Rural Life

Lockdown III, Day 3 - running around doing stuff

There are things going on that can't be written about here in an open forum, but suffice it to say that trying to get work done while also trying to sort out "stuff" for the other thing has meant a dull and really rather stressful day, but progress has been made on both fronts.

Instead I will see what photos I haven't posted that people might like and comment on them.

18 months ago, we bought a selection of cheap bulbs and planted them at The Shack to add a bit of colour to the bottom of the main plot.  We are completely convinced that we bought a selection of bulbs that would produce white flowers.  Perhaps they came up white last year, I really can't remember, but this year, the only ones to flower so far are these rather fun frilly, yellow tulips.

Again my memory isn't brilliant, but we transplanted our rhubarb to The Shack either 18 months or two years ago.  It is at the bottom of the plot and near a hedge, so in theory the wettest place and the coolest, which we hope will work in our favour.  At home, the garden is too dry and sunny for it to do really well.  Last year we left it alone, but this year, looking at the growth, I am hopeful of a bit of a crop!

This is a view I never get tired of, it changes with the seasons and with the weather and makes my heart lighter.  This is the view from by the entrance to the One Acre Wood, and I love it.

Day 4 may not have a blog - if that is the case, apologies in advance!

 

Lockdown III, Day 2 - not so nice as yesterday

No sun-drenched photos today as the weather has taken a colder and duller turn, and we wait agog for some rain!  We've not had rain, proper rain, since John seeded a new lawn about 3 weeks ago - blame him!!  We had to go back to The Shack today to feed the Boys in the Country, so took some time to check the Asian Hornet trap we have there (I did write about it last year, but can't immediately find the blog).  I'd been pretty chuffed to find one critter in there on Friday last week, but today there were 3!  Nasty brutes too.  It is important to trap and kill these over-wintered queens as they have small nests dotted about, in which they are raising their fertile brood of up to a dozen future queens.  Get them now and that is up to a dozen per queen big nests full of bee eating hornets that won't happen.

We also admired, or tried to, the shallots that are starting to come up.  We were so pleased with how they grew last year, that we bought rather more this year, and there is a larger bed with 33 sets trying to do what they do.  They are hampered in that by big fluffy cats who find nicely turned, dry earth a lovely way to remove excess fur, and roll around in an abandoned fashion.  This is Donald doing his thing.

We walked the boundaries to check that all was well, and met the neighbours at the bottom of the orchard where there are a couple of small ponds.  They thought we were very interesting.

And then we admired cherry blossom along the boundary of the wild flower meadow - you can see just how different it is to the pear blossom I showed yesterday, can't you?  Sadly as it was cold, there was no comforting buzz of busy bees and no cherry blossom perfume, but that will be back later in the week with the sun.

The sun should be back tomorrow, for rather prettier pictures!

 

It's back! Confinement Blog! Day 1

From yesterday evening at 7pm, France entered its third Covid lockdown.  Many call this Lockdown Lite, as there are fewer restrictions in some ways, although reading through the rules in detail this morning I found a big difference to last time.  We don't need attestations for travel up to 10km from home between 6am and 7pm this time, so we can get to The One Acre Wood (off limits last spring) and The Shack without paperwork.  We just need to carry our residency permits with us.

So what is different?  I cannot get to la Flèche market, I will be deprived of my raw butter, my croissants and my suppliers of chorizo, serrano ham and rotisserie chicken legs.  This is because while I can travel up to 30km for purchases of premier necessité (i.e. food, plants), I can't go over departmental boundaries, and thus la Sarthe is closed to me.  Not happy about that at all.

Still today we could go to the Shack and prepare the beds for tomatoes, squashes and courgettes, and sweetcorn.  The sweetcorn bed had been manured and rotavated, so just needed to be levelled and covered until we sow later this month once the cold snap is over.  The tomato and squash beds had been rotavated and covered, but then needed manure adding and recovered.  All ready now!

From the Shack, we went to the One Acre Wood to pay homage to the King of the Forest who is just starting to get his new leaves on.

Further down the hill in the Wood, we spotted the first spikes and buds of lily of the valley coming through - in total I think there were about 7 showing but there will be many more coming up in the next couple of weeks.

At home, there is a lot of blossom.  While the plum is now over (and we will have to protect the tree overnight for the next three nights of sharp frost to protect any tiny set fruit), the pear is in full swing and the first of the apple trees is starting to have open blossom.  The cherry next door is coated and has a strong perfume (see - no sign of Covid for me!).

Although this week might be a bit erratic (major changes in the offing in some aspects of our lives), I will try to do my daily confinement blog, although I know many of my readers are now starting to enjoy ever more freedom!  We felt for you in your extended lockdown, feel for us in ours!