Sunny Meadow Farm

Now we are entering our last week of WWOOFing in Ireland… And it has continued to rain on and off, but luckily we’ve spent the week working in polytunnels – perfect weather for it!



We’ve been enjoying it at Sunny Meadow Farm, near Portumna (pretty much in the middle of Ireland). We’ve certainly been working hard – planting LOTS of lettuce, chard, spinach. And we’ve been eating very well and very healthily, pretty much entirely organic produce, most of it direct from the farm. You really can’t compare the taste of a tomato or courgette that’s been freshly picked with the excuses for such vegetables that come from ‘super’markets (all months of the year) – eat SEASONALLY, eat FRESH, eat LOCAL and eat so much more HEALTHFULLY and DELICIOUSLY!!



We spent a day taking the tops out of the tomato plants and removing the bottom few branches to help the crop to ripen. Quite an enjoyable job, plenty to eat and we really did have green fingers at the end of it…



We have also been enjoying collecting eggs from some very happy, healthy truly free range and organic chickens, makes a nice change!



On Thursday night Dermot (our host) took us to a small town near Scarriff called Feakle where we enjoyed the craic at a traditional ‘session’ – up to 12 different musicians playing a whole range of instruments materialized at about 10 o’clock and began to play. The evening ended (quite late and after several Guinnesses!) with random members of the audience stepping forward to sing traditional songs acappella.



Yesterday we had the day off and went to visit a friend of Dermot’s who is living ‘off grid’. He has recently installed a wind turbine and a bank of batteries, so for the first time in 4 years is enjoying the conveniences that electricity can provide to his log cabin – he no longer has to read in the evenings by the light of three candles for example. We had some very interesting discussions about various topical conspiracies, and touched on issues of food security – something that we are becoming more concerned about ourselves. For us, it is food security in the sense of where our food has come from, what exactly has it been subjected to and therefore what is it that we are stuffing in our mouths and what is it then doing to us? What conditions it has been raised in (animal and vegetable) and the ethical and moral side of food production – particularly regarding animal welfare. Do you really want to eat something that has spent its entire very short life indoors, devoid of natural light, being pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics in unnatural, cramped conditions, unable to express any natural behaviours? Well, unless the chicken or pork you are eating explicitly states ‘free range’ and ‘organic’, that is exactly what you are doing. And what exactly has that vegetable you have just eaten been sprayed with to make it look so perfect (yet taste so tasteless) and how on earth has that shiny apple from New Zealand survived travelling across the world and six months in a warehouse and yet still looks so good? WWOOFing has really highlighted for us issues concerning food production that we have long wondered about, but perhaps not taken so seriously before.

But it seems that beyond the above, more and more people we are meeting on our travels are becoming increasingly concerned about food security in the sense of ‘the security of the supply’, and it seems with good reason. Leaving aside for the moment the very serious considerations of the environmental implications of our current food consumption habits, the crucial issue is one of supply in a world where population seems to be increasing exponentially (perhaps this is the factor that will become most important in future years as demand grows and viable productive land and access to cheap oil diminishes - and don't forget that fossil fuels and intensive agriculture are intrinsically linked, without the fertilizers and pesticides derived from oil and gas, intensive food production is simply unsustainable) and just how much longer can the craziness of flying produce all over the globe in order to provide a continuous supply regardless of season continue to be financially viable given the world’s current economic problems?

Is it now time to start growing some of your own food, or at least to think local and eat seasonally?!

Electric!

I can now say that Matt and I are big fans of the Electric Picnic festival, it was brilliant!

We arrived in Stradbally in glorious sunshine on the Thursday and had the day to explore the festival setting up for Friday. A minimal health and safety session followed that evening where we got to meet the other stewards and found out our first shifts. We were all based in the Body and Soul area, basically a mini festival within a festival – it had cool art works (some which we recognised from WOMAD), a main stage which sat in a hollow, other stages, bars, tea tents etc.


Our first shift was 10pm until 4am and involved sitting on a gate backstage with a security guard, checking passes. Mainly we were just sitting, though we had some excitement when some guys jumped the fence (where they ended up in a caged area – we looked on giggling as they tried to find an escape route – we weren’t terribly good at being stern security guards!). The other shifts were spent in the body and soul arena and we had lots of fun chatting to the many mainly drunken but very nice Irish festival-goers. Our final shift began on Sunday night at 10 pm just as the first few drops of rain started falling. The few drops turned into relentless driving rain and lasted beyond 4.30am when we reached our tent – we were soaked through! We are grateful to the Hurly Burly café for sheltering us, providing us with free tea and music to sing to.



