Rural Life

Spring, birds and horses

It's now officially spring!  Days are longer than nights, the weather is capricious and mostly warmer, and birds are singing.

The bird song is now getting pretty intense.  The all year round residents of the land in the Country (Garden, Orchard and Meadow) are getting pretty frisky and pairing up or even sorting out nests.  All year round we have a loud chorus of chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, robins, blackbirds and carrion crows.  During the winter, the woodpeckers (greater spotted and green in the main), dunnocks and long tailed tits are also very audible, with a core of about 10 species all year round.  We get a few interesting things passing through such as hawfinch and redwing as well.

Now the first of the summer visitors are coming back, with chiffchaffs, blackcaps and Cetti's warblers making a real racket, drowning out my beloved skylarks much of the time.  It is still too early for my summer favourites - nightingales, melodious warblers (even the name is fabulous) and golden orioles, but by the end of April they may be here.  I am astounded at the variety of birds we get, few of which are in the "concerns" categories of endangered species, but the sheer variety must mean something good.  Most months we have at least 30 to 35 species spotted using the Merlin birdsong analysis app - I have to stress that visual sightings are generally pretty limited, due to the quality and quantity of hiding places!

We spent Saturday in a very different way to normal, with a day at the races, courtesy of my brother who part owns a couple of horses and one was racing at Angers hippodrome yesterday.  I have been to the races at Worcester as a guest of an owner, and the dress code was formal, so heels, frock, posh jacket, a bit of bling and lippy.  No such codes were applied at Angers - clean, comfortable and suitable for the weather was the order of the day, even in the panoramic restaurant, where we had lunch with the trainer.

Even in the stable area, where we went to see the boy being walked around to warm him up, everything was very informal and open.

We were allowed in the parade ring, which I didn't photograph as we were listening to the discussion between trainer and jockey and then working out whether to bet (we didn't) and where best to watch the race.  We found a very good spot, on the advice of the trainer, right by the finish line and quite well sheltered from the typically moist and dank weather, that has plagued us these last 6 months.  I was well placed to see them jump the water fence.

For the bits of the race that weren't close by, we were also well placed to watch the big screen with the action from cameras around the course, and naturally there was the usual, unintelligible commentary over the loudspeakers.

Given the excellent position, I was able to capture him going over the finish line (navy blue shirt with a yellow V), not first, but not last and he made it all the way round, which 3 of his competitors didn't.

We then spent a lot of time with him, both in the ring and at the stables, as he cooled off after his exertions over 3,700 metres and a bunch of fences (I didn't count how many).  The initiated and eagle eyed will spot that he is missing a shoe, which he shed somewhere down the back straight - the jockey knows where!  You will also note the rather lovely heart shaped mark on his forehead - he is called Legend Race, which seems a silly name to me.

That was his first run for my brother and his colleagues, and his first race over fences; he has had a couple of outings over hurdles before this.  Overall, everyone was very happy, and it was certainly a fun day out.  Racing in France - much more egalitarian than the UK, and cheaper too!

I'll finish this week with a couple more flower photos, because it is that time of year when every new bloom is a source of joy.  Firstly there is a flower that isn't a cow slip and isn't a polyanthus and isn't a primrose, but probably a hybrid of all three.

And then there are my tiny anemones that each year I fear will have died off, but which appear again every spring over the space of a few weeks, and contrast nicely with the shoots of peonies that are springing up.

Soon there may be tulips!  Have a good week!

 

And we're back!

Apologies - there really is nothing that can be done when the main provider server is down.

Spring is so close now - the official start date is Thursday 20th March in France anyway - and we have been having more and more tasters of (hopefully) better days to come.  As you drive around the countryside now, the hedges are dominated by the bright, white blossom of blackthorn and wild plums.  It is a sight that always fills me with hope and anticipation for the longer days and better weather to come.  The blossom should also provide a lovely rich feed for the insects that will be starting to get the countryside humming, although up to now, the only place I have heard that buzz has been in a garden with japonica in full bloom.  The plum tree blossom that I have been tracking for the past few weeks is now out - but if you look at the photo, there are no bees to be seen.

