At the Farm

First weeks of school are generally the same. You wake up with a bit of anticipation and excitement in the pit of your stomach, mainly because you’re afraid that you woke up late for class, but in fact you will probably be at least twenty minutes early to your first class. As you tread through campus you wonder if you are heading the right way, you still are unsure of where exactly your first lecture is, but you find it with the help of friends who are just as nervous as you are. Despite all of the uncertainty you manage to bounce between North and South campus to get to all of your classes on time, and before you know it you have successfully completed another first day of school. That is pretty much how my first day at NUIM played out, just with a lot of Irish students mixed in. By the end of the week I was more confident in my routine of classes, tutorials and lunch breaks, and ready for the next weekend adventure.

 

On a walk behind the campus.

            Saturday soon arrived and we were taking a trip to Causey Farm to get another look into Irish culture. With a quirky tour guide named Paul, we were first directed to bake Irish brown bread. Tossing eggs and measuring ingredients in heaps was a new take on baking. While our bread was in the oven, we were guided to a dimly lit room in a barn, lined with wooden benches and taught an Irish jig by Paul. Forty American girls on a dance floor skipping and laughing in time to the traditional Irish music was definitely a sight! After dancing to our hearts’ content we were herded outside and shown the different animals on the farm, including cows, rabbits, horses, chickens, geese and of course sheep. I did get to briefly hold a hen until it flew out of my grasp.

Baking bread!

Some of the animals we met!

            Once we finished meeting and smelling the animals, we hopped on a hay ride to the nearby bog. Although the bog looks like a mud pit, it actually contains no oxygen and is really good for the skin. Some SMC girls put some bog mud on their faces in hopes that it would clear up their face. I personally, I wanted warm food in my belly instead of bog on my face, and warm food is what I got. Traditional Irish stew, our homemade bread, and then hot tea and English muffins with raspberry jam, was the warm lunch that my body needed after touring the farm.

Dog with a bog

Kathleen and our yummy bread!

            Bellies full, we made our way back to the dark barn and learned how to play the Irish drum, the bodhran, and we weren't half bad. Once our music lesson was complete, we begged Paul to let us see the sheep being herded by the border collies; however we accidentally left the dogs at the bog. So when you are out of sheep dogs and have sheep that need to be herded, you just get some Saint Mary’s girls to herd the sheep. Although the sheep were stubborn to go in the right direction, the girls managed to eventually get them into our human pen, led by none other than my talented roommate Kathleen. She led the sheep in our direction, but some sheep did escape accidentally. After the sheep herding escapade, it was time for our hurling lesson. Hurling is an Irish sport that even after a lesson I still don’t completely understand. It includes hitting a hard ball with a bat over a goal, but that is about all I got. The day was filled with new confrontations with Irish culture and left me exhausted.

Ready to hurl!