Land of the Polytunnel

Today was polytunnel day. I thought it was going exceptionally well. Making seed beds. Breaking chunks of dense, heavy earth in my bare hands. Carefully seeding rows. Transplanting. I liked the transplating, especially the plants in the compostable cups you stick right in the ground, cup and all, and the celery seeded in plugs. We worked and worked and worked. Right through lunch and into the afternoon.

Or so I thought.

We were talking  lunch (at long last, it seemed) and the neighbor plastering the stables said it was only half eleven. (Irish for eleven thirty.) The news came as a blow. We’d only been at it three hours and it felt like six. At least.

I’ve been asked several times if I like gardening. My pat answer is that I don’t dislike it, thought it feels more of a duty or responsibility, which I may have noted in yesterday’s blog. (Basically true.) It was good for me to see how much we could get done in three hours. In the current situation, if my host works, I work. In real, non-wwoofing life, I can putter around as I please. Big projects make me feel so daunted that I often can’t start because I don’t know where to start. (Story of my life, really. That coupled with a wicked knack for procrastination and you can see how I’ve done so well for myself.) Having a garden, with or without a polytunnel or greenhouse, would be such a project for me. It’s all well and good to get excited while buying seeds or reading books. Getting down to business is the hard part. Being in a position where getting down to business is the name of the game forces me to see just how much can be accomplished in a few hours. Maybe that will make the job less daunting for me when I can finally set up a kitchen garden of my own.

I do like having the jobs behind me, though. Eating food you’ve grown yourself is the big reward. The nutritious, delicious light at the end of the tunnel (forgive the pun). Scrubbing your hands, cleaning your nails, and lotioning your skin after several hours gardening is the little daily reward along the way.

First Day Anew

Yesterday I was disoriented and off track. Although getting out when things went sour with my host was right, it remains that my plans were changed for me. I didn’t pick these people. I hadn’t read their wwoof profile, I hadn’t emailed with them at all, I haven’t talked to them about their philosophy or the projects they needed help with. I probably wouldn’t have selected this place had I been deciding for myself. All things considered, maybe that isn’t a bad thing.

I’m not sorry to be here, though. Today was wonderful. Yesterday I did a bit of hedge trimming and weeding in the tunnel, but I was in a daze and still processing everything that had happened so suddenly that my mind wasn’t there with my body. Today I started out sewing small seeds in a few pots, which felt like my first job here in earnest. My newest host is the only out of all my hosts to have gone to agricultural school and she jumped right in with sharing her knowledge and continued to do so throughout the day. In planting those first seeds, she taught me that the biggest mistake people make with sewing seeds is that they sew too many. I harvested rhubarb, keeping the thick red stems and tossing the massive leaves onto the compost pile. Then I did some weeding in the patch that was the garden prior to the installation of the polytunnel. I cut down a wild plum tree she’d planted from a cutting that had subsequently gone rogue, spouting new shoots every which way and taking over as king of the patch. After my host’s husband went to a care center for the day (ten years into early-onset alzheimer’s), we were really able to start. And by start, I mean the fun stuff: working with the horses, Jack and Summer. (Gardening is all well and good — I appreciate it and like doing it, but it’s more a duty for me than a true pleasure.) We walked up the road to the field where the horses had been grazing for the past three days, put the bridles on them, and walked them to the farm. She and I took a coffee break before returning to brush them. Jack and Summer are thoroughbreds, tall and regal, with rich brown coats, black manes and tails, and black legs. My host trains them.

I have to say, it’s incredible to be able to work a bit with horses again. It’s even more incredible to be with someone who has taught me more about working with them in one day than I learned the entire time at Rogues Champs. I learned which side to walk when leading them (the left), how to be careful when removing the bridle so the bit doesn’t clunk against their teeth (painful), proper brushing technique, how to position myself when scraping out the hooves and grooming the tail, as well as a little bit about why they are fed what. Oats, for example, are so high protein that it will really charge a horse up and make him want to expend energy. If you take a hungry horse out riding, he will be harder control because the grass is too tempting.

