Rural Life

Half full or half empty?

While last week I showed a photo of a sunny day and a cat in a hammock, I had hoped for much more sunshine this week.  Indeed every day the forecast was for sunshine "tomorrow" or "the day after tomorrow" and today even "this afternoon".  But it hasn't happened - the high pressure and sodden ground has kept fog and low cloud in place all week with no respite at all.  The ground hasn't dried out at all, making lifting potatoes unnecessarily hard work, while the lack of light saps the spirit.  I think the constant broken promise of sun tomorrow has made it all the harder to bear and I am sick of it.

There are odd chinks of colour to look out for.  I have always been a fan of nerines, and sometimes they flower for me, but mostly they don't.  This year I have been lucky and one has flowered and I have been able to admire the circle of bright pink flowers each day for a couple of weeks as I go to feed the chickens.

The trees haven't done much by way of autumn colour - we haven't had much of a cold snap, just constant, bone aching dank.  It is possible there will be a late flush of colour but I'm not holding my breath.  However there is another plant that provides a pretty reliable splash of colour in the autumn, and because I grow it in hanging baskets, I get to admire it rather than having it covered in dead tree leaves.  The strawberry leaves are quite spectacular this year, with odd fruits hidden away.  The fruit isn't interesting as it needs sunlight to produce a bit of sweetness and flavour, and we haven't had any of that for a while (see above), but you can't have everything.

I had to visit a house and garden during the week and was stunned by the display of dramatic flower heads on the yucca plants there.  Mine have done nothing this year, and of course indoor ones don't get the conditions to do this.  For me there is no rhyme or reason to when yuccas flower, but I am grateful to see them doing their thing this year.

As the leaves fall, it becomes obvious where Asian hornets have been building nests.  While I've not spotted any in our area, not least due to the successful trapping and destroying campaigns in Baugé en Anjou, I did see this one when visiting the house and garden with the yuccas.  The nest had been breached as I saw a bird or two flying in and out - perhaps the amazing tit family have decided they like to eat them, much as they do with pine processionary grubs?

It's not all gloom I guess.  The lack of frost and the moist conditions mean that the cristophine vine goes from strength to strength, with leaves the size of dinner plates and hidden fruits.  In the gloom it looks a bit like a hut or shelter, and actually it does do a good job when it rains.  Assuming no prolonged period of intense frost this winter (unlikely given global warming, although it would be good), this brute will be back next year!

Most of the garlic we planted last year was not worth lifting, so I didn't.  But I noticed today that those bulbs are pushing back up and will provide tasty scallion style garlic "spring onions" through the winter.  It might be worth planning next year's potager plots after all!

With that in mind, I am now off to cook chicken Béarnaise, otherwise known as garlic chicken. 

I am minded to bring in a trail camera during the week, as there is one that has been in place for a couple of months now and probably needs to be checked over.  All things being equal, there could be much more exciting things to write about next week than autumnal murk!

Have a good week!

 

Autumn taking its time

It's been a relatively quiet week, as Autumn slowly does its thing.  In the garden, the cyclamen flowers are disappearing and great tufts of leaves are taking over, to feed the corms for next year - it has been a riot this year.  In the One Acre Wood, the white cyclamen are slower to come through, and the light is very different of course.  Still we have some 14 flowering zones (one of which isn't strictly in our bit of wood), and there will be a lot more clumps of leaves than that, when they really start to show.  It would appear that a cyclamen needs at least three years from germinating to getting to the flowering stage.  It is worth thinking about that, when you buy disposable pots of cyclamen as presents for people I think.  The most magnificent flowering has been quite hidden from us until a bit of judicious strimming cleared access to part of the orchard where they seem to have gone totally crazy!

The weather has wavered between nice sunny days, warm enough to lie out on the hammock (modelled here by Monsieur Clause), and dull, dreary, grey and wet days, when the only useful thing to do has been to sit in my office area, do filing and throw out 30 year old insurance documents.

