[Ag-eq] Ireland

[Nella Foster]

Tracy your trip sounds wonderful.

I've always thought hedge rows would be more attractive than wire fencing.

If you find a recipe for the bread please share it with us.

I don't care for beer or whiskey, so that part of the trip would have been
wasted on me. Lol

Nella

-----Original Message-----
From: Ag-eq [mailto:ag-eq-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione
via Ag-eq
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2017 10:56 AM
To: 'Agricultural and Equestrean Division List'
Cc: Tracy Carcione
Subject: [Ag-eq] Ireland

My husband and I just returned from a tour of Ireland.  It was fantastic!
Wonderful people, delicious food, and amazing music that has inspired me to
practice more!

I thought I'd remark on the agricultural aspects.

There are mussel farms in Ireland, just like we were talking about in New
Zealand and our own west coast.

The potatoes we ate were really tasty-not at all mealy, with a sweet or
nutty taste.  And the mashed were especially good.  I bet they put cream in
them or something.

We passed lots of small farms with cows in the front yard.  That would sure
save on mowing.  It seems like most of their cattle are grass-fed, which my
doctor tells me makes the dairy products much more nutritious.  They sure
tasted good.  They also have beef cattle.

The farms were all broken up into something like 2-acre fields, separated by
hedgerows or stone walls.  I thought that would be pretty
blind-farmer-friendly, easier to deal with than a big many-acre open swath.
And the hedgerows were beautiful.  There were trees everywhere, too.

We saw plenty of sheep, too.  They were painted to show who owned them, and
also possibly to show they'd been treated for this or that.  The flocks in
Connemara were grazing on common land, so the paint let each farmer separate
out his bunch when he needed to.

Ireland doesn't import wool, but our driver said that New Zealand has
cornered the wool market, so it's not worthwhile anymore to grow wool for
export.

There are also a lot of sheep raised for meat.

 

We saw many horses in a couple counties, including some draft horses and
some donkeys.  We also spotted an alpaca farm.

Goat cheese was on several menus, though we didn't see any goats near the
roads.

We saw in the paper an article about a government scheme to train people on
assistance to work on dairy farms, since there's a dairy labor shortage.
Job opportunity!

 

I became very fond of brown bread, which is a whole-wheat quick bread, I
guess.  Got to find a good recipe for it.

And, of course, there's lots of great beer!  And some fine whisky.

Tracy

 

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