Rural Life

Satisfaction?

OK, first up a warning.  This post isn't quite as family friendly as normal, or certainly the second half isn't!

The Rolling Stones sang that they couldn't get no satisfaction - for me that is a double negative.  What does satisfaction look like in the animal world?  Well when I took in the trail camera by the pond, I found a series of videos that implied that piggie heaven was probably a jolly good scratching post!  The poor tree that was used is not the largest or strongest, but somehow survived the onslaught.  It is also popular with birds (presumably nice things get left behind), the pine marten and deer.  Here is a feathered friend who cannot be named for politeness purposes seeing what has been left on the bark.

But now to boar action - when indulging in a jolly good scratch, even other boar are no distraction!

It's the tail on this one that gets me!

And once you have done the back, a good go at ears and neck is also pleasing.

Then a final scratch and what a satisfying evening for a boar!

Now if you are funny about snakes, stop reading around here!

I went to feed The Boys in The Country, and two joined me in their funny kitchen area, demanding food, while we could hear a lot of noise on the rood.  I assumed it was the third cat, so called him a couple of times to come in for food, but the noise kept going.  So once the two were snarfing away at their food, I went outside to see why Donald hadn't come in for his kibble.  I could see a flash of something white or cream, but it didn't look like a cat, so I got a step ladder and set it up and climbed up to see what was going on.  I then got my phone out pretty quickly, because it was unexpected.

First attempt

I settled myself more carefully on the ladder and got two further sequences, firstly here, and then this one.

These are not dangerous, they are Aesculapian snakes and can grow up to two meters long.  They are nonvenomous and while there is a small colony in northern Wales, they are really native to mainland Europe.  They are famed in Greek and Roman mythology for their relationship to the god of healing, Asclepios (Greek version) and are to be seen even today on the symbol for pharmacies in France and other places too I'm sure.  They eat rodents, including rats, so should be welcomed, not least as baby ones will eat large slugs and snails, including the flesh eating orange jelly slug.  Eggs and young are vulnerable to boar, hedgehogs and badgers, so I hope this couple are very careful where they hide their stash.

So there you are - two very different sets of videos but showing that animals enjoy life too!

Have a good week!

 

 

Could it get worse?

Well that was a mostly cool and damp week, but there were some compensations.  A novelty for the village is finally an alternative to the boulangerie that closed back in 2020 - a depot de pain, or bread drop-off, based around the village bar.  They have baguettes and bread, and if you want croissants or similar, you can order the day before.  First we tried the baguette on Monday and found it to be good.  Then we ordered croissants for Thursday morning, and were able to have a coffee and eat our croissants on the terrace in the sun, before it started to rain again.  This has added a whole new dynamic to our week we feel.

We have also had storms this week, including a humdinger on Wednesday, or rather two humdingers.  The first hit while I was in the Comité des Fêtes barn with a couple of chums working on the float for the Comice in August.  There were only three of us, not least as two were working hard on steaming off the last vestiges of last year's decorations from the corner posts, and you can't work with crèpe paper when there is steam in the air. 

I took the opportunity to design most of the missing panels.  Anyway, we were kind of stuck in the barn, as a storm started up at about 3:20pm and didn't leave us alone until about 4:45pm, at which point we scattered off to our different homes, ready for the next one.  That was a long and loud one too, and caused a lot of damage to crops and the roads not so very far away.

We had more rain on Thursday, Friday and early Saturday morning, but now it seems to have stopped for a day or two, to allow us to recover and take stock.  I did some of that yesterday - the shallots had basically collapsed, and I feared the worst - white rot.  Fortunately that doesn't seem to have been the case, just lack of sun and a decision on their part to give up on a bad job and try again next year (except I lift them and plant new stock each year).  I am hoping there are enough for two pots of pickled shallots for Christmas!

This week I was able to vote in a general election.  Not here in France sadly, as I am not a citizen - something I must try to sort out over the winter.  Instead I was able to take advantage of the change to the UK law that used to limit those living abroad to only having a vote for the first 15 years of absence.  Apparently after that we had no links to the UK - well apart from family, pensions, language, friends, potentially investments etc.  It was the one thing the last government changed that was a step in the right direction, so I have voted in the town where I was last registered to vote.  And it was good. 

There are elections due too here in France and the thing they have in common with the UK ones, is all the pundits asking "Why now?".  Of course if an election hadn't been called, they would have spent the summer saying "Why not now?".  In both instances, the rise of the Far (or Nasty) Right is a talking point at the very least.  The French elections seem to be based more on who can get through a day without making a total farce of their campaign.  The UK elections seem to be about whether the Conservatives get more seats than the Lib Dems, or if they can even beat the spoiled ballot papers in some areas.  How utterly depressing!  Much better to focus on nice things, like flowers.

