Rural Life

Lockdown III, Day 10 - a trip to The Shack

We are having rather nice weather at the moment here - very cold overnight, which isn't so good, but lovely sunny days.  If you can find a place out of the wind to sit and contemplate, it is very nice indeed.  I sat under the birch tree at The Shack and while cuddling a cat, admired a humming bird moth sipping nectar and hopefully pollinating our broad beans.  As with humming birds themselves, it is very difficult to take a good photograph as they move so quickly, and certainly so with a phone!

This delightful reverie was broken when cat wars broke out on the shallot bed - thank goodness I planted so many, as four got well trashed with two large, fat cats rolling around on them!  Quite a good action shot though, if I say so myself!

Two of my favourite flowers are out at the moment.  Firstly we have a lovely big patch of honesty by The Shack, in the shade between another birch tree and the yukkas.  The purple flowers are a lovely colour and very simple, while the seed pods, later in the year, are pretty and dramatic oval disks.  You can peel them apart to make a nice dried flower/seed head display.

The other is periwinkle - a lovely deep blue flower.  In the garden at home we have a variegated version - the leaves are yellow and green - but I prefer the plain green version, which grows in profusion at the top of the orchard.

Lockdown III, Day 8 - down at The Shack

Sunday morning is generally our big time for doing work at The Shack - there is a period of 2 hours between 10am and midday when we can use petrol motors, so John can play with chainsaw, rotavator, strimmer, brush-cutter and other noisy things, while I supervise cats and do "stuff".  Yesterday and overnight we had the first proper rain for ages, so the machines didn't come out to play but we did have a good check round and cuddled cats.

I sorted out my box of seeds about a month ago, throwing out most opened packets and anything over 7 years old (!).  Those between 5 and 7 years old and interesting (10 packets of seeds for kale and while it may be a super food, I'm still not going to grow it) I took to The Shack along with a stack of 6 - 8 inch pots.  A couple of weeks ago, I filled 7 pots with my miracle horse poo and leaf mould mix from the bin, and sowed the whole packet of each of cat mint, dill, coriander, basil, lettuce Webbs Wonder, chard Bright Lights and Autumn King carrots.  It felt rather good to be quite so profligate!  Anyway, despite pretty awful germinating conditions - first unseasonably hot, then unseasonably cold - today's inspection showed that so far at least the chard and the carrots are coming up!  Yes, I have spotted there is an interloper among the carrots - it has been removed.

Inspection of the bed planted with garlic, shallots and Hispi cabbage showed really good growth on the shallots, well apart from a Donald shaped gap!  I'm sure the delayed ones will catch up in due course and no one was rolling around on the wet soil today!

Things aren't so good on the fruit front.  While I have a small Victoria plum tree in the garden at home that is wrapped round with fleece at the moment to protect the fruitlets, the big tree at the end of the wildflower meadow does not have that luxury.  You can see the fruitlets are nearly black and when I picked one off and dissected it with my thumb nail, it was clearly unviable and frosted.

The cherry blossom has also been affected - I'm hoping that it is just that the petals have been fried by the frost and that the fruit will somehow survive, but with more nights of frost over the next week, I fear my ability to stand and scoff a kilo of cherries while allegedly doing something useful in the meadow will be severely curtailed this year.

Tomorrow I am likely to have a rant about orchids.  Just to warn you.

 

Lockdown III, Day 7 - by way of explanation

With this lockdown being announced for the 4th April, there was a certain inevitability that I would be informed on the 3rd April that we finally had a date when a room would be available in a carefully chosen nursing home.  So much to be done, so many arguments and discussions to be had, and of course lots of work to do as well.  And then lockdown itself to contend with.  Hence going dark for essentially 3 blogging days (I don't think posting an Armadillo really counts), while, depending on your point of view, someone entered prison or a caring and safer environment.  As I left on Thursday, I admired a group of ladies of a certain age, sitting on the sun-drenched terrace wearing rather fetching boaters, drinking lemon squash and keeping each other company - I didn't feel quite so bad!

