1. The crazy Border Collies laying in wait to chase our car just beyond the barn.
2. The farmer on the hill who tells us jokes we can barely understand, what with his brogue being so thick. I’m pretty sure they all involve traveling salesmen and farmers’ daughters, though.
3. The fox who dines from our compost heap, who then trots across the field with banana peels in his mouth.
4. The fact that you can sit in a room with really famous people and not know that they’re famous.
5. The ability to listen to incredible singers who never made it to America. Who tell stories and make it clear that fame was never part of their plan.
6. Jack Russell Terriers, everywhere, trotting along the side of the road as if they own the joint, as if they’ve been taught the traffic laws. Their cuteness SLAYS me.
7. Dubliner cheese.
8. The slew of curious seals a stone’s throw off the coast.
9. The nutters who brave the cold each morning for their swim at Loch Hyne.
10. Every driver who passes on the road will wave by lifting two fingers off the steering wheel. Sort of like a secret handshake.
11. Ben, my neighbor’s herding dog, who rounds the cows up twice a day for milking, then takes a walk to the beach for a swim.  On his own.  Like clock work.
12. A few years back, a fellow in the next town over owned a mink farm. One day,  he decided that he’d had enough of the business so he opened all the cages, and the gate to his property, and let them all loose onto the streets of Union Hall. Can you imagine anyone doing that in the United States?!
13. No one honks the horn.  EVER.
14. You can’t take a quick trip to the grocery store.  Guaranteed, you’ll have conversations with twelve acquaintances you run into in the aisles.
15. The music that plays over the intercom at the grocery store.  Everybody mouths the words, or wiggles to the beat, as they fill their carts.
16. Random castles.  Everywhere.  And you can trot across a sheep field, climb the hill, and snoop around unaccosted.
17. The stone famine cottage in our backyard.  During the time of the potato famine, the place was abandoned.  There’s a big stone fireplace in the middle, and you can feel the presence of….what, or who I’m not quite sure of.
18. There’s a medical intuitive who sells veggie burgers at the Farmer’s market on Saturdays.  She’s from Canada, ran away from there because she didn’t like all the attention her gift was attracting, and I think she represents just how eclectic this place is.
19. Just because we open our mouths and greet the people we meet along our morning runs, we’ve made the most wonderful friends. We’ve gotten invited to parties and dinners and weddings and you couldn’t imagine the fun.
20. The Statues of the Virgin Mary in the WEIRDEST places.  Picture Mary on a diving board, at a bus stop, on a rooftop, and in a missile silo.
21. Blackberries out the yin yang.  Late August, early September, the roads are lined with brambles heavy with fruit, all for the taking. Kill yourself quantities of fruit.
22. Silence so profound you can hear the bees in the trees and the breeze through the trees. And NOTHING else.
23. The predictability of our neighborhood.  On our runs we meet Sven the dog at 8:40 a.m. Then we see Daycare Dad drive past with his toddler in a car seat. Martina waiting with her kids at the corner in her red car. Marie at the next crossing.  Then the school bus. Barry walking the Lurcher (Fione) and terrier mix, (Purdy). Up over the rise the naughty donkeys, who get out once in a while for a walk about. Richard feeding his sheep.  Margaret hanging her underwear on the line. And finally Ben and Sam, the herding dogs, greeting us at the bottom of the hill.
24. I’ve learned more about dairy cows than I ever thought imaginable.  Today 6 calves are due at John Sheehan’s farm.  He knows they’ll come today because the bone at the base of the cow’s tail goes soft twelve hours before labor.
25. By walking into the little bookstore in town, I’ve discovered a whole slew of books I would never have come across in the States. My favorite books:  Run Fat Bitch Run, The Stolen Village,  Transatlantic, Let the Great World Spins.
26. The farmer’s market has an antique dealer who sells books too.  Really odd books.  Like 100 Facts about Pandas.  Or My Life as a British Officer in Burma.  I want to buy them all and eat them for lunch.
27. Sit down to eat at a restaurant and no one rushes you.  You never get the sense that they’re trying to flip the tables.  You have to stand up and go to the counter to pay the bill.  They’ll never bring it over unless you ask.
28. It’s the 3^rd of February when I write this and there are daffodils popping up along the path, and primrose, and onion grass with delicate white flowers. Spring is here.
