Rural Life

Summer ends with a splash!

Friday evening's pub session was grey, cool (I was wearing a sweatshirt, for goodness sake), and distinctly humid.  Saturday morning we woke to a thunderstorm and heavy rain - some 20mm before 11am.  But as so often with summer storms, but midday, the sun was out and temperatures rocketed and we were able to sit out for aperos in the garden and say how lovely it all was.  So at 3:30am, we were unimpressed to be woken with a shock by loud thunder nearly overhead and positively biblical rain, which carried on for a good hour.

I am always surprised after such a violent sounding night, how in the morning, you have to look really hard to find the evidence of the cataclysm that seemed to be going on during the hours of darkness.  Yes, the rain gauge was pretty full, and the one at The Garden was nearly overflowing, and driving to The Garden, there were odd banks of sand by some of the fields, but nothing particularly broken, just a lot more water in the ponds.

It is sad that summer ends so abruptly, not least as we are still in Comice season, and Genneteil were doing the honours this year for the Noyant Villages area.  Still by the time they got to the procession of villages (no fancy floats this year from the Noyant area), the sun was doing its best to shine on them.  I do feel that this year's procession was a demonstration of cruelty to Renault 4s and as I used to drive one, I felt a lot of sympathy for this poor car, pulling a trailer that was too well loaded for the weight of the car.

For an event where the theme was Rock and Retro, I also felt that the non-marching band weren't quite in the swing of the theme by playing Lady Gaga's Poker Face.  But perhaps it is the highlight of their repertoire.

Autumn jobs are coming to the forefront of our thinking.  The Meadow needs to be fully mown and the side paths need to be cleared so that I can get into the little woodland at the end and finally see what is down there.  The Orchard is too overgrown and needs to be sorted out before the walnuts start to fall - not least as walnuts are our rent to the landlady.  So, lots to do, and possibly too much for one man. 

So I rummaged in my moth filled wallet and invested in a strimmer/brushcutter that I can use.  My elbow has ceased to support frequent use of a pullcord for starting a petrol engine, so I have gone for a battery model and used it for the first time yesterday.  The battery lasted longer than I did, which bodes well for later in the autumn.  Me in safety gear, harness and carrying said strimmer is not a good look, but better safe than sorry!

Last Sunday, in a last hurrah to summer, we attended a jazz manouche concert at our local pub - Les Epines de Mymi Rose.  I've wanted to catch one of her concerts for a while, so was delighted to spend a warm summer evening, sitting with a glass of wine. listening to an excellent performance.

One of the delights of autumn here are vivid sunsets, so this from Wednesday night may well be the first of many.  There is much that is autumnal around at the moment, with the giant orange jelly slugs, ripe fruit falling and a certain feel to the air.  I am very fond of early autumn, but not so much this year, as we never seem to have had much of a summer.  Perhaps a week or so in August.

I did mention giant orange jelly slugs - they are numerous and finding life just too, too wonderful at the moment.  Wandering around the One Acre Wood I nearly stopped slug sex but standing on two, but managed to sidestep them just in time.  Fascinating and disgusting at the same time!

Have a good week!

 

Dog days of August

Interestingly (well I think it is interesting anyway), the French word for heatwave is canicule, from the Latin canus and something else, but implying our dog days of high summer.  Anyway, we are slap bang in the middle of another bout of high heat, which is quite restricting.  This morning we thought we might go to the Festival of the Giant Croissant - it is an annual thing around here.  I thought I might have written about it one year, but looking back, I haven't.  The giant croissants are over a foot long and would feed a family of four for two breakfasts.  I digress - everyone seemed to have the same idea and with a wait of 15 minutes to get into a car park, a couple of hours slogging around a hot village surrounded by fragrant and sweaty people lost all appeal.  We diverted to see the cats in the country and slop a bit of water around new crops and came home.  When I checked the Weather App, this is what I was promised.

While the sun is at its most intense at midday, the hottest time of the day is generally between 5pm and 7pm, by which time it was due to be about 35ºC.  We have decided to spend the day defrosting the small freezer instead.

