Rural Life

Autumn Lockdown - Day 26 - a few pictures

I'm actually taking part in a Zoom presentation as I type this - the presentation was supposed to start half an hour ago, but there are announcements and introductions and so I thought I would multi-task, although this will be mainly pictures.  Finally the presentation starts, and the speaker seems amusing.  So here is some mistletoe

The sun setting through trees was particularly dramatic this afternoon.  I liked this tree in particular.

The sun setting through the trees was also a satisfying image.

Finally thoughts on cats and boxes, as we got a vast delivery of very senior cat food yesterday.  Any cat cannot resist the lure of a cardboard box.

Autumn Lockdown - Day 23 - dismantling an old friend

While we were initially up and about full of vim and good intentions, a flat tyre on the van and an annoying experience in the market (some poser bought all the local garlic and the quarter of red cabbage with MY name on it) took the shine off the day.  It was a cold but beautifully sunny day, so that was a shame.  So in a fit of energy, we decided that it was time to start to dismantle further the dead cherry tree in the garden.

As one would expect from a pro, John spent a lot of time looking at angles and weights and plotting how each bit would come down without damaging the neighbour's wood store or our "shed".  Then we got the better pole saw out, the ropes, relevant safety gear for John and we were ready.

I can't show you any action shots, as I was on the end of the rope, holding up pieces of tree and then gently lowering them to the ground, ready to be turned into firewood, but this is what it looked like when we were done for the day.  Clearly there is more to do, but in the rest of the daylight and the "making a noise" window, what was down needed to be turned into log burner sized logs.

This is just part of the booty - there is more and it is all now stacked and sheltered from wet.

While the neighbours kept popping their heads round the corner to see whether we had broken anything (we didn't), and admiring a man working, there were a few garden residents who weren't so impressed with what was going on.  Muck and Brass are appalled and Delenn has gone AWOL, having refused to go through the sawdust and into the run.  I don't know where she is sleeping tonight, as I couldn't find her on my last check round the garden.

In other news, I made the Christmas cakes, and they are now in the oven.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 21 - a different walk

The weather changed overnight as a cold front went through, and while it was actually quite nice and I got the laundry dry, it was also much colder than of late throughout the day.  This made sitting on hooman much more appealing for Nibbles, and at lunchtime she spread herself up my chest and got up close and personal.  She allowed me to take about 50 photos of her - that's how comfortable she was!  A few were out of focus and she wouldn't look direct at the camera most of the time, but ancient tribal beliefs would say that her soul is now mine (I think she thinks it works the other way round though).

When I managed to extricate myself from cat, I went out for my allowed exercise.  I had to post a letter, and had thought of going on one of the familiar routes, but wanted a change of scene, so I went down to the Pont de Godeau (he still didn't turn up) and then up to the Voie Verte and along that towards the open country.  The Voie Verte used to be a railway line and once decommissioned, was then left to run wild, which made it a great place for wildlife.  When it was reopened as a cycle and pedestrian route, that exposed a couple of large badgers' sets along the line.  Much to my distress, last winter, someone erased one of these.  Either it was overzealous path maintenance or it was a farmer trying to avoid badger tracks over his land.  Either way, my walk this afternoon demonstrated nicely that they failed and Badger Burrows are being extended and improved for the winter!

Further round on my walk, I looked across to the village from where I know to be the 1 kilometre as the crow flies from home limit.  I must admit I was very lucky with the time I chose to go out for my walk as I had sun the whole way, which took the chill off and made everything so much more optimistic.

The final photo from my walk is of the cressonière that is perhaps 200 metres from home and taps into the same groundwater spring as our well.  When we first saw it, we thought it was an old washing point or lavoir, but talking to locals, we now know it was a tank for growing watercress.  The water flow has diminished considerably from what it used to be, and I don't think that is due to residual drought conditions.  There have been groundworks and building further up the hill which are likely to have impacted on the flow.  I'm not sure how clean the water would be anymore either, so I wasn't tempted to grab a handful of greenery - and I don't think it is watercress in there anyway!

