It has been a while since I did a post on my Blog... too many irons in the fire. In May, I took a photography tour with Pam Holland to Ireland. It was the first "real" vacation that I have taken in several years. It was so nice to have someone else planning our activities and the pace they set for us was good. We had some touring time and some down time.



I didn't realize the number one export from Ireland is peat. They have these huge peat bogs... and are kind of like quick sand, if you step in them wrong, they can suck you right down. They took us to a dry bog so we could get out and see how they cut the peat. Peat is used there for furl to heat their homes. We went into some restaurants that had it burning in their fireplaces.



Then there next export is sheep. Lots of sheep. Enjoyed our drives into the countryside and mountains where the sheet roamed free. They spray painted marks on their backs so when they gather the sheep after they've grazed in the mountains all winter, they can be sorted out to the owners. We even had some of them "playing" in the road. These three were right in our lane and stopped traffic.


We saw castles, abbeys, and ruins of old castles too. One of these ruins was right behind our hotel in Killarney. The sun came out to hit it just right to show off the ru

And while we were eating dinner that night, we had a pretty double rainbow that looked like it dropped the pot of gold across the lake behind the tree. Too far away for us to retrieve it.

My favorite day trip was the drive to Dingle, up in the mountains where the sheep roam free and the road was right along the Atlantic Ocean. The fences were either piles of rocks or a thick hedge row.

And the fields all looked like patchwork quilts, with so many greens. Pat, our bus driver, told us the plants were a few weeks behind because they had a lot of rain.

That is all for tonight. I'll do another blog when I've sorted my photos out more.

We had a great time and enjoyed learning more ideas from Pam Holland on how to use photos in quilts.