Rural Life

The camera isn't always there to hand

Well what's that about?  Only that the Patrouille de France - the French answer to the Red Arrows - have been based at our local airport for the past few days.  They arrive, they do a practice of their air show, they go off and do their air show at Saumur, they come back, they get a delivery of air force kerosene, they do another practice, then they go and buzz the Tour de France finish before heading home.  I've heard them three times and seen them twice - in formation - and not had a camera of any sort to hand to capture the moment.  Rather splendid though.  It was easier to capture us both relaxing in different forms of hammock at midday today, after working hard.

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We are getting different flowers out now.  My favourite cultivated flowers, agapanthus, are coming out by the front door.  The first cyclamen have started to show in the lawn, making mowing so much more challenging.  The gladioli are coming out but are a disappointing yellow - perhaps the red ones are the ones that got munched by snails.  Last year in the UK, when I could still get there and visit a Poundshop, and could bring back bulbs, I bought a couple of mystery lily bulbs.  They didn't do much last year but will be magnificent soon.

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I worry a bit about our older cats and that they can be a bit lazy, so last weekend, I invested in a couple of things to arouse their interest.  While Poirot has made it clear that all this is beneath her, Nibbles has taken a very keen interest in finding and catching the Red Spot, public enemy number one for all cats.  She has also taken to worshipping the planter that the giant catnip plant is wedged in at the moment - I don't think she can climb into the planter, or it could get very ugly.  She is not a pretty spaced out person.

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We lifted the shallot harvest on Wednesday - magnificent though I say so myself - and they are now drying on a nice bulb drying tray I got from a chum locally - thanks Brigitte!  I am concerned about the spuds.  They have flowered and there is a lot of die back.  I foolishly didn't read the packet properly and these are second earlies, so I am hoping they are doing what comes naturally, as the other explanation is Blight, which is Bad.

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Have a good week!

 

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.

 

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.

 

Waiting for Summer, although Spring might be nice!

No lockdown title at the moment, although we do still have curfew between 9pm and 6am, and aren't really supposed to travel across international borders unless it is really important.  I said I would continue to do the odd blog - I'm going to try for Sunday afternoons, once I've done my afternoon's work.

The big news this week was of course that café, pub and restaurant terraces could open to customers outdoors - our local opened on Thursday (officially he could have opened on Wednesday, but it isn't one of his "days"), but we were tied up with work until 7:30pm, so our first indulgence was on Friday evening.  Normality was restored and beer o'clock (or wine o'clock) was back!

Of course this had to be outdoors, and while there is a high roof over the terrace, that doesn't stop wind, and when it rains and there is wind, it doesn't stop rain much either, so we had to move tables.  The showers currently are very localised, so while it was pelting it down with rain, there was also sunshine and therefore a rainbow, or even two!

This morning we spent at The Shack, hedge trimming, a bit of mowing, a lot of weeding, some potting on and some planting of seedlings, but probably the most important activity was getting the ropes installed for the hammock.  And then we had to try it out - OMG!  Really rather blissful, to lie in the hammock, swinging slightly, listening to the birds and the blasted wind in the leaves, because yes, that wind is still going.  Cats also thought that this was pretty good, as whichever of us was in the hammock was also pretty horizontal and therefore unable to do much about being laid on and licked.

I also beat the bounds and found more bee orchids coming into flower - I'm quite pleased with this photo.

Finally, a serious bit.  The past 18 months with Covid have been hard in many ways for many people.  I guess John and I have got away with it pretty well, as we are fairly antisocial, and with our outdoor lifestyle and the gardens, have been able to be out and about without too many constraints.  But we have been pretty limited in how far we can go and who we can see, and this was brought home rather brutally, with news that an old friend died during the week.  I'd seen him in September 2019, and had planned to see him again in April or May 2020, when over for work, but of course that didn't happen, and in any case I wouldn't have been welcome because of the virus.  But I have good memories of September 2019.  Worse is that he was one of a pretty tight knit bunch of us that worked closely together in the early 90s, and at this time in normal circumstances, we would be able to get together, share stories, memories and a glass or three, and that most basic of human comforts, a hug or four.  This blasted disease has deprived us of that comfort, and that is the same for so many families and groups of friends across Europe over the past months.

But looking forward, have a good week all!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - plotting progress

It's another distinctly March or October day here today, with sharp showers  or prolonged rain (stuck in the chicken run this morning for 10 minutes, building myself up to getting very wet) and nasty, blustery winds.  In a reasonable gap of two hours this morning we went to The Shack to do our Sunday morning work session and feed the cats.  They didn't seem that interested in food, more in cuddles or in being in baskets and watching what the silly humans were up to.

