Rural Life

Quiet days of August

Last week was the flurry of excitement that is the annual Comice here in Baugé en Anjou, and since then, things have generally been much quieter.  Local people are either on holiday or preparing for the Rentré next week - the start of September that brings a new school year, a new year for the sports and arts clubs, people going back to work and taking things a bit more seriously, being able to get an artisan to answer the phone, the tax assessment results, getting the chimney swept and starting to think about winter heating.  It's a big thing here, probably bigger than New Year, and taken most seriously.

For us, it should mean that the holiday makers disperse, making it easier to park at the local markets, less frantic calls from people who can see weeds in their lawn or furry pears on their trees (actually known as quince, but there we go), and a slightly less fraught diary.  In fact, in previous years, September has been a month where I have had something on every weekend, and sometimes more than one thing too.  This year seems more sane - only a pig roast in a couple of weeks' time and perhaps being able to visit things for European Heritage Weekend.

The gardens are relatively quiet - chillies are ripening, as are the meagre corn cobs, borlotti beans are flowering and setting and the potatoes need to be lifted.  With August, some of the loveliest flowers arrive - cyclamen.  They are mainly pink but some are white, and over the years, the clumps get larger.  The ones in our lawn started as the odd flower here and there and now have spread.  It's the same in the One Acre Wood.  These ones are at The Studio and seemed to come up overnight.

Although the weather remains frustratingly dry, there are more clouds in the evening now, which make for colourful sunsets.  I'm never great at taking photographs of these, but I am getting better, and this one was a pleasing one.

I've not taken many photographs this week, and the trail camera was pointing at an area that looked like it was a badger playground.  Well if it was, they weren't playing last week.  The camera has moved and there are no photos to share from it, so I will have to round off with a photo of young Monsieur Clause, who is looking very sleek and pleased with himself at the moment.  I think he is having a good mousing season.

I'll take more and better photos this week - I promise.

 

Lockdown III, Day 25 - doing comparisons

Yesterday while at The Shack, I took another photo of my tub of stale gladioli bulbs, and thought it might be amusing to compare how they have come on over time.  The two photos below were taken 5 days apart, and they seem to be coming on nicely - you can actually see progress.  That is one of those moments when gardening is particularly satisfying.

Other plants are not so helpful.  I'm thinking in particular of my miniature orchid that lives in the bathroom and taunts me on a regular basis.  For days it does nothing, then suddenly a bud appears, or starts to open, or shrivels up and dies.  I have talked about it in all my lockdown blogs, so here is a series of images of torture.  Firstly from strict confinement in spring 2020.

Then when we deconfined in summer 2020, there were more interesting things, but with autumn 2020 lockdown, shorter days etc., we needed something to watch, and so Orchid Watch started - this was the 9th November.

Two weeks later and it was looking like this:

Not so different really, a bit longer perhaps?  Anyway, 16 days later it was looking like this.

Buds!  Longer!  Did it flower?  Did it heck as like!!  Not until the 12th April did we get anywhere near a flower!

And then today, another 16 days on, and one flower bud has shrivelled up and another is opening!

So, orchids not good for stress relief!  Much better to be like a cat it would appear!

 

Lockdown III, Day 23 - a few flowers

I've been stuck looking at my computer all day today, rather than being out and about, but it does give me a chance to use up some of the photos that I have taken but not shown (or don't think I have used anyway) which are mainly of flowers.

One of my favourite flowers over here are irises - in the garden by the house we have deep purple and lilac ones as well as a few red ones and some late white ones.  At The Shack there are some very dramatic purple and white ones but they are quite late too, and some Dutch irises.  So far the only ones out are the early purple ones - first just one flower, and then lots!

In the garden we have lots of white lilac saplings that keep heading our way from the main plant next door - I don't really mind too much, and every couple of year clear a load out.  I do prefer the coloured ones though and at The Shack, the one by the main gates is now if full blossom.

We have a large tamarisk tree at the bottom of the garden - I can't say it is my favourite and we would never have planted it, but the previous owners did and we have stuck with it.  Occasionally John does a vicious pollard on it, and it comes back stronger than before.  When the flowers are fully out, they are fluffy and baby pink, but at the moment they still have a crimson tinge from the buds so it isn't quite so much like a glob of candy sugar.  The dead flowers go everywhere and are really annoying.

Finally, and back to The Shack again, we have spotted the developing spikes of yukka flowers - I think these are magnificent, although again I would not choose to plant them, but they are there.  We should have at least two stalks of flower in time, and they are clearly not ready yet, but something to look forward to!  The twiggy bits are donations from the neighbouring birch tree.

Lockdown III, Day 22 - I'm not planting any more potatoes!

