Rural Life

Hope springs eternal

First off, Happy Belated Burn's Night to my Scottish chums.  In your honour, we broached our second to last tin of haggis (it is now considered contraband to bring it in - one of those gifts of Brexit), and served it with roasted potatoes from our own production (tatties), creamed swede (neeps) and onion gravy (not a drop of whisky in the house - shock, horror).  It was delicious and there was enough left over for a nice snack lunch, hot on buttered toast.

This week's location for the trail camera was, if anything, even more frustrating than the last two.  There is evidence of activity in the zone and when I checked it on Tuesday, there were 92 files saved!  I left it in situ for the rest of the week and took it down yesterday, all eager to see what had been cavorting around for my entertainment.  There were the usual shots of me leaving and arriving, and 89 files showing the sun moving around, condensation drying off, the ambient temperature rising from -1ºC and frosty to 5ºC and sunny over the space of three quarters of an hour.  And in all that time, the only thing moving and setting off the camera?  A dead leaf on the Old Man's Beard!  It was also clearly the only time that there was any sort of breeze during the whole week, which apart from that one morning, was dull, foggy, dank, overcast and really rather cold.  Here is the offending leaf - the camera has moved to another spot, which I hope gets something!

This weekend is the RSPB's Garden Bird Watch weekend, which is also running with a French bird charity too.  The evidence from a week in a secluded orchard where no birds set off the camera is not entirely hopeful for wildlife.  In all seriousness, over the past fortnight, the hunters have "been through" twice round The Shack and seem to have frightened off pretty well everything other than a couple of very dedicated mallard and the small garden birds.  Today we did not manage to raise a pheasant, which we can normally do.  As they are only supposed to be hunting boar, any claims that the hunters are supporting local wildlife seem a bit spurious to me currently.

On a happier note, spring isn't here yet, but it is definitely on it's way.  There are bright yellow catkins around the edge of the One Acre Wood, snowdrops coming up under our quince tree and the daffodils and narcissus around the edge of the Wildflower Meadow are starting to show.

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Looking forward, I'm sure wildlife will be back - roaming around today, we found someone's stash of stolen maize husks and a hole in the fence to the farmer's field with well worn tracks all around.  They may be elsewhere currently, but I'm sure things will come back.  Looking even further forward, the cyclamen are spreading well where we have transplanted corms and the flowers have set seed.  Perhaps in 20 years or so the area will be a carpet of white flowers in the early autumn!

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One thing we have learned, badgers are not put off by coffee grounds.  Back to the drawing board on that one!

 

Not my video today!

Once again my trail camera placement failed!  Deep in the One Acre Wood, left alone without any checking for 6 days, and overlooking some clear trails, following all the advice, I spent the week imagining the videos of deer, foxes, badgers and boar, and dreading the images of poachers and hunters.  What did I get?  One very misty video, due to condensation we think as it was from a very foggy day, of a bird that could have been a jay or a chaffinch sitting on a branch and then flying off.  We couldn't tell which it was as it was so fuzzy we couldn't get a handle on the size or a clear view of colours.  So in answer to the question about if a tree/leaf/branch falls in the forest, does it make any sound, I couldn't tell you as nothing was there to see it and set off the camera!

The weather wasn't all dull and misty/foggy - despite being promised 4 nice days, we did manage 2 where we saw the sun at some stage, and I managed to get some laundry dry outside.  Seasonal affective disorder isn't being talked about much, as Covid is so much more important, but the high pressure gloom that has dominated the north west of France so far this year is enough to drive you to holiday porn of Caribbean beaches or Antipodean glamour.

Given that the trail camera provided no excitement, I have to point out that it hasn't been a totally dull week however.  When we brought our house the staircase had wooden panelling in places, and where someone had cut a hole for an electric socket (long gone), if you put your finger through the hole, you could feel carving.  When the whole two storey staircase had to be ripped out and replaced, we asked the artisans to keep the old panelling, and when we got our hands on it, the carving was as lovely as we had hoped.  I got a chum in the know to do an estimate of age for me, and he said that it wasn't really old linenfold, but it certainly wasn't modern either, and he put it at 17th century - think Jacobean. 