Other flowers are also coming out - parts of the Meadow and Garden are turning into cowslip lawns.  I use the term cowslip probably to generously, as I gather there are lots of variants, but the number of these and the colour variations that we will get in due course (red and orange) are a very happy sight for me.  They are so prolific that mowing even paths can be a challenge if one is obsessed with not taking a few out!  Whatever, they are a sign that I need to get out in the garden more.

A sure sign that spring is on its way is the start of the car boot season, or vide grenier as they are called over here - literally empty attic.  Jarzé has the first major one, and it is big!  Despite foul weather with warnings of sleet and snow, between 150 and 200 brave souls turned out to set up their stands from about 6:00am and most would have to wait until about 5:00pm to be able to get away again.  In response to the terror attack years ago in Nice, events like this mean that roads are blocked off with large vans and huge slabs of concrete if held on public roads (fields are a bit different).  I would guess something between 10,000 and 20,000 people will have traipsed the length of Jarzé on Sunday in search of that essential item or elusive bargain.  We bought nothing but saw lots of people we knew.

As well as the outside plants starting to put on a show, my special Mediterranean corner of the Country Kitchen (or cat feeding room) is doing well.  The lemon "tree" is looking healthy and the leaves are a better colour than they were at the start of the winter.  The tiny olive "tree" seems taller and glossier now, while the big plant that we inherited from Francois the Drunk, and split into three, is preparing to flower.  The other two bits are in pots outside, and while they survived last winter, this one doesn't seem to have been as easy on them.  We will see if they revive and then I will bring them indoors in the autumn!

I am very fortunate to have a chum who used to grow flowers for a living and still has a large number of cutting flower plants.  If you pop round to see her for any reason, it is hard to get away without a bunch of something.  My latest gift was a bunch of large and lovely anemones - wow, they are spectacular!

Now that the birds have found the fat balls that I put out for them over the winter, they can't get enough of them.  This is a shame as I stop feeding the birds on the 1st April, as there might be babies hatching and they don't need the somewhat artificial foods in commercial fat balls, or peanuts.  This fuzzy image shows two well fed great tits stuffing their beaks - I would prefer it if they were ripping the pine processionary nests apart, but they are lovely to watch.

So that's it for this week's late epistle, and I hope to be back on Sunday as usual.  Have a good rest of the week!

 

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow

Typepad has had a server issue for a couple of days, but is now working again nicely, so I'll write Sunday's blog tomorrow!

Spring-like activity

This last week, we have been blessed with spring weather in all its glory - sunshine and soft breezes have been the order of the day, although that is changing this weekend.  It has been a wonderful boost to the spirit and to the body to spend time outdoors, to feel the sun on our skin, to shed layers of sweatshirts, thick socks, rubber boots and to sit out and impersonate lizards.  Nature is playing along too, with spring bulbs sprouting and pulling away.  I am most proud of my improvised planters for a couple of packs of Aldi special tulips (other cheap supermarkets are available), and am looking forward to a couple of flowers each at least!

It's official, the last 12 months have been in deficit for sunshine and by quite a lot too - something like 20% less hours of sunshine than average.  While March has tried to make up for it, things are a bit behind.  The glories of Facebook tell me that my grape hyacinths are late, as are my blue anemones!

We decided to spend most of Tuesday working at the Garden in the Country, which meant we were able to do useful things like shift water between storage tanks, do a proper mow on the meadow before anything got too tall, start to rotavate the potato bed, and plant up summer bulbs.  We also sat out for a picnic lunch on the terrace overlooking the Orchard.  Good quality tinned sardines with artisan bread, "raw" butter, tea made with water boiled in the Kelly kettle, using twigs that were getting in our way as fuel - life doesn't really get much better than that!

Friday evening was not spent as it should be, at the pub putting the world to rights, but rather opening up a house for an estate agent to show it to potential purchasers.  They were late and annoying, but given the current weather, it wasn't so bad standing around in the garden, listening to the birds chatting their way to bed.  As the sun set rather dramatically through the trees in the distance, I saw my first bat of the season swooping around.  I hope it found lots of insects to make the evening's display worthwhile!