Nibbles has felt the undertones of what has been going on and this morning both sulked and lived up to her name - hopefully that sort of behaviour will wear off soon and she will go back to ignoring me and sleeping or seeing off young intruders from the garden.

And as if cat shaming isn't enough, I am now going to chicken shame.  We have 5 - yes FIVE - full sized chickens and a small freeloader, so why did I have to buy this today?

Finally a comment on lockdown rules or my notoriety locally - I'm not sure which.  Yesterday I was driving home at about 6pm after having visited a client.  As the visit had been outside the allowed 10km, I had an attestation on my phone as well as my ID card, so when I saw the police block as I drove between the Chateau and the Tribunal in Baugé, I pulled over as indicated and started to prepare.  I put on my face mask, turned off the music in the car, prepared to get my ID and phone - but the lovely young policeman just looked in at me, and said with smiley eyes, "no don't worry, on your way, Madame!"  I was a little upset at not showing off my lovely new WARP (Withdrawal Agreement Residence Permit) card, but having said that, with Vieil Baugé stickers on the car and being convinced I'd met him before, I guess I wasn't surprised! 

 

Lockdown III, Day 6 - not back to normal yet

Apologies for the disruption to service and I promise I will get going again properly tomorrow to review the first week of Lockdown III.

In the meantime, enjoy this photo from September - because everyone needs to see an occasional armadillo!

Lockdown III, Day 2 - not so nice as yesterday

No sun-drenched photos today as the weather has taken a colder and duller turn, and we wait agog for some rain!  We've not had rain, proper rain, since John seeded a new lawn about 3 weeks ago - blame him!!  We had to go back to The Shack today to feed the Boys in the Country, so took some time to check the Asian Hornet trap we have there (I did write about it last year, but can't immediately find the blog).  I'd been pretty chuffed to find one critter in there on Friday last week, but today there were 3!  Nasty brutes too.  It is important to trap and kill these over-wintered queens as they have small nests dotted about, in which they are raising their fertile brood of up to a dozen future queens.  Get them now and that is up to a dozen per queen big nests full of bee eating hornets that won't happen.

We also admired, or tried to, the shallots that are starting to come up.  We were so pleased with how they grew last year, that we bought rather more this year, and there is a larger bed with 33 sets trying to do what they do.  They are hampered in that by big fluffy cats who find nicely turned, dry earth a lovely way to remove excess fur, and roll around in an abandoned fashion.  This is Donald doing his thing.

We walked the boundaries to check that all was well, and met the neighbours at the bottom of the orchard where there are a couple of small ponds.  They thought we were very interesting.

And then we admired cherry blossom along the boundary of the wild flower meadow - you can see just how different it is to the pear blossom I showed yesterday, can't you?  Sadly as it was cold, there was no comforting buzz of busy bees and no cherry blossom perfume, but that will be back later in the week with the sun.

The sun should be back tomorrow, for rather prettier pictures!

 

Spring 2021 - still not locked down again, but for how long?

Except I'm not going to bother to write about that, because as and when our new lockdown happens, I will need something to write about!  Instead I will point out the joys of spring and rural life.  One of the key "joys" of rural life are fresh eggs - well our 3 feckless girls and the freeloading bantam seem to have given up laying eggs, so just over a week ago, it was my job to get new stock - meet Mac the Knife and Jak the Ripper!  So called as in general the black and yellow chickens we have had have been evil so and sos.  We shall see!

Spring brings blossom and each year it is a race between the peach and the plum blossom to see which comes out first.  In the past, it was actually always the apricot first but we don't have an apricot tree any more, so here is plum blossom.

The cowslips are also out and will be for a while yet.  I'm not sure why some become more exotically coloured than the usual yellow - I assume cross fertilisation with primulas - but it does make for some very lovely combinations.  I am particularly fond of the deep red ones.

We are now down to 6 cats - three girls at home with us, and three boys in the country.  Fergus Sunshine Superman succumbed to an aggressive tumour on his hip three weeks ago.  It is interesting watching how the three remaining boys are coping with his absence.  We hadn't realised he was pack leader, so there is some posturing going on about who is now Top Cat.  S Clause spent a lot of time looking for Fergus in the garden, which was rather sad.  Donald has gone just that little bit more loopy.

