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.

 

A few weird and wonderful things

I'm tired and lacking inspiration - the last couple of weeks have been focussed on writing a final evaluation report for a funded project I have been following since 2017 (!).  How do you condense the highs and lows of such a diverse and successful project in a reasonable amount of space?  Rhetorical - no need to come back to me on that.  So yesterday when I pressed the send button at 7pm, I wasn't in the mood to write a blog.  To be honest, I'm not sure I am today either, but looking through the photos of the past week, I did spot some weird and wonderful things, and I share them here.

The black day lily is coming towards the end of its flowering season, but was looking particularly fine one evening this week, with flowers that were almost velvety.  It has been abused for at least two years, living in an old metal beer keg, but seems happy enough.

I've been abusing semper vivums for even longer - they do remarkably well in the funny plastic pots you can get that strap on to downpipes.  There is little soil in there, and when they do what they do, very little way to get any water into that soil as they make a seemingly impervious cover to the pot and beyond.  Then, just occasionally, they go absolutely mad and flower, looking like some sort of extra-terrestrial.  This year's display is particularly fine.

We share our lives with cats, six of them currently.  Nibbles has been with us for 14 or so years, having decamped from living in difficult conditions with a tortured artist who had the hovel next door.  She has certain bizarre traits, one of which is enjoying drinking her water (and the grottiest, dirtiest water she can find in general) from her paw.  A video is better, obviously, but you get the idea.

Once I have finished doing time on the computer at the end of the day, and before cooking dinner, we sit out under the abri, perhaps having a small drinkie-poo, and relax.  We encourage Nibbles to join us - she has hyperthyroidism and is on a drug regime that should sort her out, but the condition has made her a bit lazy.  She also lost a bit of weight so it is pleasing, I guess, that she can put enough pressure through one paw to make an imprint on my leg!

It is hard to get decent photos of moths and butterflies, but I was delighted to get this snap of a tiger moth on our cristophine vine.  It sat there very patiently as I balanced the cat I was carrying at the time, got my phone out of my back pocket, unlocked it, got the camera app going and then took the picture.  Of course, with it sitting still, you only get the tiger stripes and not the vivid orange underwing colour, but even so, it pleases me.

Each evening, when I have done the watering, I got up to the car park over the road, stand on the edge of the field and look out.  If I think I'm not being watched, I might also do a yoga salutation to the sun, but I have to be convinced!  I do always look up to admire the sky - it's a big sky at that point, open to the south and west for kilometres without power lines or buildings, and makes the spirit soar, particularly after a glass of chardonnay.  There was a day where the weather was changing last week, with cloud coming in from the west, with wispy swirls and higher masses all looking like harbingers of something new.

In a normal week, my lack of inspiration would have been solved by something from the trail camera.  Sadly it appears that being attacked by boar and various small birds doesn't make for a long life, and I am having to look for a new one.  But I still have loads of stuff to check through, so perhaps there will be videos next week, or I might just decide to stay away from computers and live life a bit.  Have a good week!

 

Budget bulbs and the Tour de France

I don't follow much sport nowadays - I used to spend much of the summer in front of the TV watching test cricket, but the sell out to Sky and the move to France scuppered that.  The French aren't quite so intent on giving over mainstream TV to sport on a weekly basis but there are a few events that they go nuts for.  Obviously key football tournaments come into that category, as does Six Nations Rugby and I imagine that as host of the Rugby World Cup later this year, that will be wall to wall too. 

There are two events that I follow with a passion though - the Dakar Rally during the first couple of weeks of January, and the Tour de France during the first three weeks of July in general.  We are on day 9 now, and a day where the stage finish is at altitude, finishing with 4.3km of 11% climb going up the Puy du Dome sometime near 6pm French time.  I need to watch!  The area is interesting as it has been blocked off from visitors and spectators as a nature reserve, so my usual chuntering about why stupid people jump out in front of the riders will not apply today.

This is the end of the stage.

We are currently enjoying lots of flowers, including dramatic summer bulbs bought from the Pound Shop in England when such things were allowed, and also from Aldi.  They provide a bit of drama at a period when many of my favourite flowers are coming to an end.