A couple of weeks ago (when I was feeling more positive about the world), I showed a photo of plum blossom forming.  It has taken its time to mature, and a very few blooms were out today, but most are still just thinking about it.  Very soon now there will be rich pickings for foraging insects as the plum trees start the procession of blossom.  Next it will be peaches, then cherry and pear, with apple and quince bringing up the rear - or that is the theory anyway.  The quince trees are showing very fecund buds, but the leaves come before the flowers so that is probably alright.  Of the various varieties of apple we have, the Granny Smith has the most obvious flower buds, while the Victoria plum is well behind the mirabelle style plums at the Meadow.

The forecast for next week is not so good, so there is a chance I will bring home a trail camera for servicing and clearing the memory card.  On the other hand, if the forecasters are being overly pessimistic, I could be planting onions and even a few spuds, so who knows?  The bloke at lunchtime wouldn't do a forecast further than Monday afternoon - isn't it wonderful how with all the satellites and computing power that goes into weather forecasting, they still can't see further ahead than 48 hours?

And on that note - have a good week!

 

Such variety!

All of a sudden, the weather has changed and the fog has lifted.  Spring flowers are starting to show, and I am particularly pleased with these miniature narcissi, that are flowering in the Fergus Memorial Flowerbed.  I would buy pots with sprouting bulbs from the market at la Flèche a couple of years ago, as pressies for my mother when she was in her nursing home.  The heat of her room brought them on quickly, so she enjoyed watching them develop and bloom, and once the flowers started to fade, I would swap them out for something else and plant the pot of bulbs somewhere in the gardens.  Today I found a clump of hyacinth leaves, but they won't be out for a while yet.

The sunshine inspires us to activity - today I ache, having been taunted by brambles into doing some strimming yesterday.  We got another trailer of compost on Friday and have started to move that down to the potato bed, ready for John to do some rotavating soon.  I have potted up freesia bulbs and small strawberry plants for treats later in the year, and have started to tackle the pile of things I put to one side to wash when the weather meant they could be dried outside.  Our solitary crocus also chose this week to bloom and fade away again.

An evening job is to close up the chicken run.  We don't lock them in a coop, they prefer to roost on a high perch and it is probably safer and certainly more hygienic that they do so, avoiding too much red mite infestation.  Bridie the Freeloading Bantam spends her days with the flock but at night prefers her own company on the roof of the chicken run, even when it rains.  As she is pretty feral, we can't insist on putting her in the run.  When we close up at night, we give them a ration of corn (not maize) to peck at so they sleep with a full crop and have something to mull over during the long evenings (no TV for them!).  Bridie takes her ration on the chicken run roof, so one walks back to the house with a percussive accompaniment as she taps at the grains.

Which brings me nicely to the main topic this week.  Last week I brought in the trail camera that sits at the crossroads of two animal tracks.  I love this location, as the camera is high enough to get a good view and avoid eye contact with the animals. there is next to no human traffic, so it is all about the wildlife, and as time goes by, the activity is more and more natural.  As it is by water, there is also a good variety.  Ignoring the small birds (blackbirds, thrushes, great tits) and rodents (mice and rats), as well as cats, there are 9 reels that follow, each with a different species captured over the past 2 months.

In December, there was this nice footage of a badger - not a species I had noted there before.

There were also pheasants knocking around, having escaped the seasonal dinner table I guess.  This was a male that hadn't been tagged - some have plastic neck collars, indicating they have been released I believe.

In January, the fox was knocking around, presumably looking for a nice, tasty mouse or rat to nibble on.

The coypu was also out and about - I've not seen him taking much interest in plants before, although they are vegetarian I gather.

Of course there is a chance that the coypu was checking out markings left by other species.  You can see here that the same twig got marked by the pine marten that lives around there.

The deer wander through here but can't get out at the far end as they are too tall and not strong enough to force their way through the undergrowth either.  When it is dry I think they pop down into the pond, but not at the moment as it is pretty full.

I was delighted to pick up images of the hare - I had been afraid that the poacher who brazenly mooches through our land had picked them off, so this film was delightful.

Then there are the boar!  This is rare to see, as it is a video in daylight, but count them and know that one or possibly two went through before the video started and there are still two or three to come at the end of the footage!  I find the piglets delightful, with their striped coats, but there really are too many and with up to three litters of up to 10 piglets per year, they could yet take over Western France!