I think I’m going to enjoy these last two weeks. My stomach is, too. The intestinal distress I’ve been suffering upon beginning to drink the unfiltered yellow water of Loughaun has mysteriously vanished since I started drinking the clear, sediment-free well water of the new farm.

All things considered, this trip has passed much too quickly. I hope I can savor as well as enjoy the last of my time.

Shuffled

I’ve been shuffled to another farm. The short of it is that last Sunday my host and I were driving back from the session, a friend of my host along for the fun. When his friend got out, I moved from the middle seat to the window seat for the rest of the ride back. When we arrived, my host turned off the car, turned on a light, and proceeded to tell me how deeply I’d hurt him when I’d changed my seat.

Things just haven’t been the same between us since.

He eventually apologized for how he told me I’d hurt him because he’d upset me (true), but not for the conversation itself, which, to my mind, was completely irrational. He’s overshared with me from the first five minutes in his car when he picked me up from the airport. It was a bit tiring — he has a lot of big emotions and life has been cruel to him this year — but I didn’t mind so much. You don’t live as he lives off the grid making your own electricty and using dry toilets without a good measure of hard mindedness and intensity. I put it down to part of the experience and went with it.

So this morning he sent me to the polytunnel — we were supposed to plant onions, but the rain wasn’t in danger of letting up for a moment to allow such a thing — and while I was watering, he came to say that he’d like to talk to me  in the house when he finished. That incited quite a stress response in me wondering what the heck it would  be this time. I found him in the field. We walked out and he proceeded to tell me that he felt we’d — and he did say we — had compromised our friendship with the conversation the other night. He’d rang a friend — hence, sending me to the polytunnel, I’m sure — and asked if she could take me for the rest of my time. She’d agreed.

I, in turn, most readily agreed to go.

I posted on fb about how I’d wanted to get back to boundaries and farming. Well, here I am. I know nothing about these people other than that they are dear friends of my host and the wife from whom he’s separated. They seem nice. They have a good bit of land. A breathtakingly beautiful house. Indoor plumbing. A big room for me. Horses. Some chickens. Some rather exotic looking ducks. A polytunnel of their own. Some nice dogs and two sociable kitties.

East Clare Way

I’m in a weird spot where I most certainly want to be finished forever with D.C. but think of home all the time. I don’t want the wwoofing to end, I don’t want to be finished with Ireland, and I don’t want to be finished with farming, but still. I think of home all the time.

Friday I walked a section of East Clare Way. My host had some work that took him off the farm for the day again and a few days prior when he’d suggested the walk to me, I enthusiastically embraced the idea excited at the prospect of seeing more of Ireland on foot.

We set out early, he dropped off some goat’s milk and goat’s cheese along the way before he let me out on the section of the path with a map, a walking stick in case I needed to fend of over-zealous farm dogs, a gala apple that turned out to be a little mealy, and some water in a squished two-litre coca cola bottle that I couldn’t manage to unsquish. He pointed me in the right direction, suggested I keep a close eye on the map, and off I went.

The day could not have been more perfect. Rain intermittently sprinkled down, but mostly it was golden sunshine and dramatic clouds. The green veritably sparkled. Ireland takes my breath away at every turn. The beauty is lush and heady and dramatic.

My host and I were to meet up at a pub in a little village (I’ve seen it written both Scariff and Scarriff — in Irish, the town is An Scairbh) East Clare Way runs through. I apparently don’t dawdle. I covered quite a lot of ground in a few short hours and had to find something to do with myself in the sleepy place while I waited. Before setting out that morning, I’d taken my book out of my purse, of course. Taking a book out that hasn’t been read since it went in the purse is a foolproof recipe for needing a book and I have so much experience with this that I have no excuse for what I did. I know better. Thankfully there was something of a coffee shop. I spent some time there, I wandered aimlessly a bit, and finally I gave up (my feet, knees, and hips were killing me, so the aimless wandering wasn’t at all pleasant), screwed up my courage, and braved going into the pub alone. Bursting through the door was one of those slow motion moments that happen over the course of milliseconds but leave the vivid impression of dragging on forever. (I’m sure what follows is all in my head due to my being uncomfortable in bars alone. Bars aren’t my turf and seem to smell the fear of the unknown on me, treating me like a horse mounted by a nervous rider treats the nervous rider.) I was met with a hard silence and grizzled men sitting around a bar staring at me from a darkened room. I decided that I had every right to be there – or at least, every right to behave as if I had every right to be there – so I tossed my things down as confidently as possible on what looked like a comfy spot and ordered myself a Smithwick’s at the bar. Not understanding the bartender and having to ask him to repeat himself didn’t help my bravery, but I was in and wasn’t going to leave. Sitting down again, though, I felt squirmy and weird and under surveillance, so I pulled out my clarefontaine notebook and started scribbling nonsense as nonchalantly as possible as if I had really had something in mind for myself to do while nursing my pint as slowly as possible.

