Well, it’s been a week since I came back to America. Since then, I’ve attended my sister’s graduation party and spent fun times up north with my friend Mark and his family. I have also wholly returned to an “America” mindset. That is to say, once I was in a familiar place again, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I’d never left at all.
It’s surreal, knowing that I’d spent three months having a once-in-a-lifetime adventure but feeling like it was something that happened to someone else. Does anyone else who’s studied abroad or whatever felt like this? I can remember everything that happened, and I remember enjoying all (well, most) of it, but now that I’m in my home I feel somehow detached from the whole thing. Perhaps, with time, it’ll solidify in my mind like a normal memory.
Even still, I know that this was a good thing for me to do. My dad has told me repeatedly that he has co-workers who did something similar when they were my age, and they still talk about it fondly. Also, I presume that as time goes on, I’ll slowly idealize the whole thing by forgetting the bad parts and embellishing the good parts. Not to mention that I learned things about myself: how I function without a support system, what kind of social situation I want/need to be in, etc.
I dunno, I feel like I’m not wrapping this up in a particularly interesting way. I guess there’s not much to be said. I was happy to come home, but I don’t regret a bit of what I did while I was away. I got to see the places my family came from. I saw fantastic things that I had hardly dared dream of seeing in person. I’ve met friends that I made from across the world and made new ones that I’ll need to visit sometime in the future. I spent over $3700 in three months. I grew a pretty rockin’ beard. Thanks, everyone, for reading along with my adventure. I hope it was enjoyable, educational, entertaining, you know the drill.
As a final delight, enjoy this list of the pun-filled blog titles that I wasn’t able to fit in for one reason or another. Thanks to everyone who suggested some of ‘em!
Eire in the world is Patrick Sandiego?
Chaos Emerald Isle
Pat O'Cakes.
Hardcastle McBlog
Patty’s Fabulous Farmcation
Taoiseach Baby Syndrome
Sinn Fein-ing Interest
Celtic'd Off
Oh my God: Kilkenny
Tipperarily Irish
Harping on Ireland Patrick's Belfastic Adventure
Are you a leprechaun or a lepre-can't?
The Emerald Easel
Oh gosh – I forgot to mention, on Day Two. Easily the coolest part of the Museum of Archaeology was an exhibition they had on bog bodies! For those who aren’t in the know, bog bodies are human corpses that are occasionally unearthed in peat bogs while turf is being harvested. Due to the oxygen-free environment and some chemicals in the bogs’ soil, the bodies are remarkably preserved (if slightly crushed) with a distinctive tar-black skin color. Almost every body found in this way was killed violently: hanging, decapitation, bludgeoning, you name it. However, some of them have a very eerie calmness about them, as if they’d simply been sleeping in the bog all this time.
Day Three.
I’d been told to check out Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced “jail”, because that’s what it is). It was a bit of a hike outside of the city center, so I got started immediately after breakfast. I walked, and walked, and walked some more. I reached the train station that, according to my map, was right before the gaol. Perfect! …Then the sidewalk disappeared, and I was walking through the station’s carpark. Okay then. And after about ten minutes walking, passing by some very behind-the-scenes-looking stuff, I reached the fence that, apparently surrounded the entire station. Well, great! I backtracked to the entrance of the station and instead took the road that looked like it curved around it. Another twenty minutes walking – no such luck. The map had me totally befuddled, and I couldn’t find a street with a damn sign on it. (This is a common problem in Ireland; they seem to find displaying street names a form of weakness.) I gave up and backtracked to the hostel for lunch.
Actually, on the way back I stopped at the Winding Stair café, which is a place Rebecca had recommended to me. It’s a combination independent bookstore and restaurant, and after checking out the (pretty nice) book selection I headed upstairs to the restaurant. Then I came right back out. €18 for LUNCH?! No thank you, no matter how highly recommended it was! Later, I wandered around Temple Bar, which is the hip and happening part of town, apparently. It seemed cool enough – lots of new-age and hippie and indie kind of stores – but I think it pales in comparison to Ann Arbor or Ferndale!
