Finlough Farm

Our lovely home for the next month!

We arrived safe and sound at Finlough Farm! It's taken me a little while to write this post, for even though life here hasn't consisted of much beyond work and downtime, usually I'm too tired after work to manage for longer than an hour after dinner before I need to pass out. Farming life is hard! Or at least, it is when your body is a super soft lump of dough and unused to moving much. 

PJ, the incredibly nice "next door neighbor" was lovely enough to pick us up from the bus station. When he dropped us off on the farm, there was one other girl, Savannah from California, here. She was on her way out for a three day trip to Galway, but was able to show us around the house a little bit. The first two days we were pretty much on our own, finding stuff to do around the house and doing basic watering and weeding down at the tunnels, until Danny - the groundskeeper who rents a house on the property - arrived. He's the one mainly in charge since Finn is away 98% of the time. So far, our tasks have mostly involved building a carrot bed (which turns out to be super annoying because carrots are jerks and need fine, clump free soil) and scything/cutting down weeds around the property. Work begins at 9:30 am, we go until lunchtime at 1, and then return after an hour to work until around 5:30. Like I've said, usually we come back and have just enough energy and time to make food, eat and clean up before collapsing before the sun even goes down. In our defense, the sun doesn't go down until 11 pm here, so we aren't quite as pathetic as you might think!

Our neighbors.

It's been really nice, but odd being alone in this house and for the most part on our own. We don't mind, and are all capable of working independently, but it is still a different kind of lifestyle that takes a little getting used to. The town is a good bit away, probably around 4 miles or whatever translates into a 30 minute bike ride. The first attempt to go into Strokestown was a failure with only 1.5 of the 3 bikes actually working. We gave up and were able to beg a ride from the kindly PJ to get into town for some food, since the house was stocked with really only enough provisions for one person to eat comfortably. Don't worry, Finn has since arrived with more groceries, and promised us that we could always send Danny for more (which we definitely will: working people = hungry people). Savannah has since returned and we were able to go into the town on Saturday night for my first pint of Irish Guinness. We took a taxi though, not the bikes. It was only 10 euro, which I don't think is too bad of a price. Upon PJ's recommendation, we headed to Hanly's, and while it was staffed by a very nice man who gave us a free round on the house, it did not turn out to be the young people hotspot that he had promised. Unless by "young" he meant 50-60 year olds. However, we've since learned that what few young people there are in Strokestown usually take the short ride over to Carrick-on-Shannon for some nightlife. We'll probably explore that this coming weekend.

Shannon modeling it after we fixed the yard.

For now though, I must say that the land around here is beautiful, and it is enough to just spend the days off/free time exploring the area. So far we've been blessed with great weather - only one day of heavy showers, and the rest of the time it has been pretty sunny and warm. The house is coming together and beginning to feel more like people actually live here (which didn't quite seem to be the case at first). Meal time is very nice; we've been cooking together and there have been no problems between us. Today, Savannah and I rode into Strokestown and literally had a pleasant, long conversation with every shopkeeper whose place we happened to wander in to. People here are so nice, but generally a little confused to see someone "on holiday" in these parts. Probably won't be long before we've met everyone in town. I can't say that I mind though that my first experience of Ireland is the small town, rural life, and I can't wait to settle in even more here.