With hot periods like this, there isn't much you can do really.  You have to go with the flow and try to keep as cool as possible (it is only 29ºC in my office currently).  This week we did decide to try out a new restaurant nearby.  The Bistrot 1813 has only been open perhaps 3 months, and is doing well, although from adverts on social media, when the schools and colleges go back, they could be struggling for waiting and kitchen staff.  We had a very enjoyable lunch there - 16,90€ a head for three courses, plus drinks on top (a very good Côtes de Rhône by the glass - not cheap, but if you are only having one glass, make it a good one!).  Fontaine Guerin is just down the road from us and has a church with a twisted spire - there are a few of them around here!

Yesterday morning was overcast and sticky.  Sunny and 36ºC is distinctly unpleasant but 28ºC and muggy is possibly worse.  To make the small and bijou market at Baugé that much more pleasant, there is often musical entertainment.  Some can be a bit trying - some Frenchman trying to croon "It's now or never" and imitating Elvis is the nadir, but recently there was a trad jazz clarinettist who was fab.  Yesterday we had a couple on guitar and fiddle doing Celtic sea shanty type music which was enchanting.  I hope they come again.

Rebus is no longer officially a kitten, he is now a cat.  He thinks this is a bit unfair, but once you hit one year old, you are a grown up in cat world.  But as he is now considered a cat, he has adopted one of the best loved cat perches around our garden.  Not our gutter, but definitely our cat!

He is well camouflaged in there!

The Marx Sisters have taken to garden life well and Harpo has started to lay eggs, but Chico and Groucho are being threatened with being part of the poule au pot served by the village at Telethon time.  I don't really need 3 freeloading chickens!  

We are in the final countdown to the Comice, at Vaulandry this year.  The last time it was there was 2011 and it was very hot (bit of a theme there).  On the Saturday a bunch of us performed Old MacDonald a une Ferme - there are photos here but fortunately no video!  Reading through the rest of the story, Pauline is now in the caring profession, Florian is married with one child, and Valentin has a degree in Engineering - how things move on!  The second day was the usual mayors' ploughing match and parade of floats, as is shown here.  I had nothing to do with the lovely float for le Vieil Baugé, which paid homage to the village's past as a wine producing area.

I've just heard a noise like a large lump of ice falling off the freezer, so I must go and tend to the ice removal process, which will be nice and cool - have I mentioned that it is 29ºC around my computer?  Have a good week!

 

 

 

Summer miscellany

Yes, summer is firmly installed now, and finally the verges are taking on their straw colour that I normally associate with July.  It arrived in a rush, with last Saturday starting to look promising, and last Sunday was as perfect a summer day as you could ask for.  But it didn't know when to stop, and Monday was hotter, which made visiting a chum in hospital more appealing as they had air conditioning.  Tuesday was deeply unpleasant - up to 39ºC measured in the shade in the garden, but with humidity, feeling a lot worse, and since then things have slowly calmed down to normal high summer.

On Monday, to finally welcome in summer, we got most of the cover on the gazebo in the garden.  First I had to check all the fixings and resew a number of the tapes, as they had been buffeted rather in the winds last autumn.  It is easiest to use my sewing machine outdoors, where the light is good and the table doesn't have a slippery surface.  Poirot, the elderly cat, decided I needed help and supervision - fortunately it didn't make life too difficult!

We have started on the annual mow of the wildflower meadow (royal we).  There is never an ideal time to do it, and currently it is a sea of white umbellifers, mostly wild carrot I think, but there are few butterflies, and the crickets seem to get out of the way OK, and if we leave it too long, the brambles and old man's beard and tiny saplings get more difficult to pulverise.  Seeds of things like orchids and broomrape are now ripe so will be spread around in the mowing process.

A favourite flower is gaura, and this year, after it had been well and truly strimmed down to ground level, it has come back with a glorious display for us.  I guess this could be the answer for how to keep it lovely!

I have been through the files on the trail camera that was overlooking one of the ponds.  It wasn't the best placement, and it overlooked a path going across so you get lots of photos and videos of animal bottoms disappearing out of shot.  This short video of a meandering doe is a rarity, and she doesn't stay around that long either!

Perhaps a day after the camera was set up, a stag took an interest in it, and had a good go and dismantling it, but failed.