Then I went to St. Michan’s Cathedral. Despite having a thumbs up logo in my guide book, it was a small, unassuming, and mostly-empty church. I had a peek inside the church itself – nice, but mostly unremarkable. The main draw for St. Michan’s is its extensive collection of underground funereal vaults. OoooOOOooo! The church building has apparently been rebuilt within the last three hundred years, but the vaults are “original” – now, I’m told by the internet that the church was built on an 11th-century Viking church foundation, but I don’t think they’re THAT old. Three strangers and myself – the only people waiting for the tour at the time – were taken down a dark, steep, stone stairway. Our crypt guide was a sardonic chain-smoking Irish guy who clearly relished his satirically over-dramatic presentation. He also knew a lot about…well, everything. He knew details of the area that the English tourists were from, and he knew a surprising amount about Michigan, even including Ann Arbor as a guess as to what city I might have come from.
Some mummies! Not my photo.
Anyway, the crypts were pretty neat. None of the bodies there were preserved intentionally – it all happened naturally, due to the dry, cool, and slightly methane-laced environment in the underground vaults. And the preservation is quite impressive! Not as perfect as the bog bodies, and a lot more dusty and mummy-looking (though that may be simply because they’ve been largely untouched, while the bog bodies were carefully excavated and cleaned). One of the bodies, traditionally known as The Crusader, is actually in the neighborhood of 800 years old, meaning that he died several years before the crusades even started. Also, they actually let you shake hands with him. His touch is supposed to bring you good luck. Awesome. There’s also a crypt with the lavishly-decorated coffins of the Lords of Leitrim, who stopped using their family crypt after interring (in a very plain coffin) the most-hated member of the family. Speaking of which, apparently 90% of the crypts are still officially “active”, meaning that people sharing the surname associated with them could legally return to bury their family members there. There’s only one family that still does this. However, due to their legally “active” nature, the crypts cannot be disturbed. This means that the only ones that were lit up and open for us to observe were the inactive ones and the anonymous ones whose coffins had broken open on their own (like The Crusader and his roommates). It’s also the burial place of two brothers, Henry and John Shears, involved with the 1798 rebellion.
The Crusader! Not my photo.
(I totally shook hands with The Crusader.)
For dinner, I looked at the options I had in my meager groceries at the hostel, then said “fuck it, I only have two nights left” and bought myself a kebab. In Ireland and the UK, a kebab means something different than it usually means in the States: it is an enormous pita pocket that is filled with something close to gyro meat (known as doner, as in “I’ll have a doner kebab”, and shaved off a big rotating meat cylinder as gyros are) or similarly-cooked chicken, then topped with lettuce, parsley, onion, pickled cabbage, tzatsiki sauce, chili sauce, and pepporocinis if you want them. The final product is a little larger than your average calzone. Mmmmm.
Day Four.
I finally got tired of walking – due largely to yesterday’s ultimately aimless wandering session – so I gave in and got a ticket to one of the hop-on-hop-off bus tours that circle the city. The idea here is that these double-decker buses make constant loops of the city, one arriving at each stop every ten minutes or so, and all with some sort of audio guide (be it live or pre-recorded). The bus tour had been recommended by many people, including my parents and the Hillmans, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the extra money. I had a map of the city, a list of things to do, and a willingness to walk around. That was all I needed, right? Wrong, apparently, considering my expedition the previous day. Thus, I somewhat reluctantly ponied up the €13 and hopped on a live-tour bus.
The tour itself was pretty good. Our driver’s commentary had the friendly but emotionally-deadened manner that seems to accompany spiels that are repeated so often that they lose all meaning. There was excitement at one point when a van stalled in front of the bus, causing us to rear-end them lightly. Though all of us tourists looking down from the second deck agreed that we couldn’t see any damage, there was a fifteen-minute insurance exchange. I hopped off at the Kilmainham Gaol that I had been trying so desperately to reach.
