Rural Life

Drama! Games and ducks

We are past the vernal equinox: the gazebo roof is dry, down and packed away for next year, when I hope it will be out for longer than two months!  As ever it will need some running repairs to see it through the season but I think the Velcro has another year left in it, while the actual fabric is holding up nicely.  Ok the "outside" is faded, but we sit under it so still have the glory of its bright colours. 

With the cover down, the gazebo just has its strawberry hanging baskets, its weather station and its fairy lights, which I shall leave out a bit longer, as they bring delight when I put the chickens away at night.  Soon there won't be enough daylight to charge the battery and then they will come in.

 The arrival of autumn proper and the longer evenings means it is time for boules de fort - a traditional local game not played in more than a handful of departments, but Anjou is definitely a key place.  Le Vieil Baugé is blessed with four still operating boule pistes - there were 7, but the other three are no longer in use.  Every autumn there is the Communal Challenge, where all the clubs and societies, the village municipal workers, and any other identifiable group are invited to submit up to two teams to defend the honour of their group. 

The Comité des Fêtes has always tried to come up with two teams, as was the case this year.  Normally team membership is decided on having one good team and then a bunch of no-hopers.  This year membership was decided on who was available on which evening for the first round.  That got me into the "first" team with people who know how to play - a bit of a shock!

Even more of a shock for me was that we got points!

In fact, at the end of a three and a half hour game - I kid you not - we won 10 to 7 against the Society for the Preservation of Vieil Baugé Heritage!  That means I am playing again on Thursday this week, but against one of the boule de fort societies, so it is likely to be a pasting.

So back to the world of trail cameras.  Spoiler alert - it is a bitter sweet story.

There are a pair of mallards that live in the zone - he is a bit flighty, but she is a gentle soul.  Last year I actually saw her with a couple of ducklings in the fish pond, before the coypu had managed to make it a poorly drained swamp.  So it was rather nice to see her passing through with a little ball of fluff.

 

A couple of days later and she passed with two little fluff balls!

 

Then I saw her with five!  O what joy!

 

Except, two days later, there was just one duckling left.

 

But three weeks later, that ball of fluff had fledged quite nicely, and did stay with Mum until the end of July, when presumably she went off to find her own pond.

 

I don't know what happened to the other ducklings - there are many options and it is a hard world out there for small balls of fluff.  If they all survived, we would disappear under all the mallards however.  One of the culprits could be this chap - yes, pine marten can also be spotted in daylight!

 

Anyway, next week I turn my video attention to those relatively charmless creatures, coypu.  Something to look forward to?  

This afternoon is the exhibition of the annual photography competition run by the Society for the Preservation of the Heritage of Vieil Baugé (who got beaten by the Comité des Fêtes at boules de fort - ha!), with the prize giving at 5pm.  You submit your photos (maximum of 2) by email, the best 30 get printed and exhibited, and there are winners and prizes.  I hope one of my entries got printed, that for me would be the win.  You'll find out next week! 

Have a good one!

Making the most of the good days

2024 has not been a classic year on many fronts, not least the weather.  Often the autumns here are truly blissful, warm or hot days, cooler evenings, sunny with the odd day of gales.  Sometimes we aren't actually that keen on the prolongation of summer, but this year, with perhaps two weeks of summer in total, more than a week of nice autumn would be good.  Alas it is not to be, so the rare days of idyllic autumn have to be savoured.  Yesterday was one such day - crisp, sunny, inspiring!  The Saturday morning market in Baugé was quite classic, with yummy local products, the dulcet tones of Yann Mas warbling in the background and bright sun, with the Chateau watching over us!

Today was the annual antiques fair at Durtal, some 12 kilometres to the north of us.  Since Covid and Brexit, it is smaller, with fewer traders and fewer English voices to be heard as you go around the stalls.  Actually the size now suits us better, as say 10 years ago, it was just too big.  But today there were very few punters out and about as well.  Okay so we were there between 1pm and 2pm, but even so it seemed a bit sparse.  The quality and the range of stuff was impressive this time so we enjoyed our 3km walk around from where we parked the car, but the weather was not propitious and by the time we got to the car, it was raining.  Durtal Chateau loomed over our arrival and departure in a gloomy fashion, given the weather conditions.