Today at the potager, I lifted the shallot crop - rather disappointing given the size and quality of the start bulbs, but they will make a good couple of pots of pickled shallots which are rather nice with cheese and cold meat.  I transplanted into the space they left, some little gem lettuces that we had set off in a seed bed and were far too close together to do any good.  I'm hopeful as the soil is quite moist, but nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say!

Anyway, I've got a report to write, so just a short update this week. 

 

All quiet here in our bit of rural France

Well, I say all quiet, but the countryside is rarely quiet.  There are frogs that make the most awful noises, sometimes just for the fun of it.  There are birds, so many birds, so many different songs, from the eerie cry of a buzzard having fun on the thermals, to the quiet but intense song of a robin - it sounds so melodic and sweet, but I think in the main they are saying "b*gger off, we want to explore where you are for a feed".  Annoyingly, after the quiet of lockdowns, there are planes, all sizes and at all different heights, from the air force boys who went over at about 200 feet last weekend, through the light aircraft from the local aerodrome, to the jets up high taking people to and from Scandinavia and Portugal. 

But this week it has been the Moisson - the grain harvest, with the combines out in the fields of wheat and barley, followed by tractors and massive trailers to take the grains, then more tractors with bailers to turn the straw into vast wheels, and finally lifts and more tractors with the big trailers to take those round bales away into storage.  It doesn't stop for weekends or lack of light - once conditions are right, the competition and demand for the machines is such that they are on the move 24/7, and bad luck if you are near where they are working overnight!!

Last weekend was fiercely hot and humid too - with temperatures up over 30ºC by lunchtime and not below again until after 6pm.  Two days of it was enough to undo the good that the rain the week before had done to the ponds, and sadly at least one of my fish has expired (no photo required).  It also blasted the ripe broad beans from the second sowing, and as it was too hot to pick them, they too got fried.  We rescued some beans and have sown them in some land that needs a bit of green manure, but whether that will work remains to be seen.  It was a disappointment.  The photo shows the fried out pods along with three carrots from the perpetual rounds of thinning them out, with one almost worth eating!

On a more positive note, and surprisingly with the cooler weather, I spotted a couple of my favourite butterflies yesterday - two swallowtails were enjoying a quick snack on the buddleia.  They are often found on lavender round here, but I've not seen them enjoying the buddleia before.  Of course it was pretty impossible to get close to them so these two photos are the best I could manage.

There was also some fruit!  Yesterday while doing the rounds, I spotted that the mirabelles were ripe, so went back for a bowl and picked all that I could, leaving those with a bit of damage or rot for the local critters, but for once getting some for us.  Enough for a 4 portion mirabelle crumble - wowzers!

We have not been responsible for any looting or destruction, but we have found evidence that it has been going on.  This year's thrush anvil is surrounded by empty and broken shells and it is hard to spot the stone that is being used.  I do love this as a sight, as I am very fond of the thrushes, and they do a good job.  Apart from a couple of well munched tomato plants, so far we haven't had any major snail damage this year to small plants, and this is why!

I like black flowers - I know they aren't natural in this part of the world, but i really enjoy them, even if they aren't really jet black.  This year I succumbed to temptation and bought an exotic petunia (just the one) called Black Glitter - the glitter effect comes from tiny white flecks on the flowers - you can't see that from a distance, but you can admire how happy it is in its beer barrel.  Another that is happy in its beer barrel is my black day lily - this really is stretching the definition but it is how it was sold to me!

• 
• 

Not quite the grapes of wrath, but certainly very happy grapes and magnificent bunches on our vine this year.  Any marks are due to them being brushed past by a car as we drive into the courtyard.  The vine is loaded with them, so I am looking forward to making large quantities of grape jelly - no point making your own wine around here when you can buy excellent professionally-made wine en vrac (not bottled) for 2,80€ a litre!  Also these aren't wine grapes, but table grapes, although with pips so not polite eating grapes.  The chickens love them too.