By the way, it is Beaujolais Nouveau day today!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 20 - trouble

Wednesday, so market day at la Flèche, and fortunately it is a restricted market at the moment, only food and plants.  Why is this a good thing - normally I am complaining about it?  Well fibre is coming to la Flèche, and with it, the urge to dig up everything everywhere and inconvenience as many people as possible for the longer term greater good.  I've ranted before about laying fibre optic cable.  Today, the whole of the riverside parking was closed off to punters, so we had to park where the frippery stands would normally be.  If they had been there, it would have meant a lot of people having a very long walk!

Within the market, all was as normal, although fewer people than last week - but last week was a bank holiday.  Eggs were 20 cents each for free range - important as our freeloading hens aren't laying at present.  I had planned to get a couple more this autumn, but first laziness and then lockdown have scuppered that plan, and we won't be able to increase the flock until sometime in the spring I fear.

Then on to see the Boys in the Country - and this is where the trouble comes in, as conditions were ideal for spotting the nests of pine processionary caterpillars.  Not so much now, but we have until the end of February to get traps rigged up on two of the pine trees to stop the b@st@rd caterpillars reaching the soil to pupate and fly away.  Before anyone gets righteous about that, they are a non-native invasive species with few predators (blue and long tailed tits are starting to eat them I gather) and poisonous spines that can blind or otherwise mutilate cats and dogs, and cause particularly nasty and long lasting sores on humans (I know, I've been affected twice).  The spines do wash down into the soil, but if you are planting or if (being a cat) you dig a hole for your "needs", you can still be affected by the spines.  No, they just have to go!

It was a glorious morning, indeed it was lovely until about 3pm, then boom, the clouds arrived.  Tant pis!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 11 - new hope

I'm not talking politics, I'm not talking vaccines that have to be stored at -80ºC, I'm talking plants!

Last lockdown, I spent a lot of time tracking and worrying over my 2 small orchids that live in the bathroom.  As we got more and more freedom, they stopped producing new flowers and when we got temperatures at up to 40ºC outside and nearly 30ºC indoors, first the flowers dried and fell and then the flower stalks shrivelled too.  Mind you the flowers did each last over two months, so one can't complain.

Anyway, as the new lockdown kicked in, and I was sitting on the loo, I looked at the orchids again and one of them seemed to be getting back into action.  At first I wasn't too sure, but you can see from this photo today that a new flower stalk is pushing away and that there are a number of branches that may either be branches or will develop into flower buds.  Bad luck people, you are back to orchid watch!

And it's not only orchids.  Friends fled rural France the day before lockdown kicked in, but during the two weeks before that, they had spent hours spreading 3 tonnes of top soil, raking it, rolling it, planting bulbs in it and finally spreading loads of grass seed.  Bizarrely for November, we actually have ideal grass growing weather, moist, warm and not too sunny, and the grass seed is pulling away.  Even better, it only looks like there has been one attempt at digging up a flower bulb and it wasn't successful.  Spring should be dramatically floral in this garden next year!

From the number of hits yesterday, I think people liked Audrey the Racoon.  Perhaps Sundays need to be Racoon Days?

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 10 - big news events

Skip this if you don't feel political, but a few things have happened recently that make 2020 seem marginally less pants, although still the worst year on record for a very long time.  Firstly some reasonable news about an acquaintance fighting cancer (never good), in that it appears to have been caught in time (fingers crossed).  Then during the afternoon a rather weird way of announcing an election result - it was the media that announced the victor in the States.  No concession (not really to be expected I guess), no formal vivat rex type moment from a senior judiciary (well they are political appointees after all), just CNN, Associated Press and the New York Times pointing out that with Pennsylvania going Democrat, Biden has won.  It feels odd, not least as previously the BBC, FranceInfo, MSN and the American press all had different views on who had won what, but now they seem to be unanimous, so that is it.  A bottle of pink fizz was sacrificed on the altar of positive news, even though it is likely to have little effect on us personally and for a while.  Covid is after all still the biggest story in town.

