At about 3:20, everyone woke up to the sounds of pots and pans, and the singing of the UW fight song. I must confess, I've never heard it before, and I hope I don't hear it again. I vaguely remember going out to tell them to stop banging pans, but no one seemed to care, and I went back to bed and pouted. There was some occasional noise from downstairs, and apparently the wifi went out for a little while in the first quarter that really messed things up. But they got it going, and despite having money riding on the game, everyone who bet lost everything because the Huskies only won by one point.
I woke up very very late, and did some Facebook messaging with Chris while I lounged in bed, and about 9 or so I finally got up. Getting dressed and packing up ended up taking something like an hour and a half, and it was a bit of a close shave to get to the bus on time. I still ended up being fairly early, relative to everyone else, so no one was any the wiser. Gabriel is very funny, and I really like him. I was under the bus moving suitcases to stack better, and Gabriel told me to get out because that was his job. Well, I insisted that I was already under the bus, and that I was smaller anyway. He asked if that was a joke about his weight, and I said no, I'm shorter than him. He got under the bus with me anyway, and started to move things, and said that he was only joking. I said so was I, because I am taller than him, I'm American.
Anyway, I thought that was pretty amusing. We drove out of Cork and toward Co Kerry. We were set to stop at the Kissane (kiss-anne) sheep farm on our way to Dingle. We took a brief detour for lunch in Kinmare, where we all got soup or coffee with the sandwiches that Leta bought us. It was a soft day in Kinmare, and after lunch, I was looking for the rest of the group and found a camera shop. It said Fujifilm outside, which is my camera brand. It ended up being one of those places where you get your pictures printed, not a proper camera shop, but the lady was very nice, and didn't mock me for my put-on accent. She said I might have better luck in a bigger town like Killarney, so with that fairly positive news, I took off again to search for the bus.
I knew vaguely where Gabriel said he was going to park, but I saw no giant buses, so I just went back to the coffee shop and saw the bus in a parking lot on the other side of the road. I was hustling, but I was still the last one in the bus, and I had to brief on the sheep farm with Will.
Kissane Sheep Farm is 6 generations old, located on the scenic Ring of Kerry. The nearby sight, Moll's Gap, was named for Molly Kissane, a matriarch of the family who made bootleg whiskey and sold it in a pub near the sight around the turn of the century. A few years ago, when synthetic wool began dominating the wool trade, it became difficult to keep the sheep farm running. It's primary source of income had been wool, not meat, and the farm had always maintained a very large herd relative to neighboring farms; about 1500 adult sheep plus lambs, compared to 3 or 4 hundred sheep plus lambs for most farms in Ireland. As the cost of care of sheep went up, and the price for wool went down, it became difficult to make ends meet.
A Dutch marketing group traveled to the farm to watch a border collie demonstration, and Ann, one of the marketers, fell in love with John Kissane, and they got married and had a son named Sean. She came up with the idea for Adopt a Sheep, and it became wildly successful, and literally saved the farm. You can go online, to adoptasheep.com, and for 50 euro you can save a sheep's life, give it medicine and food, for a year, name it, and if you ever come to Ireland, you can visit your sheep and find it in the field. It's certainly a touristy thing, but I would encourage you to adopt a sheep anyway, because it's adorable. (Sad ending is that eventually Ann the Dutch marketer divorced poor John the sheep farmer and went home to The Netherlands, but the adopt a sheep program is still keeping the farm going.)
You can tell that this is the topic about which I did my presentation, because I know a lot about this sheep farm.
We watched the dogs demonstrate with some sheep, and he worked with three teams simultaneously, with different sets of commands. We need to get Dash on a serious sheep farm, those dogs looks so happy, I can't even tell you. And they were smart too, so when one broke away, that John couldn't see, they went and got it back to the herd without being told. It was strongly raining at the farm, so when the demonstration was over, and we went inside to watch the shearing, we were all grateful for the reprieve. Andy the farm hand talked while another man sheared.
