Spring at last!

It's Countryside Artisans Tour weekend. My friend Martha and I visited Dancing Leaf Farm and Kiparoo Farm.
There are over 180 new baby lambs at Kiparoo, and the sheep were recently shorn. I took some video so you could hear the lambs bleeting
(hopefully they stop at night).

I'm going away to Ireland (soon)!

I've done it! I bought my plane ticket to Ireland (Dublin) where I will attend the Seamus Heaney Poetry Center Summer School at Queen's University Belfast.
Because money is tighter these days, I'm only spending 12 days over there. But I have 3 days before the course and 3 days after. I will spend the next couple of months deciding what to do and where to go. A couple of days in Dublin? Rent a car and see more of Northern Ireland before I fly home? Prices are better in the North and I have been reading that southerners are driving North for major purchases because the savings are significant.
One of my favorite groups in the late 70's early 80's was The Roches - three sisters -Maggie, Terre, and Suzy. Their harmonies were wonderful, and very tight as only siblings singing together can create (other Irish examples are Tríona and Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill or Rita and Sarah Keane). The Roches' song The Troubles which reflects the Ireland of the time, keeps running through my head. My version goes like this..

I'm going away to Ireland soon (based on 'The Troubles' by the Roches)

I'm going away to Ireland Ireland
Ireland soon
Ireland soon
I'll try not to get in the way of the poets
as I always do
try not to get in the way of the poets
soon

I'm flying across the ocean soon
I'm flying across the ocean ocean
ocean soon
I hope they have health food in Belfast
and strawberry apricot yogurt
if they don't have those things in Belfast
I'll eat baps and drink lots of tea

I'm going away to Ireland soon!