Last Sunday I left Dublin and took a bus to the quaint village of Slane. My hosts were a couple who lived in the gate lodge of the Slane Castle named Carina and Alex who have two children, Laura 18 months and Rory 5 months. Alex is the son of the owner of the castle who is the Marquis de Mount Charles. Before I arrived at this placement the last farmer that I was with Sonny described them as artistocrats. I was a wee bit nervous about WWoofing with aristocrats but they were the most down to earth, warm, and kind people. There was another WWoofer there when I arrived; Allison from Seattle. Allison and I shared a bit of a laugh that we both came to WWoof in Ireland to be with Irish people and yet there we were with English people. Now as I had been up north for two weeks with English people as well, I am getting quite good at replicating their accent.
I stayed in an apartment above the stables that used to be for servants. This apartment was quite close to the castle and approximately a 1 mile walk to the gate house. The walk every morning was gorgeous as we walked by the castle with the river Boyne running alongside it to enter the woods with huge castle walls on our left and beautiful forest on our right.
On Sunday after I arrived Carina arranged for Allison and I to take a tour of the castle which was quite impressive. It was built for King Henry the IV's mistress. Local legend is that this is why the road is so straight from Dublin so he could fly at top speed to his mistress. Currently the castle is used for events such as weddings and rock concerts. They typically have one concert a year on the grounds and 80,000 people attend. In the past they have had U2, The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, and Oasis. Alex's father used to live in the castle but there was a massive fire in 1991 and now he lives nearby. The castle grounds are a mere 1500 acres with Carina and Alex's portion being 150 acres. The area around is quite beautiful but I must say so far in terms of scenery Northern Ireland is winning. (Haven't been south yet....)
In our apartment Allison and I stayed in a room with three twin beds that was separated from the hallway by mix-matched curtains, Markus the German WWoofer was in a bedroom by himself, and Debra the au pair from Brazil had her own bedroom. This apartment was very old, and had the feeling of being a commune! Huge community kitchen, shower that sometimes works, and couches that were quite old. It was perfect for us and what we needed.
Monday morning found us cleaning out the chicken coop, Carina had recently purchased 5 battery hens which are hens that are from a factory farm. These were some seriously ugly hens. Balding with no feathers and apparently right after they got them the hens got sunburned as they had never been outside. Their feathers were slowly growing back, but they were pretty pitiful. See pictures on Flickr for details.
Lunches during the week were in Carina & Alex's home and were typically salad and pork and cheese. I ate a lot of salad. They were kind enough to provide goat cheese for me and they even made me a non dairy mushroom soup one day that was excellent. Carina made homemade bread as well that was sooooo good. I have had so much soda bread since I have been here that is nothing like the soda bread in the states. It is really good and quite easy to make so I plan on whipping some of that up upon my return.
An additional activity on the farm during the week was that Allison and I built 4 compost heaps. We vacillated between asking for male help when hammering the posts into the ground, but then decided not to as we had enough muscles on board! We had to take a wee bit of breaks though due to fatigue. Those mallets are really heavy. On our last day there we had the pleasure of filling two of the heaps with manure, seems to be a rite of passage that I have to shovel manure on my last day. Builds character right?
We also did a lot of harvesting around the farm from runner beans as big as my face, to raspberries that were soooo good, to flowers that you can eat in your salad. All of this time on farms has made me really want my own garden back home. Sitting down to a meal that you just picked is such a great feeling.
We had a surprise mid week when a new American WWoofer named Randy showed up unexpectedly. He took the third bed in our room and accompanied us to the local pub the next evening. The local pub in town is called "Boyles" and it was fantastic. Loads of craic, which I have figured out is when complete strangers start chatting with you and tell you all sorts of stories. I love that in this country it is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged to talk to strangers and share stories. The local pub in Slane has live music every night, but on Wednesday night their band cancelled at the last minute. Thus three locals with guitars started playing and they requested singers from the audience. Who am I to deny them? I sang a horrible rendition of "New York New York" by Frank Sinatra and a really good rendition of "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles. It was a great time. The one difficulty with going out on the town in Slane is we had to climb over the castle wall to get to town and after one has had a few pints this can be a bit difficult!
On Thursday night Carina and Alex invited us up to their house for dinner. They made us a flat pancake with a mushroom cream filling (separate non dairy one for me!) that was amazing. We had great conversation and I really enjoyed finding out about them & their lives. They have such a warm, welcoming home , it is everything that I hope my future home to be. Also they have a 5 month old baby named Rory that I could not keep my hands off of! (:
They have two dogs as well, which was nice as I miss my pups terribly.
Friday came and it was time to say goodbye to Slane, what a great experience and one that I will always carry with me.
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