Some of the filing has been positively pleasurable though - 2018 files from a trail camera need a lot of pruning down to the bits that are worth hanging on to.  There is no point in trying to make a paradise for wildlife if one also clogs up a datacentre with unnecessary and rather poor quality photos and videos!  There was a rather nice image of the hare making a very rare appearance this year.

But badgers do not make good photo subjects in general, as they are out and about at night and tend to move quite quickly - this is a better example than most, but it isn't really worth keeping!

The video shorts of badgers were much more amusing though, and I was able to take time to load quite a few onto YouTube to share here.

This is much more amusing!

This one has two badgers going about their legal and lawful.

As does this one.

The quality of this video is dire I admit, but it did prove that once again we had a faun in the Meadow this year.  The weather wasn't great over the summer, with cool mornings so the misted up camera was a fairly regular thing.

We had to wait another 12 days to get better visual confirmation that the pair were in the zone, and by that time the faun had grown a lot!  Also, they weren't that close to the camera.

The clocks have now gone back - fallen for the Anglophones (Fall - fall back - go back).  The French mnemonic is that in Octobre the clocks reculent.  For a couple of weeks we will be getting up in daylight again, but not for long.  By December it will still be dark at 8:30am and the temptation to stay in bed on grey days will be almost too much!  

Have a good week!

 

Quiet (!) Autumn pursuits

Autumn should be the time of foraging and harvesting, plus spending lots of time in the kitchen doing stuff with the results of said harvesting and foraging.  This week I got into the swing of that a bit more, and we peeled loads of chestnuts so I could get creative with the results.  A savoury fish crumble with a chestnut and cheese crumble was very good indeed.  The sweeter apple and quince crumble was a bit too sweet and sat in the tummy and on the hips in a rather alarming manner - less sugar, and more flour could be the answer.  But that means peeling more chestnuts...

In addition I had another go at the fig tree, which seems aware that it is going to be massacred soon, so is putting out more figs than the local starlings (the top ones), the chickens (the bottom ones) and we (those in the sweet spot in the middle) can comfortably get through.  I am now up to a dozen pots of fig jam made, and as we  haven't finished last year's, I'm making no more!

I should also be digging up potatoes, but the ground is currently still sodden thanks to Kirk and then another few depressions that have been passing through during the week.  I'm waiting for the promised dry patch next week to do more of that.  There are no frosts predicted, so the cristophines continue to produce a huge crop - this lot are on a new plant John planted to protect the asparagus bed.  I like to think that the row of diminishing fruit are reminiscent of the pottery flying ducks so beloved of sitting room walls in the 1970s!

The foraging is going less well, and the view locally is that it is not a year for cèpes, as no one has seen one.  I did find what looked like one, but it was under a birch tree, which is wrong, so I discarded it.  There are strange bits of fungi around, like these yellow threads we found in the One Acre Wood - inedible and also not clear from our array of mushroom identification books what they actually are!  Quite attractive though.

Less peaceful autumn pursuits include trying to get the dense thickets of bramble and old man's beard under control.  While I don't mind odd pockets of it, when you get banks that are taller than me and cover a third of a field, it is not good and it doesn't create valuable habitat.  The density is so great that most plants can't grow, the cover defends some animals (hares and pheasants mostly) from hunters, but doesn't provide a dry or comfortable holt for winter, the plant quality is poor, as they all strive for sunlight, so there is little if any fruit, and not much by way of insects as there are no flowers.  And it grows and grows upwards and then outwards, taking over flower meadow and pond edges to the detriment of a wide range of flora and fauna. 

So we are punching paths through the big bank with strimmers and hedge trimmers and then using the big yellow Beast to mulch through the cut stems to create walkways that may be easier to maintain next year, while providing some shelter and routes for our non-human visitors to move around more easily.  It's all very much a work in progress, but I am pleased with how it is going.

