Mice Troubles (and Random Photos Because You Don’t Really Want to See Pictures of Mouse Poop)

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Skip forward if you’d like to go straight to the very pleasant baking photos. Below is a section most accurately described with the question: Have you ever tried to fall asleep while listening to a mouse (or maybe more, I’m trying not think about it) scurry on the floor of your bedroom?

If not, try to avoid it. It can be a very distracting sound. Especially when you have already discovered their ability to climb up onto the bottom bunk of your bunk bed. Thank god I chose the top bunk.

The mouse problem at Boghill apparently occurs ever winter. Boghill is a very clean place and a wonderful hostel, don’t get me wrong, but the mice in Ireland are just too smart. Even when all of the food is saran-wrapped or in containers, they still find a way. They literally chew their way through plastic packaging to get to closed food…and we frantically go around setting up mouse traps that the mice subsequently outsmart.

At first it was kind of funny. This was back before I had actually seen any of the mice. I had heard Josie scream at the sight of one on the kitchen floor, and I saw the empty mouse traps. It didn’t seem like a big deal- maybe one lone mouse.

Then I started to hear them in my room and found my unopened bag of nuts spotting a giant hole in the middle. Ew.

Tonight has been even worse. After finishing a movie in the living room, I came back to my room to read for a while in the warmth of my many blankets. I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye though. Finally, I looked over fast enough and saw a mouse scurrying around the corner.

I’ve turned off the lights so I can’t see it, but:

#1 I know it’s there.

#2 I’m left to wonder what it’s doing/finding/pooping on in my room.

And #3 I can still hear it.

I’m going to turn on some music really loud and hope I fall asleep quickly.

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Here are some baking photos to make this post a little more pleasant:

Carrot cake for today’s group (pre-icing). It turned out a lot better than my first attempt a few days ago where after a couple of hours in the oven it still wasn’t cooked all the way through.

Coconut circles, also for the group in today!

Speedy Seedy Bars (that’s just the name the recipe gave) for a group last week.

My one attempt at cooking rather than baking. Homemade pizzas!

A Brief Stint of City Hopping

Cows blocking the bus, a bike accident, and new friends were just some of the highlights of my impromptu trip to Galway, Killarney, and Ennis.

After walking the 3.4 kilometers to the Lisdoonvarna bus station, I was on my way to Galway. The only thing blocking my arrival were these two cows walking down the winding road that my bus couldn’t get enough room to pass.

Roads in Ireland seem narrow enough in a normal car. In a bus you feel like you’re on a one way road (at least, until a car comes from the opposite direction and tries to squeeze past you- then you thank god you’re in the bus, not the car).

In Galway, I walked out of the bus station towards Eyre Square. A couple hundred feet away was a sign for Galway City Hostel. With no preexisting reservation at any hostel, I walked in and asked how much a room would be. For 18 euros, I got a bed in a six person, female only room.

Now starts the list of lessons learned.

#1 Bring a lock for your stuff

#2 Bring a towel, or else you have to pay to borrow one

After dropping my stuff in the hostel, I walked around the city a bit. Turns out:

#3 Tourist information offices are awesome: they give maps, area guides, and the employees whole job is to answer any questions you have

I stopped for pancakes in a cafe, before making my way to Galway Museum (free, but doesn’t take more than 1/2 hour to get through); the Spanish Arch (spent an hour trying to find it because I didn’t realize it was the underwhelming arch I had passed through about ten times in my search); and St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church. I also found a place called Sheridan’s Cheesemongers. While I didn’t buy anything, I did accidentally knock over a bunch of stuff. Luckily, people in Ireland are very friendly.

I also made the poor decision to buy four books at the first bookstore I saw. Three days later, in Ennis, I passed the same chain bookstore and realized my mistake in adding that extra load to my bag so early.

Back in my room at the hostel, I met two girls Lauren and Ashley, who were exploring Ireland for a few days before going to a entrepreneurship conference for their master’s program. They invited me to walk to Salthill with them, and I ended up spending the rest of the day with them and joining them in Killarney as well.

