Magic Moment at HeartHill Farm

I’ve been trying to find time to write this post since we were at HeartHill Farm last evening, but we’re on vacation in Ireland and in this family, vacationing is an entirely too energetic process. Needless to say that now it’s late at night and I don’t know if I can do the subject true justice but I’ll do my best.

Three days ago I got a Tweet from @galinwellies:

Hi Joseph, I’m a farmer’s wife in Ballyduff, over the road. I blog at girlinwellies.com, it might be of interest…

I suppose I should tell you that I’m in Ballyheigue, County Kerry, Ireland and I’ve been Tweeting on my @AccessibleJoe account with the hashtag #Ballyheigue and my daughter Siobhan loves cows, so. In this part of the world the word “so” is used as punctuation. “We’ll be over at half three then, so.” It’s not “so then” and it’s not anything but the end of a communicative effort, so.

It turns out that Anne Bennett Brosnan, known in Ballyduff as “the woman from Cork” has married into a dairy farm, HeartHill Farm. In Ireland some say this makes her a farmerette. Indeed, there’s a woman who Tweets as @IrishFarmerette. Anne and I traded some Tweets and I invited us over so Siobhan could experience the milking. Anne and her husband Dan Brosnan were extremely gracious and their young boys, Daniel, Phillip, and Anthony, were full of laughter and spit up. If you consider that Anthony was only born in May you’ll understand about the spit up part, so. After tea (nothing in Ireland is done without tea on both ends of it) we headed out to drive the cows to the milking parlor. It’s called a milking parlor in a great many parts of the world but while it does have everything to do with milking it has less to do with a living room and more to do with a massage parlor.

Dogs nip at cows heels and people walk at rear to help the cows move from field to milking parlor.
Anne with baby Anthony, Siobhan, Linda, Dan and the dogs, drive the cows.

Siobhan is a natural cow herder. I’m sure if Siobhan could do it, she’d choose to wear one of those “I’d marry a farmer” stickers. Lorna Sixsmith, the aforementioned @IrishFarmerette, has a book called “Would You Marry a Farmer?” It seems that she was at the ploughing a few weeks back handing out those stickers. The ploughing? I’d marry a farmer stickers? Read more about it on her blog.

In left corner of the frame is Siobhan looking at the cow behind a set of bars is looking back at her from the right side of the frame.
Siobhan venerating the cows at milking.

Siobhan was entranced! She has used her speech generating device to say “cows” 4,249 times since we got here less than two weeks ago. She’s mad about cows. We got her some cow plates, and a cow cup, and her cousin, Mary Ellen O’Connor got her a cow painting printed on cloth for her room. Smitten is not a strong enough word. I can tell you that for Siobhan, a visit to a working dairy farm, driving the cows in, experiencing the milking parlor, was a peak experience. I got it on video, 41 minutes of it, and it’s already on her iPad for her to see over and over again. The photos in this post are stills from the video.

Siobhan holds speech generating device at chest level, pushing icons, cow visisble, baby in sling on mom.
Siobhan comments “Look!” while baby Anthony looks on.

So here’s to the farmers of the world, some of whom are very generous in sharing their craft with others and with Siobhan in particular. Much thanks to Anne Bennet Brosnan and her husband Dan Brosnan and their young boys, Daniel, Phillip, and Anthony for proving once again to me that Twitter can sometimes provide a means of meeting people that goes beyond the mere ordinary. Phillip gave Siobhan a cow figurine that she won’t put down. I’ve never seen anything like her attachment to it. Thanks Phillip! Anne and Dan are remarkable people doing a great service to us all, and doing it year round, seven days a week, twice a day for much of the year. Thanks very much to you all for making a magical moment happen for Siobhan, a moment she’ll remember all her life.

Join the conversation on Twitter at @blacktelephone (and @AccessibleJoe).