With bad weather forecast for much of the week, I brought in Trail Camera 1 to see what had been going on in its line of vision.  It was as well I did, as it had over 2,000 files on it, and the batteries were pretty well dead.  It had been out since late July and the batteries, which weren't the best quality in the first place, had been used for a few months before then too, so weren't fresh.  It took a while to prune down the 2,018 files to just 252 that had some interest, and they will require further triage and editing and videos put onto YouTube, but as a taster of what there is, here is our fox in the open.

I did also load just one video onto YouTube today, as I wanted to show how robust the cameras need to be - turn the sound up for the full effect and yes, those are tusks!

 

I did also promise a bit of coypu action - I am ambivalent about them.  They are an invasive, non-native species with no natural predators and cause a lot of damage, and I don't like their tails, but their whiskers are magnificent!

 

 

 

 

That's enough coypu for the moment!  Have a good week!

 

Storm Kirk and other local events

OK, last weekend I promised more wildlife videos, and maybe I will include a couple at the end, but this week has been quite a busy one, and for a number of reasons.

Last week I wrote this blog early, before dashing off to the photo competition exhibition, hoping I had at least one of my photos printed and therefore in the top 30.  Well, my hopes were dashed, but to be fair to those that were printed, there were only 2 that I would have said weren't worth printing.  One was out of focus, and perhaps I am old fashioned, but I don't think that is good photography.  The other one looked to me more like an advert for Legal and General (other financial services companies are available but have different advertising and logos) than an entry in a provincial photography competition, and in my view would have been barred on that basis in a similar competition in the UK.  It won the adult section.

Of the two printed ones I liked the best, one got a prize for the popular vote done over the two days of the exhibition, and is shown here the furthest left, modelled by a member of the Society running the competition, the next one along won the popular vote, probably as it had a bird in it, the other two were the winners in the Junior section.  Well done all!

The next big excitement of the week was Storm Kirk.  He didn't bring much wind, but he brought a shed-load of rain with him.  It started raining before dawn on Wednesday and carried on with varying levels of intensity until just after 6pm.  Overall we had 59mm of rain or 2 3/8 inches - however you count it, it was a lot!  For the main rain gauge in our garden by the house, we had to empty it twice during the day, taking readings each time.  At 10am when I went to feed the chickens it was like this!

Fortunately around us there is enough of a gradient to ensure that house, garden and cellars don't flood, and that was the case for most around here, although some low roads became impassable as water came off the fields, and the Couasnon broke its banks.  But the main flooding was in low lying fields.  Others were not so lucky in other parts of France and I feel for them.  Occasionally however field banks were not up to the task and ceded with the weight of water, particularly if the field above had been harvested or ploughed recently so the soil was compacted.  This slip was near our country retreat.

The ponds are now nicely full and since Kirk did his worst, the weather has improved and blue sky has been seen!

The other excitement during the week was round two of the Challenge Communale in boule de forte.  My team had won our first round match, so on Thursday evening we were pitted against the team from one of the boule de forte clubs, the Esperance, and weren't totally hopeful.  I was instantly depressed when I revealed my antique boules, which were denounced as disgusting.  However it turned out that the Esperance team were unavailable to play the semi-final on Saturday, so forfeited the game when they were leading 8 - 2.  Once that was sorted, they told me the product I needed to get to make my boules beautiful and shiny once again, so I sort of forgave them.

Saturday morning, 10am, I was back at the boule de fort club with my "disgusting" boules for the semi-final against another boule de forte society, la Paix.  Despite hangovers and lack of sleep on both sides (not me, obviously), once we got going, the game was quickly lost by us 10 - 1, so I didn't have to worry about the final.  To be fair, we would have forfeited if we had won as one of our team couldn't be there for the final.  Anyway, by 11am, hair of the dog was being taken by those that needed it, and I was drinking a glass of chilled sauvignon blanc, knowing that I wouldn't have to play again for another year!

The only ones of these boules that are ours are the red ones!