It being Sunday and a day of "rest", we were back at The Shack carrying on the labour of love (or greed) that is getting the crops in for this year.  The final third of the potato bed was so much harder than the previous two - I'm not sure why!  There were more roots, more bits of branch, more stones, more cat poo, less wind, less cool air and therefore more breaks for rest and water, but it is done - 16 more spuds planted, and that's it.  I have 12 good quality, chitted, seed potatoes left if anyone in the area wants them - certified stock and purchased at Jaques Briant.  I'm not saying their stuff is any better than anywhere else, just that is where we got them.  Let me know.

In one of my many moments of resting before the next bout of root extraction, I took the time to look up and found (yet) another spectacular view across the fields of Anjou, but one that will soon be gone.  The walnuts are about the last of the trees to get their leaves (along with a number of one variety of oak, possibly sisal), but I reckon that this view will be blocked by leaves in a couple of weeks time.

While I was getting the potatoes in, John was tidying, mowing, rotavating and making a nice seed bed for sowing a few carrots and beetroot.  If you don't look too closely, it all looks rather ordered and like we know what we are doing.  I can guarantee that in another 4 weeks it will be knee high in weeds again, but for the moment, we are feeling a bit smug.

Once everything was put away in an orderly fashion, we popped into the orchard to try to enthuse ourselves about getting that tidied up (fail), and on the way back to the car I noticed this little fellow sunning him/herself.  It is really good to know that we have such creatures around the place, and who will help with the inevitable plague of critters that will try to eat our fruit and vegetables before we do!  It's a slow worm by the way, for those who've not seen one before - probably about 10 inches long in total.

We treated ourselves to a trip to the One Acre Wood on the way home, partly to retrieve the ropes for the hammocks which have been tied round a few oak trees for about 10 years.  We have identified a spot in The Garden by The Shack where a hammock will fit most nicely, sadly only the one hammock, so there will clearly be a few "discussions" about who gets to loll around in it, but that is something to look forward to for May.  Anyway, the lily of the valley are finally out, which is a joy - so I leave you with flowers for today.

 

Lockdown III, Day 21 - a very busy day

Yesterday was my day for visiting the Azay One - I guess I am lucky we are allowed in to see her actually, given the hammering nursing homes have taken in this whole Covid thing.  We are only allowed in for an hour, we have to sit around a sanitised table, wearing masks (well, apart from the Azay One), and have to complete and sign two attestations on arrival.  Visits in rooms are not allowed.  Still, all went well, but it is always a tiring day, so no blog yesterday, but I did take this photo late yesterday evening after I had locked up the chickens.  Simple flowers and blossom attract many insects and it was heartening to see the variety last night on the Granny Smith apple blossom.

This morning, while John laboured, I went to the market at Baugé for a supply of good things - although the queue for fruit and vegetables did make me question my devotion to buying from small providers and local produce for preference, as it took me three quarters of an hour to get to the top of the queue!  At least the weather was good but social distancing had gone out of the window!

The afternoon was devoted to outdoors things, including mowing for a client, watering our produce and cosseting the boys in the country.  Now we are home and I need a gin and tonic so I will add the photos and call it a day.  I may be more voluble tomorrow.

Lockdown III, Day 19 - mostly details

I have a friend who is a proper photographer, and one of her well known and loved pictures is called something like Ted's workbench or shed - it is a loving study of a well ordered and well used garden shed, clearly a place where a chap could potter productively and did so with pride.  Our shed will never reach those heights, but it is a bit disconcerting at dusk to put my head into the shed and see the freeloading bantam perched there like some Taunton cider man.  No wonder we find broken eggs dotted around the shed if this is her idea of a safe roosting place!

Today was a cat feeding day, so I was able to see how my Dame Edna experiment was getting on.  Two years ago I bought a cheap bag of gladioli corms, fully intending to plant them somewhere, and then totally forgetting.  About a month ago I found them again, and potted the whole packet into a tub with my patent mix of sifted horse poo and leaf mould, put water on them and left them to do their worst, during the last really cold snap.  Today I think there are about 7 or 8 coming up along with a couple of cosmos seeds that have germinated.  I'm hopeful of some August colour if things go well, we remember to water the tub, and the cats don't decide to make it their outdoor bed!

I also sowed more bee friendly flowers - we'll see if any of those come up.  The seed is fresher than much I have used this year, so I am hopeful.  On the other hand, the generous dose of wood ash may have been a bit too strong - we'll see.  Anyway, I was resting from my labours and noticed that finally the work of the solitary bees has paid off and there are tiny, tiny bean pods set on the broad beans.  That will be delicious in about 3 weeks time.

Finally for today, while checking round the plot as I do, I noticed that the new weed suppressant mat I had laid where the sweetcorn will go, was not looking as lovely and shiny as before.  Closer inspection showed that the shower of rain the day before yesterday brought vast quantities of colza pollen with it, which is all over the matting.  It is also all over my car, and probably all over me too when I am outdoors.  Hay fever season is here again!  Good thing my GP has agreed to prescribe the antihistamines required as I can't pop into Boots this year!

