Chad and I have now been staying with John for over a week.  Sylvia is still recovering from her surgery in the hospital, but is hoping to get out soon so she'll be here at least a couple days with us.  Even though the days go by really fast, it seems like forever ago that we first came here.  Every morning we let the animals out of their pens; feed and water them, water Sylvia's garden, pick any vegetables or apples that are ready, take the dogs for a nice long and exhausting (for us) walk, and then feed and close up the animals again at night.  In the in-between time, we've done a little bit of lots of other things, the ones I can remember right now include painting shed doors, repairing the tractor barn (Chad did most of this; I held some spider-covered boards), potting strawberry plants, weeding, and doing the cooking.  We made a mince-meat marrow dish I'm going to try to remake when we get home.  (Marrow, I have come to find out is actually just zucchini.  When I explained this to John, he asked, 'whose bikini?')  Chad would like me to add that one of our daily jobs is to chase away the Irish banshees.  This, of course, is blarney. 
We went to see the Mitchelstown Caves yesterday which were huge and gorgeous.  (http://www.dirl.com/tipperary/mitchelstown-cave/)  Sometimes they hold concerts and church services down in one of the largest caverns which would be incredible to see.  The acoustics would be unbelievable.  We were tempted to break away from the group and go spelunking by ourselves down the many dark and winding passageways that we weren't allowed to go on.  The tour only covered a third of what was actually down there. 
Today we went into Cahir, which is a nice little Irish town, best known for its immense castle.  (http://www.castles.ancientireland.org/cahir/index.htm)  The whole castle was so well preserved, it actually felt like we could have been walking through centuries ago, when lords and ladies lived there.  Chad pretended to be a knight.  We found our way down dark winding steps to the dungeons.  Not where you would want to have a picnic, for sure.  The same family, The Butlers, who owned the castle also owned the 'Swiss Cottage,' which was about a mile down the road.  This was their 'play house' where they would entertain guests, and even though it was a very large and fully functioning, they never actually spent a night there.  The 'cottage' was built with a nature theme, and was used when the aristocrats wanted to go 'pretend they were peasants,' as was the fashion for rich people to do for fun back in the day.
Congratulations to Uncle Matt and Naomi on your wedding!  We are so happy for you and so wish that we could have been there!