Earlier this week was the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Vieil Baugé.  It should have been marked by an academic symposium, but Covid scuppered that - it should happen in September instead.  Floral tributes were laid however, to mark the turning point of the Hundred Years War.

If we are locked down again, I will restart the daily blog.  If we aren't, I'm afraid this is going to be a bit hit and miss as there is a lot going on chez nous at the moment, but not much that makes interesting reading on a daily basis!!  As they say nowadays - Stay Safe!

 

That's quite enough of 2020!

As the t-shirt says, 2020 - one star rating.  And I think the one star is because you can't have a no star rating!  New Zealand and Australia are already shot of it and here in France we have just over 6 hours (and counting down) more to tolerate.  Not that I imagine the start of 2021 will be any better really, but short of alien invasion, this year really has had most things cr@p.

But to put a better spin on it all, things are looking up!  This morning I went to open a new sack of chicken feed and pulled the two bits of twine that are sewn along the top to close it - miracle of miracles, it all pulled apart in one smooth movement.  It didn't even need a starting nudge with the scissors!  For those who open bird seed, chicken food, cat litter, posh flour and pasta and all the other paper sacks with stitched tops, you will know the astonishment and pleasure this gave!

Nature is also doing its bit to show that there are good things to come.  The broad beans I sowed in late November are coming up, and following a badger track, I found a load of narcissus bulbs coming up under a hedge.  There are also loads of orchid and cowslip rosettes to be seen, while Aldi was selling hellebores and I was there in time to get one!  Nature shows the way (although we may also get snow in the new year).

Culture also goes on.  The online store that shall not be named, but is about the only way currently I can buy new books in English, exceeded its estimation of delivery dates and these two lovelies turned up today!  These are two of my absolute favourite contemporary writers.  Louise Penny's Gamache is the detective we would all want working on a case on our behalf - this book is about an investigation in Paris, but normally he is in the Quebec state of Canada.  Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant is a member of the Met, but is shacked up with a river goddess and is part of the Wizarding special section of the Police, so a little different.  I can't wait to get stuck in!

So I leave the final farewell to 2020 to S Clause, and look forward to the new challenges and charms of 2021.  I decided a sweepstake on the date of the start of the next confinement here would be in bad taste, but so far people have mentioned the 5th and the 15th of January.  Bonne Année, et surtout la santé as we say over here.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 39 - a walk in the wood

Today has not been an exciting day to write about.  I've been doing a bit of work with one of my clients, and would heartily recommend the Water, Mills and Marshes LPS website as a place to linger to learn about the Norfolk Broads, the mills there and the work being done to restore land and buildings, and to educate people.  I was there in early March, just before the first lockdown hit, and it is a hauntingly beautiful area.

Less cheery was the news that the staff at the Francois Rabelais Hospital in Chinon have been affected by Covid quite badly.

Yesterday however, after a visit to the Boys in the Country, I took the long way home and visited the One Acre Wood for a walk and contemplation.  The previous Sunday we had both visited and had worked hard to fill the trailer with firewood.  The weather had been perfect - sunny and a hint of warmth.  Yesterday the conditions were less good, and I was on my own, but there were still interesting things to marvel at, including self-seeded cyclamen plants, and the ever changing light and views as more leaves fall. 

The service trees do not make good firewood (although we gather they aren't bad for charcoal), and often just collapse and fall for no obvious reason.  We tend to leave the trunks to rot down or provide food for whatever passes through the wood.  I found evidence of something having a good rummage in one of the logs.

Further round, I found a new mushroom had come up - it is a bit late, as many of the others that were around earlier in the year have rotted away or are looking like something from a horror movie.  I don't know why but pied de mouton (hedgehog mushrooms in English) seem to fruit very late in our woodland, and this is a rather nice example.  They are edible I gather, but I'm never entirely sure about them, and none of the hunters or scrumpers that come through the wood take them, so I leave them as an interesting curiosity and further evidence of the excellent biodiversity there.