Now, the gaol operated from 1796 to 1924, when it was closed by the newly-formed Irish Free State. It its time open, it experienced quite a lot of history. During the Famine, there were three thousand people crammed into 112 cells, due to the prevalence of the crimes of begging and stealing food. It was the place where fourteen of the leaders of the Easter Rising were imprisoned and, ultimately, executed by firing squad. At the time of the Easter Rising, these rebels were generally disliked by the Irish public, but due to their execution – seen as an extreme overreaction on the part of the British – the rebels became martyrs, strongly turning the public opinion in their favor. The only Easter Rising mastermind not to be executed was Eamon de Valera, because he was found to be an American citizen. Later, de Valera became the last person incarcerated in the gaol and, ultimately, president and prime minister of the Republic of Ireland. The gaol was closed for several years, and in the 1960s was renovated as a national treasure. Much of the renovation was done by former political prisoners, actually. Today, it’s a good tourist destination, and across the street is a slightly-abstract but powerful memorial to the fourteen executed Easter Rising leaders.
The most interesting part about my experience was that I accidentally slipped into a private tour that was starting at the same time as one of the public ones. Said private tour was composed, appropriately enough, of Irish ex-prisoners. This resulted in a very interesting presentation, wherein a scholarly-looking guy gave a powerpoint discussing the history of the gaol and a room full of friendly but decidedly “dodgy” characters laughed and shouted out comments and questions the entire time. At this point, of course, I wasn’t yet aware that I was on a prisoner’s tour, so I simply thought it was a boisterous crowd, and I silently commended the tour guide for his patience. Also, the ex-cons were surprisingly knowledgeable about the Irish history associated with the gaol, particularly that related to the Troubles. About halfway through, we figured out what had happened, and I got into a regular tour. Ho hum!
How delightfully Irish!
Next, the Guinness Storehouse. I’d been told by several people to “skip Guinness and do Jameson,” but I felt like I couldn’t say I’d toured Dublin until I’d done the Guinness thing. Now, I’m not much of a beer drinker. Guinness and other stouts rank among my “pretty okay” beers, but I’m not a huge fan. That being said, the Guinness Storehouse is an extremely well-made attraction. It’s a seven-story roughly-cylindrical building centered around “the largest pint glass in the world”. You pay your money at the entrance, then take yourself on a self-guided tour, so it really is what you make of it. There are areas devoted to ingredients, brewing process, transportation, coopering (making barrels), advertising, company history, responsible drinking, and probably a few more that I’m forgetting. Notably, I was selected to press a button that started the brewing process on a new batch of Guinness (batch #2020, if there’s some way to look that up).
I'm...so proud.
The advertising stuff was far-and-away my favorite portion. There was one section devoted to the company’s entire ad history, including videos, posters, relics such as lamps and ashtrays, etc. In addition to that, there was a separate exhibit celebrating Gilroy, the illustrator who made Guinness advertisements some of the most famous in the world: “My Goodness, My Guinness!”, “Guinness Is Good For You!”, “Guinness For Strength!”, “Lovely Day For A Guinness!”, along with the famous toucan, ostrich, sea lion, zookeeper, construction worker, and plenty more. He was quite an ad man, I tell you this much.
Nice view, huh?
At the very top is the Gravity Bar, where you get a complimentary pint of Guinness (complete with a shamrock drawn in the head) and an absolutely unbelievable 7-story-high 360-degree view of the city. My verdict: totally worth doing. If nothing else, you can marvel at the incredible image (and subsequent devoted following) that Guinness has built up for itself, around the world and in Ireland specifically. As I said, I’m not much of a beer drinker, and therefore not much of a Guinness drinker, but I found the entire experience entertaining and engrossing. Guinness: It’s Alive Inside!™
My last photo in Ireland!
For dinner, I found myself a well-reputed gastropub and bought myself a huge bowl of Guinness and Irish beef stew and roasted potatoes – my first and only “Irish stew” of the trip. Good way to end, food-wise.
Then I had a long, boring, delayed (read: typical) day of travel. And now I’m home! HUZZAH!
Dublin: the last stop on my journey. Can you believe it?
I arrived by bus and, instead of lugging my heavy and cumbersome duffel bag all over the city like I did in Cork and Clonakilty (the only other time I had the duffel), I immediately hailed a taxi to take me to the hostel. Probably the best €6 I’ve spent during this entire vacation. The driver was Irish (something that I’d been told not to expect in the big city) and we had a lively conversation on the way. He even refused my tip, assuring me that I needed it more than him. Man, nice people here. Had an uneventful evening, which would be followed by four full days to tour Dublin. This would turn out to be approximately one day longer than I really needed to see the stuff I was particularly interested in, so I am damn glad that I didn’t spend nine days there as originally planned.
