Rural Life

Autumn harvests and who gets what?

First off, an apology - I was unable to do this blog yesterday as the Typepad system was down for renovation (always worrying), but today it is back, so here goes!

We have had rain - not the torrential amounts seen down south, but enough to encourage some things to really put on a spurt - the red cabbages have huge leaves, the size of dinner plates, so I am hoping that we will soon see a heart developing.  Of course, I ask why I only bought 3 plants, but previous attempts have been disappointing at best.  The cauliflowers are also looking quite fine, so I hope for a few decent heads in the spring.  The agony of trying to grow a decent cauliflower is why they should be expensive in the shops!

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The chillies I set off from seed in the late spring are now covered in ripening fruits and I have already frozen 30 or so, which should deal with our need for spicy curry and chilli con carne for a year.  This time I grew two varieties, cayenne - the long thin ones, possibly from French Guyana, but a good solid favourite, and Jalopeno thanks to a free packet of seeds from Kitchen Garden magazine and probably about 5 years ago (they no longer provide seeds to European subscribers, so I no longer subscribe).  These have been a bit of a revelation, at least in the kitchen.  They take longer to ripen but the fruits are reliably hot and a bit juicier and plumper than the cayennes.  I may have to try to save seed for next year!

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The rain has also brought on the autumn flowers nicely and it was a real treat to see how the cyclamen in the One Acre Wood are starting to spread.  It seems to take four or five years for a cyclamen corm to go from a seed that produces a small leaf or two, to one that can support one or more flowers, and this patch have been tantalising in that I seem to have waited well over four years for these ones to flower, but now they have!  A real joy!

Autumn is also the time of nuts.  October 1st is generally the official start of the walnut harvest, as ancient wisdom says that those that fall before that aren't good.  This year that doesn't really work as the weather hasn't been "right", but the nuts are now coming off the good tree as well as all the others.  We really need to be on war footing with that tree as it is the one with the tastiest and plumpest nuts and other "people" also like nuts. 

When I went to check the trail camera yesterday, it was on its side - I thought perhaps a gust of wind had taken it, or a cat had been sitting on the log.  So, I righted it and then checked the photos and footage.  A first look at a daytime photo before the camera went over showed that there were visitors.

The five videos below show the marauding hoard and give an inkling as to what it is like to be investigated by a boar!

 

 

 

 

 

Something else has been getting the sweet chestnuts before me too, but that is a whole other story and not one I can comment on as the camera is too far away!

How long the boar will be in the zone, I don't know.  I suspect that will be determined by the hunt and when they decide to clear out all wildlife, but for the moment, we continue to enjoy the spectacle.

 

A question of who can harvest what!

It was an odd week, with The Funeral on Monday and falling temperatures and even, over the last couple of days, a weird phenomenon where water falls from the sky to make the ground moist rather than me lumping watering cans around!

Today I have lifted more of the potato crop and set it to try in a covered but open barn space.  We have also sown a bit of the grain we feed to the chickens as the price is going up and we need to scrimp and save a bit.  I picked a courgette today and there seem to be 5 more aubergines developing on the plants, but production is slowing down noticeably now.  With cooler weather and now we are past the vernal equinox, it is not entirely surprising that the summer crops are starting to flag.

So here are the potatoes in their drying rack - those on the left were dug up last week and have had the small and blemished ones removed for immediate consumption, while those on the right are what I dug up today without any triage.  Then there is the bed where the grain was sown.  The brassicas are looking a lot larger than when they went in - fortunately!!  The chard is doing well, and you can almost make out bean pods!

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We had to cover the seed bed with wire net to prevent it being used too much as a cat toilet, but it is bound to be used as a rolling around zone assuming the rain doesn't continue!

In the garden area we mainly defend things against cat bottoms and let nature take its course with any other visitors.  We have a pear tree in the garden that has been loaded with fruit this year, and we know when it is ripe as it falls off.  We do a triage before the chickens are released and John has a couple of barrels of burping brown goo which will be distilled early next year.  We had hoped to add some of the pears from the trees by the Meadow, but there never seemed to be any on the ground, while the ones on the tree remain fairly hard.  Well, the trail camera gave up its secrets during the week as the batteries needed boosted, so I took the opportunity to clear the SD card.  The camera has been pointing at the pear tree to see what is going on.

