Goodbye Ireland!

One thing I'm ready to do is to stop saying goodbye all the time. We've done it over and over on this trip, but it just doesn't get any easier. It's one thing when you know you'll see someone again in the near future, but saying goodbye (most likely) for good, is so much harder. When you spend five weeks living and working with a family every day, it's not easy to just leave when it's time to go. Mona, Harrie and all their kids were so great to us; we learned a ton and had such a wonderful time getting to know them and enjoying the Irish countryside.

 Evi and Evan made each other gifts to say goodbye...they couldn't wait for each other to open them.

 Evi took a white dress and sewed flowers, hearts and a sash on it for Evan.

And Evan made Evi and flower shaped hair pin out of felt.

On our last day, we mostly packed and got ready to go, but there was one job that still needed done: the grain needed to make it up to the loft in the barn. Their barn has 3 stories (Carter helped finish the top floor while we were there) and the grain needed to go all the way to the top. So as we pulled any grass from the bundles of grain we stacked them onto a big pallet to be lifted up to the top by giant forklift. This "job" turned into great fun for the kids because Harrie let them ride the pallets on the way down.

There were things I kept meaning to get photos of and never got around to it til the last day...like the chickens...

 Alanna showing Elliot the new chicks

 Inside the chicks' house

 Where the hens "sit"

 The chicken house

 Inside the chicken house

Free range chickens!

I also had to take the time to say goodbye to my buddies...the goats.

 One of the girl kids

Chocolate's boy who Evi named "Chockie"

Chockie

And here is my real buddy - Flop. The goat I milked more than any of the others.

 She was very interested in my camera.

 Elliot saying goodbye to Flop

 One of the female kids put up for the night.

"Spotless"

Then there were sheep to say goodbye to...well, at least the rams.

 Elliot saying goodbye to "Mickey" the ram whose wool wasn't great, horns grew funny, wasn't really good for much...but he was really sweet.

 Elliot taking "his" bike for one last spin. He probably spent more time on it than doing anything else while we were there.

Evan saying goodbye to "Pitch" their new kitty that came all the way from Dublin to find a home.

And I finally got around to shooting an "after shot" of our house from where we had finished painting it.

 when we got there

when we left

 Harrie and Evan

We'll never forget our time in Ireland and the family that welcomed us there.

August 18th

We heard back from the hosts in Belgium, and they said we could come any time. But we are actually going to arrive later than we planned rather than earlier. Harri and Mona had made mention of wanting to take a little holiday, so we said that if they wanted to go while we were here, we would be happy to keep an eye on the farm for them. So the whole family left this morning to go camping til Monday. After all their hospitality, we were glad that we could help them get away for a few days…it’s not an easy thing to do when you have so many animals depending on you.

We took a nice walk this afternoon after the kids were up from their nap to check on the ponies, and we picked wild blackberries along the way. I took care of most of the animals this evening while Carter was getting the kids ready for bed: milked the goats, put the turkeys up, checked the hen and chicks, put the rest of the chickens away, put the ducks up, fed the dog, etc…

Evan got to see a baby chick hatch two days ago! There’s a hen that just hatched 10 chicks and another one whose chicks should start hatching in the next couple of days. The chicks were especially welcome because they had just lost all but two of their last set of chicks to a fox. There was confusion one day because the door to the chicks house was closed in the evening, and no one checked to find out that the chicks weren’t inside. The next morning there were only 2 of 20 left.

We finished painting the little house that we’ve been staying in today, and tomorrow Carter is going to finish putting the floor down on the second loft in the barn. Then we’ll have most of the afternoon free to relax. Today was beautiful, so we can only hope that tomorrow will be as well.

August 14th

Well after all that work leading up to the weekend, what did we do yesterday? We went to the beach! We came for breakfast yesterday and Mona said, “I’m tired and it’s too rainy to work, I want to go to the sea”.  So we all packed up and went off for the day, and it was great. First we went to Hag’s Head where there were some really great sea cliffs and very few visitors (probably because you have to climb over a fence which says “NO TRESSPASSING” all over it). It was incredibly windy, but the views were amazing.

 looking out of what was left of the tower on the hill.

 this is the tower I was in when taking the picture at the top

 this is the "Hag's Head"

 there were lots of little caves to explore

 Killian enjoying the cliffs

Killian and Jonah

Then we headed down the coast to Ballyvaughn and to a beach near there. The weather was great – the sun was out a good bit and even the cool sea breeze wasn’t too cold. We both figured the water would be too cold for the kids, but Evan ran right out and started wading around as soon as we touched the sand. Elliot took a lot longer to venture out to the water, and chose instead to spend his time playing in the soft grey sand. He finally got around to getting his feet wet, and before we left, he was having a grand time laughing as he ran naked through the water.

As always, our children end up naked in the end.