It has taken nearly four years to find another artisan to take the panels, clean them up and turn them into an internal door, but last week the moment arrived and the door was fitted.  It is still missing its transom window, and needs a little adjusting (should happen on Tuesday), but we are already besotted with it.  The guillotine door is to allow the cats to pass through easily, or not (when the door is closed).

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With January dashing by at a frightening speed, we have now invested in seed potatoes and can start chitting them soon, while John has started to build the small polytunnels that might win us a week or two on salads and radishes.  Next week he is muttering about firing up the rotavator and starting to turn the soil for the potato bed, so we can start planting in mid-March.

Finally, I get to work with some amazing environmental projects around England, one of which is Love Your River Cole in Solihull and Warwickshire.  They have just published their first VLog including work to improve the river at Meriden Park and also some nice footage of a heron and an egret.  So as my trail camera didn't provide a nice video, if you have 10 minutes to spare, enjoy this instead.

Until next week!

 

Location, location, location

After three very good weeks with the trail camera, I sadly have to announce a complete failure this week.  We chose a location that was away from the road and surrounded by dense undergrowth, near a water source and with tracks in many directions, seemingly used by animals large and small.  When we collected the camera yesterday, there were 6 files on it, with the least awful photo below.  The others included mainly my bottom retreating from the camera or me getting up close to turn it off.  Clearly that area is not in use at the moment, possibly as the hunt were through last weekend, possibly as it isn't an interesting area at this time of year.  I'll try again there in the spring or summer, but for now the camera has moved on.

So what else has been going on this week?  The gastronomy fest continues, with more truffle influenced meals.  We are using up the last bit of the truffle tonight and that is it until early 2023.  We also had lunch out at our favourite restaurant, and honestly it was hard to move after our 12,55 Euros a head blow out.  I've not had that good a bavette steak for years, while the chocolate mousse was positively intoxicating in its chocolatiness.  

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In order to recover from all the rich food, and to keep warm, we have had to spend time in the One Acre Wood, taking down and chopping up a long dead chestnut tree.  Yesterday we did the felling and sectioning.  There was freezing fog and everywhere was covered in white tendrils as the fog froze onto spider web.  When all was still you could actually hear the ice crystals falling off.  Today we went back with the trailer and a splitting axe (or merlin) and tidied up the largesse, splitting much of it to make it usable.  Reading back over past memories, ten years ago I was able to split a stère of wood almost single handed, but this year I managed about 8 logs.  Mind you, that is an improvement on last year, when I could do almost nothing with a dodgy elbow.

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We support a cat charity locally called Cat's Garfield - they catch, sterilise and rehome, as far as possible, feral and stray cats in the area.  This weekend they were trying to educate people and raise a bit of cash through an exhibition of photos taken by one of their members, a half-English lady who has just started up as a photographer in the area.  The pictures were lovely and it is also nice to hear the good news stories of adoptions.  What impressed us most was the venue - a converted chapel.  The downstairs was pleasant with nice features, the upstairs was breath-taking.

To close, a final picture of the frost in the wild clematis Old Man's Beard, which surrounds the wildflower meadow and strangles all the fruit trees, and much else besides.  The birds don't seem to be interested in the seed heads, but when the freezing fog does its thing, they are rather pretty.  Fingers crossed for some interesting footage from the trail camera next week!

 

Of truffles and badgers

The New Year and a new moon, with good conditions for taking a photo, which worked quite well.  It was a cold evening, but very beautiful.

One of our new year rituals, which has been going for about 7 years now, is the purchase and consumption of a small quantity of black gold or truffle.  A few years ago, John found a reliable source, who has a very handsome and effective truffle dog, and since then in early January a small box has been delivered with between 50 and 100g of perfumed joy.  I have a number of tested recipes - truffle omelette, scrambled eggs with truffle, truffle stuffed camembert - and some others that I tinker with each year such as stuffed chicken breast, truffle cream sauce, scallop and truffle slice, truffle risotto.  The feasting lasts about a week, and then that is it for another year, but while it goes on, it's lovely!

