Rural Life

Autumn changes

Last week I picked and stored the butternut squashes, this week I picked the best red pepper I have ever grown.  Plus I also pulled two more of the large white radishes - one of them was a bit damaged, but we had a good sized salad with the two (Donald the cat insisted on being part of the picture, posing as you can see).  Now our thoughts are more about next year's crops, and I should be sowing the first of those, broad beans, in the next couple of weeks.  My darling husband acquired a trailer-load of leaf mould for me - lovely stuff that is dark and full of organic matter and will help our clay soil a lot.  It is now stored under a tarpaulin in a number of giant cat food sacks until needed.

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During the week, the weather took a serious turn, with the arrival of Storm Aurore.  She was forecast to track further north than us, although the clouds were a clear sign that she meant trouble.  She brought an hour of truly nasty winds which brought down trees and powerlines.  In the centre of the village, we had a couple of power cuts, but otherwise no major issues.  Isolated properties to the east of us weren't so lucky with more major electric lines down and some houses without power for over 24 hours. 

So here is a tip if you are leaving your house for a few days, leaving the power on, and have food in the freezer, and there is a power outage.  Have a half eaten tub of ice cream in the freezer.  If when you get back, you find a slick of ice cream across the bottom of the tub, your freezer has defrosted, if there is still a clear half and a half with ice cream in it, enjoy the rest knowing it hasn't melted and refrozen!!

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So Aurore has now passed and the sun is back.  And we have a new toy to help with those annoying branches where it is difficult to get a bow saw in and a proper chainsaw is over the top.   This little gem came with two batteries, two bars and four chains (on the basis that you work 2 chains to a bar and should replace the bar more often that we do as the bar gets clogged and damaged and warped with use).  We spent a happy quarter of an hour raising the crown on an annoying cypress style tree, and half an hour tidying up afterwards (always the way).

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Last week I wrote about my embarrassing orchid habit - this is the final one I hadn't managed to get a good picture of, while it still has a flower.  I know it will fall off soon.  The small orchid that was covered in buds now has one flower, and I'm likely to show it off next week.

And yes, that is a cat eating in the background!

 

Normal service is resumed

In fact, as I really need to cover two weeks of excitement and rural stuff, this could be a bit longer than normal!

The week Huguette died and the week after were mostly lovely autumn weather.  This meant I could do a few useful autumn things like make jam.  My Mum's tree was about the only peach tree with much fruit on it, and as they are very dark fruited peaches (almost black if you get a good one), the resulting jam was a rich, dark pink colour.  We got 12 and two half pots of jam, both half pots have already been eaten, plus five jars of quince jelly from the tree in the garden (no photos of the jelly though).

Today has been spent gathering in excess of 150 kilos of juicing apples for our appointment at the fruit press tomorrow.  We could have gathered more, but a couple of years ago we discovered the joys of single variety apple juice - pretentious, nous?  Anyway, we wanted to do that again, as the juice from these apples (probably Canada variety or similar) is not as sweet as a mixed variety juice can be.  You know what next week's blog is going to be about therefore, but here is a tree before it was picked, and here is our helper.

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Huguette wasn't the only one to leave us in September, with a close neighbour also bowing out.  His house is now shut up while the family wait for the French equivalent of probate to be sorted out, but the geraniums he tended outside his house are still going strong and a lovely memory of him.

September is a good month for views if the weather is suitable.  We had a run of magnificent sunsets, so after a bit of fiddling, I managed to get my camera phone to get this image, which is pretty dramatic I think.  Morning views of the church are much easier, although the angles are wrong to avoid the neighbour's laundry.  Why not wait for a day with no laundry?  They don't exist, even when it is raining.  I think they don't have wardrobes, so the clothes line is a place to store clothes they aren't wearing.

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The badgers at the Wildflower Meadow are getting prepared for winter.  They have cleaned out tunnels and done a bit more excavating - probably without planning permission.  As the ground where they live is pretty chalky, it isn't subtle when they decide that set maintenance is what needs to be done.  If you look closely at the second photo, you can see paw prints in the excavations too.  

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As the fruit comes to an end, nuts start to catch our attention.  At the Garden, we have three big trees, then there are another four in the Orchard, and a couple more on the edge of the Wildflower Meadow.  We suspect that if we stopped doing any maintenance, the whole area would be taken over by elderberry, walnut, bramble and old man's beard.  Anyway, the area below the good two trees in the Garden has been close mown to make it easier to collect them, while it is possible to see them starting to emerge from their cases on the low branches.  I picked up 5 nice clean nuts this afternoon, but that is just the start!