As I mentioned, it rained all day on Wednesday, so one thing I could do to pass the time was to load up a few more wildlife videos on YouTube so I can share them here (you can also find my YouTube channel and subscribe or follow to see more of what is there).  I found another amusing woodpecker video - I am very fond of the Woodies!

There is a fair amount of mouse or rat activity down by the ponds - that's fair, as it's a wild place and they are wild animals.  I have no issues with them living as nature intended.

In the same way, I am fascinated to watch "our" fox as he goes about his business.  He is in the wild, away from domestic gardens and chicken runs, fending for himself, and not relying on dustbins either.  I've no idea what he is eating!

 

 

I have looked to see if there are nests or fungus or fruit around there, but I can't spot anything.  If he is eating slugs or snails, good luck to him, but I would be a bit less happy if it was frogs and toads.  Whatever, it is nature doing its thing.

Next week you can see coypu, plus I'm going to bring in another camera which has been at a point where I used to see hares and deer, so hope to have news of them.  I fear there will be a lot of John and I strimming however!

Have a good week!

 

Drama! Games and ducks

We are past the vernal equinox: the gazebo roof is dry, down and packed away for next year, when I hope it will be out for longer than two months!  As ever it will need some running repairs to see it through the season but I think the Velcro has another year left in it, while the actual fabric is holding up nicely.  Ok the "outside" is faded, but we sit under it so still have the glory of its bright colours. 

With the cover down, the gazebo just has its strawberry hanging baskets, its weather station and its fairy lights, which I shall leave out a bit longer, as they bring delight when I put the chickens away at night.  Soon there won't be enough daylight to charge the battery and then they will come in.

 The arrival of autumn proper and the longer evenings means it is time for boules de fort - a traditional local game not played in more than a handful of departments, but Anjou is definitely a key place.  Le Vieil Baugé is blessed with four still operating boule pistes - there were 7, but the other three are no longer in use.  Every autumn there is the Communal Challenge, where all the clubs and societies, the village municipal workers, and any other identifiable group are invited to submit up to two teams to defend the honour of their group. 

The Comité des Fêtes has always tried to come up with two teams, as was the case this year.  Normally team membership is decided on having one good team and then a bunch of no-hopers.  This year membership was decided on who was available on which evening for the first round.  That got me into the "first" team with people who know how to play - a bit of a shock!

Even more of a shock for me was that we got points!

In fact, at the end of a three and a half hour game - I kid you not - we won 10 to 7 against the Society for the Preservation of Vieil Baugé Heritage!  That means I am playing again on Thursday this week, but against one of the boule de fort societies, so it is likely to be a pasting.

So back to the world of trail cameras.  Spoiler alert - it is a bitter sweet story.

There are a pair of mallards that live in the zone - he is a bit flighty, but she is a gentle soul.  Last year I actually saw her with a couple of ducklings in the fish pond, before the coypu had managed to make it a poorly drained swamp.  So it was rather nice to see her passing through with a little ball of fluff.

 

A couple of days later and she passed with two little fluff balls!

 

Then I saw her with five!  O what joy!

 

Except, two days later, there was just one duckling left.

 

But three weeks later, that ball of fluff had fledged quite nicely, and did stay with Mum until the end of July, when presumably she went off to find her own pond.

 

I don't know what happened to the other ducklings - there are many options and it is a hard world out there for small balls of fluff.  If they all survived, we would disappear under all the mallards however.  One of the culprits could be this chap - yes, pine marten can also be spotted in daylight!

 

Anyway, next week I turn my video attention to those relatively charmless creatures, coypu.  Something to look forward to?  

This afternoon is the exhibition of the annual photography competition run by the Society for the Preservation of the Heritage of Vieil Baugé (who got beaten by the Comité des Fêtes at boules de fort - ha!), with the prize giving at 5pm.  You submit your photos (maximum of 2) by email, the best 30 get printed and exhibited, and there are winners and prizes.  I hope one of my entries got printed, that for me would be the win.  You'll find out next week! 

Have a good one!