Day One.
I left the hostel and traveled down O’Connell street, which is one of the main drags of the city. Along the way I passed the big post office, which was the site of the proclamation of independence that started the Easter Rising in 1916. There are still bullet dents from the ensuing five-day firefight in the big pillars along the front, but they’re pretty hard to notice. However, down the street is the O’Connell monument, which has much more visible battle-damage. As the statues are hollow metal, the bullets punched straight through, making very dramatic holes on the angelic figures. Crossing the river shortly led me to TrinityCollege. Trinity is apparently one of the most respected colleges in Europe, and is particularly known for the arts. The campus is pretty nice, in that it has some cool architecture and absolutely the most neatly-manicured lawns I have ever seen. (Though I prefer U of M, to be honest.)
However, the big draw for me (and, I suppose, most tourists) was the Book of Kells. This is an 8th-century “illuminated Bible” – an incredibly lavishly illustrated copy of the New Testament. It was hand-scribed and -painted on vellum (de-furred and stretched animal hide) using natural pigments bound with egg white. I’m not sure what the proportion of each is, but the pages are divided into two categories: pages that are text-based, with occasional important words and letters enlarged and visually embellished; and pages that are entirely composed of unbelievably detailed illustrations of – for example – the crucifixion, saints, scribes, saints’ symbols, Celtic knotwork, and just…indescribable stuff. Before you reach the Book itself, you go through an exhibit talking about the history of the Book and others like it, the processes of scribing and illustrating and bookbinding, the meanings of certain illustrations, etc. Interesting enough in its own right. The Book of Kells is kept under glass in two “pieces.” Since the original binding has been lost, there is no problem with dividing the pages for easier viewing. However, in the interest (I assume) of prolonging the artifact’s life, only four pages are exposed at a time, and they are “turned” to show a new set of pages once every three months. At all times, I believe, there are two pages of illustrations, two pages of text. It’s unbelievable to see what these scribes and illustrators did without the aid of magnifying tools – or, indeed, archival-quality art supplies. It looks like it was painted yesterday! The paint is still glossy! It’s a very cool thing to see.
After this, you are led to the Old Library of Trinity College, which is a very long and beautifully-built room that houses thousands upon thousands of manuscripts from the past few centuries. Apparently, the Library has the legal right to claim one free copy of each new book published in Ireland or the United Kingdom for its collection. Weird! At one point, you can glance over a velvet rope into a room where people are cleaning and restoring some of the more deteriorated books. The Library also contains one of a few remaining printed copies of the proclamation made at the start of the Easter Rising. Oh, and the Brian Boru Harp! It’s the oldest Celtic-style harp in Ireland, dating to the 14th century if I remember right, and it’s the one that the design on all Irish money was modeled on.
Anyway, despite the length of this description, it was only a little after lunchtime at this point! Later, I wandered around St. Stephen’s Green – Dublin’s answer to Central Park – and enjoyed the sun, as did many many others. Then I wandered the labyrinthine National Gallery for a few hours. It had a very large collection of Christian works, including the only Cubist crucifixion scene I’ve ever laid eyes on. Also, apparently W.B. Yeats had a brother named Jack who was a pretty prolific painter. And I guess his father painted too? And his other brothers did some stuff? I had never heard of any Yeats except for William Butler before.
Day Two.
On this day, I had a tough decision to make. I knew the National Museum of History and Archaeology was open, and I also really wanted to tour the Old Jameson Distillery. My final decision was that, since museums always close early (5 PM!), I would check out the Jameson tour early, get lunch, then spend the afternoon in the museum.
…Do you see my mistake yet? You will.