Badgers like pears.

It's probably not entirely unsurprising that boar rather like pears too!

The pine martin is actually trying to pick the pears off the tree though.

There's lots of deer and badger action, a hare and more from the pine martin but you'll have to wait until next week for that!

 

A time of reflection and change

This time last week, it was so hot, I was sticking to my desk as I typed.  Today my office is a more liveable 22ºC and rather than being concerned about how to keep cool, we are starting to trap heat again, while ensuring that chillies and fruit aren't damaged by near frost conditions in the early morning.  Once again weird weather is here!

I've frozen some 30 chillies now to see us through to August next year, but I am sure there will be more as the plants are reasonably well placed so they won't get frosted tonight and then things start to warm up again.  We won't see 30ºC again this year, but I'm not sorry, it was wearing. 

I've picked about 8 pounds of quince - well, 8 good sized fruits each weighing about a pound, and I will spend tomorrow morning chopping and boiling them while watching the broadcast from London.  There are still loads on the tree too, but my batch tomorrow will be for making quince jelly and perhaps shredding one for quince liqueur.

Obviously when you get hot temperatures, particularly at the wrong time of year, they tend to end with a bang.  As the maize was finally harvested in the field where I go to say goodbye to the day, we could also stand there after dark and watch the distant light show - once again, just a couple of millimetres of rain for us, but somewhere got soaked!

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Conditions were right, and there were few insects around as well, so it was time for the meadow to have its annual mow.  We don't take any of the material off the field, so it is there as a mulch, any seeds can fall and be eaten or can germinate, and the ground is clear for things to resprout and grow.  If we didn't do an annual clear, the meadow would soon be overtaken by brambles and old man's beard, which would grow taller and taller, killing any low growing plants and providing meagre shelter while blocking access to the ponds.  We know this, as there are still blocks left like that, which we are slowly turning to something better for biodiversity. 

One effect of this is that the trail camera is marooned on its log in the middle of the meadow.  So today I decided to move it.  Actually the batteries need a boost, so I moved the log to its new position so that things can get used to it, while we boost the batteries and I clear the SD card.  As far as I can tell there are a lot of videos of night as the deer have been setting it off just outside the range of the infrared lights, but the big screen may show more and prove me wrong.  There are lots of videos of some bloke on a mower driving around too.  Anyway, I hope next week there will be some films, but this week you will have to cope with just photos of a deer, a boar and the pine martin.

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So much for change, but what about reflection?  We don't have UK television, just radio and the BBC website, plus other news sources, not necessarily British.  Last weekend our French friends were asking how we felt about the death of the Queen, to which our standard response was "sad, but not unexpected, and time to celebrate a life well lived".  We have been able to separate ourselves from the media message in the UK, so cannot hope to comprehend what the sentiment and feeling is like over there.  We watch with a certain incredulity as the queue to view the Lying in State takes on a life of its own.  We will watch events unfold tomorrow, taking a day out to participate, mainly vicariously, as history is written.

When I was younger, if I had feelings about the monarchy at all, it was of a glittery entity that didn't really affect me or have any relevance for my life.  My parents both met the Queen a couple of times, while my father met her father and mother on several occasions and worked with the Duke of Edinburgh occasionally on questions of Design.  I did the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award, was a Scout but had issues with the Scout's Promise, and more recently have worked with and have huge respect for The Prince's Trust. 

Reflecting now on the end of the Post-War Era, as it has been described, for me the value of the Royal Family and Queen or King as the Head of State is as a non-political, non-elected moral core and standard for the country.  That point of reference for what is British, who represents us irrespective of the vagaries of popular votes and ever more self-serving and mediocre politicians is an important one.  France doesn't put Presidents on coins or stamps, rather Mariane, an idealised woman and spirit of all that is best in France.  The USA does a similar thing, but with an Eagle and dead Presidents, who may not be as above reproach as history is rewritten from a 21st century perspective.  