The main purpose of the camera placement was to catch the boar having mud baths.  They leave an imprint in the mud that is impressive, so I hoped to capture something interesting.  One night I thought I might be in luck.  A boar arrives.

It gets itself into position, after a bit of preparation.

But is then too far away from the trail camera to set it off again, until bath time is over anyway, at which point I get an image of a muddy boar!  There is evidence of the boar bath place in the mud of the pond of course.

I would show you that, and the boar after its bath, but the internet is so slow and intermittent, I need perhaps 20 goes to get a photo loaded up, so I am calling it a day.  Enjoy your week!

 

 

A lot going on

As I did my last blog early, this is the first one since both election results are known.  While there seems to be a wind of change in the UK, and likely for the better, or as much as can be done for the better with no funding, here in France we face stagnation and insecurity until people grow up and learn to play nicely together.  With the sane elements refusing to work with far right or far left, both of whom are chucking teddies out of prams and saying it is all unfair, we could have a long wait - in any case until September, when they might remember what the tax payers pay them for.  Of course I gather Belgium runs rather well when there is no one in charge and that could be the same here!

At the local level, things are challenging but for different reasons.  So far in July we have had 61mm rain - which is more than we usually get in the whole month.  This is actually quite good for some of the flowers, which are lasting longer in the cooler, wetter conditions.  While there aren't as many flowers as usual on my agapanthus, I have been enjoying them now for a week and they look like they will last longer too.

My "black" day lilies are looking rather magnificent too, while the star gazer in the background is lasting well as well, so it's not all bad.

The garlic crop is something of a disaster.  I planted the first lot of cloves not long after the shortest day (the traditional garlic planting day) and harvested them yesterday, so well after the shortest day, but the best are the size of marbles and others are smaller.  We did have one as part of yesterday's dinner, and it was very tasty, but it took ages to peel all 12 cloves, each the size of a grain of rice.  The shallots will be fine for pickling, but not much else sadly.

The onions are a different story.  I lifted the red ones yesterday, as the tops had mostly collapsed and the ground is very wet, so best not to let them sit and fester.  Normally the best I get is about the size of a pingpong ball, but this year there are several that are much more meaty.  The white onions will need to be lifted in a week or so, and they are looking even better.

I've also been lifting the first row of potatoes I planted - they are second earlies so ready to start eating now, and with the damp conditions I am getting a smidge paranoid about blight setting in.  I was particularly pleased with today's haul from one plant, which will provide three meals for us this week I think.

While I was away, Jack the Ripper shuffled off this mortal coil and went to the chicken run in the sky.  That is the second one this year, but not surprising as they have a limited life span and we haven't restocked for a while.  As we were down to one laying hen, (Mac the Knife), (the freeloading bantam and Auntie Mo the retired sponger not doing anything useful other than eating slugs and annoying the cats) I was given permission to acquire three new hens.  We were a bit late to the market, so I didn't have much choice, but I got the last speckled hen and two brown ones, one of which is darker than the other so I might tell them apart.  There was a white one, but I only spotted her when my three were removed as she was happy to be sat on by all the others.  I don't think that is a good sign, certainly not when they have to co-exist with cats.  So anyway, I carried home a cardboard box filled with the Marx sisters - Groucho the speckled, Chico the dark and Harpo the pale.

They should start laying in about three weeks or so, and for the moment seem to be behaving themselves.  Rebus the kitten has taken it upon himself to keep a very good eye on them, and make sure they don't to anything too stupid.  The other residents of the chicken run regard them with horror most of the time.

Today is the Fête Nationale (never Bastille Day), and to honour that, the Tour de France is making the cyclists go up a very steep mountain to finish today's stage in the Pyrenees.  It seems only fair that I go and watch them suffer for my entertainment and celebrate all things French.

Have a good week!
 

Satisfaction?

OK, first up a warning.  This post isn't quite as family friendly as normal, or certainly the second half isn't!