On a serious note, the riots in the urban centres are frightening and disappointing.  Looting a carton of milk from your local convenience store that won't open for a while now as the owner tries to repair the damage, and your family have to find the money to travel to another, more distant shop is insane.  Similarly trashing and burning down the youth centre where you happily spend time in the winter and during the long holidays makes no sense.  It has nothing to do with the death of a young man, driving a Polish registered car in a bus lane without insurance or a valid drivers licence, and sadly paying for such minor delinquency with his life.  A minority of people are destroying holidays, livelihoods, neighbourhoods, reputation and ensuring that festivities people have been looking forward to for ages are cancelled.  I hope it stops soon.

Ideally by next weekend, if not sooner!  Have a good week!

 

Respect for farmers, and other gardening moments

Last autumn, with rising prices, and war in the East (still going on of course), we looked at ways to protect ourselves from some of the worst possibilities and knowing how much the chickens eat, we thought growing our own might be a good idea.  We had a strip of not exactly the best vegetable plot that didn't have anything in it, and sacrificed half a yoghurt pot of "blé" or chicken grain to the experiment.  Germination was OK, not brilliant, but then the autumn was quite dry really and it is quite possible that local critters helped themselves to some of the seed.  As it wasn't sown in rows, and was also pretty densely distributed, it was nearly impossible to weed, and I defy you to distinguish between wheat, barley, oats and grass.  So we let it do what it wanted, didn't water it, didn't weed it, but did talk to it.

Today I sweltered in the hot morning sun to harvest the grain.  It was hard work as it needed secateurs and as I cut each handful, I then had to triage out the weeds, the grass, the false oats and the heads of wheat and barley that had no seeds in, had been eaten or had gone a bit mouldy.  The resulting harvest is shown here:

Of course, 90% of it is straw - useful for chicken bedding except ours sleep on a broom handle slung across the run.  Then another 5% of it will be chaff, assuming I can get it off somehow - winnowing is fine in principle but, well, you need to have it all broken down a bit first!  So 5% of it will be grains that the chickens may or may not eat, depending on how bolshie they feel - perhaps 3 yoghurt pots or 2 days?  Was it a worthwhile experiment?  I'm not so sure - but lots of learning obviously.

A farmer will sow into drills, having prepared the land rather better.  She will have proper seed rather than repurposed chicken feed, but it will be on the land for 7 or 8 months.  And it can't be any old rough bit of land, or the plants will not grow strong and true.  Timing the harvest is a matter of keen judgement - too early and it will not be ripe, too late and critters will have taken a good portion, and add the weather into the mix, particularly unpredictable storms - not to mention when you can get your hands on the combine harvester and drivers to actually do the harvesting (they are mostly owned by co-operatives or contractors).  Growing grain isn't as easy as it looks!

Carrots can also be a bit tricky but ours are looking OK in between the parsnips.  Not too many parsnips - I think there are about 14 in the mix, but that might well be enough if they do well.  The carrots are a mix of colours, although knowing my luck, it will be the orange ones that make it!

 
 In an excess of hope over reality, I buy cheap bulbs from Aldi, and sometimes I remember to plant them in good time too.  This year I got a packet of fancy gladioli, and at least three of them have come up true and are flowering!

Something that we don't plant, but we don't weed out either is stonecrop and it just lurks around being dull.  This year it has decided to flower and is looking very pretty on the steps to nowhere, guarded by Winnie the Gargoyle, who is also supposed to stop intruders.

Limited action from the trail camera this week as the WiFi watch had run out of juice today, but it is always nice to see the hare passing through.  When passing in daylight, you get some decent action shots too!

Have a good week!

 

Kitchen garden progress

Summer arrived with a bit of a rush, with temperatures building significantly during the last week and it also got heavier and more humid as the days went by.  Friday was agonising, as it was so sticky and hot, and while the clouds gathered, there was no rain during daylight hours.  This wasn't the case at Chinon where they had 40mm in an hour and one of the popular pubs got flooded!  All we had was this until late in the evening, when it finally started to rain - not vicious downpours but nice steady soaking rain - 10mm in all chez nous.  We could have done with more, but it did help to top up the water barrels.

Of course, when it is hot, and you get rain, a lot of it tends to evaporate again, making the air even stickier than before so Saturday was a write-off - given over to sitting flopped and moist, complaining that my phone screen wouldn't work with wet fingers.  We fed the Cats in the Country, but even walking around the plot to admire what a bit of rain does was nearly too much for us.  It did help the ancestral ponds a bit and the carp seemed somewhat happier, but it wasn't a long term solution for them.