With two nice days in the week, we got done as much as we could by way of gardening, and in between I did useful things.  For a start I stewed a couple of kilos of windfall apples from the garden which are now in the freezer waiting for me to make apple crumble in due course.  I then batch cooked a load of cristophines so I have some ready to be a gratin when the need arises. 

I also brought in a trail camera that had been in place in a secluded area for the past 3 months to see what had been going on.  I was actually a bit grateful for poor weather, as there was so much going on, and I had time to enjoy the footage rather than feel guilty about it. 

To give an idea of what has been going on, here are some highlights:

The tree by the camera, which has been shown to be a really good scratching post for boar, is also a favourite scavenging point for the Great Spotted Woodpeckers.  This is a rather nice short of one giving the tree a once over.

While there is the well known phrase "breed like rabbits", I tend more to the phrase "breed like wild boar", as they can produce two litters a year and litters are big and there are just so many around, but on the other hand, baby boar are so cute!

 

While they aren't my favourite animals by a long chalk, young coypu aren't as unpleasant to look at as their parents, and the family that live in the zone seem to have had 4 babies this year.  This little fellow is about a third the size of its parents.

I adore pine martens, and for a few weeks they seemed to spend a lot of time playing and searching for food around the camera location.  I've decided to share a number of videos of them this time, as later blogs will be more about the fox, the duck story and those wretched coypu.

At first there was just one pine marten, but then another, smaller one joined it.  I've no idea if they are a couple or whether it is parent and adolescent, but I love them and am always rather excited to see a photo or a short video of them.

So, first just one:

 

Then two of them:

 

 

The trail camera is back in place again, but I still have over 200 more files to go through and see what is there in detail.  The badgers go through there, as do deer occasionally, and I still hope to see the water rail again one of these days.  All three cameras are now deployed and it is the time when all the animals we share the area with are looking to put on winter stores to help them through the cold season.  I wish them luck as it looks like poor pickings this year and I refuse to provide feed - nature must take its course.

That doesn't apply to the blue tits and great tits that eat the pine processionary caterpillars of course - they are encouraged to congregate in the zone to then take the evil invaders out when they appear!

The forecast for the week isn't great, but I hope there will be some fine days to take advantage of out in the gardens and woodlands.  Have a good week!

 

End of an era, in more ways than one

So last week saw me back in England for a few days - there was family stuff to do and people to see, and a final work presentation to do.

I started off heading for Saffron Walden, via Hatfield, to see family.  Visiting Hatfield was also a bit of a blast from the past, having spent years there as a student and post-grad.  The Gateway superstore with flats above had been removed and replaced with an Asda superstore with no flats above, the shopping centre was as grim as ever, and I met a rat in an underpass.  Time hasn't been kind to Hatfield, and even the airfield where de Havilland, then BAe, used to test planes has now disappeared under brick, tarmac and concrete.

On a happier note, Saffron Walden is as pretty as ever, like a TV set town in a Midsummer Murder or similarly nostalgic show, where buildings are pretty, the population handsome, traffic diverted from where you want to be, the sun shines and plants bloom.  

I also went to Harwich - somewhere I last visited when a niece got married perhaps 25 years ago?  To get to where I needed to be, I managed to avoid the town centre, which might have disappointed, and instead just followed the A120 until it fizzled out near the Lifeboat Museum.  This is a quaint corner of town, with narrow roads, pretty houses and a view onto the estuary from nearly every point.  There is a moored up Pirate Radio ship, bringing waves of nostalgia as I remembered hours listening to Caroline or Laser 252 as alternatives to Radio 1, which never seemed to have good reception.  There was also a memorial to the Kindertransports of the late 1930s.