The Rolling Stones sang that they couldn't get no satisfaction - for me that is a double negative.  What does satisfaction look like in the animal world?  Well when I took in the trail camera by the pond, I found a series of videos that implied that piggie heaven was probably a jolly good scratching post!  The poor tree that was used is not the largest or strongest, but somehow survived the onslaught.  It is also popular with birds (presumably nice things get left behind), the pine marten and deer.  Here is a feathered friend who cannot be named for politeness purposes seeing what has been left on the bark.

But now to boar action - when indulging in a jolly good scratch, even other boar are no distraction!

It's the tail on this one that gets me!

And once you have done the back, a good go at ears and neck is also pleasing.

Then a final scratch and what a satisfying evening for a boar!

Now if you are funny about snakes, stop reading around here!

I went to feed The Boys in The Country, and two joined me in their funny kitchen area, demanding food, while we could hear a lot of noise on the rood.  I assumed it was the third cat, so called him a couple of times to come in for food, but the noise kept going.  So once the two were snarfing away at their food, I went outside to see why Donald hadn't come in for his kibble.  I could see a flash of something white or cream, but it didn't look like a cat, so I got a step ladder and set it up and climbed up to see what was going on.  I then got my phone out pretty quickly, because it was unexpected.

First attempt

I settled myself more carefully on the ladder and got two further sequences, firstly here, and then this one.

These are not dangerous, they are Aesculapian snakes and can grow up to two meters long.  They are nonvenomous and while there is a small colony in northern Wales, they are really native to mainland Europe.  They are famed in Greek and Roman mythology for their relationship to the god of healing, Asclepios (Greek version) and are to be seen even today on the symbol for pharmacies in France and other places too I'm sure.  They eat rodents, including rats, so should be welcomed, not least as baby ones will eat large slugs and snails, including the flesh eating orange jelly slug.  Eggs and young are vulnerable to boar, hedgehogs and badgers, so I hope this couple are very careful where they hide their stash.

So there you are - two very different sets of videos but showing that animals enjoy life too!

Have a good week!

 

 

Could it get worse?

Well that was a mostly cool and damp week, but there were some compensations.  A novelty for the village is finally an alternative to the boulangerie that closed back in 2020 - a depot de pain, or bread drop-off, based around the village bar.  They have baguettes and bread, and if you want croissants or similar, you can order the day before.  First we tried the baguette on Monday and found it to be good.  Then we ordered croissants for Thursday morning, and were able to have a coffee and eat our croissants on the terrace in the sun, before it started to rain again.  This has added a whole new dynamic to our week we feel.

We have also had storms this week, including a humdinger on Wednesday, or rather two humdingers.  The first hit while I was in the Comité des Fêtes barn with a couple of chums working on the float for the Comice in August.  There were only three of us, not least as two were working hard on steaming off the last vestiges of last year's decorations from the corner posts, and you can't work with crèpe paper when there is steam in the air. 

I took the opportunity to design most of the missing panels.  Anyway, we were kind of stuck in the barn, as a storm started up at about 3:20pm and didn't leave us alone until about 4:45pm, at which point we scattered off to our different homes, ready for the next one.  That was a long and loud one too, and caused a lot of damage to crops and the roads not so very far away.

We had more rain on Thursday, Friday and early Saturday morning, but now it seems to have stopped for a day or two, to allow us to recover and take stock.  I did some of that yesterday - the shallots had basically collapsed, and I feared the worst - white rot.  Fortunately that doesn't seem to have been the case, just lack of sun and a decision on their part to give up on a bad job and try again next year (except I lift them and plant new stock each year).  I am hoping there are enough for two pots of pickled shallots for Christmas!

This week I was able to vote in a general election.  Not here in France sadly, as I am not a citizen - something I must try to sort out over the winter.  Instead I was able to take advantage of the change to the UK law that used to limit those living abroad to only having a vote for the first 15 years of absence.  Apparently after that we had no links to the UK - well apart from family, pensions, language, friends, potentially investments etc.  It was the one thing the last government changed that was a step in the right direction, so I have voted in the town where I was last registered to vote.  And it was good. 

