Wendy’s Blog

It was an interesting experience shipping an animal from US to Europe. As I said in my previous post, it was all pretty painless because of the shipping company. We did all the front work (getting his titer test ready etc) and they did the rest by getting his pet passport and plane ticket. I have to say over all, I really enjoy working with them. We got emails when Oskar arrived at JFK to let us know that he made it etc. I only wish I stuck a little camera that takes a photo every few min to see what Oskar sees in transport. Maybe on his way back to the US next year.

The most interesting part is his crate. His crate is full of stickers from various place. It’s like steamer trunk full of sticker that people used to use for travel.

Here is front of the crate, it’s got our information in Dublin. Under it there’s another set of labels for JFK.

The inside has 2 big bowl for water and a fennel out side to fill out the water. When we let him out there was newspaper in the crate in case he had an accident. He had no accident, that dog has bladder of steel.

A cute little tag with his name!

This cracks me up. One live dog! They should just circle the dog picture.

More live animal sticker photo, with arrows!

His inspection sticker:

The pick up was pretty easy. We went to Lassen Hall at the appointed time (his flight was early!) and just picked him up. Over all if I have to ship him anywhere else, I would totally use this agency again.

We arrived back in Ireland yesterday. And this jet lag is kicking my butt. It’s 3:04AM and I am up watching a lifetime movie (yes we get that here!) and thought hey it’s good time to blog!

It was nice to see Oskar again after all these month. Here he is greeting me at the door.

I really like this photo, it’s as if he’s saying whatever your selling I don’t want any!

For moving Oskar, we hired a company called ‘Pet Express.’ It was pretty painless, they took care all of the airline booking and let us know that he made the connection flight. He left on Tuesday and got in today. He spent all day sleeping, I guess he got jet lag too! Or maybe he’s just lazy. Hard to tell, he won’t tell me!

Here he is looking out our front door watching Mr doing yard work.

The weather was wonderful! It was hot for the first few days but cool down for the rest of the time we were in CA. I only wished I stayed a bit longer so I can meet more friends and eat more food.

Most people think dent-de-lion (aka dandelions) is just some weedy plant that are blithe to their gardens. Our land lord certainly think so for he gave us three bottles of dandelion killers. They used to be under the stairs, but I moved them to the annex (yes we have an annex!).

My sister in law gave me a Irish cook book when we moved here. The book had all sorts of recipes Irish. I was particular drawn to dandelions. I didn’t know they were editable! Apparently the leaves can be used for salad and flowers can be eaten. I was fascinated by the fried flower recipe. Any recipe with the word ‘FRIED’ is by default is delicious in my book!

So today we went out to gather dandelions. I wonder if our neighbors think we are insane!

Surprisingly it was hard to find. I guess people really hate them!

Anyway, feast your eyes on these wonderful dent-de-lions!

Before :

After:

Mr said they taste like bland fried vegetable. I will have to tweak the recipe next time to see if I should change the herbs or more salt. It smelled delicious as I was cooking them!

If you want to try it out, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 20 to 30 dandelion – or how ever much you can find in the garden
• Vegetable Oil for frying (you can use olive oil I just had vegetable oil handy
• 2 tablespoon of flour (you can use cormeal if you want)
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of black pepper
• Pinch of dried thyme
• pinch of dried oregano
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions:

• Rinse the flowers and dry them gently. I left them on a plate on top of some paper towels.
• Mix the flour, salt, black pepper, dried thyme, and dried oregano.
• Heat frying pan over medium heat with the vegetable oil. You don’t need that much just enough to cover the flowers.
• Dip the flower in the beaten egg and then in the seasoned flour mixture.
• Fry the little flowers in batches, stalk side up until golden.
• Serve

You really want to cut as much as stalk off as possible without breaking up the flower. It’s pretty tricky, but if you cut too deep you just end up with petals. It’s kind of cool but hard to fry.

I hate to admit this but being a Lady of Leisure is kind of dull. There’s a Malahide Ladies Club but they don’t have a website and I have no idea where they meet.

So I decided to strike out on my own and do a little of Dublin tour by DART. Once a week, weather permitting, I’ll take the DART to a station and walk around the station and see the sights. One thing I noticed about these stations is that at each station there’s a little sign that says 15 min to blah, 10 min to blah, so this should be fun.

So today, I am starting with the Malahide Station. Why you ask? Because this is where I live and I am too lazy to hop on the DART today. The weather is pretty overcast today so this is what you all get today!

The Malahide Station was built in 1844. That’s pretty darn old! The top of each station column has these decorative writing. Mr says it has something to do with the Royal Family. I don’t know, I can’t read it. If you can let me know what you think it says.

The station also has a waiting room. I took a peek inside, it looked like it once had a working fireplace in it! But I didn’t take a picture. Next time I go there I’ll fill it in here.

Malahide is a nice working village. I took some photos but I can’t seem to find them. It’s got a butcher, few grocery stores, clothing stores, etc. Of course there are lots of pubs as well. In addition, the people of Malahide must really like Chinese food here because I counted 4 Chinese restaurants!

The main attraction here would be the Malahide Castle. I have not been there for many many years now. I probably will hit the castle when my brother comes here for a visit in a few weeks. The land around here used to all own by the castle dude. We saw a fantastic apartment next to the castle grounds, but it was not meant to be because Mr didn’t want apartment living. (It WAS nice though.)

One thing that’s a bit scary here is the lack of parking space. Case in point, the following picture shows a car in the correct parking space. But like it’s in the middle of the street!

By the way that’s not a one way street!

The drivers here are like nutty too. This morning I almost got ran over by a old dude driving an SUV. He was making a turn and didn’t use his indicator and maybe I am invisible here or whatever he just like ran through in front of me. If I get hit I would get money, but seeing I don’t have health insurance right now, getting hit is probably a bad idea. And plus if I get hit I won’t be able to get on this little DART adventure. So I think I did the right thing by not getting hit.

It’s the little things in life!