With the passing of the Queen and the New Carolingian era that is about to start, the moral compass will be reset.  I expect there will be a slimmed down monarchy, but fascination with the Royal Family will not fade (indeed it is one of their purposes - filling pages of glossy magazines and fuelling book sales).  My hope is that King Charles will maintain his emphasis on the importance of conserving environmental and built heritage and saving the planet, and that the leadership he has shown in that field over the past 40 years will continue during his reign.  Planet Earth needs a few big hitters in her team at the moment!

 

 

What a strange week!

Last Sunday the weather decided to break, with thunderstorms and rain, except around us.  I could see storms, but couldn't actually hear them, and we had little rain during the week despite the predictions for quantities of up to 20mm.  We had 5mm.  Not really enough to do anything other than make the air heavy and uncomfortable.  But then the temperatures went down, and I even wore a pair of jeans one day! 

The chimney is now swept, so we could have a fire, but the house is still very warm, so no need.  It got ever cooler so that on Friday, when visiting Chinon, I turned down the opportunity of a soft drink in the Place Jeanne d'Arc on the basis I didn't have a jumper with me.  Today I am back in shorts, and we expect temperatures of 30ºC and over for the next couple of days.  Crazy!  This storm was to the North of le Mans, 50km away!

The trail camera is starting to be accepted again by the local wildlife - it takes a while for them to get used to a lump of willow trunk sitting and looking threatening in their "zone".  There are some videos, but i don't think the bandwidth is there today to load them onto YouTube and share them.  In addition to the badger, deer and birds of last week, more deer have been spotted, and the pine martin is back.  A new addition to the local gang is a hare - the field next door was ploughed, and he/she seemed to object.

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Yesterday was the annual Méchoui or outdoor pig roast at our local Boule de Forte club, la Paix.  Covid meant that it couldn't run in 2020, as no large gatherings were allowed, while the rules were changing so often in 2021, the organisers wisely decided not to bother.  This year, with no restrictions, it was back. 

While for the organisers, it starts early on a Saturday morning, getting the pig cooking, for us punters, things kick off from about midday with a long drinks and nibbles session, before we are called to table for more drinks and nibbles.  Then there is a collation of cold salad starters with bread (at which point the chaps buy wine and water), and by about 3:30pm, people are starting to get restive, so six chaps will carry the pig over to the carving table and serve it up.  Platters of hot pork, bowls of beans and bowls of ratatouille then do the rounds, and there are always seconds.  There can be a bit of a scrum for good bits of skin and crackling, but I did well on that this year.  Then when you feel you couldn't eat or drink another thing, cheese and slices of apple tart arrive, followed by coffee. 

We dragged our sagging tummies home at 6:30pm, as our brains were ringing with French, including heartfelt condolences from French friends who had been thinking about us, they assured us, constantly since Thursday evening.  The warmth of community feeling is a wonderful thing.

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So yes, that's the final aspect to a strange week - Thursday 8th September, at 7:33pm the France 3 news was interrupted in its first story by the breaking news that Queen Elizabeth II had died.  By the time we turned over to France 2 for the detailed weather forecast including the Caribbean islands, their 8 o'clock news had started early, with presenters wearing black, doing a four-hour special on Her Majesty.  Their coverage was sad but also celebratory.  They managed to find a couple of British, but fluent French speakers from their staff to make some sort of serious comment, while National Treasure, Stéphane Bearne (OBE) was wheeled out to talk about the several times he met the Queen, including for his investiture.  It was an excellent homage to a great lady. 

While flags were lowered on Friday in many places, and any news programme or channel is a bit obsessed by it all, we can turn over and watch other things.  We can also change channel on the internet radio and go from mournful or reflective music on Classic FM and Radio 2, to jollier tunes and normal voices on French radio stations.  Come the 19th September, I guess we will be glued to a news channel though - after all, it is history in the making.

But now I must go and make peach jam, because over-ripe peaches wait for nothing and no one!