In both elections, nature, the state of the planet and the environment seem to be at the bottom of the agenda.  Perhaps because the TV pundits are all urban types who are more concerned with where to find the best coffee, rather than whether it will be possible to grow coffee in future. 

We have left a few leeks to flower, more by accident that design, but they are very popular with the local insects, so clearly a good thing!

There is an even better photo with a bee in flight, which I am trying to load - one more try!

All of this blether means that intended subjects such as animal satisfaction and more details on the coypu will have to be tales for another day.  However I have loaded up new footage of a deer for you, having a go at a tree:

And another bit of film to show that the boar are still around:

And another with ducks, because ducks are happy fowl:

And there is so much more wildlife entertainment to come in the next few weeks! 

Have a good week!

 

Junevember - it's a thing apparently!

It's raining today, and cold.  It rained yesterday too, and during the week, and it hasn't been at all warm.  It is a totally new month apparently - Junevember - and it's got to be real as someone did a cartoon about it, which I have shamelessly nicked!

The weather has meant that gardening is limited to dashing out when at all possible to attack things that are growing too well and shouldn't be allowed to continue (grass, weeds, the grape vine), sighing over the things that should be pushing away with rare vigour currently and aren't (sweet peppers, courgettes, butternut squashes, chillies) and taking solace in flowers that are happy and having a longer season than we would expect (wild orchids are a good example).  Today I spotted a new one at the Orchard, hiding in plain sight among a bunch of pink clover that has now gone over.

One couple we know were delighted to see me as they had two gluts, white asparagus and alstromeria - I couldn't leave without an armful of each.  So very kind and the flowers, assuming a cat doesn't eat them or smash the vase, will last for ages!

The lack of heat, and more importantly the lack of sunshine, have an effect on the morale, but yesterday I rescued a trail camera that I had left in place for a couple of months as a way of doing something productive with the day.  My initial assessment, without wearing glasses, was that I had messed up and that there was going to be nothing on the memory card, so it was a pleasant surprise to find 599 files, when I looked at the card via the computer and wearing glasses.  Just a random sample of files showed that while I had yet again managed to turn off the video recordings, that wasn't until after about 6 weeks in situ, and there was a lot of activity including film of the blasted coypu.

Today I have been through all the files having a first look through - there is some juicy stuff in there for future blogs.  There is also a hunt chasing a deer and a boar two months after the season for "big game" closed - and from the noises off, I think they caught up with the boar.  As we have had other footage of a boar with a damaged leg, it would appear they didn't kill it, and the corpse by the main road is probably it - or was as it is now just a smelly black patch.  The audio didn't include a gun shot, but if it was a fox hunt, they wouldn't have had the right ammunition to deal with a boar with them.  It's all very complicated.  Anyway, I think this is who they were really after!

The little crossroads that the camera was by is very tight - the path across is mainly for ducks and coypu and the water rail to go from one pond to another, while the path up to the tree is fine for me, but peters out a little way further on, at least for me, because boar, deer and badgers use it.

The tree is popular with birds - there is more than one picture of a woodpecker on it, although this is my favourite.

It is a favourite with the boar, but that needs film and I haven't got the will to battle uploads to YouTube today.  The deer like it, not just the doe but also a rather nice stag.

Best of all, it is a fun place for the pine marten to climb up!  How I love these fellows!

I need to spend more time with the files - there is a whole article about boar to be written, and another about coypu, with lots of photos and video to accompany them.  So I will leave you this week with a slightly unhelpful photo of one of the common visitors to the crossroads - the Lady Mallard.

Have a good week!

 

Spring into Summer

The first of June brought meteorological summer - it's just an arbitrary date, but it works for me and my filing for photos.  It is true that it also stopped raining on the 1st June and hasn't started again since for us, but that won't last much longer I think.  But the evening of 1st June was very cool - I know this as we walked the 3km from our front door to the Centre René d'Anjou in Baugé for the final hurrah of the Comice 2023.  This was the party to say thank you to the volunteers who put in so many hours of hard work all through 2023 (although for those on the Drinks Committee, initially it didn't look like hard work!).  We were warned to be there for 7:30pm, as speeches needed to start at 7:45pm - well both of those had the Anjou 15 minutes added to them!

What a night!  Aperos, a four course dinner with relevant different wines, two cabaret singers and three dancers, speeches (but not too many) and dancing until dawn for those who could manage it.  Light weights that we are, we left after pudding at 00:45am for the 3km walk home in the dark.  My chum Brigitte ran away at 4:00am as she knew she had tidying up to do the following morning.  Our President locked up at about 6:00am but didn't go to bed, as he had to be back to let in the cleaning party at 9:00am!