There are elections due too here in France and the thing they have in common with the UK ones, is all the pundits asking "Why now?".  Of course if an election hadn't been called, they would have spent the summer saying "Why not now?".  In both instances, the rise of the Far (or Nasty) Right is a talking point at the very least.  The French elections seem to be based more on who can get through a day without making a total farce of their campaign.  The UK elections seem to be about whether the Conservatives get more seats than the Lib Dems, or if they can even beat the spoiled ballot papers in some areas.  How utterly depressing!  Much better to focus on nice things, like flowers.

In both elections, nature, the state of the planet and the environment seem to be at the bottom of the agenda.  Perhaps because the TV pundits are all urban types who are more concerned with where to find the best coffee, rather than whether it will be possible to grow coffee in future. 

We have left a few leeks to flower, more by accident that design, but they are very popular with the local insects, so clearly a good thing!

There is an even better photo with a bee in flight, which I am trying to load - one more try!

All of this blether means that intended subjects such as animal satisfaction and more details on the coypu will have to be tales for another day.  However I have loaded up new footage of a deer for you, having a go at a tree:

And another bit of film to show that the boar are still around:

And another with ducks, because ducks are happy fowl:

And there is so much more wildlife entertainment to come in the next few weeks! 

Have a good week!

 

Junevember - it's a thing apparently!

It's raining today, and cold.  It rained yesterday too, and during the week, and it hasn't been at all warm.  It is a totally new month apparently - Junevember - and it's got to be real as someone did a cartoon about it, which I have shamelessly nicked!

The weather has meant that gardening is limited to dashing out when at all possible to attack things that are growing too well and shouldn't be allowed to continue (grass, weeds, the grape vine), sighing over the things that should be pushing away with rare vigour currently and aren't (sweet peppers, courgettes, butternut squashes, chillies) and taking solace in flowers that are happy and having a longer season than we would expect (wild orchids are a good example).  Today I spotted a new one at the Orchard, hiding in plain sight among a bunch of pink clover that has now gone over.

One couple we know were delighted to see me as they had two gluts, white asparagus and alstromeria - I couldn't leave without an armful of each.  So very kind and the flowers, assuming a cat doesn't eat them or smash the vase, will last for ages!

The lack of heat, and more importantly the lack of sunshine, have an effect on the morale, but yesterday I rescued a trail camera that I had left in place for a couple of months as a way of doing something productive with the day.  My initial assessment, without wearing glasses, was that I had messed up and that there was going to be nothing on the memory card, so it was a pleasant surprise to find 599 files, when I looked at the card via the computer and wearing glasses.  Just a random sample of files showed that while I had yet again managed to turn off the video recordings, that wasn't until after about 6 weeks in situ, and there was a lot of activity including film of the blasted coypu.

Today I have been through all the files having a first look through - there is some juicy stuff in there for future blogs.  There is also a hunt chasing a deer and a boar two months after the season for "big game" closed - and from the noises off, I think they caught up with the boar.  As we have had other footage of a boar with a damaged leg, it would appear they didn't kill it, and the corpse by the main road is probably it - or was as it is now just a smelly black patch.  The audio didn't include a gun shot, but if it was a fox hunt, they wouldn't have had the right ammunition to deal with a boar with them.  It's all very complicated.  Anyway, I think this is who they were really after!

The little crossroads that the camera was by is very tight - the path across is mainly for ducks and coypu and the water rail to go from one pond to another, while the path up to the tree is fine for me, but peters out a little way further on, at least for me, because boar, deer and badgers use it.

The tree is popular with birds - there is more than one picture of a woodpecker on it, although this is my favourite.

It is a favourite with the boar, but that needs film and I haven't got the will to battle uploads to YouTube today.  The deer like it, not just the doe but also a rather nice stag.

Best of all, it is a fun place for the pine marten to climb up!  How I love these fellows!

I need to spend more time with the files - there is a whole article about boar to be written, and another about coypu, with lots of photos and video to accompany them.  So I will leave you this week with a slightly unhelpful photo of one of the common visitors to the crossroads - the Lady Mallard.

Have a good week!

 

Still not a hint of summer!