Making the most of the good days

2024 has not been a classic year on many fronts, not least the weather.  Often the autumns here are truly blissful, warm or hot days, cooler evenings, sunny with the odd day of gales.  Sometimes we aren't actually that keen on the prolongation of summer, but this year, with perhaps two weeks of summer in total, more than a week of nice autumn would be good.  Alas it is not to be, so the rare days of idyllic autumn have to be savoured.  Yesterday was one such day - crisp, sunny, inspiring!  The Saturday morning market in Baugé was quite classic, with yummy local products, the dulcet tones of Yann Mas warbling in the background and bright sun, with the Chateau watching over us!

Today was the annual antiques fair at Durtal, some 12 kilometres to the north of us.  Since Covid and Brexit, it is smaller, with fewer traders and fewer English voices to be heard as you go around the stalls.  Actually the size now suits us better, as say 10 years ago, it was just too big.  But today there were very few punters out and about as well.  Okay so we were there between 1pm and 2pm, but even so it seemed a bit sparse.  The quality and the range of stuff was impressive this time so we enjoyed our 3km walk around from where we parked the car, but the weather was not propitious and by the time we got to the car, it was raining.  Durtal Chateau loomed over our arrival and departure in a gloomy fashion, given the weather conditions.

With two nice days in the week, we got done as much as we could by way of gardening, and in between I did useful things.  For a start I stewed a couple of kilos of windfall apples from the garden which are now in the freezer waiting for me to make apple crumble in due course.  I then batch cooked a load of cristophines so I have some ready to be a gratin when the need arises. 

I also brought in a trail camera that had been in place in a secluded area for the past 3 months to see what had been going on.  I was actually a bit grateful for poor weather, as there was so much going on, and I had time to enjoy the footage rather than feel guilty about it. 

To give an idea of what has been going on, here are some highlights:

The tree by the camera, which has been shown to be a really good scratching post for boar, is also a favourite scavenging point for the Great Spotted Woodpeckers.  This is a rather nice short of one giving the tree a once over.

While there is the well known phrase "breed like rabbits", I tend more to the phrase "breed like wild boar", as they can produce two litters a year and litters are big and there are just so many around, but on the other hand, baby boar are so cute!

 

While they aren't my favourite animals by a long chalk, young coypu aren't as unpleasant to look at as their parents, and the family that live in the zone seem to have had 4 babies this year.  This little fellow is about a third the size of its parents.

I adore pine martens, and for a few weeks they seemed to spend a lot of time playing and searching for food around the camera location.  I've decided to share a number of videos of them this time, as later blogs will be more about the fox, the duck story and those wretched coypu.

At first there was just one pine marten, but then another, smaller one joined it.  I've no idea if they are a couple or whether it is parent and adolescent, but I love them and am always rather excited to see a photo or a short video of them.

So, first just one:

 

Then two of them:

 

 

The trail camera is back in place again, but I still have over 200 more files to go through and see what is there in detail.  The badgers go through there, as do deer occasionally, and I still hope to see the water rail again one of these days.  All three cameras are now deployed and it is the time when all the animals we share the area with are looking to put on winter stores to help them through the cold season.  I wish them luck as it looks like poor pickings this year and I refuse to provide feed - nature must take its course.

That doesn't apply to the blue tits and great tits that eat the pine processionary caterpillars of course - they are encouraged to congregate in the zone to then take the evil invaders out when they appear!

The forecast for the week isn't great, but I hope there will be some fine days to take advantage of out in the gardens and woodlands.  Have a good week!

 

End of an era, in more ways than one

So last week saw me back in England for a few days - there was family stuff to do and people to see, and a final work presentation to do.

I started off heading for Saffron Walden, via Hatfield, to see family.  Visiting Hatfield was also a bit of a blast from the past, having spent years there as a student and post-grad.  The Gateway superstore with flats above had been removed and replaced with an Asda superstore with no flats above, the shopping centre was as grim as ever, and I met a rat in an underpass.  Time hasn't been kind to Hatfield, and even the airfield where de Havilland, then BAe, used to test planes has now disappeared under brick, tarmac and concrete.

