Rural Life

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.

Summer Reflections 5 - it's nearly autumn

There are storms in the UK and we are due temperatures below 20ºC at the weekend - summer is definitely on its way out. 

During the summer we had the migrants from the south - swifts, swallows and house martins - who made each day special with their aerobatics and their song, loud and strident for the swifts, soft and bubbling for the swallows and martins.  We also had the migrants from the north - friends with second homes in the area, finally allowed across the Channel to enjoy their other homes and gardens and breathe a bit more freely in our rural paradise.

The UK Government-imposed quarantine on the whole of France (other governments do localised ones, which seems a bit more sane) saw the northern migrants flee home, with no real idea of when they can come back "officially".  There are still a few stragglers for whom quarantine holds limited fear, although insurance might be a bigger issue.  The weather and the seasons mean our other migrants are heading back south.  It is a couple of weeks since I heard the shriek of a swift, and the swallows are grouping up and heading off slowly now: we won't see them again until March or April next year.

This year the drift to autumn feels sadder than usual - normally there is a gentle melancholy once the Comice is over, knowing that days are getting shorter and cooler and wetter.  This year it feels more stark.  There are no Comices due to Covid, and in a normal year, every weekend in September is taken up with some event or other (mechoui, Patrimoine, forum des associations, the Bake Off, the volunteers' picnic), this year events are few and far between.  The forum des associations goes ahead with no demonstrations, food or drink and patrimoine will happen, but rather reduced and with less fanfare.  And then nothing.

We all sit and wait to see what the Second Wave will be like.  It will be important to seek out the small discoveries that make life more joyous - I might have to start a new blog series on that!

In the meantime here are photos of the new windmills at Chigné, not yet commissioned and some nutters are trying to get them removed via judicial review!  Also a photo of an unhappy carp - the oxygen levels in the public lake don't seem quite right for it, and a nice view of the church and a dramatic sunset.

Summer Reflections 4 - bees and heat

Late spring and early summer seems to be a popular time for bees to swarm, and it can be tricky to track down where they go to.  We helped a chum have a swarm evicted in October last year - they had found a nice sheltered spot between a window and a shutter and set up camp.  It was a very big nest and full of honey (yum).  As the window was slightly broken, they had also made camp in the utility room behind, so the beekeepers who came to deal with it had a tricky time.  It took ages to find the queen.

In May John spotted that they were back in the same place, so earlier this week, I let the beekeepers back into the house to get the bees out again.  As the window had been repaired, there were no bees in the utility room and it was amazing to see the structures they had built for themselves.  It took a couple of hours to sort out again, this time for a different reason - there was no queen!  A worker had started to lay, but was only producing males, and without a queen, it wasn't a viable colony.  It was also difficult to persuade them to go in the mini-hive, as there was no queen to follow.  All very strange.

After a blazing hot May, June was disappointing with rain and much cooler temperatures.  This seems to have fooled some of the self-seeded cyclamen in the lawn that it is nearly autumn and time to flower!

But July is a tricky month, and can be cool and rainy, particularly at the start of the month.  However we are now back to what one expects of July - hot temperatures and cloudless blue skies.  Very hot temperatures in fact - with shutters closed, windows closed, fans whirring in the evening and cats being very good at doing nothing but sleeping!  It is definitely time to make the final piece of the abri roof, so that no sun can disturb the sleep of the Nibbles!

Summer reflections 3 - love and lighting

It's been an interesting week here in rural France.  Holiday makers and second home owners are starting to arrive, as is Covid-19, although Anjou is not as badly affected as Brittany or PACA, we have moved from green to amber on RAG ratings.  The tourism season meant that there was an added attraction at the market last Saturday, as local authors did a book signing session - mostly wearing masks.