Note to self: Keep book in purse at all times. No exceptions.

It was less weird when my host showed up at the pub and some women went in and out. None of the women went to the bar or ordered beer, but it felt far less like I was cluelessly violating some custom I had no right to be ignorant of. When I left and went to pay for my drink, I couldn’t understand the bartender yet again. He had to say three times “I never took for your drink” before I understood that he was trying to get me to pay. I was standing there with my wallet open before he said anything, so I’m not sure why he had the impression that I wasn’t going to pay. I think I made him nervous. Crazy, unpredictable American tourists. I wore workboots and my jeans were all muddy, which must have confused the picture. My host told me outside that normally you pay for your drink as soon as you get it. Turns out I was cluelessly violating a custom.

There is some social pub event tonight in Feakle (an unfortunately pronunciation, that one) my host is going to and I’m not sure what to expect. He keeps calling it “a session.” I’m curious and excited, though.

Here’s Something…

I figured out that wifi doesn’t mean I’m internet-less. I can unplug the Dell and plug in my MacBook. Only took me a week to figure out what the cord was for that supplied internet to the Dell.

The Taste of a Place

I’ve been comparing and contrasing one of the fundamental aspects of life on the farms I’ve stayed at in my travels: the food. How a person eats says quite a bit about them. Frankly, I don’t care for how I eat much of the time back home. My eating habits bothered me a great deal before my trip. They are inexcusable and much change. I’ve relied too much on convenience and if I don’t go the full distance, I’ll pay too high a price. Health, conscience, self-respect. I know better. Knowledge isn’t enough. Action is everything. I’ve been a bystander for far too long. I’ve been a bystander in life, really, but that is a topic for another day.

At Rouge Champs, all the horse feed, hay, and straw was organic. For the lowly humans my host purchased food cheap. It was all marked down and on the brink of spoiling. He pulled the stickers off most of the items, but he didn’t do a very good job of it. I’ve been puzzling over the seemingly incongruous behavior. Talking it over with a later host, I came to the conclusion that the organic aspect to the farm was for marketing purposes only. Keep the horses organicly, charge more money. That doesn’t say much about my host’s dedication, to my mind.

At La Deveze, much of the food was organic. Not all, but I can hardly fault them. Organic is expensive. They kept a garden and at the end of my second visit, were working on installing a greenhouse to extend their growing season. Everyday, without exception, one of my hosts would be in the kitchen to make a hot noontime meal. Her cooking was a point of pride, and well it should be. What you know about food, what you select, how you prepare it, how you spice results in a little gift on the plate. A gift of time bringing pleasure and sustainance to those you feed.

Here at Loughan my host is highly interested in slow and local food. He has the greenhouse and the outside garden to grow food. He eats some of the animals he raises — something I have no problem with — as well as, and of course, we eat what the chickens lay. Tonight, I cooked. I made a scramble with farm fresh eggs and a salad with lettuce that I took from the earth myself.

I like how each place has had tastes all of its own. At Mas La Deveze, the water kefir stood out. I’d never had it before and I loved it. Here at Loughan it’s goats’ milk. Eating is a way of taking something inside to make it a part of you. I don’t want to get to holy about it, but it’s hard not to turn the thought over in my mind and see interesting parallels with aspects of sacraments (sacraments I stand outside of). I’m just passing through for a brief time, but for a brief time, I’m a little piece of something else. This is my last farm and the end of the big trip.