Today there was a cooler breeze from the north west and it was possible to work in the plot, picking things, pulling things up (so much easier when the soil isn't doing an impression of first fired clay), planting things and thinning seedlings.  We got off to a very slow start really on vegetable gardening this year, not getting any potatoes in before Easter, not setting off any seeds until May, and not really having a plan.  To some extent we have caught up although courgettes will be late, and butternut squashes even later.

This bed has the overwintered broad beans in it - those sown at the end of November are nearly done and I have cleared a third of them.  Those sown at the end of December are just coming right.  There are also red onions, black mangetouts, shallots and white onions, as well as the courgettes I planted today, four aubergines and three chillies I bought at a car boot sale in early May and six tomatoes rescued from Aldi.  The soil is pretty heavy clay so hard work.

The next bed up the hill is mainly given over to potatoes this year - second earlies.  But to the right there is winter wheat we sowed in the autumn when we were worried about the price of chicken feed, while to the left and right by the potatoes is a line of carrots (mixed colour heritage) and parsnips.  In a separate bed to the left of them are this year's attempt at sweetcorn.  As last year was an abject failure, we aren't holding our breathe, but 40 out of the 52 stations sown are up and I will fill in the gaps, or attempt to, by transplanting the extras as I sow two seeds per station.  It may work, it may not, but 40 sweetcorn should be enough for us!

The next bed is the one that is highest up the hill, with quite light, shallow soil, and is the one we have used the least.  It is still a bit of a work in progress.  On the left, it is given over to butternut squashes, while on the right, we have the bean pen, where we are starting to sow borlotti beans - there are 29 up so far on the far right and John sowed a load more today on the left.

• 
• 

I'm rather proud of the butternut squash plants which I grew from saved seed that had been sitting around in not the best conditions for a couple of years or so.  The root balls had nicely filled the pots without going totally mad.

A new experiment this year is growing a christophine or cheyotte - a tropical plant with nice fruits that make a good gratin and the plant has a climbing habit, hence the posts and wires.  The leaves look worryingly similar to bryony, but the fruits are distinctly different - a small green squash, somewhat pear shaped but a bit flatter and with a bobbly skin.  No idea if it will work here in the Loire Valley, although the fruit this grew from came from a polytunnel up the road in the Sarthe.

Finally, for those that made it this far and don't really have an interest in growing vegetables, here is a photo of a handsome fellow who walked past the trail camera this week!

Have a good week!

 

Summer has arrived.

There is a massive and stable high over the British Isles and a depression in the Mediterranean, and in between, here in northern France, we are enjoying summer conditions, and have been doing so for two weeks now.  It's good for the hay crop but not so good for germinating fodder beet I gather.  It is actually marvellous at the moment for getting seeds to come up.  Last weekend the big excitement was the hourly popping up of new butternut squashes and courgettes, while this weekend the excitement is over jalapeño chillies.  Over at the Plot, heritage carrots came up in a week and parsnips are showing their first seeds leaves after two weeks, while nearly half of the sweetcorn sown last week is now up.  All this makes me feel very good.  In addition, the roses are fabulous - here is a magnificent one called Orange King, bought as a memorial to a much loved ginger cat.  Last year it had perhaps 3 rather dingy flowers, this year it is amazing!

The wildflower meadow is now definitely past its best, with the oxeye daisies nearly over, the linseed gone to seed, the pink clovers done, the pretty orchids mostly faded and the lizard orchids taking over in their rather dull fashion.  In a couple of weeks, we will need to think about mowing the meadow to keep undesirables at bay (old man's beard, bramble, small cherry trees), spread the seed from this lot of flowers and allow a better growing environment for the late summer and autumn flowers including field scabious.  At the moment, the knapweed is still pretty spectacular where it is to be found, and some late bee orchids provide a bit of interest in the shade.

The trail camera has had its batteries boosted and I have spent some time starting to go through the downloaded files - but it takes an age to work through the video files to decide what is worth keeping or not, and I have to be in the right mood.  There was no doubting that this rather nice clip of Woody doing his thing in the spring was worth keeping!

