Rural Life

Let's talk weather, gardens and partying

The weather remains the number one topic in our household as British visitors start to drift over for the summer and expect their gardens to look lovely, while the incessant rain makes that pretty near impossible.  There was a brief window of dry weather on Thursday when we could get out to deal with the two most urgent cases, but even so the ground is now soggy, and in places it isn't nice to drive a ride on lawnmower.  To add insult to injury, in the short period where you can use motorised garden tools yesterday (Sunday) morning, it rained and then rained most of the afternoon too, so that we got soaked again doing a necessary harvest, plus some emergency weeding and sowing!

Weather

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The crop that had to be harvested yesterday, when I should have been writing this blog, was the garlic.  The stems were dying down and the wet soil would not help the ability to store the bulbs, so we got them in and put them to dry in the wood store.  In about a week I should be able to pick over them and pack them better for storage.  We also lifted another of the conical Hispi cabbages that we have been growing.  We picked the first one on Tuesday and had it steamed with butter - o my word how yummy was that!  There are also occasional surprising flowers, like this magnificent orange day lily.

Garden produce

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As more people get vaccinated (I had my second jab today), and we get used to seeing places open, life is getting a little more social.  Monday morning was nice (the afternoon was truly vile), and it was pleasant to sit out in the place near the Mairie in Chinon and watch café society.  Saturday was a day for partying, and so as well as going to a micro-brewery for an excellent beer tasting (as designated driver, I got a tiny sip of each), we actually went out for a meal for the first time in many, many months.  I don't think I've eaten out since October last year in fact, so it was lovely to sit under the plane trees in Chinon and have a meal cooked by a professional.  Finally, there is a significant birthday (well not in number terms, but in the person whose birthday it is) in the village this week, and the pub laid on a little do for her and her chums (including us) yesterday morning on their covered terrace.  A good thing the terrace is covered, as it p***d down with rain all through.  It was so nice to see people other than the family circle!

Getting social

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And then there are animals.  Don't ever think that chickens are cute and cuddly, they are closely related to dinosaurs (remember the velociraptors of Jurassic Park), omnivores who will eat anything.  Mac or Jak found a baby bird, and spent a happy hour running around trying to eat it and keep it all for herself too.  As hens don't have teeth, and don't know how to keep things quiet, this took a long time, and was disgusting. 

There is a small, spring-fed pool at one of the houses where we do lawns.  We have seen newts in it in the past, but this week it was all waterboatmen and frogs.  When the photo was taken, there were 8 sitting out on leaves and making a racket, and I suspect if I had stood still for a bit longer, there would have been more.  Either a frog orgy or a tenement!

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Apologies for being a day late - I'll try to do better next week.

 

Brutal weather and projects

I stupidly mentioned kindly weather last time round - well that will teach me!  Last Sunday was hot and the temperatures just kept rising on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I was on mowing duty on Monday and had to do that in the morning to keep it reasonable.  Tuesday evening aperos were in the garden and 31ºC at 7pm, so of course when it broke on Wednesday, it went with a bang!  There were reports of tornados, hours of sheet lightening and heavy rain Wednesday to Thursday, and I saw the damage as I drove the roads round Rillé on Friday.  It was still hot and sticky though, so more showers, more storms, more humidity.  Yesterday that culminated in a storm front that went across France causing havoc.  We were lucky, but St Nicholas de Bourgeuil lost its church spire to a tornado, while the floods in Saumur and towns near Paris and Reims were extraordinary.

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Yesterday was market day, and as I had company and the terraces are open, we took the opportunity to stop at one of the cafés around the market to have a drink and watch the world go by.  I am used to watching sparrows scavenge around under tables, but it was the first time I've seen a chaffinch do that.  If you are reading this on a computer or tablet, it is worth looking closely at the third photo - I'm rather proud of that one!

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This morning, after paying homage to the Cats in the Country, we went to the open day at l'Or de la Ruche - a professional bee keeper and purveyor of honey, where there was also an exhibition on Asian hornets and how to trap them, and a bit of a producers' market too.  It was a lovely little event, no face masks as there was plenty of space to spread out, and yet enough people to let you think life might return to normal one day.

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This afternoon we went out to a Brocante - O, how daring and how wonderful!  We were on a mission as the Chinon One would like a footstool for his birthday next week, and this seemed a likely place - a huge warehouse at Beaufort en Vallée.  Bizarrely, footstools were not plentiful.  There were bar stools, milking stools, coffee tables and a camel saddle, but just one footstool - rather modern and with a not very nice cover, but at 10€, something of a bargain, even if we are going to recover it.  It seems to do what was required anyway.  We did find another option as well - an old barley twist chair that has certainly seen better days, and the back struts are badly split.  But take off the back, cover the sawn off bits with a bit of foam and new fabric, add the missing stretcher, give it a good polish, and the chair will make a rather fine and unique foot stool as well.

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Until next week!

 

Orchids, roses and vegetables

The first half of the week passed in a blur of reading reports, analysing numbers and trying to get it all down in a logical way and make some sense of it all.  By Wednesday evening, when the first draft of the report was sent, my mind was mush.  Thursday I must have done something useful - but it is hard to remember what.  Ah yes, new cylinder for the sodastream, visiting a couple of clients, feeding cats and sewing labels into summer shirts - clearly I did quite a bit that was useful!!

