Irish Day Camp

Camp T---boy

For the past week, I've been working as a camp counselor at a summer camp program held by the farm that I'm staying at this week. I arrived Monday night at the T----boy farm, and spent Tuesday through Friday from 10am-2pm working at the camp. For the most part that's been all the work I've done here so it's been a pretty good deal.

The camp was a very interesting experience. It consisted of 13 children, aged 5 to 10, and we did activities around the farm with them, including a good deal of chores. It consistently made me laugh trying to think of a camp in America where the parents paid money to go have their children work somewhere, although these kids for the most part seemed to love it. Anything that allowed them to get as filthy or as wet as possible was all they wanted in life it seemed.


Aren't they adorable

On Monday, the kids learned about baking and how to make butter, but I wasn't there for that day. On Tuesday, Farmer Matt took them on a tour of the farm, gave them a history of what it was like to live in Ireland 100 years ago in the historic house on the farm, and then let them play with all the animals. The kids absolutely loved picking up the kittens and the puppies and trying to feed them to the other animals or one another, which was quite fun to try and prevent.


A bunch of animals


We also went on a trailer ride, which consisted of throwing the kids in a giant open-air trailer that was pulled by Matt's tractor, taking them on a wild safari like ride through the wild horse farm and praying that the kids didn't fall over the edge and break there necks, as there were no seat belts and Matt has a habit of attempting to scare the living daylights out of everyone he comes in contact with.


On Wednesday, we made the children clean the leatherware for the horses, which they absolutely adored every second of, but then as a reward they were allowed to wash the puppies so they went absolutely wild with that task. On Thursday, we went down to a BEAUTIFUL lake and the kids were allowed to go fishing for little guppies with nets, which pretty much turned into a swimming free for all. Then we went to the bog and that turned into a mud free for all. Finally on Friday, after I was starting to wonder how much longer Matt's sanity was going to last as he was contently screaming that the kids were absolutely mad, we finished off the camp with forcing the kids to watch as Matt and his sheepdog rounded up all the sheep and then decided which sheep were too old and would be sold off in a few weeks.


Matt wrestling a sheep


They were rewarded after that task with a long hike through the wild horse farm land where one child started crying, and I quote, 'After this I'm never setting foot on a farm again, I'm not used to this!' which prompted me to carry her on my back the rest of the way. Of course though, there was another lake involved, and the really mad kids decided to go all out and jump in head first.


A wild trek


Surprisingly, every single kid seemed to love the camp overall, even though it didn't have any of the games or the dress-up days or seemingly any of the things that camps in America have besides lunch. And although the kids were absolutely mad, they grew on me as always, and I was sad to see them leave by the end. I got a ton of pictures of the crazy rascals though, so I'll remember them forever... ;)