29. Because we sit in the path of the African trade winds, there are all sorts of bizarre plants.  Palm trees and prehistoric things that look like elephant ears sprouting from the soil.  Monkey Puzzle trees, too. None of it makes sense. Until you remember the winds from Africa.
30. Half the village has lived and worked on the same piece of land for multiple generations.  They LOVE their land. The rest are blow-ins:  Folks born anywhere outside the parish. We Americans are lumped into the same category as the Irish who have moved into the neighborhood from Skibbereen, the next town over where we go for groceries.
31. St. Patrick not only drove the snakes out of Ireland, but also mosquitoes and poison ivy and rabies.
32. We’ve got a wild damson plumb tree growing in our backyard. Free food.
33. Make hay while the sun shines around here.  You can’t procrastinate because you never know what the weather will bring.
34. A little rain stops NOBODY.  If it did, you couldn’t leave the house for months on end.
35. Sea otters.  They look like playful wet kittens.  You’d die for them. They swim just off the coast.
36. Rainbows.  All the freaking time.  Not just one, but double rainbows, or even triple rainbows.
37. Because the roads are so narrow, when you meet other drivers they’ll pull over to the side of the road to allow you past.  Half the time they’ll stop and chat about random topics.  The weather.  The cancelled Garth Brooks concert in Dublin.  The latest water tax.
38. Instead of saying thanks, it’s “Thanks a million.”
39. Everyone goes to the pub.  Men, women, and children.  The kids will sit up at the bar and have a soda and a bag of crisps.  Sometimes folks will drink a pot of tea.  But mostly they drink Guinness. Or Murphy’s.
40. One word.  Guinness.  Good God almighty, that stuff is good. I’m talking 12-step-membership good.
41. French fries are served with EVERYTHING.  Even rice and curry.  Or pasta.
42. Irish butter.  Lordie.  Yellow and creamy, because the cows are all grass fed. I’m addicted to KerryGold.
43. You can smell the dirt and the moss.  The clean. The purity. ALL THE TIME.
44. The patchwork fields—little squares of green–40 shades of green– separated by lines of stonewall. Wherever you look.
45. The stonewalls.  They’re built differently than stonewalls in New England.  Most of the stones are placed vertically, instead of horizontally, and they’re bursting with flower and succulents and moss and ivy.
46. Irish kids are refreshingly innocent and sweet still, even teenagers. When the theater manager tells a group of 14-year-olds to pipe down during the movie, they actually obey.  Instead of ramping up the shenanigans the way American teens would. Actually, who am I kidding, American teenagers would burn the place to the ground.Then piss on the smoldering coals.
47. The average temperature in July is about 67 degrees F.  The average temperature in February, 40.  For a distance runner, this is paradise!
48. There’s a certain charming formality in the dress of older men.  Dress pants, collared shirt, wool pullover, and leather shoes.  Oh, and a flat, wool cap. Even when they’re out and about, or driving along on their tractors.
49. Remember having to learn square dancing in school and NEVER using it?  Well, in Ireland, school children are taught some sort of waltz, and you’ll see young and old dancing it at formal occasions.
50. Hello! magazine.  Talk about trash. And I have no idea who any of these people are.  I can hardly wait to get my nose into it when I go up to Ann Marie’s, my hairdressers, who keeps a stack of them in her home salon for all the people who stop in. You want local gossip, hang out at Ann Marie’s.(Can you imagine what’s said about me?!)
51. Big, fat pheasants in amongst the grazing sheep.
52. The way the wet grass sparkles in the morning light.
53. The articles about three-legged calves in the local newspaper. I shit you not.
54. The smell of peat fires.  Heaven!
55. You’ll still see horses and traps on the public roads.
56. Get stuck in the mud or in a ditch, and out of nowhere will come some neighbor with a tractor to pull you out. Here, you stop to help without fear of getting wrapped in duct tape and shanked with a homemade knife in the back of some van.
57. Did you know all donkeys have a cross on their back because they carried Mary into Bethlehem for the birth of Christ?  There exists a funny part in the fur across the shoulders, and one along the backbone. Who knew?! One of the neighbor ladies who keeps a donkey in her backyard for company, that’s who. And don’t ask me how this came up.