It remains to be seen whether I will have a chance to update you tomorrow - I'll try, but I'm not promising!

 

Lockdown III, Day 16 - the garden as a hunting ground

Now that many clients have had a first cut at least of their lawns, home finally gets to the top of the list, and I had cracking service from John the Paysagiste (highly recommended), who mowed and strimmed and didn't attack what may be our first home bee orchid (or it may not).  I can now see where asparagus might come up and there doesn't seem to be any demolished stems so I might even have got away with leaving it quite so late!

The lawn is now even (apart from hidden traps built by chickens), so the neighbour's ginger kitten has had to stop pretending to be a lion stalking chickens (really ostriches) hidden by scrub, and has to try to emulate a cheetah racing across the veldt.  The chickens had been quite happily mooching around destroying things, when I heard a kerfuffle and there was the pretend cheetah charging around the lawn - he took quite a bit of evicting.  Once one of them gives him a good hard peck, it will be OK, but it is annoying in the interim.  Here is the lawn without scenes of Africa being replayed.

Ginger Boy is not the only cat stalking the garden, as our own Zola is trying to make up for lost time in her quest against lizards.  Yesterday evening she sat patiently among flower pots, pretending that she wasn't at all interested in lizard activity, but watching and waiting for her arch enemies.  It was perhaps just a little too cool by the time she took up her post, so no luck, and I have filled in the Zola sized gap with another plant pot since then.

It's not only outdoors where cats stalk - or rather intimidate.  Poirot used to sit and sleep on top of the wardrobe/linen press in the bathroom, but has given up jumping.  Instead she sits on the chest of drawers (she has a circuitous route to there avoiding all jumping) and glowers at you while you are on the loo, until you can't concentrate and have to give up and give her treats.  

We are up to 7 Asian Hornets in our trap in the garden now - that is rather a lot!  As they are all queens, this is a good thing of course.

 

 

Lockdown III, Day 15 - preparing for summer

Sunday morning means hard work at The Shack, but only for a limited time with powered tools, the rest of it is sweat of our brows.  Yesterday I made a start on planting the potatoes that should keep us fed next autumn and winter, and today I carried on.  I thought working in the morning might be a bit easier than in the afternoon, like I did yesterday, as it wouldn't be quite so warm.  How wrong can you be?  As that bit of the garden is relatively exposed to the east/south east, I was in full sun as I picked over the soil for wood, rocks and bundles of roots.  I then retrieved a piece of weed suppressant mat with ready cut potato holes from another part of the garden, laid and stapled it, and planted another 16 seed potatoes in the holes.  Now it is nature's turn to work her magic.  There is still another chunk of plot to pick over and cover, and another 28 seed potatoes to be planted, but not for a few days, as I have clients who need me and the Azay One to visit on Friday.

While I was cleaning and picking over the potato bed, John was out with the strimmer style brushcutter, trying to clear paths round the ponds at the bottom of the orchard and the wildflower meadow.  While deer, badgers, cats and pheasants can get round there, up until today, we couldn't.  It is still a work in progress, and we look forward to the day when we break through to have a circular walk around pond 2 and actually find pond 3, but it was rather wonderful to walk around the other side of pond 2, as if I too were a wild deer.

I got back to the garden to find the most awful violation of 'elf and safety violation going on, but in a good cause.  How many unsafe working practices can be seen here?

Having said that, it was totally worth it.  One day we will have one of those picnic benches here, so we can sit with sandwiches and cats and admire this wonderful view of rolling Anjou countryside.  Today we stood and admired and watched the tanker from the dairy drive through the view to pick up milk from the farm, and thought that life is good.

Finally, to note that we are getting into wild orchid season, with the first, an overblown early purple style, coming out in the middle of the wildflower meadow.  It will be two or three weeks before the bee orchids send up their flower spikes here I think and then another couple of weeks before the lizard orchids do the same.  Nice to see the first one though.

A demain!

 

Lockdown III, Day 14 - food and fertility

Apologies for yesterday, but I did warn you that there mightn't been an update - visits to Azay-le-Rideau take time, emotional energy and a bit of recovering from.  But this morning I was up and about and ready to seize the day, so relatively promptly to the market in Baugé.  If there is one thing that would convince me to grow our own vegetables, if I didn't already, it was standing in a queue for 25 minutes this morning for the fruit and veg stand!!  Unfortunately we are in that gap in the year when we don't have much variety, other than leeks and sorrel, so have to buy in things like citrus, carrots and (joy of joys) mangetout peas.  The queue for fish was much shorter and the options almost overwhelming - in the end I got a couple of pollock tail filets, which will take a sorrel sauce very nicely.