In the words of the song, it beginning to look a lot like Christmas, as holly berries are everywhere and haven't been eaten yet by the birds.  In another week or so I might be inclined to cut a few sprigs and make a wreath, or I might just leave them to be enjoyed by nature.  I'll see how I feel.  I won't have them in the house, as the berries might be food for mice, and might be poisonous for cats.

With three cats living in the house, you would think I wouldn't be too worried about mice, but Zola brings them in and then forgets about them.  A couple have been living hidden in a crack between kitchen units and only coming out when we aren't moving, to eat their way through a packet of polenta.  Once we realised what was going on, we kept the packet in place, and caught one, and took it away outside.  Its chum finished the packet on Sunday morning.  On Sunday evening, it was looking for something else and making a noise, and for once Zola followed up, laid in wait for about 10 minutes and caught it.  And ate it - as the only evidence I found was a tail and a bit of "inner mouse".

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 38 - Sunday ramblings

Another cold, miserable, dank, late autumn/early winter day, and again so hard to get motivated to do anything!!  However after lunch, duty called.  John went off in one direction to see a client, but failed to extract money.  I went off in another to feed the Boys in the Country.  All four turned up quickly and the tin of beef and carrot chunks in gravy disappeared with a lot of slurping noises.  I've tried recording it, but it is the stuff of nightmares.  I'll spare you for the moment (or until I work out how to transfer the sound file in).  Once all the bowls were broadly clean, I put on my wellies and went out to beat the bounds - it was not a day to sit down for a love in.  I found a few raspberries clinging on and the couple I ate were very tasty!

Further down on my wandering, I found I had missed a last courgette.  The local slugs and snails hadn't, so I decided to leave it, as slugs and snails are food for my trusty toads that also live down that way.  Just one small one wouldn't make a meal for us anyway!

I then went round the other two plots, escorted as ever by at least one cat, to make sure all was safe and secure.  The badgers hadn't been out since the last rain (which would have been this morning), so there were no traces of them.

While we have perhaps between two thirds and three quarters of the wild flower meadow under control, there is still a chunk that needs to be got back from bad scrub.  If you leave rewilding to itself, essentially you end up with invasive scrub, which is great for brambles, mice, rats and other stuff, but doesn't favour wild orchids, the plants for butterflies and doesn't seem to be popular with the badgers either.  Next year we will try to claim back another 10 to 20 meter deep stretch of the meadow.

Finally, with a nod to the Festive Season, I share the progress on growing the brussels sprouts for John's Christmas dinner - they are small, but they are there!

Like that they even look faintly appealing to me!!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 37 - more like Winter actually

Just over 2 weeks to the shortest day, and it isn't really light here until nearly 9am on a good day.  There was also a bit of a frost here this morning - the weather station in the garden recorded -0.7ºC, but that was at head height.  The pepper and aubergine plants still standing in the garden and the canna lilies at the front of the house are all showing signs of having been well frosted this afternoon, and it is probably time to cut them all down.  Except that it is too cold and yukky to really want to go out side and do that.

Surely not, I hear you mutter?  After all the douceur angevine, and you are in western France and all that, means that it is always warm and glowing?  Not all the time, no.  This morning it was a real labour of love to stand in the queues in the market, although I have to say, they were a lot shorter as a lot of fair weather shoppers couldn't face it.  I did the circuit including the tea lady up Rue Basse in about 45 minutes as opposed to an hour or an hour and a quarter.

There was a ceremony at the War Memorial as I left - poor Anciens Combattants freezing as they saluted the monument and then had to listen to a speech by a Mayor.  There weren't many of them due to Covid.  But then it started to rain too!  Once home, I had the honour of being sat on by Zola to help me warm back up again - even she couldn't be bothered with the outside world today!

After more rain, which fortunately didn't turn lumpy, it brightened up enough this afternoon for me to pop out for a bit of a walk, not much and not far, but something.  Looking to the south east from one of the lanes I went up, there is a nice view across the valley, although the clouds were not at all friendly.  There is more rain on the way, and as it gets dark, I guess it may become solid.  There was snow this morning in Normandy I gather - brrrrrr!