We managed to catch a number of bands we had wanted to see – Modest Mouse, Fat Freddy’s Drop (who were absolutely brilliant), Mr Scruff, and more… Mainly we enjoyed going round the numerous smaller stages and we managed to catch Seasick Steve whose main set we had missed, also Babyhead, a funky Bristol band, Daithi O’Dronai a really lively Irish fiddler guy and Spilly Walker who were very dancy electronica. We also the met the basist of a crazy, loud, heavy rock-rap band ‘Noise Control’ who insisted we checked them out when we came off shift, which we did – the sparks were flying!


We arrived at our final Irish WWOOFing host absolutely exhausted, and promptly went to sleep! We are at an organic market garden and have been eating tonnes of delicious vegetables. 2 days in and we’ve dug up courgettes, planted long lines of lettuces and spinach and picked 8 big buckets of cherry tomatoes. We had pizza, cake, wine and beers last night too to celebrate Matt’s birthday!

The West

So, since the last blog entry we’ve really just been taking it easy and doing some tourism in the form of a whistle-stop tour of the South/South West of Ireland. We’ve been continuing to enjoy good weather, so fingers crossed that it continues for Electric Picnic this coming weekend!



We camped on the Dingle Peninsula, and enjoyed a day on the beach:



Took a trip to the Cliffs of Moher:



We camped at a very nice hostel in Doolin, in The Burren area west of Galway,
and spent a day visiting a few historic sights and a beach, and spent an evening enjoying the craic in one of Doolin’s pubs (as well as an ill-advised night-hike perilously near some cliffs)!






On to Connemara for the last few days, beautiful mountain scenery, the return of the MIDGE, a lovely walk today and a trip to Clifden:





Tomorrow its time to head back East towards Stradbally and the Electric Picnic!

Carraig Dulra

We have come to the end of our stay in Wicklow at Carraig Dulra http://www.dulra.org/ and its slightly odd to be adjusting back to life indoors with the civilised world of electricity, hot water and beds (though we are missing our sheepskin mattresses!). Part of our working day there was taken up with the simple activities of just living, eg. heating water to take a shower, foraging for food from the extensive vegetable garden and permaculture food forest on the site, chopping up firewood for fuel, and even collecting water from the spring and carting it up the hill when the pump was broken. It was a much slower pace of life, but an enjoyable one and it’s surprising how quickly we slotted into a completely different routine and way of life. Ending the routines that we usually live and adjusting to this new, more feral existence seemed to occur so naturally. The time went incredibly quickly, and yet to think back to the first few days we spent there it all seems such a long time ago. It was made even more enjoyable by the fantastic company of the other WWOOFers who were also working there.

The Kitchen!



Another candle-lit evening in the Yurt!


We have essentially been living in a mini WWOOFer community (7 WWOOFers max) on a slightly exposed hill surrounded by the Wicklow mountains with a yurt, outdoor kitchen and compost loo for company. It was a great experience and quite different to anything else we have encountered whilst WWOOFing, working with and getting to know people from lots of different nationalities (Israeli, French, American, Italian and German). We now have plenty of contacts for further travels in the future!



We have weeded, made jam, worked in a store, cooked beetroots in the fire, fed pigs, moved pigs, watered pigs, mulched trees, played “Dubito” (Italian cheat), drank lots of tea, cut grass, eaten honey straight from the hive,

showered out in the open with beautiful views, eaten very healthfully and well (especially when the Sicilians took over the kitchen!), taken odd trips to the lobby of the Grand Hotel, Wicklow for the use of their wifi, lounged in the beautiful sunshine on top of a hill, sat in front of the fire in the yurt, watched stars and sunsets, and had great conversations late into the evening, and pointed out several times that it is our English and not that of America that is correct! We can also recommend putting garam masala in porridge – a surprising taste sensation!