I’m trying to soak up as much as I can. Can you tell? I have big plans for when I return to the US and I’m trying to convince myself that what I’ve done now will be enough. In many ways this trip was too long. In many ways this trip was far too short. I learn everyday and I wonder what else is out there I’m not tasting or smelling or learning. But what use is such a thought? Not much of one. There is so much at my feet — my nose, my tongue, over my head, all around me – here and now.

The Run of the Place

Today I was given the run of the place. My host is doing some work off the farm. My tasks were to water and weed in the greenhouse — called the polytunnel – clean the one little goat pen they have off the workshop, and clean the chicken stoop. I haven’t been calling the stoop a coop because it seems much more like a little attic stoop to me than a proper coop. I’m to keep an eye on the goats and sheep and give the dogs intervals off their ties to run around and do their business as well. Thusfar I’ve done what I think needs to be done for now in the polytunnel and mucked out the goat pen. The chickens being chickens are doing their thing on the nest, leaving me unable to complete the task on my own schedule, so I had an early lunch of homemade yeast bread with butter and a kind of whipped honey I’ve never see in the states.

I haven’t been off the farm much. Last night the oldest son had hurling (?) practice, so I went to the field. The youngest child (age 5) had designs on my time, so I didn’t get to watch the practice much. Hide & seek and chase and daisy chains and trying on my sunglasses are high priority items. 

The landscape is beautiful everywhere you look. Rain in dramatic dark clouds follows bright yellow sun follows rain in dramatic dark clouds follows bright yellow sun. Last night in the distance from the field a vivid rainbow painted across the grey in the distance. Having Seattle in my bones, rain rejuvinates me. Today I was out in the non-polytunneled garden doing a bit of poking around in the dirt with a rake while fat drops fell. Not something I would do in winter, perhaps. A good way to feel a deeper part of springtime, though, with the vegetables growing and the rich smell of the soil.

I’m more and more glad I was able to do this farm. Learning something different everywhere I go is priceless in itself, but being able to see and live the fruits of someone’s vision is an experience unlike any other.

Back in Black

Actually, I’m in the red. I just liked the title.

Istanbul shall not be spoken of.

Have made it to Ireland. Having first had my heart set on Estonia and having felt ambivalent about Ireland, I thought once I arrived, I would either feel my ambivalence was justified with a so-so experience or I would love it. I’m happy to say that although I have seen little of the actual country, the farm is amazing and I’m loving it. I was in the US for approximately two days (this ties into why Istanbul shall not be spoken of. I was in the US for half of one day, a whole day, half of the day following – I was supposed to come in a day prior, but my first BA flight was late coming into Heathrow and the next flight to Washington wasn’t until the following morning) and — I’m not going to lie — there were tears at Dulles airport when I had to return, even though it was only for three weeks. Having spent the weekend in Northampton with a dear friend, I think I’ve underestimated England and would like to spend more time there. And I am confident my experience here is going to make me wish I were staying longer than three weeks.

I’m in Clare County not too far from Shannon (I flew from Gatwick to Shannon) near a village called Tulla. The farm is owned and run by a Belgian. He speaks English like an Irishman. There are, I believe, five goats, three of which are milked. My host milks like a pro. Like the TGV a previous French wwoofer remarked in astonishment. I milk like a beginner, but he says I have the technique. Interesting to note that I’m still enamoured of milking goats. Guess it falls into my natural inclination because I so enjoy working with my hands. There are some shetland sheep that will soon be in need of a sheering and I’m hoping to help. There is a beautiful pony, too. He’d been neglected in his first year of life and my host is working with him slowly to make him less afraid of humans. My host makes all his own electricity and toilet facilities are of the dry outdoor kind, which sounds horrible, but isn’t at all. Actually, I rather like it. (I don’t have to clean it, though.)

Today I’ve done a bit of work in the green house. My host calls it a polytube, which I love. The house isn’t finished. What is completed thusfar is astoundingly beautiful.

I will try to update as often as I can. Without wifi, posts will be pictureless and likely short.