And that is why I had pre-prepared last week's blog!!

Once the rain stopped, we did start getting sunny weather, so that by Tuesday, my legs were timidly being shown the open air from time to time and I am now sitting in shorts, doing my typing.  I wouldn't say that summer has settled in by any means, but we are now having to water things, so we are sort of in the ball park.

Last summer, the highlight of our growing season was the mighty cristophine vine, which John nurtured and which fed us well during autumn.  My chum Stéphane the Estate Agent said we should watch out as they are actually perennials, and it would come back.  "What does he know? Pfff!" were some of our comments to that.  But we didn't have much by way of frost over winter, and John strimming the area to prepare to plant his new cristophine plants just seemed to annoy it, and it is Back and it is Angry!  The weather isn't really warm enough yet for it to get truly rampant, but the phrase "Feed me Seymour" is back!

No Mow May is a real thing nowadays, and some people get very tetchy if you don't buy into it wholeheartedly.  I think you have to be careful, and you need to look at your land to see where you can do this, and where you can't.  Some bits of our plots have had a No Mow May more due to the weather and machines falling apart trying to deal with overly luxurious growth.  My nice clear path down the side of the fruit trees to the plantation area and the mud pools has only been kept open by the passage of deer and boar, which now makes it Tic Alley!

It will take us a long time to get this passable again not least as this sort of luxurious growth takes its toll on machines.  Our first trusty ride on lawnmower, who has gone miles round various different gardens, has had to be given a retirement plan of being a small towing tractor, as the mowing pan has rotted away in too many places, and can't be patched any more.  It is fair to say that Maurice has worked hard over the 18 years we have had him, so we can't really complain too much.  The 6 month wait for a new cutting deck is too long to wait however, so we are looking at Plan B.

I will leave you with a display of lovely flowers - where things are happy with the weather conditions, they are thriving, and the climbing rose on the front of the house, the small fragrant rose I bought at Aldi (other cheap supermarkets are available) and was disappointed with last year, bee orchids and lizard orchids are all very happy with life.  And that makes me happy.

I'm planning on bringing in one of the trail cameras during the week, so there could be wildlife pictures and videos next week, you never know!

Have a good week!

 

The visit of the Olympic Flame

I generally don't do before 8am and certainly not before 7am, but sometimes you just have to make an exception, and the arrival of the Olympic Flame in Baugé en Anjou was one of those exceptions.  Our morning routine was rudimentary and the animals were fed with bad grace, before we were out of the front door before 8am and walking into town.  Neighbours might have gone in by motorbike and car, but really what is the point when you are celebrating sport?

We picked our spot at 8:15am but soon changed our minds as we realised we were on a cut through so that the cany could see the flame pass more than once, so headed further down the hill.

We stopped by a small café which had bits of Olympic tat on a table - we obviously took a flag and a postcard to mark the occasion.

There were also official Olympics shops in vans doing the rounds - we weren't tempted to stop them and buy something.

We wondered if it was going to be like the Tour de France with squadrons of helicopters overhead and a publicity caravan.  Well there wasn't much by way of helicopters or television, but there was a small publicity caravan - other soft drinks and financial establishments are available!

Security was tight - there were a lot of these blue vans in the cortege, before and after The Flame.  Spoiler alert - they look innocuous and the guys hanging out of the winder were smiley and lovely, but if you looked at them at the right angle, each one was packed with heavily armed anti-terrorist and mob cops.

And then it was the moment itself - The Torch Bearer and their company of protectors came through, smiling and waving and it was all very wonderful.

Once it had gone past, along with all the vans of security, the spare flames, the other torch bearers and motorcycle outriders, we walked down to the Olympic village, set up in the Place de Europe for the duration.  There was the biggest banner I've seen up, held in place by major agricultural engines, but just for the duration of the visit of The Flame.  Once that left for Montsoreau, the banner came down and the Olympic Village was given over to sport.

After a restorative coffee, we dared the Olympic Village and marvelled at the climbing wall brought in for the occasion, looked at a demonstration of padel for about 30 seconds, and then watched a demonstration of tumbling from a local gymnastics club, with some extremely good atheletes.  We suspect some of the older ones are hopefuls for the French team at this summer's Games.

After that, with somewhat sore feet, we took a longer but flatter and quieter route home, and flopped with a cup of tea for a while, before carrying on with our Tuesday.

It was well done and having missed all of the fun of London 2012, I'm very glad we went.  I've written this on the day, but I'm not publishing until the normal day, as Saturday sees the party for the volunteers who helped with last year's Comice in Vieil Baugé and I think I might be feeling a bit delicate on Sunday.  But more on that a week on, when we are into Summer.