#4 Exploring, going out to eat, hanging out in pubs, etc. are all much more fun with other people

#5 A “guys wallet” (which I have) is both embarrassing to pull out when you pay for drinks in pubs and impractical due to the amount of coins they use in Europe

The next morning, we enjoyed our free breakfast in the hostel (pancakes!).

Afterwards, we took the bus to Killarney. Well, first a bus to Limerick, where we had lunch, and then to Killarney. We got in around five. Ashley and Lauren had already booked beds at Neptune’s Hostel. Luckily, they not only had an extra bed, but also upgraded us to a three person room for no additional charge.

We had an early night, but I did watch my first ever rugby match. That sport is awesome, hilarious, and horrifying. Especially since I don’t really understand the rules.

Saturday was definitely my favorite day. We got up early and hiked in Killarney National Park.

After paninis for lunch, we rented bikes and headed to Muckross House and Torc Waterfall.

 The only blip in the day was me wiping out on my bike in a very busy road. Good thing the bike rental company made us wear helmets.

At four, it was time for me to head to Ennis. I wish I could’ve gone with them to Cork, but that was getting a little too far from Lisdoonvarna.

#6 Don’t buy a return ticket because you never know how your plans will change.

I bought a return ticket from Galway because it was cheaper than two single tickets and I thought I was coming back that way. Whoops.

#7 Ennis is really only a useful stop if you have a car. It’s near a lot..if you can drive.

#8 Nothing in Ireland happens on a Sunday morning before 11:30. Just sleep in so you don’t waste hours trying to find an open cafe to hang out in.

Other stops left on my Ireland bucket list are Cork, Aran Islands, and Dublin.

The Road to Lisdoonvarna and Kilfenora

It turns out that I was wrong about the weather. The serious cold when I arrived was the exception to the unusual weeks of sunshine occurring in Ireland. It does get cold, and it does rain, but it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.

Due to the sunny weather and abundant free time, I’ve walked to Lisdoonvarna twice and Kilfenora once with some of the other WWOOFers/workers.

Lisdoonvarna is a pleasant walk along back roads to a small town that is largely known for the monthlong Matchmaker Festival it hosts in September. Having missed that bustling time by a few days, it just seems like a small town. But a nice one. It has a small supermarket, a post office, a craft store that is like a gift shop, a cafe, and a bunch of bars.

Here are some pictures from the walk:

Kilfenora on the other hand was a less relaxing adventure. Luckily, it was not just sunny, but also legitimately warm when we walked there…because we got very lost.

We walked for over 1 1/2 hours before we finally reached the (approximately) 3 shops and 2 pubs that make up the village. And because it was Sunday, almost everything was closed.

Here are some pictures from that walk:

On the way back, we splurged and took a cab. It took only 5 minutes to get back to Boghill.

I have to admit that I am failing miserably as a vegetarian. In Lisdoonvarna (the second time), I got a burger. In Kilfenora, I got chicken curry and rice. I can’t resist. I miss meat too much.

Other than that, we’ve been cooking a lot here. My main contributions have been the pizzas and cookies, although I have helped out with other dishes. You really have to get creative or you just end up eating bread for breakfast, eggs for lunch, and pasta for dinner. Hooray for the cooks coming yesterday and today because of visitors!

Here’s some of what we made:

                 

It is a lot of guesstimating when it comes to cooking. Whenever I do find a recipe that I can do here (as in, no meat), it’s in whatever non-metric units are called. I’m pretty sure the conversion never quite turns out…but the stuff has been tasting alright.

The work over the weekend was mostly cleaning and gardening. Cleaning the oven, cleaning the counters, cleaning the shelves, weeding the herb garden, mopping the floors, etc. The belly-dancers cancelled so it was a very quiet weekend.

The excitement for the weekend was probably watching a chicken loose in the garden sprint like mad towards a path a bit away. I’ve never seen a chicken move so fast in my life. I don’t know if I’ve ever moved so fast in my life.