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The weather has now turned, after the amazing sunshine and clear skies.  Soon I will be ripping up the sweetcorn and the faded tomato plants, trying to ripen off the small butternut squashes and thinking about sowing broad beans for next year.  It feels like we haven't really had a summer this year, and that autumn has been with us for a couple of months now, with cyclamen in the lawn, and falling leaves.  The rewards of autumn are of course sweet chestnuts, fresh walnuts, mushrooms and preparing for the year end festivities.  I expect to be making Christmas puddings next weekend - watch this space!

 

 

Homage - Huguette Gallet

Our village lost a bit of its sparkle last week, as one of our great characters and a good friend left us.  There is a gap in our lives, and I felt it appropriate to write about her today rather than any nonsense about vegetables and fruit.

Huguette Gallet was born in June 1938, and didn't have the easiest childhood.  Both parents died while she was still very young and of course there was the War, the German Occupation and then the years of reconstruction.  She was adopted by a local family and grew up in the area.  She was by all accounts a bit of a handful, but also worked hard to earn some money from as early as she could.

She married twice.  With her first husband, she had two children, a boy and a girl, and with her second husband, two more girls.  She was widowed both times, but her second husband only died about 8 years ago.  As well as four children, she had lots of grandchildren and a few great grandchildren too.  Raising four children was hard and expensive and she worked and tended the kitchen garden and raised chickens and rabbits for eggs and for meat.  She also worked as a dinner lady in the local school.  She seemed to know everyone across all generations, not least due to the school canteen.

She was very fit, despite a couple of accidents over the years.  Even before we met her, we heard stories of her being asked not to train next to the school children as she was beating them, and how she ran a goat into the ground (possibly both apocryphal).  She led an informal walking group on a Sunday morning, and that is how we met her, and through her, an awful lot of other people too.  She was our "open sesame" to French society.  From 2007 we walked between 5 and 12 kilometres with her every Sunday, and through her, got to know all the highways and byways around our village.

She was also an intrinsic part of Friday night Beer O'Clock, as she would potter along most weeks.  If we were with other British people, she would sit and nod along to the conversation, enjoying the company if not always what was said.  If we were alone, we would chatter and she would kindly and tactfully correct our French and share her knowledge.  If she was there with family, we were included in the company and conversation. 

She was inclusive.  She was kind.  She loved animals.  She picked up waifs and strays, both animal and human, and tried to help them where she could.  She was musical.  She was energetic.  She was a member of the Comité des Fêtes with us, she was also a member of the local Heritage group.  She was mischievous and cheeky.  She was a ray of sunshine.  I will miss her.

 

 

Time to reflect

Autumn brings certain pressures, like doing everything in daylight that needs to be done in daylight (it is getting horribly close to the equinox), making all the jam, jelly and juice before things turn, getting stuff into the freezer, fire wood and getting the chimney swept, lifting produce and enjoying heritage open days (next weekend in France).  It does also mean that there is a bit less pressure on preparing things, while grass and some weeds at least are slowing down.  So our Sunday morning marathon gardening stints are getting shorter, and once the midday curfew for loud engines sounds, we can actually take time to reflect and enjoy the hammocks and see what is/has been working.

We are currently enjoying our sweetcorn harvest, although by this time in a fortnight, it should all be eaten or in the freezer.  The little bits get fed to the chickens.

We are coming to the end of our third season working the Garden at The Shack.  About 30 months ago, it was all like this - impenetrable scrub.

We now have three large potager beds, which can now be rotated reasonably well, so back to potatoes in the bed that has corn this year, corn and beans into the middle plot and aubergines, brassicas and peppers, plus broad beans in the top plot, which I have just emptied (haha - there will be more hidden I'm sure) of potatoes.

Then we have a number of leisure zones - the hammock zone, the sitting and being drooled on by cats zone, the place where the picnic bench will go if I ever spot a cheap one in the sales, and the shaded area under the walnuts for high summer.

At the top, by the redundant spotlights, we have the developing flower border with the Fergus Memorial Rose and all sorts of rescue plants, plus a load of annuals that I hope will self seed, but if they don't I will add more seed next year.