 

Back to School time

Actually, it is called the Rentrée and is taken very seriously here in France, with lots of things changing as well as kiddies going (back) to school.  It happened in general on Thursday last week, the 1st September, although we went out for lunch and were surprised at the number of people under 16 eating out with parents, and noticed the slow service due to the lack of people aged 15 to 18 serving tables.  It's the Rentrée effect. 

Another phenomenon at this time of year are the local Forums d'Associations or open day for clubs and societies, normally organised around a large sports or cultural centre, where you go to sign up for all the arts and sports and worthy things you are going to do after the Rentrée.  I got my sign up form for yoga for old people and talked to the blood donor society as I heard a rumour that rules are being relaxed about the British being able to donate blood.  Time will tell, as they recommended I speak to the doctor on duty at the next donor session on the 20th October.  A date for my diary.

The trail camera has been moved back "home" and was placed near a pear tree to see who is enjoying the pears as they fall, as we aren't getting a look in.  Sadly I placed it a bit too far away, and as the culprits attack after dark, and the infrared light only captures images so far, while the camera is tripping, I'm not getting much by way of images, certainly not video.  However here are three who are partly in the frame, and today I moved the camera closer to the tree, in the hope of seeing more soon.

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The vegetable plots are still going strong, with courgettes finally attempting to produce a glut, aubergines still producing slowly, butternuts filling and ripening, and the winter brassicas starting to look a bit more serious than they did when I first planted them.  We have red cabbage, winter cauliflower and Brussels sprouts in this row, and three more cauliflowers in another row.  Whether they will work or not, I don't know.  The soil is heavy clay which seems to suit brassicas, but weather and water are also important factors and those are in the lap of the gods.

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The uncultivated crops are coming on too - the hops are wild, or at least unintentional, and I don't know if they would be any good for brewing.  As for the sweet chestnuts, well they have a good while to go as they generally start to be ripe around the end of October.  They are still small, and may need more water than the gods provide this year, but there are a lot on the tree, so fingers crossed. 

Apparently I'm not allowed to show the photos of these for some reason, so instead I share a picture of the slow worm that I found when digging up potatoes earlier today.

As it took ages to get that image in, I think it is fair to say that the Web is also suffering from the Rentrée today, so I will leave it there and next week I hope to bring you more exciting images and events from rural France.

In the meantime, have a good Rentrée yourself.

 

 

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.

 

Comice 2022

It's that time again!  In 2020, there was no Comice due to Covid.  In 2021, Echimiré did a Comice Lite, which was actually pretty impressive, despite masks and health passes.  This year the major fire meant that for a moment, there was a fear that the Comice might be cancelled, but it went ahead.  There was still an intervillage ploughing match this morning, although most mayors were too tired to take part themselves I gather, at least some found willing and able substitutes from the photos on social media.  There won't be fireworks tonight, but there will be entertainment and dancing.

The big thing on the Sunday in a traditional Comice is the procession of decorated floats for each of the villages in the commune.  Last year there were just two, due to constraints on meeting up.  This year all villages were able to do a float if they wanted.  In practice, four didn't send a float, and I'm not going to speculate why.

As is traditional, the Cadets de Baugeois led off the parade in their unique style and following them were the sapeurs pompiers - not a vast number and only 3 vehicles, but they are still keeping an eye on hotspots around the devastated area, in case of small outbreaks.

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Then there was the host village, Pontigné.  This year's theme was the silence of the countryside (possibly hitting out at townie incomers, possibly not), and the symbol was the cockerel.

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Then came Vaulandry with the milking parlour and Bocé with the vendors of vegetables - they were very keen to point out all the produce was grown in their village!

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Cuon showed us the grape harvest or vendange, while Montpollin celebrated the mobile still - that does make a racket when it comes to a village!

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Le Guédenieu took a cynical stance and had a mobile phone tower and celebrated the mobile phone, including all the annoying ringtones you can imagine.  Interestingly, there was a WiFi network for the Comice field, supplied I believe by the local purveyors of fibre optic.  Cheviré le Rouge paid their own homage to the firefighters, but as you can't stop them singing, there was also a purposeful float with lots of singing and jollity too.