Day 3 at the Boghill Centre: Beautiful Place, with Seriously Cold Weather

Boghill Centre-where I’m WWOOFing for the month- is an ecotourism destination that holds a bunch of workshops and guests, mostly in the summer it turns out. It is in between Lisdoonvarna (population under 800) and Kilfenora (population under 250). Needless to say, it is pretty quiet here. Especially as it is becoming extremely cold. Who knew the temperature would be in the low 40s in the morning in early October in a place that doesn’t snow? I’m puzzled. And cold.

It doesn’t make sense to have the heat on in the hostel where we stay because it is just me and one other WWOOFer, so the owners have it turned on for a couple of hours in the morning and night. Luckily there are plenty of blankets and a stove we can make a fire in during the evening.

Right now, there are three long term workers at Boghill. One lives off-site, another lives in a caravan on-site, and the last lives in a hut made of all natural materials on-site. The only other WWOOFer, Rosa, and I share a hostel room in the main building.

In order to earn my room and board here, I have to work 25 hours a week. That’s really not all that much- I worked way more that summer and at my internship, so it’s a nice break. The tasks seems to be a range of indoor and outdoor things. It is somewhat whatever you find to busy yourself, unless there is an event. It’s less gardening/farming work than I had hoped for, though maybe I should be glad since the weather is only going to get colder from here on out.

My first day was mostly spent getting accustomed to the place and reading the tons of information they have about this place and its practices.

That night, Rahul, one of the long term workers, drove Rosa and I to Doolin. We stopped on the pier, took a picture, and left because a storm was coming in. Not just rain, since that is a numerous-times a day occurrence, but a full-on storm. On our way out of town, we stopped at a local bar and listened to some live Irish music for a while.

Yesterday and this morning we’ve been preparing for a 50+ person training session that is using the Octagon Hall. That’s a lot of people when you look back to where I wrote about the population sizes of the nearby towns. The afternoon has been a lot of dishwashing. Boghill doesn’t have a dishwasher so we have to wash everything by hand. It surprisingly only took about an hour to wash the plates, silverware, glasses, etc., although we do have to go back and finish cleaning mugs and glasses when they’re done with the afternoon session.

An all day event also means that the cook Lorna came in for the day to prepare lunch. It was awesome- both because the food tasted great and because I’m having a hard time being creative when it comes to cooking vegetarian meals. Did I mention Boghill is a vegetarian place?

There are three owners- Sonja, John, and Cari- who all live down the road from Boghill. They seem extremely nice, although I’m not sure how much I’ll see of them on days when we don’t have events or guests. I think the next big thing on the schedule is a belly dancing/yoga workshop on Saturday.

I’m hoping on my days off to explore Ireland a little more. I just have to get up the energy to walk the two miles to the bus stop in Lisdoonvarna in the cold. If it wasn’t cold, I swear I’d do it all the time… but Ireland has this sort of wet-cold thing going on from the constant rain, and all the layers in the world don’t seem to do anything. It can become a comfortable-temperature when the sun is out, but the sun isn’t out that often.

Boghill is definitely different. I’m excited to see more of how it works, and I know that in my plenty of free time, I’ll be able to get some reading done. Maybe I can finally tackle the long list of books I made working at a bookstore this summer.

Pre-Boghill Ireland with my Granny and Papa

I arrived in Shannon airport after a seven hour layover in Heathrow. It was supposed to be four but my first plane got in an hour early and my second plane was delayed two hours. My granny and papa are in Ireland visiting relatives so we overlapped for two days.

We stayed in Ballyvaughan.

We visited Doolin, the Cliff of Moher, Lisdoonvarna, and Ennistymon. Ennistymon was because it had the nearest ATM from Lisdoonvarna.

I didn’t realize until driving through just these small parts of Western Ireland how beautiful the landscape is. It’s endless fields and cows. We even had to stop our car as sheep were herded across the road on our way to Boghill.

I guess I’ve never been somewhere truly rural before, not in the U.S. or abroad. It’s definitely a different experience, but I like the quiet, friendly nature of it. And the easy-to-find Irish music playing at night.

Below is a picture of the Cliffs of Moher, taken from the Doolin pier.

The sign below read: Warning. It is extremely dangerous to bathe in this area. Keep in mind that this area is ginormous waves crashing against big rocks. I really really plan on avoiding bathing in this area.

And more photos from our explorations…