Meteorological summer starts on the 1st June - next Saturday in fact - but you wouldn't really know it yet.  The key summer crops of maize and sunflowers are either very short or not even sown yet, we still have sweatshirts ready to wear morning and evening, shorts rarely make an appearance and there is no cover on the gazebo yet.  With the long evenings, I am doing my walk to the top of the hill after closing up the chicken run, and on Tuesday, this was the inspiring sight that I was greeted with - standing water and maize just about 3 inches tall.  It's not right!

I did get the cover off the area of soil where I wanted to sow carrots, parsnips and salsify.  It had been providing shelter to a number of baby slowworms, one of which is pictured below, while keeping the worst of the weeds at bay.  I think the slowworms and toads are one of the reasons that we don't get too much slug and snail damage on that particular area, and they are supported by thrushes and other birds of that broad family.  The soil was very wet, very heavy and claggy, but somehow I got the seeds sown - how successful they will be, I am not sure.

While we are not hosting the Comice in Vieil Baugé this year, we have a relatively prestigious place in the parade of decorated floats, so we have to take it seriously.  Flowers have been made (possibly not enough green ones) and now we are starting to stick them onto the cardboard frames that get attached to the float.  That is something we can do in the rain as we have a nice dry barn to do it in, and it makes for a nice, convivial afternoon.  One thing I need to remember for the next session, is to sit down for part of the time - standing and leaning at a bad angle did nothing for either my feet or my back!

Today we went out for Sunday lunch, to Chinon.  Now this was a daring move as today is Mother's Day in France so there was a danger of too many people and not enough restaurant tables, but we know people, therefore it was not an issue for us at all.  We started out by visiting the amazing British craft brewer in Chinon, Simon at Brassefort.  He is a charming character, and has worked as a stone mason, as well as now being a brewer, so has lots of stories to tell and wisdom to impart, and the beer is jolly good too!  Lunch was taken at the Lion d'Or on the Place Jeanne d'Arc, where the food is always good (they also do an excellent café gourmand - a small coffee with half a dozen mini desserts), the wine in pichers is of a high standard and everyone is very friendly.

Now I must go to the kitchen and wrestle with the mangos we were given by our neighbour - someone had given him a case, and while he had eaten most of them, he was now fed up with mango, so would we like them?  Yes please!  Except they aren't the easiest to peel and eat - my godmother used to sit in the bath to eat them and then wash herself down afterwards.

Have a good week!

 

There's lots around if you know where to look!

We might have had a log fire going last night, resorted to a local discount warehouse yesterday afternoon due to the rain, and be working on our tax returns today, again because of the weather, but actually nature is out there doing what she does and getting on with Spring.  Beating the bounds today before giving up due to the rain (have I mentioned it is a wet weekend?), we spotted a new orchid plant and location.  Because they have tuber-like roots, for many orchids, once you have seen them flower in a location, you know to look in the same place the following year, particularly if that location isn't subject to local authority or local authority contractor "maintenance".  So spotting this new flower on the opposite side of the meadow to its usual haunts was really pleasing.  I imagine the seed was moved around by badger paw.

Thursday was a rare fine day, although not particularly warm.  I was able to take advantage and plant more of the well chitted seed potatoes, so now there is just a final row of 8 or 9 to go in during the week.  Each time I passed a particular tree where we had put up a nest box, I was aware of a lot of chattering noise, so I decided to pause, lean on my metaphorical spade and watch.  Sure enough, after a couple of minutes a Great Tit went to the nest box opening to be greeted by a lot of squeaking and then silence as goodies were shared out.  Once one parent had gone, there was a short pause, then the other parent turned up and the noises repeated themselves.  Today when I walked past the box, all was silent.  I hope the babies were tucked up warm and safe.

On Thursday, the Meadow was humming with insects: it was so loud, it was hard to distinguish the different birds that were also singing.  I'm sure it made finding food easier for the fraught parents from the birdbox!  At the entrance to the Meadow, I met a slow worm, basking in the sun and trying to warm itself up a bit.  We have quite a lot in the area, but it was nice to see one, although I then had to make sure my accompanying cats ignored it.