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Echimiré had a magnificent float with a dodgy clown and Baugé got the church theme this time round and had a church service going on.

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St Martin d'Arcé had more music going down - it could have been a guiguette.  The final float was from Vieil Baugé, celebrating those women who used to work hard at the village lavoir doing the laundry.  The Comice will be at Vieil Baugé next year, hence their position of honour at the back.

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But that wasn't all, as there was a strange mobile piano heading backwards up the hill, while being played (he also did pirouettes), and a couple of farmers with the giant water cisterns that were used to damp down the fires last week.

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There are also lots of things to see, food to eat, things to drink, local ice-cream and honey, and stuff that you probably don't want to buy.  There are massive agricultural machines in to wonder at, including this absolutely mahoosive beastie.  The wheels were taller than me!  The width of area that could be dealt with in one pass had to be a good 15 meters.

 There were horses, donkeys, miniature ponies, cows and a lovely display from Loué chicken farms with hatching eggs and then the chicks, all fluffed out and dried, under heat lamps to wonder at.

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Well done and thank you, Pontigné!  I feel weak already at the thought of all the work to make next year's episode happen in Vieil Baugé, and there will be no escape, John and I will be helping out somehow or other!

Until next week...

 

Fire!

This could be yet another post about the heatwave that has dogged us since June, and with daytime high temperatures never less than 30ºC until today, it could also be quite accurate.  But no, today's edition is firmly dedicated to the real fire that has occupied most of our senses for nearly a week now. 

n Monday we went to Terra Botanica near Angers to enjoy a bit of "us" time and celebrate the day.  We got there just after opening, planning to leave at about 3pm before the heat got too much for us.  Once our noses were turned in a homeward direction (slightly North East), we thought that the sky looked a bit murky - on a day when it was pretty solidly blue!  Once off the motorway, we decided that it wasn't cloud, it was smoke and spent a happy few kilometres guessing which bit of woodland downwind from us it was.  All too soon it became clear that it was woodland to the North East of us, and that wasn't happy news!  This is our first clear view.

We could also smell it.  Once home, social media provided all the gossip we needed to know that it was a serious fire, that it was too close to some friends for comfort and that it wasn't going to be sorted quickly.  A late evening chat with the grandson of our neighbours gave a hint as to the number of fire fighters being called in and the distances.  The following morning, the house stank of smoke - the windows were open overnight to allow us to cool the house down.  The pall of smoke hung over the village and the rumour mill was running big time.  A  hairdresser's appointment was a brilliant way for me to pick up on the scale of what was going on, although very sad to hear that my hairdresser had had to send her children and animals away to stay with her parents, so that they weren't too badly affected.  The evening view of the smoke was dramatic!

There are lots of issues with social media, but in this instance, it did show its value too.  The local authority and local community group pages were kept updated on the facts, stopping rumours about masked bands of arsonists, and flights of fancy about hunters, while showing the scale of the fire and the damage.  More constructively, there were also threads on how to offer help, food, goods, the use of horse boxes and cattle trucks, and how staying away was just as useful.  A thread at 10pm on Tuesday night, asking for mattresses for the firefighters that had come vast distances to help, prompted a magnificent display, such that the 200 required were provided within half an hour.  Maps, satellite views and overlays demonstrated the scale of the problem.

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Visiting the Boys in the Country, downwind of the fire, to make sure they were OK and that they were well fed and watered brought a whole new set of panic to us.  We found a t-shirt I had left out to dry covered in ash, pieces of pine bark charred from the fire littered the Garden, and a singed oak leaf was by the building.  We had a mass of activity ensuring that combustibles were moved away from the building and put a few buckets of water on the roof in case, but fortunately no more cinder storms happened.

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We have done our bit by staying away from the fire and the exclusion zone that has been put in place around it until Tuesday next week.  We did learn a whole new jargon for wildfire fighting including the important difference between fixé, or contained and maitrisé or controlled, while that nirvana of éteint or out is still a long way off.  The fire ripped through pine forest and mixed forest, and pine is a real danger in these circumstances, with resinous cores that can keep burning quietly until an unfavourable wind hits.  Parts of the area are peat based, which also keeps burning underground unless there is a really solid dousing, and means that the fire can pop up again when it finds a nice pine root and a bit of wind.  It will be weeks until they are convinced that it is fully out.  This aerial photo from the paper shows a tiny part of the damaged area.