There was a pretty definitive viewing of the coypu too - he has a look to my mind of a stuffy colonial colonel wandering around chuntering to himself, but perhaps I am influenced by the old Animal Magic series and thinking what sort of voice Johnny Morris would have put to this fellow.  

It is always a joy to see the hare, and with the long evenings and the current placement of the camera, you do get some rather sweet close up videos such as this one.  That nose!  Those ears!

I think this is also a hare, but the eyes are a bit different.

Other old friends (fiends?) are back in the zone too - our chums the boar are back and making a mess in one of the ponds.  The pond with the fish, so I would prefer it if they didn't make too much of a mess, those poor fish have enough problems to cope with at the moment!

Again, rather nice photos as the light was good when they were passing through at 8:45pm one evening.  I'm glad I wasn't there to see them, but then I guess they wouldn't have come through if they thought I was there!

Anyway, it is time to enjoy a summer afternoon in the garden under the abri, as we spent time getting the cover out, mended and installed for the summer yesterday.  Sing along to the Kinks - Lazing on a sunny afternoon, in the summertime!

Until next week....

 

Lovely flowers - both wild and cultivated

Last week i said that if I remembered I would focus on flowers, including the wild orchids that are doing the rounds at the moment.  The early ones are starting to fade, the late ones are yet to get into their stride and the middle ones are coming out nicely, so let's start with a few of the wild things.

My favourite of the lot is the bee orchid - nearly impossible to spot until it comes out, once the rosettes of leaves are hidden by other things, and it doesn't like the competition of the full on wildflower meadow, but on the edges of mown bits (and if we had rabbits and sheep to nibble things, on the edge of nibbled patches) there can be quite large clumps.

A garden that has been not exactly neglected, but which has seen fewer people visiting it than normal has a veritable lawn of orchids that in previous years we have identified as fly orchids - not as pretty as the bee orchid, in fact a little bit sinister, they are also a lot rarer.

The lady orchid is a fairly classic pyramid style orchid, with quite dramatic variation in colour on the plant itself - empirical evidence from the meadow says that they are spread by badgers running past them, although I'm sure that can't be right.  The three we have are all on a badger path however, so that's how I see it.  This one also has a bee orchid beside it.

The lizard orchids are not yet doing their thing - dramatic but not as pretty or delicate as these.  The wildflower meadow is probably at its peak at the moment, full of ox eye daisies, knapweed, pink clover, the last fading flowers of linseed, and bits and bobs of other things, including orchids where a path has been mown, and comfrey dotted around.  At the moment it is humming with insects too, but the main reason for leaving it a while yet before we mow to allow new things to come up (scabious, more pink clover, etc) is that hares and deer will leave leverets and fauns in little nests in the long, lush greenery while they go out foraging.  The leverets won't move when they hear a mower and are often too small to be seen, while the fauns become disorientated.  It's best to wait a month or two!

Today we went out to the garden centre Jacques Briant - normally I am not allowed there with a bank card, as the plants are so lush and lovely and I buy way too many.  Today we were on a mission for one of John's clients and found their requirements pretty easily and reasonably priced too (this is not a cheap place).  As we had done well with those, I was allowed to splash out on some obscenely bright petunias which were actually quite reasonably priced.  But as we headed to the check out, we went past a place with single pots of petunias, but special ones and I could not resist this one, which actually looked like it was covered with glitter!  Now to find a pot to do it justice and keep it away from the evil vampire slugs that are out and about at the moment at night!

Two of our regular and reliable perennials are out and putting on a fine show at the moment - the wall based campanula that seems to be rooted in a bit of dust in the wall, and the red hot pokers we brought over with us 19 years ago from Worcester.  Actually they are from the allotment next door to ours, and I've always adored them.

So that's it for this week, but next week there will be more tails of the hares to share with you, plus news of anything else exciting that is going on.

 

 

Wildlife at home and a look back at The Broads visit

The trail camera moved a while back but the grass around it got so long, we had problems with anything other than camouflage photos of what went through.  I pulled up some bits and bobs but then John strimmed through and now we can see rather better who or what is around.  Moths!  Which don't photograph well.  The deer are back but again not a good picture.  No sign of that wretched coypu again - perhaps it has wandered off?  The hare is around though, and always so beautiful to see!