It must be nearly a year since I invested in a pond dipping kit, and early in the week, while the ground was still too wet to work, I decided to have a play.  You don't get instructions with a pond dipping kit - I guess they think it is obvious, or if you are getting a kit, you know what you are doing.  My first attempt was therefore marginally successful and with lots of learning points - take a chair and a kneeler and some spare white paper, and only source water from one pond at a time being top of the list.  I needed more time and more stable surfaces and a chair to let sediment settle properly, to focus properly and to have a chance of seeing whether the elongated fast thing had a hook on its tail or not.  A better field guide might be useful too.  I was cheered to see that there are a lot of water fleas around, as they are at the bottom of the food chain and if they are there, then other things can be too.  I don't have a clue as to what the elongated fast thing was, other than fast and about a centimetre long.

There is a parasitic plant that can be confused with a bird's nest orchid, but isn't one of those.  It grows off tree and shrub roots but at quite a distance and has no leaves.  We found a lot of them on the eastern side of the Meadow this weekend, just starting to come up, and about 2 to 3 metres away from the row of fruit trees.  I've not seen them there before, so am not sure if it is a weather related thing or a problem for the trees.  Anyway, here is a photo.

While not totally unusual, the past few Mays have been warm and sunny, so this year's wet and cold version is not going down well with humans or cats.  So far this month we have had over an inch of rain and a bit of thunder and hail, and more rain is forecast for the next couple of days before a 5 day window of warm and nice - or that is what we are promised.  I hope "they" are right, as while the rain is keeping the water level in the ponds at a useful level for wildlife, everything else is getting a bit miserable.

Have a good week!

 

This late April is weird

Each of the last 7 months in France have been the warmest ever recorded for that month.  It is highly likely that April will continue that dismal record, and yet it doesn't feel like it.  While the first half of April was warm, extremely warm at times, it continued the wet theme from March, but then it went cold.  There have been frosts, although we've not noticed much (up too late to catch the signs I guess), but very limited rain and temperatures rarely over 12 or 13ºC have halted or limited growth for some things, while others have carried on regardless.  In 3 day's time it will be May, yet the canopy at the One Acre Wood is quite sparse - chestnut is always a bit slow and one of the oaks in the picture is dead, but it doesn't feel right.

The lower growth is coming on nicely and we have a crazy oak lawn situation in places, so there is a nice green haze at ground level however.

We are into orchid season, and while it is too early for the lizard orchids, the lady orchid is looking better this year that it has for quite a few seasons.  There are also magnificent early purple orchids if you know where to look (mostly road side verges unless they have been mown).  One garden we know also has what are variously called spider orchids or fly orchids - not as pretty as bee orchids but similar to look at.  These seem to be out earlier than usual this year.

Over the next thee weeks I will no doubt drive myself mad trying to get the best possible photo of a bee orchid!

John likes the unexpected, so he was quite happy when I looked out of the bathroom window on Thursday morning and went downstairs to tell him that there was a ****ing great duck wandering around outside.  Too large and too stupid to be allowed on the public highway on its own, Quackers the Doose (too large for a duck, too small for a goose) was herded into next door's garden and a suitable notice put on the community Facebook page for the owner to come and remove their livestock.  Someone clearly took notice as by Friday morning, Quackers was gone, leaving just a few photos and an intriguing memory behind.

In unrelated poultry news, the Economic Migrant shuffled off her mortal coil this week - we think she was about 4 years old and hadn't laid an egg in about 12 months.  I feel guilty we don't have a photo of her!

So I have been through the videos from the trail camera that came in last weekend prior to being re-sited.  I messed up in that when checking things were working in mid-March, I managed to turn off the video function, so there weren't as many files as I would have expected, and about half of them were of me walking past in one direction or another.  There were a small number where something had clearly run past quickly so that while there was a photo, there was no accompanying interesting video to enjoy.  Then there is a rather dull video of a badger walking away - once you have seen one badger's bottom wiggling as it wanders off, you have seen all you need!  The main antics of interest were the deer, so here are two daytime videos of a couple of does and a nightime video of a stag being a bit boy-like.

 

 

 

During the coming week I hope to do a pond dip in the upper pond to see what might be living in there, so next week there are bound to be fuzzy photos of disgusting small water things.  I will also have finished and analysed the April bird recordings, and hopefully I will have planted more potatoes!

Have a good week!