Or is it?  Today at 13:03, off the Sables d'Olonne on the Vendée coast, 33 intrepid skippers started off on what must be the most gruelling race known to man - the Vendée Globe single handed, unsupported round the world yacht race.  The current record is just under 75 days.  There are, I believe, 6 female skippers in the race.  The fact that the race is still on is great, and I hope to be able to follow progress once I find the right link on social media.

In other news, we were felling trees and digging spuds this morning.  I did go and check on the monster badger set in the wildflower meadow and found rather better badger prints for you.

I dug up 9 more spuds - just a final 8 to go.  I wanted to crack the lot, but with all the rain, and working on a slightly different bit of the plot, the soil was wet, claggy and heavy.  So I admitted defeat after 9 and bagged up the spoils - it was good I stopped when I did, as I didn't have enough bags for more.  John weighed them when we got home - 31 pounds of spuds!!  It would have been more but there appears to be a line of "poorer" soil across the plot, where the numbers and size of tubers was less and the leeks along side are looking a bit sad. 

And finally, a Sunday treat!  A friend of a friend who lives in the States and is a cat person, feeds some local critters.  She shared some of her amazing photos of said critters, specifically, Audrey the Racoon!  Say thank you nicely!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 8 - looking up

Well for the first thought of the day anyway.  It was another beautiful morning and not so cold as the last two, when I went up the garden to feed the chickens, so I took my time.  There were a few clouds in the sky - classic harbingers of a change in the weather, wispy cirrus that I was told were called horse tails when I was at school.  Goodness knows what they call them now, but I'm sure cirrus still stands.  There is a front on its way, although it may avoid doing much to us, other than raising the temperatures - they forecast 18°C for us tomorrow!

The chickens were being rather good this morning.  Normally Delenn (the grey one) gets bullied away from the place where I drop the treats, I do that so that I have a clear run at the grain hopper, but today they all played nicely.  Either they have finally established a pecking order that all agree with, or they are plotting something.  The two brown ones are Muck and Brass, couldn't tell you which is which, but where there's Muck, there's Brass, so who cares?  When we are down to only one brown one, it will be an issue, at which point I will have to be more decisive.

We are in an at risk zone for avian 'flu, and the next commune over is on high alert.  If we go on to high alert, we will need to cover the whole chicken run with fine mesh to keep the sparrows and other wild birds out of the run.  There is a colony of about 30 sparrows living in our bay tree, so it is a real issue and risk.  The only other solution would be to cull the chickens but we obviously don't want to do that.  That's fine for the normal hens, but Bridie the Bantam is another issue altogether.

Bridie arrived in our garden late last year, worked out we were a soft touch, fell in awe of Dummer the Big White Chicken (now deceased) and stayed.  She roosts in the shed mainly, has a feed station outside the main chicken run and spends her day (when they are confined) watching the big chickens and paying homage to whoever she thinks is Chief Chicken (now Delenn it would appear).  When they are out and about trashing the garden, she follows them around, never too close, and avoiding Poirot the Cat.  We can't really get near her, so I am not at all sure what happens if we move to High Alert.  Something to worry about, if it happens, I guess.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 5 - a change in the weather

What a difference a day makes!  The hot but wet front has gone through, and today has been noticeably colder, but o so much brighter.  The cooler weather meant I slept better (or relatively healthy eating) and the fear of missing an important phone call ensured I was up promptly.  Not everyone thought that cooler was better, and despite the sunshine, or perhaps because of it, Zola decided it was a donut day.  It must be so nice to have such a snug fitting and cosy bed!

Today was a day to feed the Boys in the Country - what a difference to Sunday!  I stood at the view point, and this was so much better and more uplifting to look at!  I also clearly had the right mindset, as I didn't fret that the hill in the distance is unattainable.