The Old Jameson Distillery is so called because Jameson is no longer made there; production has been moved to somewhere in CountyCork, I believe. Today, the Distillery has been turned into a museum housing a gift shop, a couple of bars, and a small-scale replica of what the distillery was like back in the day. I arrived at roughly 10:15 AM, ten minutes before the next tour. Perfect! First thing, the tour group was led into a mini-amphitheater where we were exposed to a shockingly cheesy bit of filmmaking discussing the history of John Jameson and Son and their products. However, I DID learn a few things from it: before making whiskey, the Jamesons were known for defending ships from pirates; and Irish monks originally developed whiskey-making and shared it with the Scots. The latter bit smacks of competition-fueled tall-tale boasting, so take it with a grain of salt. Afterward, our guide dryly informed us that he “usually sees a standing ovation for that film,” and that it had “won two Oscars, if such a thing’s possible.” Then we moved on to the tour. We saw, as I mentioned, scaled-down versions of the grain storehouse, malting floor, wort-mixing vat, fermentation vat, pot stills (these ones may actually have been to scale), aging warehouses, and blending vat. Then we got to the free drinks!
You’ve almost got it figured out, don’t you?
Everyone gets a free drink at the end of the tour. However, in my case, it turns out that at the beginning of the tour I’d volunteered for the whiskey-tasting experience! How could I refuse such a tantalizing possibility? After everyone but us eight volunteers had gotten their drinks, we were seated at a long table in front of all the non-volunteers. Each of us had a tray in front of us with three half-shots mixed with water (to release the flavors, of course): one Jameson, one unidentified Scotch whisky, and one unidentified American whiskey. As the rest of the tour watched, the guide led us through the process of smelling the “nose” of each whiskey, then sipping them, describing the scents and flavors we should be noticing for each one and the reasoning behind it. Quite interesting, as well as tasty! We were later informed that the Scotch was Johnnie Walker 12-year-old Black Label (not too shabby) and the American whiskey was, of course, Jack Daniels. Each of us volunteers got a silly little diploma declaring us “official Irish whiskey tasters”.
Then we got our promised free drinks. Yes, in addition to the ones we’d sampled. Bringing me to a total of roughly 2.5 shots of whiskey/whisky in a period of fifteen or twenty minutes. This is how I came to be, at roughly 11:45 AM, walking the streets of Dublin in a state of drunkenness that I usually reserve for after midnight in the comfort of my own (or a friend’s) home. Yay Ireland!
After I’d had lunch and sobered up a bit, I headed out to the Museum of Archaeology. I…hm. I enjoyed it, certainly, but somehow I don’t really have much to say about it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that photography wasn’t allowed, so I don’t have a little compendium of all of my favorite bits. There was a lot about prehistoric Ireland, with stone knives and whatnot, but I’ve seen plenty of that by now. There was a section about Vikings, which would have been cool if it wasn’t so poorly-curated. Though they did have a working replica Viking boat, which was neat! They also had an exhibit – a pretty small portion of a larger collection, but the most interesting part for me – where you could hear some poetry read in Middle Irish, Norman French, and Middle English. That was pretty neat. Middle English is mostly understandable!
The “treasury” room had an awful lot of penannular brooches, which has successfully landed them on my list of things to make or purchase. I think it’d go great with a kilt, you see. Basically how they work is this: The brooch is a ring with a small open space, and opposite the open space is a pin that can move freely along the ring. You stick the pin through your cloak or whatever, then you slide the exposed tip of the pin through the open space on the ring, and twist it so that the pin is resting on the ring. At this point the fabric of your cloak can’t slip out. God, I explained that terribly, didn’t I? Here, this will help you understand:
http://www.runesmith.co.uk/runepens/runepens.htm
Thanks, Google!
Ah heck, let’s just post this now since I’ve got it written. So, one more Dublin entry soon to come, covering days Three and Four!
The internet here at the hostel is pretty slow, so you won’t get photos of Dublin ‘til after I get home, but before the final, retrospective-style entry, y’know.
On Saturday night – my last night in CountyLeitrim – Dan took Aoife and I to “Bridie’s Barn Dance,” hence the title. However, that’s a bit misleading. While it did take place in a barn (or rather, a nice cottage outfitted with bales of hay to appear barn-like), and while there was music, I never saw any dancing. Still, it was a pretty excellent time. As Dan later said, it was like Joe Mooney had condensed itself and come to Bridie’s house. There were three sessions going on most of the evening, two inside and one outside under a tent-gazebo. They also had a very friendly (and…very hard to understand) youngish Irish fellow working a barbeque all night, as well as lots and lots of beer. The makings of a great party, to be sure!