Irish sheep are no less dumb than American sheep, and while this breed of Scottish Blackface sheep were not as bad as low-land sheep (which fall down in a wallow in the grass and can't get themselves up again, and will die there because they won't roll over), the poor sheep who had to sit on it's butt and get a hair cut did not seem very bright. Andy was very cool, and said that sheep are like children, they don't know what is good for them. He told us about how, in the fall when it's time for little lambies to get made, they literally just pick up all the rams (or rent them from neighbors to prevent inbreeding), and dump them in a group of probably sixty ewes, and just let it go. He said that the rams have very good lives.
We got to name a sheep, and we settled on Russell Wool-son, in honor of the Seahawks, which did seem very clever. Unfortunately, the little lamb that Andy let us pick up and hold was a girl, so Meryl Sheep probably would have been better, if less meaningful. Most everyone wanted to hold the sheep, but I knew better so I didn't. There are many cute pictures of people with the little lamb. She had a mixed colored face because she wasn't a pure Scottish Blackface, and it probably would have been better to get a black sheep to be Russell anyway. But, we all fell in love with the lamb he handed us, so we just went with it.
After playing with the lamb a little longer, we got back on the bus on the way to the abbreviated tour of the Ring of Kerry. Among our notable stops was the Torc waterfall. I stopped to strain the spuds (Gabriel-ism for going to the bathroom) and head up to the waterfall. It wasn't far to the falls, and we took some good pictures as a group there. It was just a waterfall, but the interesting thing was how mossy all of the trees were. I have to remind myself to be impressed by the greenness, because I am from Washington after all, but the moss was particularly pronounced on these trees.
(I've attached a picture of the cows in the field outside our hotel, from the window of the parlor room that Lauren and I like to occupy.)
We continued on, and most of the pictures that I posted the other day were from the drive along the Ring of Kerry peninsula. We got into Dingle, drove through it all quickly as a familiarity tour, and headed back to the hotel. I had no idea we were staying in such a nice place! It's called Emlagh (em-lock) House, and we have the entire thing to ourselves. All the windows are palatial and beautiful, and reminiscent of a by-gone era of wealth in this part of Ireland. They make breakfast for us every morning, and the rooms are giant and beautiful. The bathrooms are the particularly remarkable place, with two pedestal sinks, a bath tub and a shower in each bathroom, and lots of bright white subway tile. They are so gorgeous. One of these days, we will be back to hostel bedrooms, and on that day, I will shed a tear. This is absolutely the way to travel, and if we ever make it back to Ireland, I will bring everyone here.
We had supper at The Diner in Dingle, and I had a goat cheese salad, and everyone else's leftover fries. They had a burger that they called the Mexican burger, and it had pineapple and barbeque sauce on it. ... And not a ring of pineapple, but four or five chunks. Very strange.
After supper, everyone wanted to go out for drinks, and it didn't seem right to be a party pooper. Well, there developed a massive negotiation, because everything is a massive negotiation, because some people wanted to buy alcohol and go home, and others wanted to have one drink and go home, and others wanted to go out, and a couple wanted ice cream. Anyway, after much arguing, discussing, separating and rejoining and ambling up and down these rolling roads, we found our way into Adam's Pub. This was sadly not the hardware store/pub, but I will go.
It was a very small first room, with larger seating areas further back, and a back porch. Nearly everyone ended up out back, but my table of favorite people, plus Toto sat in the front of the pub, and were richly rewarded with a guitarist who looked like Willie Nelson and the most concentrating pipe player ever. I heard the bodhran, the Irish drum, during the musical pub crawl, and on Sunday night I heard the Irish bag pipes. They are absolutely magical, and nearly brought me to tears. They are fabulous, and it is remarkable that in such a small venue, they were not overpowering. Compared to the Scottish bag pipes, the Irish pipes are far superior. They don't make instant noise upon filling with air, they don't require the player to blow into them, and they have many more buttons and bobs to change the tone. They are incredibly wonderful. If I can get a harp played for me in the next week and a half, I will have heard all three of the traditional Irish musical instruments.
Unlike the rest of our group, Tanner, Dale, Toto, Lauren and I (not Lauren, because she doesn't drink at all) had our one drink and left to go to bed. Everyone else was home by probably 12:30, but they did go and drink at a few more places. It is apparently very difficult to stop drinking once you start.
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