Tommaso building the ‘Sunshine Shower’


The basic camp set-up made the experience completely unique, and very rewarding – a totally tranquil place to be (most of the time!) and the evenings spent in the Yurt laughing and eating with the other WWOOFers and the host family (and their vision in creating this place), Mike, Suzie and children will be remembered very fondly indeed. There were a few odd ‘low’ points which starkly contrasted with the general calm feel of the place: for a few days at the beginning we had to collect eggs from the rather mangy and smelly “free range” chickens on a neighbouring farm;

people attending a weekend course, made us feel strangely as though they were invading our personal space despite the fact we had only been there a week and wild children making one particular mealtime during the course rather more stressful than was necessary; and we also had a long day of miserable rain where we were all cooped up inside the yurt with not a lot to do… These things really just highlight what a fine balance was struck at Carraig Dulra, and how the slightest outside input could unsteady the community even just momentarily whilst we re-adjusted then continued with living at our own pace. Overall it has been a fantastic experience and yet again on the whole we have been blessed with good weather!

Now we are being tourists, planning on exploring the south west (headed for Dingle) and west for the next week or so. We are currently treating ourselves to a few nights B and B on a sheep farm near Limerick, had a great Full Irish for breakfast and even managed to learn a bit about sheep shearing too – we can’t get away from farms at the moment it seems!



In other exciting news we have just found out that we will be stewarding in the body and soul ‘festival-within-a-festival’ http://www.electricpicnic.ie/body-soul-line-up-announced/ at the Electric Picnic festival http://www.electricpicnic.ie/ next weekend – it’s Ireland’s version of Glastonbury, so we can’t wait for that. Fingers crossed that our shifts don’t clash with too many of the bands we want to see!

Photo update!

Some photos from Howth:





Some photos from Valerie and Paul's:





We are enjoying our latest WWOOF. A few photos of where we are based, and some ideas of what we have been up to!:

ermmm

Just a very quick entry today and no photos, but maybe we'll post some soon if we can!

We had a great time in Howth cutting hedges in the baking sunshine, enjoying the stunning views across Dublin bay, eating very well and having a touristy day in Dublin - meeting Kim and Wes for lunch at 'The Farm'!

Have just spent the weekend with my (Matt) Dad's cousin Valerie and husband Paul, exploring their farm and the surrounding countryside and eating their home-grown produce (they are practically self-sufficient).

On our way to our next WWOOF host now, back to basics and back to the land, lets hope the hot weather continues...

Back to the WWOOFing

Our trip to Ireland has started well for us, it has been good to be back WWOOFing after our enforced break, and Laura’s ankle is holding up very well to being back at work.

Since last Tuesday we have been on a smallholding right on the banks of Cork harbour, near a small village called Carrigtwohill. Our hosts, Peter and Carragh have been great and we’ve really felt very welcomed. It’s been different to be staying with hosts of a similar age to ourselves, and good to meet other ‘younger’ people interested in living a more self sufficient lifestyle. It is a very family orientated life here with various siblings and other relations living close by and dropping in at regular intervals. We had an interesting evening chatting to Peter’s granddad, and have come to realise how amazingly poor our grasp of what is essentially fairly recent British/Irish history is. I’m sure we were taught nothing of how Ireland came to be controlled by the British at school, and equally little of the uprisings and civil war here, the creation of the Irish free state and eventually the foundation of the Republic in the first part of the 20th century. Why was that?



As for the work we spent our first two days working in an orchard within the walled garden that they have here. We were clearing and mowing the overgrown ground of weeds and long grass ready for when the apples are ready to harvest in the autumn – they turn all the apples into delicious apple juice (we tried some of last years – delicious!).







We’ve also done a few other odd jobs including babysitting Peter and Carragh’s children, harvesting some onions, planting a few lettuces, moving a fence, watering the greenhouse and feeding the pigs – which is quite a funny spectacle to watch as they try to get the feed off me as I carry it over to the far corner of their field where the trough is!



On Saturday we worked in the morning finishing the last bit of clearing in the walled garden then had the afternoon to go and explore. We went to the Ballymaloe cookery school http://www.cookingisfun.ie/ (which is nearby and is owned and run by Carragh’s family) and ate delicious pizzas, before going for a lovely walk in the baking hot sunshine along the cliffs at Ballycotton and stopping for the first Guinness of our trip! Today we went down to Kinsale which is a lovely seaside town near Cork where we had some lunch, then in the afternoon explored the coast for a while before heading back along to the cliffs near Ballycotton. This time walking along from the other direction and stopping in a small cove where we went swimming – it was bracing! And then we warmed up sunbathing and reading for an hour or two on the shore.





In a change to our previously advertised itinerary we are headed up to Dublin tomorrow and will be staying on Howth, an island overlooking Dublin Bay for the rest of this week. We have been given the opportunity by a friend of Carragh’s to stay in a house there for a few days in exchange for some gardening – and it’s an offer we couldn’t refuse!