After the usual Friday visits, the new normal allowed us to go to the pub, sit out on the terrace and enjoy being around people, while taking on a glass or two of something cold.  It is so good to start the old normal experiences.  Tomorrow should have seen a bit of yoga too, but local elections mean the large village hall wasn't available, while the room offered as a substitute, as well as having a huge framed photo of the President, was not really conducive to socially distanced yoga for seniors.  So we are cancelled until September, which is a shame.

Today we were out and about before the temperatures got too hot to do anything other than wilt.  As well as productive things (more later), I spotted three different types of orchid out - two in the Orchard, and one in the One Acre Wood.  Here are a bee, a lizard and a birds nest!

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The roses are also coming on nicely at The Shack.  There is a splendid white climbing rose with a delicate scent by one of the outbuildings, which is putting on a great display - next week will be all about dead heading I guess.  The Fergus Memorial Rose, or Orange King as the label more officially calls it, has also put out its first flower.  I photographed it both yesterday and today, but today's photo was after there had been a lot of strimming, so there were bits of shredded weed in the flower.  I've not included that one!

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The vegetables are coming on.  Today I picked all remaining broad beans, and also lifted one of the main crop garlic to see what was going on, as the leaves and stems looked like they had been ravaged by rust, but there was a nice bulb and later on we will eat it to check on flavour!  The sweetcorn I sowed last Saturday ALL came up, so I had to spend time thinning out the excess plants, which really, really hurt.  I also planted out three more butternut squashes and four Bright Lights chard, the latter hidden among the shallots to get a bit of shelter while they establish themselves.  The shallots will be lifted in about a month at which point the chard can do what it likes.  Getting rid of the broad bean plants will give the peppers, aubergines and tomatoes more light, which will be good.

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There is also a lot of wildlife around.  Yesterday we visited a friend so John could do his Lawnmower Repair Man act (not totally successfully, but there is a deeper seated problem than he can get at).  She has swallows nesting in her stables and while the parents were out gathering beakfuls of insects for the offspring, I was able to look in and catch a photo.  Today, after I had toiled and done hammock time as a reward, I did my nature walk around the Orchard and the Wildlife Meadow.  The wild scabious is coming out which means an explosion of marbled white butterflies, which are just lovely to watch and occasionally take a photo of too!

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Next week's episode may be a bit late, but should have more exciting things to discuss, assuming the weather is a bit kind.

 

 

It's starting to get seriously nice finally

The weather has mostly perked up nicely, but we did have a blip between Wednesday and Friday, first with storms and lots of rain (26mm over three days here, a bit more at The Shack as it was in the path of a big storm) and then a really nasty, cold, wet Friday, before picking up again yesterday.  If Meteo France are to be believed, we now have a clear run of fine and hot weather (over 25ºC apparently is the definition they use for hot) for the next 15 days.  We'll see!

Friday was a day for a bit of private contemplation and a vigil on the way to Chinon and Azay - the weather was "ideal", or at least reflected my mood.  At la Chapelle sur Loire you can get down the river, where there are benches, picnic tables and bike racks, as well as a slipway into the river.  It was peaceful, despite the traffic on the levee road, and I was on my own, but entertained by swallows and sand martins skimming the river for bugs, egrets doing what egrets do, and things that looked like plovers, but probably weren't, out on the sandbanks.  The river took a reed down to the sea with my blessing.

Cats have been relatively disgraceful during the warmer weather (during the cold wet weather, they got wet and smelly).  Zola and Nibbles demonstrate their personal preferences for drink, while if Donald spots anyone in the hammock, he launches himself on them and has a wiggly love-in!  All very cute.

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The vegetable plots are looking more lush, or overgrown, which ever you prefer.  The tomatoes are climbing up their supports, while the shallots are starting to sag as the bulbs start to swell.  I had to resow sweetcorn yesterday, as 7/51 is a pretty poor germination rate.  Checking the seed packets, they recommend sowing 4 or 5 seeds per station and then thinning out any stragglers - well I resowed at 3 per station as I cannot abide the thought that I might be throwing out so many plants.  Although I might have got the maths wrong...  Anyway, once they were all in and the bed tamped down, Clause launched himself onto it, rolled across the whole area and dug two test pits before finding the one that deserved his poo.  The seedbed is now covered in cut branches of leylandii.  Meanwhile I picked more broad beans and dug up another feral garlic for supper.

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While I tended to the plants that will feed us, John struggled with strimmer and mower to cut paths through overly lush grass and brambles to enable us to walk around the Orchard and wildflower meadow and admire wildlife and flowers.  Particularly in the orchard, this makes a lovely walk and provides enticing views that might make you think this was a serious bit of garden design (and of course, you would be right).  Following the paths cleared for me, I admired many bee orchids (but only so many photos of those today), and spotted that the badgers had been doing a bit of spring cleaning.

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At home, we have slightly less tasteful flowers to admire, but the bumble bee I spotted seemed very happy to work her way over the red hot pokers.

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So, have a lovely week, enjoy the weather, and look out for happy bumble bees and discrete bee orchids.