Next week I will write about orchids - they are slowly coming out.  Of course I may forget...  Yesterday and today have been about getting work done to ensure food later in the summer and autumn.  I saw some small and not dead yet tomato plants in a local supermarket, so succumbed, although I know they will cause me heartache, not least if we have a moist and humid summer.  Anyway, I had the space and we have the 20 litre plastic cloches (well former heating fuel canisters), so yesterday I cleaned up the space a bit and planted the tomatoes next to the chillies and aubergines I bought at the vide grenier last week.  If they do well, there is most of a ratatouille there, I just need to set off the courgette plants.

So now for the travelogue - The Broads are very beautiful but in a rather bleak way.  But as soon as you get up on to a bit of higher land (say 40 feet above sea level), you are into standard East Anglian rolling farmland.  This on the World War II discovery circular path that goes out from Acle and I was standing by a disused and overgrown pill box.

But out in the middle of the Broads, like here down on Halvergate Marshes, you get the feel of the immensity of the sky and the landscape.  This is looking towards Mutton's Mill, but if I looked 90º to the West, there was a clump of another 3 or 4 mills.  There are spots where you can see up to 8 or 9, but some are now surrounded by trees or have fallen down.  Mutton's Mill will be having the scaffolding taken down once the driveway dries out, then the refurbished sails will be put back on and it will be magnificent.  By September all work should be completed.

Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Carlton Marshes reserve is being extended along the River Waveney, and there are accessible hides and landing stages, lots of nesting and migrating birds and some nice cattle keeping the scrub down.  The Trust has been able to rebuild the visitor facilities to create a magnificent café area, for use by visitors and by local community groups (there was a Knit and Natter group there when I visited).  The floor to ceiling window over the Marshes gives a mesmerising view.

RSPB Strumpshaw is another rather splendid reserve and well appreciated by locals and twitchers who come vast distances to see the birds there.  At one end of the Reserve there is Strumpshaw Pump House - a engine house for pumping water, so a different generation to the windmills.  It has a rather impressive chimney that is a navigation point out on the marshes.  The pump house itself has an interesting architecture and has been renovated and a bat box put on the outside although with so much natural habitat close by, it isn't that well used.  A new, wildlife bench has been installed and is wonderfully tactile.

Whitlingham Country Park and Broad is close to Norwich and the most accessible part, and will have Changing Places toilets installed by September too.  As with all the Broads, it is man-made, but more recent than the others, dating back only to the last century.  It is home however to at least 78 confirmed different species including bittern and otters.  I met Egyptian geese there - pretty, but a non-native invasive species.

Well, that's it for this week.  Next week I will be back to purely French subjects.

 

All sorts of races

This week the inaugural edition of the Tour du Pays de la Loire was run, and Day 3 of the race started at Baugé en Anjou.  While it was a professional race, the teams were limited to 6 riders each, and the top names were saving themselves for this weekend's Paris-Roubaix, although I am sure many would give up the threat of the cobbles in the latter race for the joys of Anjou!  There was the usual Village Depart in town, but as parking would have been vile, I had just got my new orthopaedic insoles, and the Depart Fictif was coming through the village, we decided to watch it go through just up the road.  By quarter to midday, a small crowd of villagers had gathered in the Place d'Eglise to see it go past.  With the Tour de France, you get the media helicopters and a publicity caravan dishing out goodies.  With the Tour du Pays de la Loire, you get more official Tour motorbikes than seems feasible, plus loads of police outriders, until the actual competitors arrive.  Then after they go through, you have at least one car per team, plus ambulance, doctor, red lantern van (picks up stragglers) and a final van for anything that looks dodgy.  Here are the riders arriving in the village up the big hill (something to warm up the leg muscles).

We are in a race against time and the elements to get the potato bed ready for planting.  In theory the spuds go in on Good Friday, but weather and other people's lawns have made it difficult to get going on this.  Still yesterday John managed to get perhaps half the bed, or at least enough for 2 to 3 rows of potatoes to be planted if there is nothing else to do!