Of course scrub will continue to do what it does and grow and encroach into the tamed areas.  That first picture of dense scrub has engulfed a storage bunker we put in down there and haven't seen for about 9 months now!  It's all a work in progress, but today we felt rather good about what we have achieved, not least as we listened to many different types of bird chirping and very little else by way of sound.

Now I must go and make jam, as there are three and a half pounds of stoned and peeled peaches festering in a bowl that need my attention.  Until next week!

 

Culture and critters

It was 31 years and 5 days ago that John and I had a bit of a party at Tynemouth Sailing Club.  We try to do something nice each year to remember the day - this year we chose to visit the newly opened Museum of Modern Art at Fontevraud l'Abbaye.  After I visited the market at la Flèche for urgent milk and butter supplies, plus the where with all for a picnic, we headed down to la Loire, and stopped at Cunault to eat and admire the river.  In a normal year, it should be very sparse at this time, and it was pretty empty, but even a couple of weeks ago, it would have been higher than this, due to the torrential rains down in the Massif Centrale.

I think Museum of Modern Art is a bit of a misnomer - it is actually a museum to house the donated collection of a couple of magpie art collectors, including items from 3,000 BC to 1960s.  It was eclectic and interestingly mixed up.  Of the sculptures, most of the modern pieces were awful apart from some rather whacky chess pieces.  There were some nice 19th and 20th century paintings, some good drawings and an awful lot of rubbish.  Photography without flash was allowed, so here are two pieces I liked.

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We hadn't been to Fontevraud since about 2005 or 2006, and it was clear that restoration and renovation have continued since our last visit.  The Abbey Church itself is always gorgeous and impactful.  It shouldn't be white inside really, it was designed to be bright and painted and with vivid stained glass, but after the Revolution it was used as part of a prison, so the decoration was removed.  I think it is more awesome in its whiteness, but who am I to judge?

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Chaumont sur Loire has an annual garden festival and keeps the best bits and sculptures in the park.  It would appear that Fontevraud wants to do the same.  The art installation in a disused stairwell was rather disturbing, and moved with the breeze.  The wooden fort in the gardens was totally bizarre - I mean, it looks like a really good fort for kids to play in, but you aren't allowed within 3 meters of it as it is delicate.  Pointless more like!

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As Autumn is theoretically now here, we have to be ready for the major harvests (still digging up spuds but should be only one more week of that I hope).  In the orchard, those major harvests are walnuts and (surprisingly) apples.  They aren't particularly nice to eat and they don't look particularly appetising either, but they do make really nice, single variety apple juice.  I need to get a slot at the press and then we can get picking!

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As I admired the relatively clear areas under the trees, I spotted movement in the grass by my feet.  Sure enough, it was an example of my favourite bug of the Autumn, so here are a couple of close ups to admire (probably) him.

I hope no one is squeamish!

 

Chickens and sun worshipping

Apologies for the delay and also, in advance, for the somewhat light nature of this update.  They are related I guess, as yesterday there was a Birthday Event, which took some managing and also most of yesterday.  When you are 90/91, a year makes a huge difference, plus Covid makes everything so much more special.  In August 2020, you could have 10 round a dining table at a restaurant, while the Birthday Girl was also able to walk a bit.  Not a vast distance, so she was driven down to the restaurant 250m away from her front door, but she could make it the 30m to the dining table, and remembered to wear a mask on the way in (not so much on the way out).  Then it was warm and sunny enough to sit in the garden, partake of more fizz and cake and carry on having fun.

This year we have Pass Sanitaire, and I think restaurant tables are still limited to 6 places.  More importantly, home has changed and the rules around entering a nursing home are strict and include the Passe Sanitaire.  Mobility has decreased, while the capacity of my car has not increased, so a restaurant or a picnic was not possible (the latter also as it was rather cool and windy).  Instead there were four of us round a bed, slurping the finest fizzy rosé Saumur (Ackermann) can produce, while scoffing a range of patisseries and talking about old times. 

Anyway, what else has been going on?  Two different forms of sun worshipping were spotted during the week.  The pears at Chinon really are not nice, they don't cook well, they don't make good eau de vie (the distiller spotted their overtones one year and told us not to do that again), they really aren't nice raw either.  I'm guessing they might have made good pig food at one stage, as the tree is very old, and the house has outbuildings.  Their only fans this year seem to be bees - I think possibly ground dwelling solitary bees, but I may well be wrong - who love sucking out the sweet juices from where they split when they fall.