On a happier note, Saffron Walden is as pretty as ever, like a TV set town in a Midsummer Murder or similarly nostalgic show, where buildings are pretty, the population handsome, traffic diverted from where you want to be, the sun shines and plants bloom.  

I also went to Harwich - somewhere I last visited when a niece got married perhaps 25 years ago?  To get to where I needed to be, I managed to avoid the town centre, which might have disappointed, and instead just followed the A120 until it fizzled out near the Lifeboat Museum.  This is a quaint corner of town, with narrow roads, pretty houses and a view onto the estuary from nearly every point.  There is a moored up Pirate Radio ship, bringing waves of nostalgia as I remembered hours listening to Caroline or Laser 252 as alternatives to Radio 1, which never seemed to have good reception.  There was also a memorial to the Kindertransports of the late 1930s.

After a couple of nights with family, I had to move on to my main purpose of the visit - Norwich and the Broads.  Thursday saw the celebration event, drawing to a close the magnificent Water, Mills and Marshes Landscape Partnership Scheme, while also alerting partners to a new, bigger, better fund from Heritage Lottery which will kick off next year.  The presentation was held at the Norwich University of the Arts Immersive Visualisation laboratory, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, among others.  My rather boring and untechnical presentation was done on a normal screen with rows of chairs in traditional form.

My low tech presentation was let down by the computer mouse not advancing slides, so Farrell of the Broads Authority (see last week) had to lie on the floor and manually click the keyboard to make things happen.  As the lighting was low, I couldn't see my notes so some of the detail of the slides had to be glossed over, probably a good thing for the person on the floor. 

Once the retrospective celebration was done, people could concentrate on the exciting new stuff - the new funding opportunity and the immersive screen.  At 10 metres in diameter and 4 metres tall, the screen is amazing, and when video and audio work together, almost as good as being out there yourself, but with huge potential for exploring simulated futures as well as the past.

But planning for and evaluating the new fund and working with the immersive screen is for others younger than I.  That was my last ever evaluation project, my last ever professional presentation - unless Baugé en Anjou ever discovers what I can do, I guess, but I doubt it.  Now I turn the page on an evaluation career that lasted for 30 years, and move on to a new stage in my life, and see where that takes me!

I left Norwich with some regrets - it is a lovely city, set in a beautiful area of England, but I am not sure I will be going back.  Another quick pitstop at Hatfield reminded me why we left there in 1989 without much of a backward glance, while the tarmac purgatory that is Portsmouth Harbour positively pushed me home!

So, home again, but here too there have been changes while I was away. 

Something over 15 years ago, John took in next door's rather neglected and abused cat, Nennette.  He had her sterilised (she was a good Mum, but much better off without the wherewithal  for more), brought her into the house, had her chipped and parasites removed and her vaccinations done.  We also changed her name to Nibbles - partly because Nennette was a horrid name, and partly because in those days, if you got too close, she would bite.  Actually she never really got out of the nibbling phase, but it was done more in affection than in fear in later years. 

Six years ago she had a stoke, which left her rather deaf, and with a tendency to walk in diagonals, but did not stop her climbing walls and trees.  A couple of years ago she developed hyperthyroidism, which led to her going blind about a year ago.  On Wednesday, her heart gave out, and she left us.  

For a small cat, she had a larger than life character.  Her facial expressions were amazing - often disapproving.  She brought rats back for her kittens, which our neighbour treated with a certain horror, but we pointed out he should accept as the presents she intended them to be, and that he should feed her more!  She had a five year battle with a green woodpecker that tried to visit the garden.  She liked to taunt and goad dogs.  She liked sandalwood scented soap.

What a lot to say this week!  I have brought home a trail camera, so next week there may be a wildlife photo or two - we can but hope.  Have a good week!

 

 

A week that ends in a feast!