After a couple of nights with family, I had to move on to my main purpose of the visit - Norwich and the Broads.  Thursday saw the celebration event, drawing to a close the magnificent Water, Mills and Marshes Landscape Partnership Scheme, while also alerting partners to a new, bigger, better fund from Heritage Lottery which will kick off next year.  The presentation was held at the Norwich University of the Arts Immersive Visualisation laboratory, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, among others.  My rather boring and untechnical presentation was done on a normal screen with rows of chairs in traditional form.

My low tech presentation was let down by the computer mouse not advancing slides, so Farrell of the Broads Authority (see last week) had to lie on the floor and manually click the keyboard to make things happen.  As the lighting was low, I couldn't see my notes so some of the detail of the slides had to be glossed over, probably a good thing for the person on the floor. 

Once the retrospective celebration was done, people could concentrate on the exciting new stuff - the new funding opportunity and the immersive screen.  At 10 metres in diameter and 4 metres tall, the screen is amazing, and when video and audio work together, almost as good as being out there yourself, but with huge potential for exploring simulated futures as well as the past.

But planning for and evaluating the new fund and working with the immersive screen is for others younger than I.  That was my last ever evaluation project, my last ever professional presentation - unless Baugé en Anjou ever discovers what I can do, I guess, but I doubt it.  Now I turn the page on an evaluation career that lasted for 30 years, and move on to a new stage in my life, and see where that takes me!

I left Norwich with some regrets - it is a lovely city, set in a beautiful area of England, but I am not sure I will be going back.  Another quick pitstop at Hatfield reminded me why we left there in 1989 without much of a backward glance, while the tarmac purgatory that is Portsmouth Harbour positively pushed me home!

So, home again, but here too there have been changes while I was away. 

Something over 15 years ago, John took in next door's rather neglected and abused cat, Nennette.  He had her sterilised (she was a good Mum, but much better off without the wherewithal  for more), brought her into the house, had her chipped and parasites removed and her vaccinations done.  We also changed her name to Nibbles - partly because Nennette was a horrid name, and partly because in those days, if you got too close, she would bite.  Actually she never really got out of the nibbling phase, but it was done more in affection than in fear in later years. 

Six years ago she had a stoke, which left her rather deaf, and with a tendency to walk in diagonals, but did not stop her climbing walls and trees.  A couple of years ago she developed hyperthyroidism, which led to her going blind about a year ago.  On Wednesday, her heart gave out, and she left us.  

For a small cat, she had a larger than life character.  Her facial expressions were amazing - often disapproving.  She brought rats back for her kittens, which our neighbour treated with a certain horror, but we pointed out he should accept as the presents she intended them to be, and that he should feed her more!  She had a five year battle with a green woodpecker that tried to visit the garden.  She liked to taunt and goad dogs.  She liked sandalwood scented soap.

What a lot to say this week!  I have brought home a trail camera, so next week there may be a wildlife photo or two - we can but hope.  Have a good week!

 

 

A week that ends in a feast!

Last Saturday's storm is being claimed as a natural catastrophe as numerous buildings were damaged, though fortunately not ours.  I was in a shop this morning that had been affected.  It is all very well having a foot of insulation in the roof, but when it gets wet, it becomes very heavy and brings down an awful lot of stuff with it!  Not pretty and not good for the shop keeper! 

If you track down WIRED you will find an article about the increasing cost of lightening to buildings and insurance across the world, using the marvellous example of Mutton's Mill in the Norfolk Broads, which has had lightening conductors fitted to all four sails to prevent significant damage in a storm (perhaps try googling Farrell of the Broads Authority to find the story).

[Mutton's Mill, photo credit, Andrew Farrell]

Since the storm, temperatures have got steadily colder, although there are nice sunny days.  Rebus has spotted that the best autumn billet is on top of the beer fridge, as there is no heating on anywhere else and his fur coat is quite thin!