While I was there, I got a chance to have a more in-depth chat with Sam and his lady friend Ferris, who I mentioned a few entries ago. At the Swan, Sam was the Viking-lookin’ guy with the lute and Ferris was the lady with the assortment of wind instruments. Sam is actually from London (or sounds like it, at least), while Ferris is from the area, and they’ve been living in a caravan since January (!!!) as they’ve been constructing a house from scratch. Turns out they play frequently at Medieval reenactments (not much surprise there) and have a band with the two of them and a hurdy-gurdy player. “What is a hurdy-gurdy?” I hear you asking. I was not entirely sure until I looked it up just now! Oddly, I think I would have been able to visually identify one for you, but I couldn’t say what it sounded like or how it worked. It’s almost like a mechanical fiddle, wherein you crank a handle and a turning wheel (covered in rosin such as that used to prepare violin bows) makes the strings sound when they come in contact. In any case, I bought a CD off of Sam, and it’s pretty excellent! …If you like Renaissance-faire-esque stuff, which I totally do.
The next day I woke up to Dan getting a phone call from the hospital – Muireann was much, much improved and could come home that day! She’d had a bout of chicken pox (apparently didn’t really have it the first time) at the same time as the developing skin infection, and the antibiotic treatment knocked the infection out while it improved the pox. This was great news. However, it further reinforced my thankfulness that I’d never had the chicken pox; the poor girl was nearly unrecognizable for the spots and bumps all over her. After lunch, Rebecca gave me a list of things that I needed to do while in Dublin. I reluctantly said my goodbyes to the Hillman family and got on a bus to the final destination of my trip.
…Actually, I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about what my work schedule was like when I was staying in Leitrim. For some reason I just can’t motivate myself to write about it while I’m actually doing it, choosing instead to focus on the fun stuff I did after-hours. What a crazy thing, huh?
So every morning (Monday through Friday, that is) I’d get up around 8. Thankfully, I managed to wake up naturally and pre-empt my alarm clock every day except for, I think, two mornings. I would then go outside and feed the dog, cats, goats (three separate buckets of feed, so they don’t fight as much, plus hay), rabbits (feed, hay, and move the hutch so they have access to fresh grass), and fowl (scatter feed on the ground for them to peck up, then collect all the eggs). Later on, this routine was expanded to include watering all the dry patches in the polytunnel. Anyway, after this I’d come inside, usually to find everyone else awake, and sit down to have some cereal and tea for breakfast. Then I’d figure out what the plan was for the day (there was a small chalkboard upon which was written the to-do list) and get to work until 12 or 1, at which point I’d come in for lunch and tea. Then it was back to work! In fact, usually I’d be the one finishing my tea quickly and saying “well, better get back to work”. On the whole, I got the impression that Dan and Becky were surprised by my work ethic; I think this is because I went into it with the mentality I’d been using during my time with the Van Dams, who (as discussed) scheduled most of my time to be working rather than socializing. In fact, I was often pleasantly surprised when I was told I could call it a day after finishing some job. “Really? But it’s not even six yet!” was always my reaction (sometimes only internally). Then around six or seven it’d be dinner time.
The food was always good and fresh and largely composed of home-grown or –raised stuff. There was always the challenge of cooking to be dairy- and gluten-free, on account of a handful of afflicted people in the family. I suppose they’d get used to it after a while, but whenever I cooked, it became surprisingly difficult to work around that kind of thing. Here’s all the stuff I cooked for them during my stay:
- Pork fried rice
- Pureed black bean and salsa soup
- Bean chili and skillet cornbread (This was exciting because they’d never had cornbread before – I guess it’s mostly an American thing? Anyway they really seemed to like it!)
- Chinese-style roast pork belly
All in all, my time in Leitrim was probably the best part of my trip. Got to make new friends, actually had a social life for once, got back into cooking, learned a lot about caring for (and, to an extent, butchering) animals. I was sorry to leave, but it really is about time for me to come home.
