Rural Life

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!

 

Lockdown III, Day 21 - a very busy day

Yesterday was my day for visiting the Azay One - I guess I am lucky we are allowed in to see her actually, given the hammering nursing homes have taken in this whole Covid thing.  We are only allowed in for an hour, we have to sit around a sanitised table, wearing masks (well, apart from the Azay One), and have to complete and sign two attestations on arrival.  Visits in rooms are not allowed.  Still, all went well, but it is always a tiring day, so no blog yesterday, but I did take this photo late yesterday evening after I had locked up the chickens.  Simple flowers and blossom attract many insects and it was heartening to see the variety last night on the Granny Smith apple blossom.

This morning, while John laboured, I went to the market at Baugé for a supply of good things - although the queue for fruit and vegetables did make me question my devotion to buying from small providers and local produce for preference, as it took me three quarters of an hour to get to the top of the queue!  At least the weather was good but social distancing had gone out of the window!

The afternoon was devoted to outdoors things, including mowing for a client, watering our produce and cosseting the boys in the country.  Now we are home and I need a gin and tonic so I will add the photos and call it a day.  I may be more voluble tomorrow.

Lockdown III, Day 19 - mostly details

I have a friend who is a proper photographer, and one of her well known and loved pictures is called something like Ted's workbench or shed - it is a loving study of a well ordered and well used garden shed, clearly a place where a chap could potter productively and did so with pride.  Our shed will never reach those heights, but it is a bit disconcerting at dusk to put my head into the shed and see the freeloading bantam perched there like some Taunton cider man.  No wonder we find broken eggs dotted around the shed if this is her idea of a safe roosting place!

Today was a cat feeding day, so I was able to see how my Dame Edna experiment was getting on.  Two years ago I bought a cheap bag of gladioli corms, fully intending to plant them somewhere, and then totally forgetting.  About a month ago I found them again, and potted the whole packet into a tub with my patent mix of sifted horse poo and leaf mould, put water on them and left them to do their worst, during the last really cold snap.  Today I think there are about 7 or 8 coming up along with a couple of cosmos seeds that have germinated.  I'm hopeful of some August colour if things go well, we remember to water the tub, and the cats don't decide to make it their outdoor bed!

I also sowed more bee friendly flowers - we'll see if any of those come up.  The seed is fresher than much I have used this year, so I am hopeful.  On the other hand, the generous dose of wood ash may have been a bit too strong - we'll see.  Anyway, I was resting from my labours and noticed that finally the work of the solitary bees has paid off and there are tiny, tiny bean pods set on the broad beans.  That will be delicious in about 3 weeks time.

Finally for today, while checking round the plot as I do, I noticed that the new weed suppressant mat I had laid where the sweetcorn will go, was not looking as lovely and shiny as before.  Closer inspection showed that the shower of rain the day before yesterday brought vast quantities of colza pollen with it, which is all over the matting.  It is also all over my car, and probably all over me too when I am outdoors.  Hay fever season is here again!  Good thing my GP has agreed to prescribe the antihistamines required as I can't pop into Boots this year!

It remains to be seen whether I will have a chance to update you tomorrow - I'll try, but I'm not promising!

 

Lockdown III, Day 16 - the garden as a hunting ground

Now that many clients have had a first cut at least of their lawns, home finally gets to the top of the list, and I had cracking service from John the Paysagiste (highly recommended), who mowed and strimmed and didn't attack what may be our first home bee orchid (or it may not).  I can now see where asparagus might come up and there doesn't seem to be any demolished stems so I might even have got away with leaving it quite so late!

The lawn is now even (apart from hidden traps built by chickens), so the neighbour's ginger kitten has had to stop pretending to be a lion stalking chickens (really ostriches) hidden by scrub, and has to try to emulate a cheetah racing across the veldt.  The chickens had been quite happily mooching around destroying things, when I heard a kerfuffle and there was the pretend cheetah charging around the lawn - he took quite a bit of evicting.  Once one of them gives him a good hard peck, it will be OK, but it is annoying in the interim.  Here is the lawn without scenes of Africa being replayed.