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I managed to get the other 6 tomato plants in, and covered with paraffin canister cloches.  I also planted the four pepper plants and 4/5 aubergine plants I bought on Wednesday.  I tried to split the aubergine that was two plants, but they were too closely intertwined around their roots, and given that the soil isn't the best, I decided not to force the point.  We'll see how they do.  This year's main plot is now looking even more purposeful than previously - see the comparison over three photos!

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We are really quite excited as two of the 51 sweetcorn seeds we sowed a couple of weeks ago have come up!  You can surely see the difference on these photos!

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Anyway, a new week is upon us.  Tomorrow I will be getting my first jab - Pfizer, in case you were wondering - at the vaccination centre in Baugé.  It is a fine place to sit and wait for 15 minutes in case you have a violent reaction, as they are using the Community and Arts Centre, which was a prison until fairly recently.  I'll try for a photo or two of it all.

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - bits and bobs

As I've been being a good girl today and working hard, and not getting distracted by "stuff", I've had to resort in the main to photos taken a while ago but not shared yet, but it's a good way of making sure I've not missed anything too important!  Curfew is at 7pm, but sunset isn't until gone 9pm so it is very difficult to get good evening photos due to the monstrous blob built in between us and our views to the west, however this evening sky was good in any direction (this one is due South), and worked well on my phone.

A few years ago, Aldi did a nice line in flower pots that are fixed to down pipes.  I've grown all sorts in them, from bulbs to lobelia (which worked really well), but following an impulse purchase at a car boot sale of a number of house leeks, they have been home to semper vivums for about 4 years now.  I took a whole load of sets off them last year, but clearly will need to do the same again this year.  But they look pretty good I think!

After yesterday's single asparagus as part of lunch (chopped up fine in baked eggs), today I went for a more classic approach as Mac and Jak are laying just the right sort of eggs at the moment.  So today's lunch was poached eggs with asparagus and mayonnaise (just a little) and jolly good it was too.  There is a mix of our home grown asparagus (fat) and the last bits from the market last week (small and weedy or in technical terms, sprue).

Finally, I was reminded yesterday by Mr S Clause that he hasn't been seen on a blog post for a while and really he is totally gorgeous and people will miss him!  So here he is.

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - raw milk and brooding

Sounds like a vaguely iffy 1980s lounge music combo, doesn't it? Raw Milk and Brooding.  Fortunately those days are over.  Anyway I said there had been debate on raw and farm milk with chums on the internet, so on Wednesday when I was at la Flèche market, I asked the lovely Benoit if I might photograph him, to share the glory with my blog readers.  He was surprised, but happy to oblige - of course sadly you are deprived the benefit of his face as we all have to keep wearing face masks, but here is Benoit, purveyor of milk, butter, cream and cheeses.

Despite my bags being in the way, there is not actually a lot to see in his van apart from a few bottles of milk and a couple of cheeses.  That's because for his regulars, their requirements are stashed under the counter.  It was a great day for me when I became one of those, and a block of salted butter appeared when I arrived at his van!  The milk is a more recent thing - I used to buy the odd bottle, but mainly bought from another farmer, but then I became inducted into the circle of those who provide their own bottles and again each week as well as my block of butter, I swap an empty Waitrose Orange juice bottle for one full of full fat raw milk.  Bliss!

Will you note the colour of the butter and the depth of cream on that?!

In other news, while we only seem to have red currants, black currants, strawberries, raspberries and Granny Smith apples this year in the garden, that is not the case in Chinon.  There the warmth and protection afforded by the tuffeau wall has meant that the black peach tree there has lots of fruit set!  There will be jam of one sort this year!

And finally, I thought it was a bit quiet yesterday evening when I released the chickens for their daily vandalism spree - no Bridie to be seen.  I wondered if she had been chased off by the naughty ginger boy next door.  I checked the shed when I put the girls away last night, but she wasn't there so I was a bit worried.  This morning she was not waiting by the run to peck me mercilessly while I put out food and water for her (she has a very sharp beak!), so I was even more worried.  I went for a good check in the shed, and finally spotted her, well camouflaged by chainsaw chains.  See if you can spot the freeloading wotsit, trying to hatch another batch of infertile eggs!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - living life on the edge

The two selective hornet traps are still in place, and we have 5 and 10 corpses of Asian hornet queens in them.  This is good as they haven't started on the big nests that produce hundreds of bee chomping progeny, so we like to think we have done our bit for the honey bee. 