And finally, video sets from this point would not be complete without the mallards.  This seemingly bonded couple have appeared in the last fortnight, and I imagine there will be ducklings in due course, once the male has gone off again! 

The forecast for the coming week is excellent, so I expect to be doing a lot of gardening, and then moaning about how much I ache.  I have a trail camera focussed on another crossroads by ponds which needs to come in for checking and then repositioned, as the point where it is gets far too much human traffic.  I can't promise that for next week I'm afraid.

Have a good week!

 

A more positive outlook

Finally bugs are behind me for the moment and I can look more positively at the coming weeks and think about what needs doing.  Last week we dug up the very last potatoes from the 2024 crop - a bit sprouted but eating nicely!  The potato bed is now getting ready for other, more interesting crops, having received most of the 400 kilos of top quality compost.  The first strip has been sown (too late in my view, but nothing I can do) with broad beans, with wire cages over the top to defend the seed bed from cat bottoms.  The next block will have onions and shallots when I am a bit more convinced about the weather, while the final block should have the aubergines, chillies and courgettes, assuming I get round to sourcing plants or sowing my own.

On Friday I picked up what I thought would be refurbished Asian hornet traps, but turned out to be brand new ones, with my old trap numbers painted on them.  They will go out in the next couple of days, as I have seen a bumble bee, so things are starting to stir in insect world.  The plum blossom on the mirabelle style trees is starting to look very close to exploding so that will attract other things, and therefore also overwintered Asian hornet queens looking for nourishment.

The fog is less omnipresent at the moment and that means we are getting more interesting sunsets of an evening.  It is also lovely that those sunsets are ever later into the evening - just 4 weeks now until the clocks go forward, although the mornings are still too dark to be inspiring.

In theory this is the last weekend of the big game hunting season - I'm sure they will find a good reason to carry on but Sunday walks may be safer from next weekend onwards!  Looking around the plot, there is evidence of a lot of animals on the move, and I've just scanned through some trail camera footage which shows that nothing has stopped the wild boar in their inexorable fight to conquer the French countryside, as a group of 15 passed through!  For today you will have to do with print evidence though.

This week I had to resort to ordering a load of t-shirts - we've not indulged for perhaps 5 years and it is showing, so I gave in to cheap fashion and ordered 7 (3 for me, 4 for John).  Home delivery didn't seem to be possible without a huge additional cost, while leaving the parcel at a local shop didn't seem to be an option any more - I had to choose between three different ranges of deposit boxes.  Now I have to say it all worked really nicely and from placing the order on Wednesday, it was pretty amazing to collect the goods on Friday, but...  I liked going to a shop to pick up the parcel, sometimes I was tempted to buy something from them too, and certainly they got paid a bit for being the deposit point.  So while these boxes work very nicely, I think I preferred the human touch!

Now I need to go and watch the last half hour of an exciting rugby match!  Have a good week!

 

Sunshine makes everything better

This last week has all been about the slow recovery from a nasty bout of 'flu, with a slight blip when a gastro bug decided to make life more challenging.  But aside from that, it is amazing how sunshine makes things feel so much better!  On Monday, the sun was a bit tentative, and with dramatic clouds that did nothing but look impressive, so it was enough to tempt me out for a short walk to get the blood circulating and track down a bit of vitamin D.  The church was looking as magnificent as ever, to create a perfect image of sunshine, cloud and architecture.

There was a cruel wind, so to keep out of its path, I kept to the small lanes and built up bits of the village, rather than stride out to the route de Beaufort.  For a change I pottered down the cobbled lane that leads to the lavoir, or village wash house, to admire the clear spring that rises from a chum's cellar into a deep pool before pouring through the washhouse and down to the river.  Even in the big droughts a couple of years ago, the spring didn't dry up and it is always tempting to dip one's toes in during the summer.  Nothing would have tempted me to dip any bit of me in it on Monday!

Tuesday morning we treated ourselves to a trip to the compost emporium nearby.  They take all the green waste from the local tip as well as serious loads from farmers and others with significant quantities of "material" and on an industrial scale, produce the most marvellous compost.  Bagged up, it is a bit pricey, but take along your own trailer and it is much more reasonable.  A trailer load of about 400kg comes in at 32Euros, or roughly what you would pay for 3 bags of 50 litres of something that has been sitting around at a DIY shop for a few months but has "added goodness" apparently.  They also have a loyalty scheme.  Of course the only challenge now it to move it out of the trailer and onto the bits of garden that need it.