Ginger Boy is not the only cat stalking the garden, as our own Zola is trying to make up for lost time in her quest against lizards.  Yesterday evening she sat patiently among flower pots, pretending that she wasn't at all interested in lizard activity, but watching and waiting for her arch enemies.  It was perhaps just a little too cool by the time she took up her post, so no luck, and I have filled in the Zola sized gap with another plant pot since then.

It's not only outdoors where cats stalk - or rather intimidate.  Poirot used to sit and sleep on top of the wardrobe/linen press in the bathroom, but has given up jumping.  Instead she sits on the chest of drawers (she has a circuitous route to there avoiding all jumping) and glowers at you while you are on the loo, until you can't concentrate and have to give up and give her treats.  

We are up to 7 Asian Hornets in our trap in the garden now - that is rather a lot!  As they are all queens, this is a good thing of course.

 

 

Lockdown III, Day 12 - out and about

Well actually the big excitement today was going to Super U for cat food and Cheddar cheese and one or two other bits and pieces - but you have to take variety and excitement where you can at the moment!!  I also washed all my scarves as I have a nasty rash on my neck, probably due to something I brushed against yesterday while mowing, but you can't be too careful.  So clearly an incident packed day, and not photogenic.

Much more photogenic were things I saw at The Shack today, including another of my pots of experimental seed sowing.  This was an old and open packet of coriander that I really held out very little hope for, and yet look what I found today!

I was able to dig up four leeks and a spring garlic (just like a spring onion but garlic) which will go nicely in a stir fry for dinner.  The leeks are starting to run to seed - I could probably have held that back by watering them rather better all the time they have been in the ground apart from the 4 solid months of rain.  Actually they would probably have been bigger and better if I had done that, but last summer's drought meant water had to be doled out very carefully.

Spooky Cat used to be very nervous about going down the garden, even just the bit attached to The Shack.  On Tuesday he accompanied me on a circuit of the three areas - the garden, the orchard and the wild flower meadow.  I was very impressed.  I'm not sure if he is more or less secure in his world, following the demise of Fergus Sunshine Supercat, but he allows me to pick him up, cuddle and stroke him and only mildly chews me.  These vicious claws are only used to attract my attention when dishing out food!

The quince blossom at the wild flower meadow is finally out - so pretty, but so delicate!  The frosts are due to stop soon and the harsh wind (or bise) from the East is due to drop at the weekend so hopefully the bees will do their thing and there will be viable fruit in the autumn.  Unless there is a glut we are unlikely to do another quince eau de vie for a year or two, but quince jelly is fab on porridge, while stewed quince and apple makes a superior crumble.

Tomorrow I am off to visit Azay le Rideau so there may not be a blog, depending on when I get back.

 

Lockdown III, Day 11 - a bit about food

Yesterday was a special day, as there were enough eggs from Mac and Jak (2 - one each for us) to see whether they were getting it right.  We also had a couple of shop bought free range eggs to test them against and to make a normal meal out of it.  "Our" eggs are on the right - smaller, as the girls are still very young, but with nice bright yolks and whites that were very upright.  They also tasted better than the shop bought, perhaps as they were that bit fresher, perhaps because we are biased!

Today I was daring and went outside the permitted 10km, so had to have an attestation, in order to make essential purchases - well I really can't miss la Flèche market two Wednesdays in a row!  It was heaving as clearly everyone else had the same idea, but all were wearing masks, and in 95% of cases, wearing them correctly too.  I staggered back to my car laden with cheese, milk, butter, croissants, bread, paté, vegetables, kippers and fresh crèpes.  What a wonderful feeling!  The town was looking very pretty, so while I was too busy shopping to photograph the market, I did take a picture of the river and the pressure-fed fountain.

The cold winter weather was good for the fruit trees, and they have responded in most cases with lots of blossom.  Of course now the harsh late frosts are savaging the blossom and affecting any set fruitlets.  I am hoping that I will have saved some fruit on the Victoria plum in the garden as the blossom has never been so good as it was this year.  My tactic was horticultural fleece, held in place with clothes pegs.  We think of it as a small tree, but it needed about 20 metres of fleece just to look like this - clearly not as small as we thought.  Time will tell for the fruit.

Now to go and sit in the late afternoon sun with a cat or two and 6 chickens who are not quite as in disgrace as they were this time last week.