Blogs from Loughrea, County Galway, Ireland, Europe

I’ve spent 3 weeks at Sunny Meadow so far and how time has flown! I’ve crammed so much into my time here already and learnt a lot about farming and also cooking – how growing food and eating organically is a great way to live healthily, and new ways to cook good, wholesome vegetarian food. At home there are a few meals I usually make, nearly all of them to go with pasta or rice. Here, I almost never eat those staples, sticking instead to meals full of vegetables, eggs, potatoes and bread in different combinations. Every lunchtime we make soup, usually from scratch using veg straight from the garden, or creating something using cooked veg from the previous day. Nearly nothing goes to waste here – mouldy veg is thrown to the chickens or put ... read more

After being delayed an hour, having seen my bus from Galway drive off whilst still sitting on the bus from Limerick, I arrived at Sunny Meadow farm around 6pm, thanks to Dermot, my new host, picking me up from Loughrea. I met the German and the Italian – both very nice girls around my age. The German, Ester, is in her final year of a nutrition degree in Germany. The Italian, Mara, has just finished college. Dermot is a friendly, smiley Irish guy who has two little girls, who are very sweet. Sunny Meadow farm is commercial, with 3 polytunnels, around 50 chickens, Lil Texas the horse, Scooby Doo the dog and two outdoor cats. Dermot does a veg box scheme and sells his produce at Mountshannon market every Saturday. So I met the other WWOOFers ... read more