The selective traps are mostly doing what was intended and not getting much else trapped, well until last week that is.  Now each trap also has a European hornet queen in it, and if the Asian ones are nasty close up, the European one is really scary.  As we don't really want them around, eating us and what little fruit might grow this year, we are not too fussed about trying to release them either!

More scary than either type of hornet however, is an enraged Nibbles.  This morning I took her for her annual vaccinations and M.O.T. and happened to mention that she seemed to have trouble with her left ear.  That provoked one of those nice ear torches, then a brain scrape with a cotton bud - which produced a glob of the most disgusting black goo.  The vet seemed really pleased and went off to look at it under a microscope, during which time I worried and Nibbles tried to see what was going on in the laboratory next door.  Anyway, the vet came back to announce that it was just black yukky stuff, which needed to be rinsed out...  Twice a day... With a cleaning serum and then drops and then dry the ear out...  I tried to explain that Nibbles, who was looking cute and fluffy like this:

was in actual fact a Wild and Untamed Thing, who had taken 8 years to learn how to sit on a lap for longer than 20 seconds.  The vet relented and now we only have to wash out the ear, put in drops and dry it out once a day - for 10 days!  We may not survive!

 

Lockdown III, Day 29 - sort of coming to an end

The President briefed the press during the week about his path out of lockdown restrictions, with the first relaxation tomorrow - I show below the actual different phases, but realistically there will be very little change tomorrow as the curfew is still there from 7pm, only essential shops are open, you are still meant to keep away from people if you can and work from home.  The only difference is that you can travel anywhere during the day (6am to 7pm) without having to have a attestation.  It really is no change for me.

May 19th will be much more interesting, while the 9th June means that we know by what date everyone will want their lawns mowed!!  

Anyway, we continue with getting the vegetable plot at The Shack developed - I think there needs to be a manual on how to garden with cats as they can be absolute vandals, while thinking that actually they are really helpful and gorgeous.  Well the latter might be true, but the former isn't!!

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Anyway, after a struggle and a lot of sweating and pulling out of roots of perennial nasties, the sweetcorn has finally been sown.  I have recovered the bed with weed suppressant mat, partly to keep the cats off, and partly to protect the seeds from the cold temperatures we are due over the next few days.  While the maize is coming up in the fields around, I suspect that sweetcorn for human consumption is a bit less robust.

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While I was doing that, John did a bit of mowing in the wildflower meadow, not least to check that the new drive belt on Ginger the ride-on lawnmower is working as expected.  Now I know people are going all goofy about No Mow May, but here things grow about a foot to 18 inches in May (assuming it ever rains again), and hay is not an easy thing to mow.  We were pretty careful to identify the area on the meadow that needed to be addressed as it was mainly shoots of bramble and old man's beard with attendant horsetail and thistle, while leaving the massed ranks of oxeye daisies, pink clover, linseed and orchids to do what they do and look lovely (but impossible to photograph to best effect).  I found two bee orchids that had been caught, but close inspection showed that as the cutters were nice and high, they should still flower.  We can also walk round the meadow without too much difficulty.

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Once all that was done, we went for a walk around the One Acre Wood.  There we have a different sort of lawn - an oak lawn!  Very pretty, but they will not all survive, because that's not nature's way.

 

Lockdown III, Day 25 - doing comparisons

Yesterday while at The Shack, I took another photo of my tub of stale gladioli bulbs, and thought it might be amusing to compare how they have come on over time.  The two photos below were taken 5 days apart, and they seem to be coming on nicely - you can actually see progress.  That is one of those moments when gardening is particularly satisfying.

Other plants are not so helpful.  I'm thinking in particular of my miniature orchid that lives in the bathroom and taunts me on a regular basis.  For days it does nothing, then suddenly a bud appears, or starts to open, or shrivels up and dies.  I have talked about it in all my lockdown blogs, so here is a series of images of torture.  Firstly from strict confinement in spring 2020.

Then when we deconfined in summer 2020, there were more interesting things, but with autumn 2020 lockdown, shorter days etc., we needed something to watch, and so Orchid Watch started - this was the 9th November.

Two weeks later and it was looking like this:

Not so different really, a bit longer perhaps?  Anyway, 16 days later it was looking like this.

Buds!  Longer!  Did it flower?  Did it heck as like!!  Not until the 12th April did we get anywhere near a flower!

And then today, another 16 days on, and one flower bud has shrivelled up and another is opening!

So, orchids not good for stress relief!  Much better to be like a cat it would appear!