Causey Farm was a field trip opportunity offered to us by the study abroad agency - pretty much the traditional Irish farm experience.
Our day started with learning the Irish folk dance "The Seige of Ennis". It's done in rows of four, facing another row of four. I've included a video below of what it looks like with only two rows - we had about 10 rows so when we did the bridge under, we ended up facing a new row of 4. This video is done by an actual riverdance crew so it looks far better than any of us would have looked.
We then went over to the kitchens where we learned how to make traditional Irish Brown Bread. They cooked the bread while we went out to the fields to learn how to play Hurling.
Hurling is like a mix between Hockey and Lacrosse? I was horrible at it from the beginning and tapped out pretty quick. It's huge in Ireland - the hype around it seemed pretty close to American football.
I was very quickly distracted by the border collie that was practicing his herding skills on the flock of sheep that were out in the field with us.
We brought our own sack lunch but we got the bread when we sat down to eat and it was super good! They gave us butter and fresh fruit preserves to dress it with and it was hot out of the oven.
Our last activity of the day was bog jumping.
We have the before picture, the jumping picture, and the after picture.
These peat bogs are layers of moss and leaves that decompose over time and the extremely wet conditions of Ireland really expedite that process. There is no oxygen in the bog which means that things can easily be preserved in them (*cough* bodies *cough* - https://www.claddaghdesign.com/history/ireland-bog-bodies/ ) but it also means they're incredibly difficult to get out of. You have to jump with your legs as parallel to the bog as possible so that you sort of land on top of it. If your legs are straight down you go deeper into the bog. To get out you pretty much have to dig your legs out one at a time, once you're on top of the bog, you have to crawl to the edge before you can stand up.
On our way back to the buses, we stopped by the barn and got to see the baby pig and the litter of border collie puppies.
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