A newcomer to Ireland arrives on a rainy day. He gets up the next day and it is raining. It also rains the day after that, and the day after that.
He goes out to lunch and sees a young kid and asks out of despair, “Hey kid, does it ever stop raining around here?”The kid says: How do I know? I’m only six!
This year we have got a proper summer, no jokes! 🙂 County Tipperary has been bathing in sun since June.
It was one of the hottest days when I went to Kilsheelan,  and I thought I would walk a little bit by the river.  The cows on the opposite bank enjoyed the shade of a giant Oak tree and drank from the river till they were full.
Then they laid down for a nap, black islands in the sea of grass.
What a pleasure to walk along a path lined with lush grasses and delicate wild flowers. My summer favorite is poppy flower.
Another favorite is crop field. I love to take pictures of them in any weather, morning or night, and at any stage of their growth and harvest. Â What a fascinating sight they make, waving in the wind!
Abundance of sunlight this summer makes the greenery richer and  foliage ticker.
Sometimes it is nice to hide from the burning sun in the woods…
…or under the thick canopy of linden trees in the churchyard.
What the summer looks like where you live?
Photography tip of the day: When the sun is high shoot your portraits in the open shade.
My friends have never been to the Northern Ireland before, so our trip was very touristy and brief. After leaving Carrick A Rede Rope bridge we took a 20 minutes drive to our second destination – the Giant’s Causeway Visitor center.
The Giant’s causeway is a magnificent natural rock formation declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. It was formed 50-60 million years ago as a result of seven consequent flows of lava. Tectonic plates were moving and magma from deep inside Earth spewed through cracks in the surface. Lava flowed and cooled in contact with air and water, hardening into basalt. Then it was covered with another layer of lava an so on. This process created deep horizontal cracks all along the surface that extended vertically forming honey-comb shaped columns.
The formation consists of about 40,000 interlocking, mostly hexagonal basalt columns, but some columns have four, five, seven or eight sides. They say there is only one column with three sides.
This is what the geologists think. Yet, there is another story. A giant named Finn Mac Cumhaill lived with his wife Oonagh on the Antrim coast. He had a very annoying Scottish neighbor giant Benandonner. On one occasion Finn scooped a chunk of earth and hurled it across the sea at his enemy, missed, and thus created the Isle of Man.
One day Finn tore pieces of rocks from the cliff and made a causeway to walk across the sea and fight Benandonne. When coming closer he realized that his giant neighbor was bigger that he expected! Frightened Finn turned back and ran home with Benandonne hot on his heals. To hide him loyal Oonagh disguised Finn as a baby. When Benandonne saw the size of the “sleeping baby” he fled in terror breaking up the causeway in case he might be followed. Funny giants.
I climbed the columns to get a better view. This is a bus stop down there, and the road to the Visitor center ( 1 km?)
This is a part of the giant-made causeway.  The tide is coming in, so the end of the rocky road disappears in the water but you can see that it is quite long.
This is the view on the other side from where I was perched. Another half an hour walk to the Organ pipes (across the little bay) , but I have never been there, always because of the lack of time.
In the image  below, on the right side you can see a high and almost vertical column formation. It is where I was taking my causeway picture from. The other side is easy to climb – 5 year old can do it. This side is only for experienced climbers. In summer 2012 more than one  thousand people gathered here to cheer The Olympic Torch bearer, 10 times Iron Man Peter Jack from Coleraine.
This  image was taken in December 2005. We had the place all for ourselves.
These two images are taken in  August 2005. A little bit more people but still very quiet.
This time the place was very  busy.
This is a curious rock formation you pass on the way to the Visitor center.  August 2005, bright sunny afternoon. Harsh shadows make the rocks look like petrified giants.
The road to the Visitor center. We took a bus.
Off we go to our last destination – Dark Hedges.
To be continued.
Photography tip of the day: If you often take pictures of the sky and around water get yourself a polarising filter. To know what size of the filter you need check your lens: it is the diameter.
I can tell with certainty that every Carrick-A-Rede Rope bridge visitor has this picture.  A one kilometre long  coastal walk from the car park over the high cliffs is a treat itself, but still everybody hopes to catch a distant view of the famous bridge, so they stop after each turn of the path and take a snap.
The truth is, you cannot see the bridge until you get there.
The Carrick-A-Rede Rope bridge is a famous tourist landmark of Northern Ireland.  It connects the mainland with a small rocky island  ( “carrick “goes for a “rock” in Gaelic ).
If you expect an Indiana Jones-ish experience, you will be disappointed. The bridge is not too long; it won’t break up; it won’t swing and toss you in the waves. No one ever fell over the rope handrails, but there were plenty of tourists who just couldn’t make it back… No, they don’t get picked up by a helicopter as I hoped when I first crossed the bridge in 2005. The miserable are seated in a boat and ferried off to the mainland. No, I wasn’t in the boat. It was a windy day, but I made it back: a man with a little baby walking  behind me gave me the courage.
The rope bridge didn’t always look the way it looks now. Built  by salmon fishers in 1600s it was used from June to September as an access to the rocky islands. The fishers ran their nets between the islands to catch the salmons coming through the area to spawn in the nearby rivers. Below is an image taken in the 19th century. Up to the 1970s the bridge had only a single handrail.