A bit of sunshine and a bit of motivation and the ability to be distant from a bathroom was all I needed this morning to do a bit of work in the garden.  There were a few final potatoes to lift before they got too interested in growing, so I struggled with the heavy clay soil to get them up.  While they are covered in weed suppressant matting, so there aren't too many weeds, the soil has soaked up as much water as it can and is heavy and unpleasant to work with.  Despite that, I managed to disturb a hibernating slow worm.  I put him in a sunbeam so he could warm up enough to move to safer ground, and stood guard while he did so, ensuring no prowling birds or cats could attack him in his sleepy state.  I'm sure I'll see him again later in the year - we do seem to have loads and I am very fond of them for their slug control capacities.

Finally, the early spring bulbs are doing their thing, and in very sheltered corners, the first of the daffodils are showing flowers.  Others will take up the challenge as it gets warmer, but these are tucked under an apple tree so not in any draughts.

The forecast is good for the next few days, so I should be able to tackle the compost and prune apple trees and set up my hornet traps and get prepared for spring, which isn't so far away now!  Have a good week!

 

Going out and about, and the 5 stages of 'flu

On the 31st January, I was out and about doing stuff.  It was a Red Day, so not appealing to be at home.  Poirot needed a vet visit to see how her eye ulcer was getting on, which then meant a visit to the pharmacy for more eye antibiotics.  The race horse that my brother owns a small portion of was due to race at Pau, so we also needed to pop into our friendly PMU (bar with bookie facilities).  Then of course there was the Friday evening ritual of a beer or two at our local to say goodbye to the week.  Sometime, somewhere in that lot, a nasty little green and many tentacled virus decided that I was its next best friend, and started to do its worst.

This leads to my empirical observations of the five stages of 'flu.

Stage 1 - Denial

I'm fine - that slight tickle in my throat means nothing.  OK, so there is a bit of snot, but the hazel catkins are full of pollen - it's just an early allergy.

Stage 2 - Complacency

I've had one cold already this winter, how bad can this be?  Just carry on doing the stuff I need to do, like feeding and giving medicine to cats, and thinking about stuff for clients.  I'll be fine.  OK so my throat hurts and my sinuses are full, but it is JUST A HEADCOLD.

Stage 3 - Fear

Well this is it - I'm going to die!  I can only breathe when sitting up, at which point I start coughing and exuding phlegm from every orifice, including my eyes!  Why did I watch trash TV this evening?  I'm having to relive that dreadful, badly acted story every hour thanks to my fevered state, and when not doing that, my mind is saturated with the images of patients in intensive care during Covid on artificial respirators.  

Stage 4 - Submission 

OMG it's 'flu!  I've got a fever, I can't smell the Vicks that I put on myself - surely a quarter of a jar is enough to smell something?  Let me just recline here (no lying down or I will die), and watch that spool of 20 really awful pop videos, because changing channels is too much effort.  Are 8 mugs of tea in a day too many?  

Stage 5 - Resolve

I will live, and next autumn I WILL, by hook or by crook, get a 'flu jab, because I am not going through that again, ever. Any my goodness, look at what a quarter of a pot of Vicks does to a sweatshirt!  That's an expensive mistake I mustn't repeat.

I remember when working in an office how colleagues would say they had been off for a day or two with the 'flu - well you had to say that, to get it past HR or you had an interview for malingering.  This is I think the third time in my life I have had 'flu and as with the other two times, it hits hard and takes ages to recover from.  The epidemic is now getting less here in France, but it is not something to take lightly.

I do still have those moments when I think "I'll sort that out, collect those books together, sort through that hard drive and clear it when I have a cold and I'm not up to doing anything outside".  This is foolishness and self-deception.  Even when you have a cold, all you want to do is lie on a sofa and watch mind rot - not that carefully scripted box set you want an excuse to watch again (The West Wing), not that faintly educational set of DVDs you've been keeping for a rainy day (Coast), just drivel.