Last Saturday's storm is being claimed as a natural catastrophe as numerous buildings were damaged, though fortunately not ours.  I was in a shop this morning that had been affected.  It is all very well having a foot of insulation in the roof, but when it gets wet, it becomes very heavy and brings down an awful lot of stuff with it!  Not pretty and not good for the shop keeper! 

If you track down WIRED you will find an article about the increasing cost of lightening to buildings and insurance across the world, using the marvellous example of Mutton's Mill in the Norfolk Broads, which has had lightening conductors fitted to all four sails to prevent significant damage in a storm (perhaps try googling Farrell of the Broads Authority to find the story).

[Mutton's Mill, photo credit, Andrew Farrell]

Since the storm, temperatures have got steadily colder, although there are nice sunny days.  Rebus has spotted that the best autumn billet is on top of the beer fridge, as there is no heating on anywhere else and his fur coat is quite thin!

This cold autumnal weather means good sunsets in general, and also nice evenings to stand out and watch bats flitting around, hoovering up all the flies and other winged nasties that come out after dark.  We have at least two types that zoom around our house and garden, and actually the area is well known for its significant bat colonies, with protected caves where they overwinter.

Today (Saturday - I am writing this in advance - see below for why) was the annual Societé de la Paix Mechoui or animal roast, but in practice it is always a pig roast.  Festivities start from midday with people turning up for the aperitif and to admire lunch cooking.

Then everyone gets herded onto two long tables for more aperitifs, starters, the main event of spit roast pork with beans and ratatouille, rounding off the meal with cheese and apple tart.  We generally get home at about 6pm after coffee.  It is a wonderful way to meet people, to share village life and gossip and to feel part of something.  Every year is a bit different, even if the menu doesn't change, and we wouldn't miss it for the world.

Tomorrow I head for England, to see chums and family, and possibly even Mutton's Mill, so next week's story will be very different.  Have a good week!

 

Welcome to Autumn

Meteorological autumn started on the 1st September and autumness is being embraced by fauna, flora and weather with unseemly eagerness.  Temperatures are dropping, and the weather lurches from dismal to awful, with quick hints of sun in between.  Yesterday we were due storms in the afternoon, but needed to spend a few money off vouchers, so didn't get to the place in the country until the rain had started, while thunder rumbled around.  We were lucky, actually, to be there and not at home, where there were strong wind squalls, nearly three times the amount of rain, and hail.  While the barn cats munched their way through their feed, oblivious to the weather, I watched the rain and then checked the lightning strike web page.

There's not much by way of mellow fruitfulness about either.  The berries are rotting on the canes almost before they ripen and the pears are over - not enough for a burping barrel either!  There are apples - the Reine de Reinettes are falling and are quite tasty.  I need to burrow into the Bel de Boskoop to find any there, while the Granny Smiths will hold for ages.  The Canada juicing apples are rotting, then falling, so I fear for the trees if the marauding boar decide they like cider.  We had hoped for a single variety juice pressing this year, but if we do one at all, I think it will be mixed.  The quince are also a disappointment, as they have missed out on the heat and sunshine they need to develop to their full size and become fragrant.  They are falling!  I will have to try to make jelly, but I don't think they will be up to tagine or slow cooked quince standard sadly.  

Also in stark contrast to last year, we can only spot 5 fruits on the cristophine vine, despite it being even bigger than last year!  It also misses the heat and sunshine though it does enjoy a good deluge.

The cyclamen in the lawn have been later to flower than normal - about 3 weeks later if I recall correctly.  I had hoped that the delay might at least mean a full carpet of them around the birch tree.  I may be jaded and depressed with this year, but it seems to me that they too are less bountiful, although new corms have started to produce flowers in far flung areas of the garden.

We are hoping for a decent year for mushrooms, with all the water that there is around.  A walk around the One Acre Wood today showed that there are things popping up, but not interesting edible things so far.