When the salmon fishing came to the end The National Trust installed a new, tourist friendly cage bridge to span the 18m wide and 24m deep chasm. It was a unique and costly project. The bridge was taken down and re-installed annually. Another one was built in 2004, and the current one is built in 2008. Now the bridge is opened all the year round if the weather conditions are not dangerous.
In June 2012 the Olympic Flame was carried onto the Carrick A Rede  bridge by a P.E. teacher Clare Leahy from Coleraine.  After that the Flame was carried to the Giant’s Causeway ( my next blog).
When you get over the bridge Scotland is as close as never before 🙂
Walking around the island you can enjoy the glorious scenery and take pictures.
Sooner or later you have to cross the bridge again…
The more you do it the less you fear. If I come again next year I might even look down…
So this is my story for to day. There is a link to the webpage where you can read more about the timetable and tickets. If you don’t want to cross the bridge don’t buy any tickets and just walk over and watch the others cross. The walk is beautiful and free.
To be continued.
Photography tip of the day: secure your shooting gear and memory cards. A gust of wind can ruin your trip.
“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil“. Do they want to show us that they are not responsible for the evil deeds of the  Hollywood villains scarecrows, or is it a “code of silence”?  Anyway, it seems like the scarecrows do want to live a human-like life. Miley Silage in the image below shows all the passions of her human prototype, and has a very similar success here at the Festival.
Some scarecrows are confident and have a career…
Some are lost and confused…
Some walk past a stranger and never look back…
Some are happily married, and enjoy their cinema dates…
Some are just having fun…
Some are grumpy…
It is not easy to live a human life if you are a scarecrow, Â but as we all know, Â “One that would have the fruit must climb the tree.”
I saw a few little dogs there, one of them might be Toto. What do you think?
Mrs Brown was a favorite of children …
…and I loved Mrs Brown’s boys … or was it  “buoys”?…
They even had a pyramid there…
…and a mummy!
There was a nun on a mission: them bugs are no good for the straw.
Almost everything was covered; the humans only provided music…
…and transportation (Â Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?)
Durrow Scarecrow Festival Community Organisation have a Facebook page you can visit. The program is huge! So many events, it is impossible to see everything. Well done, guys, you rock!
Hope you enjoyed these two posts from the festival. Click on the images to enlarge them and see the details. All the images are always resized so that you can easy open them.
Beautiful village of Durrow, Co Laois are hosting their annual Scarecrow Festival this week. It officially opened last Sunday afternoon, but a fantastic job of preparation and scarecrow making started long before the day. Colorful and happy looking scarecrows sitting on the perches, trees or simply on the ground follow you on your way through the village and promise a good time and lots of fun.
Oh, even the President and the First Lady are… wait… never mind…
The Scarecrow glorified by L. Frank Baum is one of the most loved characters in children’s literature. He is gentle and kind, honest and wise. Seeking to get a set of brains he still appreciates the straw he is stuffed with, and his logic is unbeatable:
Scarecrow: I haven’t got a brain… only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain? Scarecrow: I don’t know… But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking… don’t they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you’re right.
I will try to not do an awful lot of talking. The pictures will talk by themselves.
Scarecrow: Witch? Hmph, I’m not afraid of a witch. I’m not afraid of anything – except a lighted match. Dorothy: I don’t blame you for that.
Who is the famous Scarecrow’s of Oz predecessor? It must be a Feathertop, the main character of the short story of the same name by Nathaniel Hawthorne,  first published in 1852. It is an almost Kafka-esque, thought-provoking story.
“Poor Feathertop,” Mother Rigby said, looking at the heap on the floor. “He was too good to be a scarecrow. And he was too good to be a man. But he will be happier, standing near the corn all summer and protecting it from the birds. So I will make him a scarecrow again.”
There is a long forgotten, but nevertheless brilliant movie Scarecrow (1983) directed by Jerry Schatzberg. It is a drama starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.  I was sure there is a comedy related to scarecrows, and  I did find a 1920 short comedy The Scarecrow. You can watch it here on Youtube it is just a few minutes of laugh 🙂
When did scarecrows become the horror icons? Some say that it all started with the 1981 horror mystery thriller Dark Night of the Scarecrow,directed by Frank De Felitta. I haven’t seen the movie, and to be honest, I haven’t seen ANY scarecrow horror movie. I would be terrified, I hate creepy things like murderous clowns and scarecrows. I’d better stay with this cute Snow White 🙂
There is so much to see in Durrow this week. Humans are watching the scarecrows ( you never know…) and…
..Scarecrows are watching humans…
There is even a local war going on!
Cowardly Lion: Come on, get up and fight, ya shivering junkyard! Put your hands up, ya lopsided bag o’ hay! Scarecrow: Now that’s getting personal, Lion!
Children are actually very quiet here. I cannot blame them: the real and the surreal are tangled and unclear 🙂
Watching the performance I thought  I would take a picture of these fire red hair owners.
Suddenly all three of them turned back 🙂
That’s all for today. More pictures coming Friday.
Hattie Wilcox is a terrifically talented composer, singer, poet, songwriter, photographer, and most humble and hard working  person. Please check out her website and blog.
Photography tip of the day: Use the White balance feature of your camera. Take pictures with different settings and chose the result you are happy with.
Have a great weekend!
Making memories 