The other sun worshipper is my feral sunflower - we didn't sow it, it just started growing out of the bin of compost we had some strawberries in.  It has grown to nearly 6 foot tall, and because it is on a plinth, I can't look it in the face.  It is very well placed to worship the rising sun in the morning, while the less open faces, follow the sun during the day (tournesol or tourne au sol - clever, huh?).  I take a photo or two each day to keep a ray of sunshine for winter.

On the chicken front, Auntie Mo is settling in quite well, although we still get some aggression from Mac and Jak.  She went up in the pecking order a bit when Bridie the Freeloading Bantam started to moult.

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Sometimes I spot things out of the corner of my eye and they are interesting.  Two examples to end with.  I was at The Garden, watering some things and carrying on with the potato harvest.  As I went to get the fork from the store, I spotted some movement in the grass and closer inspection showed it to be a small frog or toad - not warty enough for a toad, but too far from water to be a frog.  Whatever, he/she is very useful and welcome.  Yesterday evening, sitting in the garden, recovering from an overdose of patisseries (helped with a gin and tonic) I spotted another crop in the overgrown border - hops!  And quite a lot of them too, some looking really beautiful at the moment.  I'm not sure there are enough for beer making, and we don't do that sort of home brew anyway, but good for hop pillows perhaps.  I'll think on it!

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I promise I will try for Sunday next week!

 

 

Comice 2021 Covid-style

What a pleasure to be back in a Comice field yesterday, and Echimiré really did do a fabulous job, with a really well laid out Comice venue and some truly excellent entertainments.  We were advised to wear face masks most of the time, apart from when in the special areas for eating and drinking, where you had to have a health pass, but rather than keep showing it, you registered it once, and were given a very hard to remove bracelet that let you into the food and drink areas.  It worked well.

You know you are at a Comice if there are decorated floats - there were only two this year and mostly static, although they were moved to the main arena at one point, but with no one on or accompanying them (didn't stop Cheviré le Rouge singing a lot).  Well done to the two teams that put them together - for many it was a step too far.

One of the highlights of the Sunday afternoon was a Regional Percheron contest - I think mainly mares, ideally with foals tagging along, but there were some without I think.  It was a painstaking process as the horses had to be shown static and moving, standing four square and ideally with ears pricked.  Well, telling one tonne of horse who wants to keep an eye on her foal and doesn't much like flies to do that isn't the easiest task, and the judging went on all afternoon.  The photos show some horses being prepared, and the entrance of a beautiful mare with two foals.

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Among the entertainments were an all girl cabaret band, a fun show and some great musicianship too.

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Animals are a key part of the Comice, as it reflects the local agricultural traditions.  There were a number of cows, donkeys and ponies in pens in the woodland surrounding the Comice site, allowing them to stay cool as the afternoon wore on.

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Continuing the animal theme, there was a local gentleman who herds geese, of course!

Among the numerous stands, there was a demonstration of carving with a chainsaw, glass blowing and the "mobile" peanut roaster.  The largest crowd around the chainsaw sculptor was when it came to moving the massive crocodile, and everyone wanted to see whether the chaps with the big green lifter were up to the job!!

The Comice is all about the rural way of life and agriculture so the purveyors of nice, big, shiny machines are out in force with some mechanical porn.  How about one of these as the new ride on lawn mower?

Such a wonderful day out - there was so much more, but you needed to be there!  After the awfulness of the Covid months, it was great to enjoy such an event.  So well done, Echimiré and I'm already looking forward to Pontigné in 2022.

A beano and evidence of a visitor

Now I don't mean the comic, quality as that is, I use beano in the sense of a day's outing, such as used to be taken by workers from the East End of London, because I took a rare day off - needless to say the weather was not propitious but as a couple of things had been booked, Tuesday it was. 

I went with a chum, and first of all we stopped at the lac de Rillé, an artificial lake (supposedly the largest in Touraine) which is normally about two thirds empty at this time of year.  Not in 2021!  The trees around had been damaged by the storms with strong winds in June and July and there was still some tidying up going on.  It looks a lovely place for walks later in the year and over winter, with a bird hide.  We then went to Langais for lunch and a mooch around, admiring the outside of the Chateau, the inside of the Church and a very lovely bronze sculpture on the outside of the Church.  I couldn't photograph it, but the Church had the dodgiest ever crucifix above the altar, made by a local art group.  The pose on the Cross was actually more #paintmelikethosefrenchgirls, while the back was decorated with Nespresso capsules.