Overall some 1,450 hectares have burned and the perimeter of the fire is 21 kilometres.  At its height 90 people were evacuated from their homes (not including those that chose to leave in case), but thanks to amazing work by firefighters supported by some 90 farmers as well as hundreds of volunteers, the local councillors and staff, no homes or buildings were destroyed, and there were only two injuries, both to firefighters (one hurt their arm, one inhaled smoke).  A friend with bees lost only one hive out of 200 or more.  But the damage and the desolation will take a long time to repair - Mother Nature has her work cut out again.  The exclusion zone is shown here - the purple line.

While at the height of the fire there were over 100 engines, over 400 firefighters, 3 Dash aircraft (they land to refill their water tanks but can drop fire retardant products), and the local farmers with water tanks working away, numbers have reduced.  I think we are now down to 50 or so firefighters and some very fine fire engines (yesterday, parked up while people rested and had a bite to eat).  The smell of fire has gone too, damped down by last night's rain.

Thanks to all those who worked tirelessly and selflessly.  I hope their efforts are never needed again round here in this way.

 

Weather obsessions and other summer thoughts

The acquisition of a couple of beach style chairs gives us an opportunity to sit and gaze through the gap in the hedge/overgrowth/trees towards the far hill and its path, and let our minds wander.  Sitting in the shade and gazing into the distance is one way, after all, of passing time on these endless hot, sunny days.  Records are falling for heat, lack of rain, lack of water, size of cracks in the ground and buildings, crops being early and crops being poor.  While the early cereal crops exceeded expectations in quality and sometimes quantity too, the later ones will be poor, and where the farmer has followed the rules and played the game, exceptionally poor.  Any hint of rain is fallen up as a good sign, such as this week, with clouds to the west giving us a vivid sunset, hopes only to be dashed the following morning with just 0.3mm of rain in the gauge - not enough to even change the soil colour on our "lawn".  Perhaps one different signal is that while the first cyclamen flowers are coming up, they are a good three weeks later than last year!

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Even in this heat, the show must go on, particularly in the more touristy towns and villages.  This weekend, Chinon held its mediaeval fair (probably fayre, but I object to that), with some celebration of Joan of Arc, who manifested her first miracle in the chateau at Chinon.  I wouldn't have wanted to be Didier in all this finery yesterday!

Over in the Country, two of the cats momentarily decided that 31ºC was not too hot to cuddle up on one of the garden chairs, while watching me eeking out the stored rainwater on the aubergines.  I found another, probably more helpful, garden buddy, when I went walking to beat the bounds, in the form of a rather magnificent slow worm.  He (or she) was about a foot long and definitively basking in the late afternoon sun!

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The trail camera is installed at a secret location, to monitor what is making a mess of someone's garden.  In order to prepare it for a professional job, we recharged the batteries and I cleared the SD card, which hadn't been done since April.  My word there was a lot of material on there - nearly 400 videos and 400 photos.  Now while some included my fat bottom walking away after doing my WiFi checks (instantly deleted), some included John passing with various mowing machines (bizarrely I kept a couple of those), and many seem to have been triggered by a gust of wind or a fly landing on the lens, there was an awful lot that wasn't.   When I do my remote WiFi checks, I use my phone to review potentially interesting things and download them, but if the sun is in the wrong place, I don't have reading glasses with me, or there are a lot of files since my previous visit, I don't get the full richness of what has been happening.

Today I therefore offer up some links to videos that are interesting or a bit special in some way - I hope you enjoy them.

First off - there seem to be more jays around this year than previously, no idea why.  Here is a video.

I found more videos of the young wild boar, actually quite a few, but this one is rather sweet and gives a good close up of young Stripy.