This cold autumnal weather means good sunsets in general, and also nice evenings to stand out and watch bats flitting around, hoovering up all the flies and other winged nasties that come out after dark.  We have at least two types that zoom around our house and garden, and actually the area is well known for its significant bat colonies, with protected caves where they overwinter.

Today (Saturday - I am writing this in advance - see below for why) was the annual Societé de la Paix Mechoui or animal roast, but in practice it is always a pig roast.  Festivities start from midday with people turning up for the aperitif and to admire lunch cooking.

Then everyone gets herded onto two long tables for more aperitifs, starters, the main event of spit roast pork with beans and ratatouille, rounding off the meal with cheese and apple tart.  We generally get home at about 6pm after coffee.  It is a wonderful way to meet people, to share village life and gossip and to feel part of something.  Every year is a bit different, even if the menu doesn't change, and we wouldn't miss it for the world.

Tomorrow I head for England, to see chums and family, and possibly even Mutton's Mill, so next week's story will be very different.  Have a good week!

 

Welcome to Autumn

Meteorological autumn started on the 1st September and autumness is being embraced by fauna, flora and weather with unseemly eagerness.  Temperatures are dropping, and the weather lurches from dismal to awful, with quick hints of sun in between.  Yesterday we were due storms in the afternoon, but needed to spend a few money off vouchers, so didn't get to the place in the country until the rain had started, while thunder rumbled around.  We were lucky, actually, to be there and not at home, where there were strong wind squalls, nearly three times the amount of rain, and hail.  While the barn cats munched their way through their feed, oblivious to the weather, I watched the rain and then checked the lightning strike web page.

There's not much by way of mellow fruitfulness about either.  The berries are rotting on the canes almost before they ripen and the pears are over - not enough for a burping barrel either!  There are apples - the Reine de Reinettes are falling and are quite tasty.  I need to burrow into the Bel de Boskoop to find any there, while the Granny Smiths will hold for ages.  The Canada juicing apples are rotting, then falling, so I fear for the trees if the marauding boar decide they like cider.  We had hoped for a single variety juice pressing this year, but if we do one at all, I think it will be mixed.  The quince are also a disappointment, as they have missed out on the heat and sunshine they need to develop to their full size and become fragrant.  They are falling!  I will have to try to make jelly, but I don't think they will be up to tagine or slow cooked quince standard sadly.  

Also in stark contrast to last year, we can only spot 5 fruits on the cristophine vine, despite it being even bigger than last year!  It also misses the heat and sunshine though it does enjoy a good deluge.

The cyclamen in the lawn have been later to flower than normal - about 3 weeks later if I recall correctly.  I had hoped that the delay might at least mean a full carpet of them around the birch tree.  I may be jaded and depressed with this year, but it seems to me that they too are less bountiful, although new corms have started to produce flowers in far flung areas of the garden.

We are hoping for a decent year for mushrooms, with all the water that there is around.  A walk around the One Acre Wood today showed that there are things popping up, but not interesting edible things so far.

We have found a first bolete, but not where it should be.  There was one growing in the lettuce bed, which I picked, but as there is no oak or chestnut in the Garden area, just a rather large birch tree, I did not risk cooking it.  It could well have been fine, but when picking wild mushrooms, any doubt at all and it goes on the compost heap.

The Marx Sisters have settled in well, and at least two of them have started to lay rather cute small eggs.  Groucho is a greedy so and so and likes to climb into trees and onto tables.  This can be disconcerting.  Harpo bumbles on in her own happy way, and seems to have been the one to come into lay first.  Chico is a bit more of a loner and likes to fly.  Specifically, she likes to fly at my back when I am walking away from her, which is a bit worrying.  Perhaps in a former life, she was an eagle.

I have had another major session with my new strimmer, using the brushcutter head this time, and have a number of projects with that.  More to follow in the coming weeks.  I also probably ought to shuffle the trail cameras around, so again something for another week.

Until next time!

 

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!