out what that little sign says:

The fog was starting to roll in and cover nearby mountain tops. Time to get going - we still had a few hours of walking.....

..... and two more peaks to scale before the descent.

Looking out to the sea and Dingle Peninsula in the far distance. Even though Carrauntoohil is only 3,400 feet - lower than the high peaks of the Adirondacks in New York - the Irish mountains feel much higher because they surrounding area is at sea level.

Looking back at Carrauntoohil, now starting to get fogged in.

Having a sos beag (Irish for "a little rest") as the sun sets slowly in the west. Due to a couple of unforeseen circumstances that morning too lengthy to go into here (a lost dog followed by car trouble) we got on the trail about 3 hours later than we intended. The last hour of the walk was in full dark, but it wasn't too bad since we had flashlights and were back down in the foothills by then.

Vegetarian Cooking Class

In September and October I taught a 6 night vegetarian cooking class, using the commercial kitchen at a performing arts center in Ennis. The classes booked out quickly with a waiting list of people who wanted to get in, so they are going to run again in February. I'd never taught cooking before but it was a lot of fun and great to be back in a teaching role again.

Each night focused on a different type of ethnic cooking: Italian (lasagne and polenta with mushroom sauce); Mediterranean (cous-cous and spanokopita); Japanese (nori rolls and miso soup); Mexican (nachos and burritos); Thai (green curry and an appetizer called miang kam) and American (cornbread and Hoppin' John, a southern black-eyed pea stew).

Dublin

We met another friendly musician and he invited us to Dublin to hang out for a few days. Barney Bowes plays fiddle (what an appropriate last name for a fiddler!) and banjo, and we kept running into him at various sessions and festivals this summer. We got to talking and it turns out one of his sons is building a house in Clare, so when Barney was around in September we had him over to the cottage to play a bunch of tunes. He returned the invitation and invited us up to Dublin, which we had (amazingly!) not visited in almost two years of living here.

Christchurch Cathedral - we stayed in apartment belonging to a friend of Barney's, just around the corner from here in the center of town. It was a quick visit - we left Clare on a Saturday morning and came back on Sunday evening. While we were in Dublin we did some sightseeing and played at an oldtimey session on Saturday night, and a mixed session (trad, bluegrass, oldtime and ballads) on Sunday afternoon.

An enclosed bridge from the cathedral leads to a Dublin history museum across the street.

In the museum - my Joan of Arc impression.

The bell tower at Trinity College

The cobbled courtyard at Trinity College

Grafton Street, a lively pedestrian area near Trinity College

The pond at St. Stephen's green - kind of a mini-Central Park in the middle of Dublin.

The river Liffey divides Dublin in two, crossed by some lovely old footbridges.

Nice fresco on this building

Fresco detail - a humble depiction of women washing clothes in the river

There are no tall skyscrapers in Dublin, but lots of these types of grand buildings - it reminded me a bit of Washington, DC.

A late October misty morning in County Clare