While I was still happily in Stage 2 (Complacency), I worked through more wildlife videos, taken looking up a path we punched through a major bank of brambles.  There are odd animal runs among the stalks, but otherwise it is of limited value and we will be reducing it to a tactical minimum when we can.  Some of them are not as good as I initially thought, but that is Stage 2 Complacency for you!

The hen pheasants walk through it like so many Hinge and Brackets (for those of us who remember those two fine musical dames), while the cock pheasant follows where they lead.  I like that they can't walk in a straight line.

 

The boar use the path we have made - it is better than many they make themselves!  In this batch, note the different ages of boar, including young.  Boar are now producing two litters a year, which means numbers are exploding, an annoying consequence of global warming.  Sadly the hunters aren't much good at controlling them either.  It looks as though one of these may have been injured but it isn't possible to tell if it is a hunting injury.

 

 

I had placed the trail camera here in part to see if the hares were around at all.  Sadly there was no footage of them, but it turned out the area was part of the badger patrol area, and these are some of the best video shorts I've managed to get of them.  I'm so chuffed!

 

Anyway, I need more tea, so that's me done for the day.

Have a good week!

 

Trying again!

New month, same old lies!

O dear - does that sound bitter?!  The last week has been dominated by rain and floods, with a couple of fine interludes, but there has always been that promise that once we got to Saturday, the weather would change.  Yes, it would be cold at night, but the sun would shine, taking daytime temperatures up to a balmy 8 or 9ºC and there would be no rain for about 10 days or so.  The ground would dry out and we could look forward with a certain optimism.  To be fair, yesterday was rather lovely - it was cold, and a bit overcast in the morning, but the afternoon was lovely - just right for starting to sort out next year's firewood!

The dead tree came down with a satisfying thwunk, and we chopped up the top bits and either carried them away or stacked them for carrying away today.  The bird life in the One Acre Wood was giving it some, with great tits trying to out-do robins, who were trying to out-do nuthatches, and the woodpeckers were adding an unsubtle top note to the symphony of bird song.  The two clay pits/newt ponds were full to overflowing with water - I have high hopes of a good crop of tadpoles in the next few weeks, and all seemed right with the world.

Indeed up until 9:45am this morning, all seemed bright and glowing, albeit with a heavy hoare frost.  And then the fog rolled back in and we are back to dank gloom - I'm sure someone has seen Dementors knocking around!!  When we visited the Cats in the Country, it was difficult to make out the top of the Meadow from the Plantation, and that is barely 150 yards!  On a more positive note, I had to take Monsieur Clause to the vet yesterday, as he had a swollen paw - basically an abscess from a bite or cut of some kind.  Today, when I went to give him his drugs, he was waiting for me at the door, although as soon as I greeted him, his paw retreated in pain.  He inhaled his breakfast including the drugs, and then looked pathetic for treats, before I put my wellies on to top up the bird feeder.  While I was away doing that, he decided that the cabin roof was the place to be and jumped up.  Herumph!

On the other day we had sunshine, I got out for a walk around the village.  I went up to a high point I haven't visited for a while, and with the clear winter sun, it was possible to get a nice photo across the valley to an old manor house that was very important back in the day.

I also went down to our river to see how that was coping with the vast amounts of rain we have had.  It is rare that it floods by the village, and the sluice here does help to control the flow, although I think at the moment it is down flat to help evacuate the water away down towards the big rivers further south.

Tomorrow we have the last Red Day of the EDF winter 24/25 campaign, used to control peak load when generation capacity is low, or when the European spot price is high, or a combination of the two.  Last year, they held on to a few days for March, this year I think they will be struggling, as the freezing fog is due to continue for about 10 days as far as I can tell (I do so hope I am wrong though).  Once Red days are gone, I can spend a bit more time working through trail camera files and loading up interesting videos.  There are some nice ones of badgers knocking around, so perhaps next week?

Have a good week!  I'm full of cold and a hacking cough, so I hope things are going better for you!

 

Something evil lurks in California!

There is a written and illustrated blog for today, but somehow it is stuck in cyberspace and I can neither publish it nor share it to Facebook at the moment.

I will try again tomorrow - I imagine it is some form of cyber attack on the host platform.

You may yet find it yourself!!