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Last week I was worrying about blight.  The potatoes escaped it seems as they were second earlies and therefore pretty well over before it hit.  I've resorted to the French trick of removing leaves, growing tips and anything that displeases me, and at the moment we are under control.  Evidence that the potatoes are looking good below, as well as a view of ripening tomatoes as proof!

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The Garden and the Meadow are good for wildlife and we find lots of evidence and see lots of things.  This week's interesting finds were a large and beautiful red admiral sunning himself on a log pile, a comma butterfly (I think) gorging itself on the buddleia, and the sloughed skin of a reasonably sized grass snake under the matting that we cover the potato plot with.

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Some know of my challenges with chilli plants - the fact that chickens eat them is a particular annoyance.  The fact that my brother has a couple in a pot on his terrace and despite being planted in the same soil at the same time as mine, his always do better, is even more irritating.  So it is with great pride that I announce the first flower bud on my chilli plants this year.  Of course they need sun and heat, which is lacking this year, but it is a start!

Incidentally, if you are reading this on a computer rather than a phone, if you click/double click on the photos you get a bigger, better view of them.

Until next week!

 

 

The camera isn't always there to hand

Well what's that about?  Only that the Patrouille de France - the French answer to the Red Arrows - have been based at our local airport for the past few days.  They arrive, they do a practice of their air show, they go off and do their air show at Saumur, they come back, they get a delivery of air force kerosene, they do another practice, then they go and buzz the Tour de France finish before heading home.  I've heard them three times and seen them twice - in formation - and not had a camera of any sort to hand to capture the moment.  Rather splendid though.  It was easier to capture us both relaxing in different forms of hammock at midday today, after working hard.

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We are getting different flowers out now.  My favourite cultivated flowers, agapanthus, are coming out by the front door.  The first cyclamen have started to show in the lawn, making mowing so much more challenging.  The gladioli are coming out but are a disappointing yellow - perhaps the red ones are the ones that got munched by snails.  Last year in the UK, when I could still get there and visit a Poundshop, and could bring back bulbs, I bought a couple of mystery lily bulbs.  They didn't do much last year but will be magnificent soon.

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I worry a bit about our older cats and that they can be a bit lazy, so last weekend, I invested in a couple of things to arouse their interest.  While Poirot has made it clear that all this is beneath her, Nibbles has taken a very keen interest in finding and catching the Red Spot, public enemy number one for all cats.  She has also taken to worshipping the planter that the giant catnip plant is wedged in at the moment - I don't think she can climb into the planter, or it could get very ugly.  She is not a pretty spaced out person.

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We lifted the shallot harvest on Wednesday - magnificent though I say so myself - and they are now drying on a nice bulb drying tray I got from a chum locally - thanks Brigitte!  I am concerned about the spuds.  They have flowered and there is a lot of die back.  I foolishly didn't read the packet properly and these are second earlies, so I am hoping they are doing what comes naturally, as the other explanation is Blight, which is Bad.

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Have a good week!

 

Still a chunk of weather out there!

I wouldn't want to be considered one who rubbernecks, but I did feel that if it was from a suitable distance, getting sight of what had happened at St Nicholas de Bourgeuil a couple of weeks ago would be interesting.  It didn't disappoint, and on Friday, as I took a different route to Chinon, I was able to stop just below the buildings of la Jarnoterie (many may know this grower) and look across the vineyards to something that might be compared to what Godzilla would do if she visited the area.  The village is still blocked off, and quite rightly.

The weather is really not right for this time of year, with sweatshirts not banished to the back of the cupboard, jeans de rigeur much of the time and mushrooms!  Further south, friends have found cèpes.  Yesterday we found three different varieties in the Garden - none of them convincing for eating purposes, but wrong at the beginning of July.

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There are also the things that you would expect from this time of year - lovely banks of lavender humming with bees and hawkmoths, peacock butterflies on the buddleia and marbled whites on the wild scabious.  Our nascent herbaceous border has lots of bee friendly flowers out now as well as hidden shrubs and rampant weeds - actually it is hard to distinguish it from the surrounding weeds as it has been too wet to get a mower in there to define the edges.

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Of course July in France is all about la grande boucle - the Tour de France - and today they are up in the mountains with an uphill finish at Tignes.  I downloaded the Tour de France app this lunchtime and am impressed by it.  But now I must go and watch the utter pain and ultimate glory of an uphill finish!

Until next week!