Holidays with Hindrances 4: Muckross House, Farm and Abbey

Welcome back. I hope you’re having a nice weekend before we all go in for another round tomorrow.

While in Killarney we didn’t actually visit Killarney House, but went to Muckross House instead, since that was just 5km from our campsite, so we went there on foot, visiting Muckross Abbey on our way.

A beautiful hike past the lake.

Muckross Abbey is a very pretty ruin, but the graveyard has been in use since at least the 2000s.

Tree growing in a small courtyard in the ruin of the abbey

That one looked amazing. I’m sure there’s a message in the tree long surviving the religious building.

grey brown manor house. On the hedge in front there#s a plush opossum

Welcome to Muckross House. Our plush of the day is Opossible, who enjoyed his trip a lot.

Richly furnished room with a golden harp

“Ireland was a poor country” my ass…

According to legend, Lady Catherine died at 140 when she fell out of an apple tree. Life goals!

The gardens were truly beautiful.

Muckross Farm is an open air museum depicting rural life in Ireland in the 1950s. Yes, you read that right. Apart from trades like the blacksmith they have three farmhouses showing a poor family farm, a middle class family farm and a well off family farm. Remember that nice room in the picture above? In the 1950s people in rural Ireland lived like they hadn’t lived on the continent for at least 50 years. no running water, no electricity. Good old medieval “1 room for sleeping, 1 room for living and sleeping” conditions. But the animals were very cute.

This year I did something new: I shamelessly took selfies and asked people to take pics of me. Am I young and pretty? No. Am I alive? Yes. the person with the camera rarely ends up in pics themself, but I realised that if I died tomorrow, my family would probably forget what I look like in a week because there’s no pics. Here they are. That horse was amazing.

Grey Heron

Avalus has encountered this dapper beauty and managed to snap a few pictures for us. It is a long time since I have seen a live heron. Decades, in fact, since the nearest water reservoir where they at least occasionally occur is more than an hour’s worth of brisk walk from my home. It seemed closer when I was a kid.

Walking in the Woods

Two weeks ago Mr and I went to our local woods for the first time this year. Living next to swamp and marshland has its advantages, but it also meant that for most of this year the paths were unwalkable, unless you wanted to recreate that child-traumatising scene from the Neverending Story where Ayax drowns in the moor. It was nice, apart from the fact that the mosquitos must have been starved before they got us.

We found lots of common earthballs (though I really like the name “pigskin poison puffball”, which would make an amazing name for a band), which are nice to look at, but not good for eating if you value your survival.

And I met a frog. I don’t think that they are poisonous.

small brown frog sitting in green leaves

Midsummer Afternoon – Part 2 – Fish in the Aquarium

Guest posts by Ice Swimmer

There is a brackish water fish exhibit on the island Harakka. The fishes, caught from the Gulf of Finland, spend their summer in aquariums and they are released back to the sea in the Autumn. In the Baltic Sea, both freshwater tolerant of some salinity and marine tolerant of low salinity species live next to each other.

The fish pictured here are less typical or well-known in Finnish waters.

In the first picture, a tench can be seen. In Fínnish, it’s called suutari, which means cobbler or shoemaker (but the name may have nothing to do with making shoes, the fish is called sutare in Swedish and shoemaker is skomakare in Swedish). The tenches were rather inactive in the aquarium. The tench is freshwater fish.

There are some pipefishes in the Baltic Sea. The pipefishes are relatives of sea horses. This broadnosed pipefish is one of them. The broadnosed pipefish is called särmäneula (edge needle, neula = needle) in Finnish. The “edges” are lengthwise bony plates under the skin, which make fish look “edgy” according to Finnish Wikipedia. Broadnosed pipefish is a marine species that’s tolerant of brackish water.

In the third picture, we see a round goby. It is an invasive species from the Black Sea Area.

In the second aquarium post, we shall be playing a game inspired by “Spot the lizard!”.

Most Boring Game of “Find That Lizard”

In case you don’t already know, “Find that lizard” is a fun game Dr. Earyn McGee is hosting on Twitter, where you get a photo of a yard or something with a lizard hidden somewhere, often showing how well these creatures blend with their environment. Well, my own lizards are lazy, which is why I got to take this shot:

As you can see, the little fellow lost its tail and is currently regrowing it. You sure deserve a break, buddy!

Have some Flowers

While we took a look at the cultivated garden yesterday, today it’s time to look at the wilder side with some flowers.

These poppies are just amazing. Too bad the rain ruined them all.

Here’s some simpler ones.

Last year I threw some cheap flower seeds on one area. They turned put top be white mustard, which bloomed last year, and alfalfa, which is growing like mad this year. The bees love it, the degus love it, I’ll let it flower so it can seed next year’s crop as well.

And a colourful beetle. It was somewhat shy and I only had the mobile, so the pic isn’t great.

Winter Wonderland 2: Swanlake meets Frozen

The swans are the mascots of the whole village. The old pair divorced and moved out some time in 2019, so last autumn they got a new breeding pair with two juveniles. They have shelter on a little island and get fed and I must say, they are remarkably relaxed for swans, especially since the pond has been busier than I’ve ever seen it. Can’t wait for Covid to be over and people going elsewhere again.

Back at the Zoo 6: The Birds of Prey

Always one of my favourite parts. Sadly but understandably they don’t fly them for the visitors right now, but still some amazing creatures.

Back at the Zoo 5: Fossa!

One of the more unusual animals at our zoo: a fossa. It#s the largest predator in Madagascar (and not nicely portrayed in the movie).

I think they’re trying to get him a partner as part of the ex situ conservation program.

Back at the Zoo 4: Miscellaneous

Back at the Zoo 3: Roos!

Our zoo seems to attract albino Bennet Roos..

Back at the Zoo 2: Squirrely

Pics NSFI (Not Safe For Iris)

Some versions of squirrels/rodents/chipmunks.

Back at the Zoo 1

On Friday both Mr and I had a day off. We cherish those days when we’re both at home and the kids are not, having some couple’s time. We usually try to get a few of them, a day or an evening, throughout the year, but you can imagine how that’s been going this year…

Now,usually we’d go to the spa or something, have a nice meal, too, but that’s crying over spilled milk right now, so we decided to go to the zoo, which is still open, and given that it was a foggy Friday morning, we pretty much had the whole thing to ourselves. The weather made taking pics difficult, since it was either grainy 6400 ISO pics or longish exposure, but some of them are still nice.

Let’s start with these amazing birds whose names I’ve forgotten. I remember they’re from India, though…

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Holidays with Hindrances 4: Muckross House, Farm and Abbey

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Grey Heron

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Walking in the Woods

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Midsummer Afternoon – Part 2 – Fish in the Aquarium

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Most Boring Game of “Find That Lizard”

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Have some Flowers

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Winter Wonderland 2: Swanlake meets Frozen

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Back at the Zoo 6: The Birds of Prey

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Back at the Zoo 5: Fossa!

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Back at the Zoo 4: Miscellaneous

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Back at the Zoo 3: Roos!

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Back at the Zoo 2: Squirrely

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Back at the Zoo 1

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