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There has been quite a bit of rain this year so far, but Tuesday was a lovely day, so we bunked off for part of the afternoon and went walking, following a very well marked footpath through farmland and woods and what must be very ancient ways before tarmac defined where people should go.

The trail camera had an exciting week.  It was placed in a friend's garden, where there has been some significant digging going on, and we promised we would try to work out what or who the culprit was.  When I retrieved the camera yesterday, my first site visit since installing it, I was delighted to find 50 data files, meaning 25 photos and 25 videos.  Now some were rubbish - me leaving, me arriving, a cat mooching past, a bird going through the line of sight so quickly that the camera didn't capture what it was - but some were very clear in showing what was causing the trouble, and some were other interested parties.  For those who can't be bothered with the videos, here is Badger, banged to rights!

Here is footage of the badger looking around for interesting smells

Here is footage of the badger making a mess.

And here is footage of a couple of passers-by.

The camera has moved on to another site - I wonder what it will find there!  It really is the best birthday present I have had in a very long time!!  Have a good week!

And before anyone gets picky - yes, the time stamp on the videos is out by about 6 hours.

 

 

Happy New Year - 2022, the Year of the Pheasant?

Happy New Year to chums near and far.  And a healthy one too, which is on my mind as others have been "pinged" in our close circle and it's a worry.

The period between Christmas and New Year is always an odd one, and this year is no exception.  The weather has been unseasonably mild, and the last couple of days have been gloriously sunny too.  Yesterday morning there was a hint of mist, which made going up the garden to feed the chickens a slightly spooky affair, as can be seen.

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The mist burnt off very quickly though, and both yesterday and today we have sat out with cats, watched birds, done some gardening and enjoyed nature.  It was lovely to get the hammocks out again today and sit in The Garden watching the tits and a robin working their way through a coconut filled with fat and seeds.  I was surprised to see the robin doing that in fact, as I thought it really was a trick of blue tits and great tits.  We do actively encourage great tits in The Garden as they are the only bird to have decided to eat pine processionary caterpillars, and with nests in a couple of the pine trees round the garden, encouraging them seems like a good idea.  A friend did happily point out that great tits also predate bats, but if my bats live where I think they do, no great tit could get into the space!

The weather is also conducive to good, dramatic sunsets - this was yesterday's.

The French make a big deal of the Reveillon as they tend to call it and New Year, although this year the festivities were more muted due to the charm free Omicron.  In previous years, we have gorged on foie gras, smoked salmon, steak, oysters (occasionally done as Angels on horseback with bacon and prunes), but this year we went for tartiflette, a delicious mix of potatoes (home grown of course), smoked bacon, onion, garlic and Reblouchon cheese.  We didn't eat all this pan, we did save some to go with sausages today!

Wandering around the grounds today, we spotted this rather dramatic and interesting fungus - I might work out what it is by next week!  So bright that I wondered if it was a piece of plastic brought in by one of the foxes in the Orchard, it stood out among the detritus under one of the walnut trees.

And so to the Year of the Pheasant.  The trail camera has been in a very tucked away part of the Orchard this week, and I managed to control myself and not visit it every day to see what it had caught.  We have dodgy photos of a fat pigeon, a rat, a hedgehog, and a possible ragondin, or coypu.  The fox was also nosing around and a blackbird did his thing in front of the camera too.  A duck walked past.  But the most prolific visitors to the area, and yet not the ones that make the paths, were the pheasants.  Here are three girls doing what they do.

The warm weather means that the male pheasants are getting frisky, so clearly my three girls are interesting prey.  There are sounds off too!

But I don't think male pheasants are that bright, and this one has also been tagged by someone, so is also at a bit of a disadvantage.  Doesn't stop him thinking he is pretty fab though!

The trail camera is on the move now, to keep an eye on what is causing damage elsewhere, and hopefully will have some good footage again for next week, when I will be back to Sunday updates.