3/13 - part 2 - Sheep and dogs

After we went through the Burren, we continued to Rathbaun Farm. Along the way we went through the town of Lisdoonvara, seeing billboards for William Daily, Matchmaker. He's been doing this for 50 years and has made it into an annual festival. The festival used to run during the 4 weeks of September but it got so popular that he extended it another 2 weeks. 

Brendan told us the story of Finn the Giant and Benandonner. Finn was ready to fight Benandonner but when he sneaked up on him, he found the guy was much bigger than himself. Later Benandonner came over to fight Finn (it's a giant thing). Finn's wife had hid Finn in the baby's room so she told Benandonner that Finn wasn't home and he should be careful not to wake the baby. Peaking in at "the baby", Benandonner decided that if the baby was that big, he'd better not fight the dad. 

He also told us that after Chernobyl, families here took in children from that area for "rest and recuperation". This has continued, with some of them coming over for years and developing strong ties with their Irish families. 

And we passed a little castle that used to belong to Brendan’s clan.

Brendan also told us that a few years ago it was trendy to get donkey as pets but when times got harder, people couldn’t afford them. Farmers often keep them just to be kind - the donkeys don’t work so they are still sort of pets, but farmers hate to see animals abandoned. Sure enough, as we pulled into the farm, there were a couple of contented looking donkeys. 

This place is absolutely charming. The 250 year old house is charming

and the outbuildings in back are even more charming. 

It even has a charming thatched roof. Then I looked up and learned why I will never have a thatched roof - the thatched roof is about a foot thick there are about a hundred spider webs in there. 

Oh well, they are on the outside and the inside was spotless. The family room as a big fireplace, useful for both warming and cooking. By now I understand why every older place has one. 

The lady of the house sat us down in the kitchen and served us her home-made scones with ginger jam and butter, and hot tea. The scones were everything a scone should be - thick but not crumbly and very tasty.  We all enjoyed them but Glenda fell in love with these scones. 

After we took a quick tour of the house, Farmer Vincent led us out to the sheep pens. He told us a little about raising sheep here. The wool is too rough to sell and it costs too much to shear. When it costs 3 euro to shear a sheep and you only get 1.5 euros for the fleece, you can't make a living that way. In this area sheep are often raised for meat, most of which is shipped to Britain. He said a lot more but I wasn't listening. (I didn't even hear the part about the wool - someone else repeated that for me later). I was looking at sheep. Ever since my encounter with a little black-faced lamb, I have been entranced by these things. Here, for the ease and entertainment of his guests, the farmer has "sample" sheep in tidy pens. And I declare, I think these sheep pose for photos. 

This Cheviot guy, though, wasn't posing. He was staring us all down and if we lingered, he'd stomp his hoof.

The Mountain Blackface sheep was pretty but he didn't look too bright. But he did pose!

Ah, but in the next pen was a Galway ewe with a 2 day old lamb. Awwwww.

Two days old!!! 

Cuter than cute! And his mama was nice, too.

When everyone headed out back I had to go with them. Vincent let his dog Teddy out (he sleeps in the sheep shed, in his own pen). Teddy is a lean Border Collie who obviously lives to herd sheep. Vincent said you can't really train them to do that, it's absolutely bred into them. But you can teach him commands, mostly about directions. Vincent said you only need 4 commands, and the dog will do the rest. He said the dog doesn't bark and never bites - it's all about giving them "the eye". What that really means is acting enough like a wolf that the sheep want to move!  

Teddy couldn't have cared less about us. He was all about the sheep.   

For trials they never run a full flock of sheep. Since sheep stick together, it's not very challenging for the dog. Running just a few sheep gives them a chance to think for themselves about which way to go. And occasionally our little group split up to make it interesting. 

Teddy got them all corralled - I somehow think they don't mind all this. Maybe it's something to do besides graze.

With the sheep out of the way, Teddy turned his attention to Vincent. Vincent said that sometimes Teddy will let folks pet him but usually he's shy around people. 

Today he wanted nobody except Vincent.

After all this we wandered around the charming grounds for a bit before loading up in the bus.  I saw a tractor stacking bales of silage in a barn.

As we drove out, some cows were chowing down on last year's silage. It has to age a year before they can eat it. 

When we got to town, we checked into a new hotel in Galway. The foyer was full of red and pink roses under a black and crystal chandelier - how beautiful!