We have found a first bolete, but not where it should be.  There was one growing in the lettuce bed, which I picked, but as there is no oak or chestnut in the Garden area, just a rather large birch tree, I did not risk cooking it.  It could well have been fine, but when picking wild mushrooms, any doubt at all and it goes on the compost heap.

The Marx Sisters have settled in well, and at least two of them have started to lay rather cute small eggs.  Groucho is a greedy so and so and likes to climb into trees and onto tables.  This can be disconcerting.  Harpo bumbles on in her own happy way, and seems to have been the one to come into lay first.  Chico is a bit more of a loner and likes to fly.  Specifically, she likes to fly at my back when I am walking away from her, which is a bit worrying.  Perhaps in a former life, she was an eagle.

I have had another major session with my new strimmer, using the brushcutter head this time, and have a number of projects with that.  More to follow in the coming weeks.  I also probably ought to shuffle the trail cameras around, so again something for another week.

Until next time!

 

Summer ends with a splash!

Friday evening's pub session was grey, cool (I was wearing a sweatshirt, for goodness sake), and distinctly humid.  Saturday morning we woke to a thunderstorm and heavy rain - some 20mm before 11am.  But as so often with summer storms, but midday, the sun was out and temperatures rocketed and we were able to sit out for aperos in the garden and say how lovely it all was.  So at 3:30am, we were unimpressed to be woken with a shock by loud thunder nearly overhead and positively biblical rain, which carried on for a good hour.

I am always surprised after such a violent sounding night, how in the morning, you have to look really hard to find the evidence of the cataclysm that seemed to be going on during the hours of darkness.  Yes, the rain gauge was pretty full, and the one at The Garden was nearly overflowing, and driving to The Garden, there were odd banks of sand by some of the fields, but nothing particularly broken, just a lot more water in the ponds.

It is sad that summer ends so abruptly, not least as we are still in Comice season, and Genneteil were doing the honours this year for the Noyant Villages area.  Still by the time they got to the procession of villages (no fancy floats this year from the Noyant area), the sun was doing its best to shine on them.  I do feel that this year's procession was a demonstration of cruelty to Renault 4s and as I used to drive one, I felt a lot of sympathy for this poor car, pulling a trailer that was too well loaded for the weight of the car.

For an event where the theme was Rock and Retro, I also felt that the non-marching band weren't quite in the swing of the theme by playing Lady Gaga's Poker Face.  But perhaps it is the highlight of their repertoire.

Autumn jobs are coming to the forefront of our thinking.  The Meadow needs to be fully mown and the side paths need to be cleared so that I can get into the little woodland at the end and finally see what is down there.  The Orchard is too overgrown and needs to be sorted out before the walnuts start to fall - not least as walnuts are our rent to the landlady.  So, lots to do, and possibly too much for one man. 

So I rummaged in my moth filled wallet and invested in a strimmer/brushcutter that I can use.  My elbow has ceased to support frequent use of a pullcord for starting a petrol engine, so I have gone for a battery model and used it for the first time yesterday.  The battery lasted longer than I did, which bodes well for later in the autumn.  Me in safety gear, harness and carrying said strimmer is not a good look, but better safe than sorry!

Last Sunday, in a last hurrah to summer, we attended a jazz manouche concert at our local pub - Les Epines de Mymi Rose.  I've wanted to catch one of her concerts for a while, so was delighted to spend a warm summer evening, sitting with a glass of wine. listening to an excellent performance.

One of the delights of autumn here are vivid sunsets, so this from Wednesday night may well be the first of many.  There is much that is autumnal around at the moment, with the giant orange jelly slugs, ripe fruit falling and a certain feel to the air.  I am very fond of early autumn, but not so much this year, as we never seem to have had much of a summer.  Perhaps a week or so in August.

I did mention giant orange jelly slugs - they are numerous and finding life just too, too wonderful at the moment.  Wandering around the One Acre Wood I nearly stopped slug sex but standing on two, but managed to sidestep them just in time.  Fascinating and disgusting at the same time!

Have a good week!