The trail camera is in the Garden at the moment.  In theory it was placed to see what is coming through the fence, prior to blocking off the hole, but we don't have any evidence of that.  We have plenty of wood pecker action (due a blog of its own), and have many fine shots of the massive rat that has a burrow in the garden.  We have also occasional shots of these two racing around - they never stay close to the camera for video footage, just stills.  I am pretty sure they are not rats (the tail is wrong where it exists), but otherwise I am not too sure.  It could be the pine martins that seem to live mainly over in the meadow, not least as one of those is minus a tail now, but I'm not totally convinced.

• 
• 

Flowers and blossom have been a bit delayed this year compared to the last few, so the tulips are racing away to flower before it gets too hot.  The red ones are in their second year in a pot by the Shack kitchen, while the yellow ones (which were brought as white) were planted three years ago on the edge of one of the cultivated squares.  The square has moved it would seem as they are a way off it now!

• 
• 

Of course not everything is rushing around (thankfully), and this week we have been able to taste the fruits of our labours in the form of harvesting 2 of our 6 cauliflowers.  These aren't the easiest vegetable to grow and are in the ground for ages - over 7 months in this case.  I think the only thing I can say about our success is that the wretched plants seem to favour being planted in near solid clay.  Anyway, here is a portrait of the one we are eating at the moment (half roasted yesterday, the rest raw today).

The Easter weekend is proving to be beautifully sunny and warm - well, at least until late tonight or early tomorrow when rain comes in.  We laboured long and hard in the potager yesterday, what with rotavating, planting onions, and clearing soil to sow mangetout peas, so we were both entitled to hammock time.  It was lovely lying there, looking up at the tiny new birch leaves opening above us.

Next Sunday we are selling "stuff" at a vide grenier, so the blog won't be written until the following day - it's not like the UK where a car boot is over by midday.  Here you set up at about 7:30am, and don't get to dismantle and go until gone 5:30pm, but which time I won't want to communicate with anything!!

 

Starting the gardening season

I don't know why, but we haven't really been inspired to get this year's gardening underway so far.  We have planted shallots and onions, which are now sprouting, and of course in the last weeks of 2022 we sowed our broad beans, but other than that we've not done much.

• 
• 

Over winter, we have been able to enjoy fresh parsley, parsnips, chard, leeks and the stored potatoes (now all gone), but yesterday we had a few spears of feral asparagus which acted as a reminder that if we want to feed ourselves, we need to get ourselves into gear!  After all, we do have 53 seed potatoes chitting away, which will need to be planted soon.

The chard will keep going for a while and there is a hint of cauliflower on the six plants that are still also providing ample food for caterpillars.  There is also corn salad hiding away among the weeds that have grown back, which I hope to rescue soon.

The state of the rhubarb reminds us that we need to care for the soil, adding organic matter back where we can, while at the same time continuing to fight the good fight against the rampant scrub that wants to reclaim the gardens.  These tulips were planted in a vegetable bed only 3 years ago, but are now fighting their way out of a bramble patch.

• 
• 

Those plants that fight on through the weeds and scrub come out stronger - this calendular made it through the winter and is now developing many more flower buds for more blazing orange.

One reason for our lassitude to date is that for once things are a bit delayed in nature.  The daffodils would have been finished by now last year and the year before, while the cowslips are just going from strength to strength.  But blossom is late - the countryside is white with wild plum and blackthorn much later than normal, while the pear may not be in full bloom for Easter, as it usually would be (irrespective of date, as Easter is determined by moon phases).  There is a slow green veil taking over but that has been apparent in late March for the last few years, not early April.

• 
• 

The birds are out in force, but there were few insects around, despite the blossom and the highly pungent laurel flowers.  The hornet trap is set at The Shack but not at home, but there is no sign of any interest in it so far.  There are a few heavy bumblebees around, but without insects, there will not be much fruit, so I hope they appear soon.

The extremely clear sign of a late spring was at the One Acre Wood however.  For the past few years, by the start of April, the lily of the valley would be perhaps an inch or two tall and showing whether there would be any flowers to come.  We walked through the spot today, and could see nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  They will sprout in due course, but they confirm we are right not to be plunging into too much gardening activity before Nature is ready to give us a helping hand.

Many the Easter Bunny bring you more chocolate than you can eat in one sitting!