We are forecast frosts over the next few days, possibly quite sharp ones out in the rural areas, so it was time to check over the tender crops and see what needed to be gathered in before being damaged.  I cut the final 3 butternut squashes, and got 6 courgettes ranging in size from pretentious restaurant to what you might find on a market stall.  We've not been inundated with courgettes this year - just the right amount really - and I've been impressed that they have kept going so late into the season.  In the garden at home I found 1 aubergine hiding away, a load of green peppers and a small number of chillies on the only plant to escape the chickens.  The top pepper in the bowl came from a self-seeded plant, not sure what it self-seeded from though!  Anyway, that's why it is a different shape to the others.

I pulled up the chilli plant and it is now hanging by the bananas in the faint hope that the fruit will turn red - you can eat them green but visually I prefer red.

Tomorrow is market day at la Flèche - I'm not sure if I dare attempt the trip or not.  One the one hand I need raw butter, croissants, decent cheese, bacon, fish.  On the other hand, I don't want a 135€ fine if some jobsworth decides I'm not allowed to go there.  Decisions, decisions.....

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 3 - yukky Sunday

Nothing like an out of focus vampire cat to wake you up!  Yesterday was Spooky's Day, and he seems to have coped - I didn't see him but there were no obvious broken bodies so I think he tidied up well.

Reading my Spring Lockdown Diary entries last night, I noted a lot of sitting in the sun in the garden, and enjoying the peace and the sun.  In November that is likely to be a rare event, and getting wet, taking exercise between showers and trying to stay sunny mentally is more likely to be the norm.  Armed with my attestation I went out to visit the Boys in the Country, and checked on the rainfall gauge and the remaining vegetables, but it wasn't nice, and I only spent 5 minutes or so outside.

I picked my way down to the inspirational view, but that was misty and the autumn colours are fading, while the stark necessity of doing some hard graft with a hedge trimmer comes to the fore.  And my feet got very wet (note to self - there are wellies at that site, use them!). 

I can hear the sparrows making a racket in Sparrow City from here - the massively overgrown bay tree that needs to be trimmed, but otherwise it is very quiet in the village.  I looked out last night close to midnight and all I could hear was an owl shouting about something.

I hope for a brighter day tomorrow, and the ability to take advantage of my allowed 1 hour exercise out of the house and gardens - it should be dry in the afternoon.  But now I must go and tend to my pot roast and help John bottle the pear and peach eau de vie that is judged to be "ready".

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 1 - how does it work again?

Actually, after doing yesterday's blog, we went to Excalibur to support our local pub, while he was still open.  As he is officially a bar/restaurant, we had to have a small plate of tapas each, which was a real hardship, and I gather there was a steady flow of people out for one last session before December.  It was a bitter sweet experience.

From 9pm last night we were under curfew, and once curfew was over, it was lockdown.  I had to cut out an attestation from the newspaper before I could go up to the bakers for pains au chocolat and baguette, which made reading the paper later on a bit tricky.  After that it was as before - or almost.  There was more traffic noise than I had expected when I put the laundry out, and while I was at a work site nearer the airport, I saw and heard another Lear jet come into land, presumably more intensive care patients being moved out of Lyon and St Etienne.

Because, yes, I did need to go out and about to deal with garden type things, armed with another attestation and I was surprised at how many people were out and about.  A major upside to the last confinement was the silence, so all you could hear were birds and insects and the wind in the leaves.  Not so much this time it would appear, although as we move into November, it may quieten down I guess.

Anyway, out in the country, I could enjoy time with Fergus, and be astounded at the magnificence of the amaranth this year. 

I could also admire the Brussel sprout plants.  Those who know me well, know that I regard this vegetable as the work of the Devil, however John loves them, raw or cooked.  We have a chunk of land that is solid clay, but that is where these magnificent specimens are growing.  Not sure if they will ever have sprouts, but actually I do rather like the tops of the plants, steamed, so there might be something in it for me after all!

Yes, I know, the one with the pointy leaves isn't a Brussel sprout.  It is actually a cauliflower - but I'm not sure it will ever have a curd in it.