Alright guys, one all-encompassing entry about Dublin coming up in a couple days!
Today, being Friday, was my last day doing work on the Hillmans’ smallholding. I somewhat guiltily managed to make my last two days Saturday and Sunday, meaning I won’t be doing any work. But it’s a lifesaver, because I don’t need to pay €58 for a Saturday night hostel. Thanks, guys!
Also: wow, only one more week ‘til I come home.
This morning, I woke up, ate breakfast, and in less than an hour put the final touches on the longest-running job I’ve been doing here. The job in question was the clearing of roughly an acre of field that had become overgrown with blackthorn trees. Yes, trees – ranging from 1’ to 7’ in height, and up to maybe 4” in diameter. Needless to say, I had to break this up over several days’ work, but when I finished it was sooo satisfying. Now there are four or five significantly-taller-than-me piles of wood and leaves and such that will be burned as soon as the wind is blowing the right way. Sadly, I may miss that event.
Two baby rabbits, one day after birth. Don't worry, these ones are alive. I'm not callous enough to take/show a picture of dead bunnies.
Speaking of sad things, I also discovered that there had been a bit of a bunny catastrophe over the night. Two babies had died, as did two adolescents, and one more adolescent is currently looking unhappy and barely responsive. We’re not sure why it’s happening, but we thoroughly cleaned all the hutches and we’re hoping for the best.
The barn. For scale, the little red awning on the left side of the building, by the electric pole, is about 7' high.
The other big job of today was clearing out the barn. This is a huge corrugated-steel enclosure that was largely filled with decaying unused furniture and boxes of junk left over by the previous occupants of the land. Our plan was to make a bonfire with the wooden furniture and put everything else into a pile to be driven to the garbage dump sometime in the near future. It was actually a super awesome job, due to my love of fires and my love of useless old crap. Going through the junk boxes was like a goddamn treasure hunt! I asked Dan if I could keep any stuff I found that he didn’t want for the house, and he said “Go for it.” So, here are some of my new souvenirs, which I hope will all fit in my luggage safely:
- Old-fashioned scale, the kind where it’s a spring inside a metal thing with measurements and a hook on the bottom that pulls the spring down to the correct level.
- Several old-fashioned syringes (unused and with no needles, don’t worry).
- Some totally classy (read: not at all classy) wooden signs with Irish proverbs on.
- A mysterious contraption including a small slotted spoon, a square porcelain bowl, and a metal stand that holds both of them. Theorized to be a jam- or chutney-serving implement.
- Mini physician’s encyclopedia.
I kind of wanted the mint-condition white porcelain chamber pot, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to transport it, so Dan kept it. I like the ambience it added to the lavatory.
Poor Muireann has gotten some kind of severe systemic skin infection – possibly cellulitis? – and had to go in to the hospital last night at 3 AM. Poor kid. It’s doubtful that she’ll be home before I leave, which is a bummer. She also missed the coup de grace of the meals I’ve been occasionally preparing for the family: Chinese-style roast pork belly. Here’s a picture of someone else’s version: http://yeinjee.com/food/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/chinese-roast-pork-01.jpg
I used some skin-on pork belly from the Hillmans’ own hand-raised pigs, applied a spice paste (fennel, clove, cinnamon, pepper, sugar, salt, minced garlic, miso), let it sit for a day while I painted it with salt and vodka (supposedly makes the skin turn into good cracklings), roasted it, broiled it, and served it with a home-grown veggie stir-fry and some basmati rice. GOD was it tasty. The cut was…about 55% fat, though. Not exaggerating at all. Good, but sinful.
Bunnies: adorable, but eventually food. It is the great circle of life.
Also on the subject of food, last week we ate one of the older rabbits in a paella. Delicious! It had been years since I had ever tasted rabbit, and even then I’d only had a bite of chili given to me by a fellow Boy Scout on a campout. It’s a surprisingly mild meat, very similar to a chicken’s white meat. The butchering was a bit less disturbing than with the ducks, because the rabbit is killed with a blow to the neck rather than by decapitation, and he also did not have a desire to flail around postmortem.