Perhaps rashly, I accused the boar of attacking and knocking over the log the camera was attached to.  Reviewing one of these two videos of the pine martin, I need more evidence before deciding on the culprit.

 

I know they are small, but they have no respect!

Probably the star of the trail camera recently has been our family of deer, and in particular the one we think of as "our" faun.  Every few days, with his mother, they would spend a couple of days lurking near the camera, before moving on to find fresh grazing; then coming back.  The first video is a solo venture, the second includes Mum, while I'm not sure how many deer there are in the final one - best watched full screen and to the end!

 

 

Next weekend "they" promise rain, in which case I will sort out more gems from the deer family and the boar family and perhaps a badger or two as well.  Have a good week!

 

Change and new beginings

I'm not sure how much I am in favour of change - but I am sure it will happen whether I like it or not.  This year is one of farewells - some French friends moving south, some moving village, and British friends, tired of the challenges of Brexit, selling their second homes and settling full time (or an approximation of full time) in the UK.  They all say they will come back and visit, how many do, and how often remains to be seen. 

While the removals take place, there is the frisson of having a trailer that can be used for trips to the dump.  We also pick over the spoils of what won't be taken away, what is no longer needed or is too expensive to take "home" (there really is no Brexit benefit).  A local cat charity now has more pillows, towels and duvets than they could dream of.  Someone else has a 'new to them' sofa.  We have a bunch of things to put on sales sites to share around, and the awful process of triaging much loved libraries of second hand books to see what can be slipped into book swap kiosks, what might sell for a few centimes, what could be given to hospital libraries, and what, with the best will in the world, is best sent for pulping (Thomas Mann in the original is high on that list!).  How many copies of the RHS Encyclopaedia of Gardening does one need - purely rhetorical!

But that excitement declines very rapidly, as we try to find a bit of cupboard space for 6 tins of chickpeas, and regret the company, the laughter, the trips and events that will no longer animate the summer months.  We would prefer to keep the people to all the books, sofas, DVDs and chickpeas.

The moving stuff around this week has meant that we have also been out and about a bit.  Did you know that as well as building a tower in Paris, Eiffel also built a railway bridge in Chinon (OK it is a long way in the distance)?  You can also see that the river is chronically low.

We also visited the village church at Gée, just 15 kilometres away - it has been very well restored, presumably a nice legacy from someone.  The village also has a very good restaurant that does a very fine 15€ lunch!

I don't know if I should blame the cats for this, but I had a chance to take a very close look at one of my favourite moths - the tiger moth.  With their wings at rest, they are handsome and sober, but when they are in flight or when you look at the underside, they are the most marvellous and vibrant orange.

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It is still stinking hot and dry as a bone here - water restrictions are incredibly tight.  You can only water food plants, anything else has to take its chance unless you use grey water from doing something else.  Even watering food plants is frowned on between 8am and 8pm, and should ideally only be done with grey water or rain water that you have stored.  We are down to our last 800 litres of stored water, and while there was a promise of rain and thunder for Thursday on the weather sites yesterday, it has now been downgraded to a 20% chance of mild drizzle.  The sweetcorn hasn't worked and has been sacrificed for aubergines, butternuts and borlotti beans, while the chillies are doing well on the water that the chickens don't drink in a day.

The fact that there are cool shady corners and a bit of water/bog at the bottom of the Wildflower Meadow means that the trail camera has been working hard.  I did accuse John of knocking it over with a mower when he cleared the paths, but looking at footage from the camera, I then had to apologise.  The camera is on the move to a distant site where someone wants to know what is causing trouble, so I will be spending a lot of time clearing the SD card, but these videos were downloaded by phone and show that new beginings are possible.  I am pretty sure the faun was born in the meadow, and I may even have footage of the labour/birth when I go through the hundreds of files.  Anyway, enjoy these and see who you think pushed over the camera on its log!

Looking at that more closely, I think the young buck has a problem with one foot/leg.

This is the only time I have seen one here, and it is also surprising to see it in daylight.

He didn't really go far for a couple of weeks, and stayed with Mum in the zone in that time.

He (or she) really is rather cute!

Well, I know who my money's on!

Have a good week!