The hostel where I’m staying is called, The Black Sheep. It has a backyard garden and greenhouse patio/hangout spot, and chickens.
I stopped at McKenzie’s for breakfast. Had a simple breakfast of an egg over easy, sausage links, ham slice, and bread. I’m normally a coffee person, but this morning I chose to have tea instead. It was probably one of the best cups of tea I’ve ever had. And I don’t normally eat bread, but I’m in love with Irish butter. If it wasn’t frowned upon, I could probably eat the butter right off the knife. Okay, to be socially acceptable, I’d use a spoon - LOL. Anyway, I ate the bread, just so I could have the butter!
I had a scheduled tour today for the Ring of Kerry - an area well known along the southwest of Ireland between the coastline and the mountains. The roads are steep, narrow and winding, but our tour guide and bus driver did an amazing job taking us along the route. There are a lot of photos and unfortunately, after I choose them from “my photos”, the program mixes them up when they post, so they aren’t in any particular order. It was quite overcast, which is the normal weather in Ireland.
We stopped for lunch in a town called Waterville. I ordered Seafood Chowder (yes, again) and a salad. Today’s chowder was smoky, so had a completely different flavor and was equally delicious as yesterday’s. And of course, there was butter, which means I ate the bread. Mostly, I’m a salad guy. I absolutely love salads. Growing up, salad mostly consisted of chopping a head of iceberg lettuce into quarters and pouring Russian Dressing on it. Today, there are SO MANY different types of lettuces and possible additions. I didn’t recognize most of the leaf lettuces in today’s lunch salad, but it was wonderful!
Most of the places where we stopped along the way had churches in them and most of these churches are named after saints, but are Protestant; Church of Ireland churches.
This last church is a non-functioning church, closed after the land became part of the Killarney National Park.
Some flowers to stop, smell and appreciate.
And this one is probably the most beautiful flower I’ve ever seen. It looks like an old single petal rose type of flower and looks like it is made of crumpled paper.
About halfway through the tour, we stopped to learn about how Border Collies are used to herd sheep. I was thinking of opting out of this part of the tour (it cost an extra 6 euros), and instead just hanging out in the cafe/gift shop, but I’m so happy I went. It was fascinating to watch the dogs herd the sheep and how they are trained.
There are eleven different type of sheep in the picture above. Each type serve a different purpose, whether it is for the meat or for the wool or for the milk or cheese.
If you’ll notice, the Shepherd has the traditional Shepherd’s crook often associated with Christ as the great shepherd, like in this stained glass window.
He explained that this type of staff has been used by shepherds for thousands of years because it serves a very specific purpose. Sheep tend to be quite skittish and will run away if approached. Once the dogs have herded them into a specific place and if one of the sheep is hurt or injured or needs to be tended to, the shepherd can’t just go up to the sheep and try to see what might be wrong with it. He uses the crook of the staff to grab unto its hind leg and pulls it up, thus taking away the sheep’s power to run away. It then simply waits patiently for the shepherd to come to it and tend to it.
Perhaps that is what God does with us - uses the staff to grab hold of us to take away our power of obstinance, rebellion, and disobedience, so that God can tend to our brokenness and make us whole again.
For dinner, I ended up deciding to have lamb…was that suggestive or not?! OH MY GOSH! I take back any comments I might have said that Irish cooking is simple and boring, bland and tasteless. It was a lamb rump, which is a specific cut of meat that we don’t tend to find in our super markets in the states. It is the muscle of meat cut off of the upper leg. Paired with a butternut purée, gremolata (a sauce made of parsley, lemon, and garlic), and feta cheese mixed with pomegranates and peas. It was simply divine.
And they brought more butter - so I had bread! Which went really well with a merlot (not beer).
Originally I had plans to leave on Tuesday to head north to a town called Galway and to see the Cliffs of Moher, but I’ve decided to set down some shallow roots here in Killarney and explore this area a bit more. Staying through until Friday now. Tomorrow night is a Community Choral Concert at St. Mary’s Church.
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