This afternoon was spent at The Shack (we will catch up on the funeral that we recorded shortly), and while John spent a happy couple of hours tinkering with ride on lawn mowers, I finally got round to sowing a couple of patches of bee friendly flowers in the Fergus memorial shrub bed - none of the shrubs are big enough this year to take up the whole plot, so it is better to fill the gaps with flowers than leave the couch grass to take over again.

I like to start planting my spuds on Good Friday and then make sure they are all in by the third week after Easter - well Easter was a bit of a blow out this year.  I had to work Good Friday, then the Azay project had to take precedence, so it is only today that I finally started on planting the potatoes, with the first 16 in.  It is jolly hard work, not least as the plot hasn't been used before, just rotavated and left, so it is all to do.  I'm hoping to get another 16 in tomorrow morning, but first I get to see if I can still move!!

During one of my rest moments, I watched various insects working their way along the row of flowering broad beans - this one is a dark blue carpenter bee (I think - masonry bees are smaller and make nests in inset screw holes in our woodwork, while the carpenter bees seem to like living in our back wall).  I applauded her industry!

Once the planting and sowing was done, and I had tidied away my stuff, I beat the bounds and admired the apple tree in blossom - either Canada or Russet I believe - the apples don't look particularly nice, but if the tree and the other one like it do their thing again this year, we can do a single variety juice pressing in the autumn, and this variety of apple makes a really tasty apple juice.

More tomorrow!

 

Lockdown III, Day 12 - out and about

Well actually the big excitement today was going to Super U for cat food and Cheddar cheese and one or two other bits and pieces - but you have to take variety and excitement where you can at the moment!!  I also washed all my scarves as I have a nasty rash on my neck, probably due to something I brushed against yesterday while mowing, but you can't be too careful.  So clearly an incident packed day, and not photogenic.

Much more photogenic were things I saw at The Shack today, including another of my pots of experimental seed sowing.  This was an old and open packet of coriander that I really held out very little hope for, and yet look what I found today!

I was able to dig up four leeks and a spring garlic (just like a spring onion but garlic) which will go nicely in a stir fry for dinner.  The leeks are starting to run to seed - I could probably have held that back by watering them rather better all the time they have been in the ground apart from the 4 solid months of rain.  Actually they would probably have been bigger and better if I had done that, but last summer's drought meant water had to be doled out very carefully.

Spooky Cat used to be very nervous about going down the garden, even just the bit attached to The Shack.  On Tuesday he accompanied me on a circuit of the three areas - the garden, the orchard and the wild flower meadow.  I was very impressed.  I'm not sure if he is more or less secure in his world, following the demise of Fergus Sunshine Supercat, but he allows me to pick him up, cuddle and stroke him and only mildly chews me.  These vicious claws are only used to attract my attention when dishing out food!

The quince blossom at the wild flower meadow is finally out - so pretty, but so delicate!  The frosts are due to stop soon and the harsh wind (or bise) from the East is due to drop at the weekend so hopefully the bees will do their thing and there will be viable fruit in the autumn.  Unless there is a glut we are unlikely to do another quince eau de vie for a year or two, but quince jelly is fab on porridge, while stewed quince and apple makes a superior crumble.

Tomorrow I am off to visit Azay le Rideau so there may not be a blog, depending on when I get back.

 

Lockdown III, Day 11 - a bit about food

Yesterday was a special day, as there were enough eggs from Mac and Jak (2 - one each for us) to see whether they were getting it right.  We also had a couple of shop bought free range eggs to test them against and to make a normal meal out of it.  "Our" eggs are on the right - smaller, as the girls are still very young, but with nice bright yolks and whites that were very upright.  They also tasted better than the shop bought, perhaps as they were that bit fresher, perhaps because we are biased!

Today I was daring and went outside the permitted 10km, so had to have an attestation, in order to make essential purchases - well I really can't miss la Flèche market two Wednesdays in a row!  It was heaving as clearly everyone else had the same idea, but all were wearing masks, and in 95% of cases, wearing them correctly too.  I staggered back to my car laden with cheese, milk, butter, croissants, bread, paté, vegetables, kippers and fresh crèpes.  What a wonderful feeling!  The town was looking very pretty, so while I was too busy shopping to photograph the market, I did take a picture of the river and the pressure-fed fountain.

The cold winter weather was good for the fruit trees, and they have responded in most cases with lots of blossom.  Of course now the harsh late frosts are savaging the blossom and affecting any set fruitlets.  I am hoping that I will have saved some fruit on the Victoria plum in the garden as the blossom has never been so good as it was this year.  My tactic was horticultural fleece, held in place with clothes pegs.  We think of it as a small tree, but it needed about 20 metres of fleece just to look like this - clearly not as small as we thought.  Time will tell for the fruit.

Now to go and sit in the late afternoon sun with a cat or two and 6 chickens who are not quite as in disgrace as they were this time last week.