While the start and end of the week were hot and sunny, the middle was less impressive, with cloud, some light rain and cool temperatures for July - it's not unknown.  The conditions were clearly right for stag beetles to get it on, and I found a pair at it in the aubergine and pepper bed.  I wouldn't normally comment on beetle sex, but these are seriously big beetles and they made a bit of noise, plus I have chums who are that way about stag beetles.

The photo was after the event...

As the weather improved, so the long evenings were more appealing for late walks after I have watered the potted plants.  This photo shows a pretty novel light on the church spire (yes, it is twisted, just like Chesterfield, well not exactly like Chesterfield, but...), as it is really only at about 9:45pm or later that the sun hits that bit of the tower.

Apologies for the revolting bungalow in the foreground.

The vegetable plot is starting to get into its swing - here is Fergus guarding our swag (hard earned swag).  We have also robbed a couple more potatoes, and the beefsteak tomatoes are ripening.

Finally, it is a good year for my favourite flower.  We have three pots of agapanthus and all are out, but this one is the most dramatic.

Have a nice weekend and wear a face mask in enclosed spaces!

 

 

Summer reflections 2 - excess fruitfulness

Summer is definitely here, as there are more and more British cars on the roads.  If you are coming over, and bringing a car, don't be fooled by the British press saying that main road speeds are back to 90kmph (56mph).  In some places they are changing, in other places they aren't.  Basically, keep your eyes on the road signs, and if in doubt, stick to 80kmph (50mph).  And ignore what your satnav says too, as it won't be up to date.  We believe it is a scam to earn more money in fines, and they will still fine you, even if it is a British registered car, and that fine will find you.

So what about the excess fruitfulness?  Well that is down to our poor, long suffering pear tree.  We have yet another year where it is loaded down with fruit and we hadn't realised how big some of that fruit was, nor how much there was.  Sometime yesterday afternoon, a gust of wind hit it a bit too hard and wallop!  Down came a big branch.  A cat may or may not have been involved too - Zola is being a bit coy about that.

Now our usual way of dealing with excess fruit won't really work, as it relies on things being ripe and mushy and full of sugars and with a bit of natural yeast.  While large, these pears aren't really ripe or even close to thinking about being ripe.  Anyone with recipes for what to do with green, unripe pears, please let me know before the chickens peck them all to bits (and a vast hill of chicken food isn't actually what we need either).

 

Let summer begin!

Apologies for not rounding off the 30 Days Wild with a wild post yesterday, but I was anything but wild - tied to the computer until 10:30pm getting a report finished for a client.  With a couple of chums, I've been doing a quick scheme review for the Fifth Continent Landscape Partnership, but at a distance.  It brought back memories of afternoons on the sands at Littlestone when I was small, walks on the shingle at Dungeness when I was older, and the litany of villages we used to have to go through to get down to Littlestone (Matfield, Brenchley, Goudhurst, Sissinghurst, Biddenden, Tenterden, Appledore, New Romney).  My Dad used to love it down there.

Anyway, now summer should be here and soon the holiday makers will arrive, but it will be a strange summer, as so many of the festivals and capers of summer have been cancelled.  There will be no 14th July festivities and fireworks, no Comice at Echimiré, although they promise they will do it next year instead, no festival of the giant croissant (and at 800g each, they are indeed giant), no car boot sales, no concerts.  We will have to make our own entertainment.

And that is where things can get bizarre.  We grew small pumpkins (potimarrons) last year, but didn't eat many of them, as they weren't as tasty as the butternut squashes we also grew.  They sat in the garage and slowly went off.  "What happens if you bury a whole one?" he says, and does that in the wild flower meadow.  I imagine that they sit in the soil until some enterprising worm or beetle nibbles through the hard outer shell, at which point the seeds, which are in a nutrient rich soup of putrid pumpkin, go "weh hey - an escape tunnel" and go for it.  One has produced four seedlings, the other?  Well see if you can work it out!

With life here in France returning to close to normal, I'll not be doing a daily blog, but I will provide updates a few times a week.  I will leave you with the portrait of Fergus I promised a couple of days ago.