Rural Life

Snow in Winter - whatever next?

I don't know about anyone else but I am getting a tad bored with the Arctic high pressure that has settled over North West Europe and seems to like it here.  While bright blue skies and crisp mornings are a pleasure, particularly if you don't have to scrape a car windscreen, walking timorously because of black ice loses its appeal very quickly.  And I defy anyone to find early morning temperatures of -8 degrees C a good thing at all!

We are using up fire wood at a scary pace, although I guess that is what it is there for, but the chances of refilling the wood stack in the next couple of weeks are looking slim.  While we will work with chainsaws in the afternoons in the wood if it is frosty, we won't do anything like that where there is snow on the ground - it is just too dangerous.  And that is what we have - a rarity in Anjou we are told, but 4 inches of snow fell yesterday afternoon and with a high of -0.9 degrees this afternoon, it didn't do much about melting.

The cats have decided that snow is quite fun if they can come in again as soon as their paws get cold, and pink paws get colder more quickly than black pad paws - not a lot of people know that....  The chickens are beside themselves - they don't know where to put their feet, there are no grubs and other yucky things to find, and if there were, they would need to dig in the snow to find them.  The chickens don't do going in the snow.  Or strictly, ours don't - Joel's don't have the choice, although they have spend a lot of time standing on the garden chairs today.

However, one can't really grumble - this is what winter is all about and hopefully the prolonged frost will put paid to all the nasty microbes out there like peach leaf curl and tomato blight and codling moth and fleas (not strictly a microbe but something that needs dealing with).

Keep warm!

Impact of two cats on garden wildlife

Back in the autumn I hinted that I had been keeping a tally of what Maigret and Poirot had been catching in the garden.  Some people on the Wild about Britain site chose to interpret that as meaning that I was a "sicko pervert who gets her rocks off on this sort of thing" - such charming types you do meet in cyberworld.  Actually we did it to see what sort of impact having two young and fit cats (as opposed to one elderly and cantankerous feline) would have on the wildlife population of the garden, particularly the sparrows, which are numerous here.

We kept a tally per cat through the year, counting only those kills that we saw our cats with the body for, and with lizards, it had to be the body rather than the tail, which detaches very easily.  Maigret was the more effective hunter - Poirot is not built for stealth - but Poirot got the bigger prey, and still yearns to catch and eat her own chicken.  Fortunately our neighbour regards this ambition as a joke and doesn't get cross when she tries.  We take the same attitude when she goes for ours, as we know from experience that once she gets pecked by one of the chickens, she will leave them alone.

Between the two of them, they have got 27 lizards, a nest of 5 baby robins, 4 baby blackbirds, 2 sparrows, 3 pigeons and 22 mice.  The robins were a shame, but we have suitably pruned the tree the nest was in with the hope of stopping the same thing next year.  The blackbirds had been left in the rhubarb patch on the ground - any cat would have got them.  The sparrows were babies chucked out of one of the 8 nests on the side of the house - they could well have been dead or dying anyway, and certainly given each nest had at least 2 if not 3 broods this year, it was not a major impact.

The toad fought back - so that doesn't count, and he is still patrolling the garden when not hibernating.  The hedgehog got jumped on a few times but again is fine.  I have no qualms about the mice or pigeons - both are vermin around here, and as I have said before, a good mouser is well regarded in this rural community.  So much so that next door's cat, Nenette of the kittens, who is also a formidable ratter, has been rented out in exchange for firewood, to rid a local small holder of their rat and mouse problem.  We gather she is having a wonderful time!

Apologies for lack of photos this time - some issue with Typepad and my computer not quite getting it together today, although there are nice pictures on the links in general. 

An update!  I have won in the battle for getting photos on, so here are the two savage killers, ready for the next victim.

New Cooker for Christmas

No - not a reference to my Christmas present from my beloved - more a howl of pain for trying to get stuff organised so that I can use my new cooker at Christmas and not have to eat dinner in the bathroom!

Back in September I ordered my lovely new cooker - a LaCanche - customised as befits a major element of our main room decor to our taste, so brushed steel knobs, brushed steel central heat plate and British Racing Green enamel bodywork.  It would take some time to be made and delivered to the kitchen suppliers, but not a problem apart from the plummeting Euro exchange rate.

As ours is a totally new gas installation (the year has been blighted by perpetual road works and similar), we have to get pipework installed and and a certificate of conformity before we can have gas and a meter.  The gas fitter is very busy but will fit us in on Monday, having been booked in September.

Once I have the certificate of conformity, Gaz de France will come round and put in my meter and put gas into the pipe - they have just asked if I can wait until the 30th December for that, as I am not really a priority.

The gas cooker arrives on Monday or Tuesday - it is big.  It will go where my current crockery and ingredients shelves go.  Those shelves will move on a temporary basis to where the old cooker (a bit of a beast like a small range but with a gas bottle hidden away in it) currently sits, once the new cooker is linked up with the gas and is working.  As the final stage, the old cooker will go into a cellar until we can clean it up to sell it or think of another use for it.  Think of one of those children's puzzles with the 15 squares to move round to get the numbers in the right order - that is how our house works, and finding the space to move a block into to move others around is a nightmare.

So if I waited until the 30th to get linked up, all the crockery and ingredients would be spread over the living room and at risk of being broken or eaten by cats, while I have a huge and gorgeous cooker that can't be used and I try to produce Christmas dinner in no space at all on the old cooker.  As I generally do goose with 7 vegetables as the main event, life starts to get difficult.  Like I say, the bathroom could become the dining room.

The lovely lady from Gaz de France did try the line of there are little old ladies without any heating out there who are a priority over me, and I respect her for it (although I suspect those little old ladies have other sources of heat - no French peasant does cold).  But not enough not to be a bit insistent on having my meter next week.  Of course it could all go horribly wrong and I could be begging not to have the meter put in until the 30th, but I hope not.

Imagine below in British Racing Green - you can see why it is urgent!

The Drove Road

I finally got round to getting the photos developed from my summer travels in the UK.  I spent some of the wettest weeks of July and September and November (not strictly summer but similar weather conditions in each month) in the UK for work.  However it was a privilege for part of that time to be spent in Somerset and I stayed at the Coombe House Hotel near Nether Stowey twice - much recommended.

From my roost at Nether Stowey I had to go to Taunton a few times and there are two possible routes.  The sensible but very long one is along proper roads around the Quantocks and via Bridgewater, the not so sensible route is over the top of the Quantocks on what some might call roads but are really more like narrow tubes between high hedges.  Naturally I opted for the dangers of the narrow roads over the hills.

This did mean that I found my way back to my favourite place when I was a child - Triscombe Stone up on the Drove Road that follows the line of the Quantocks.  I did a couple of walks up there - my risk analysis for both walks was that I was crazy!  It was wet, visibility was minimal as the clouds sat on the hills, there was no one else around, my only waterproof was a high visibility vest and mobile phone signals were dodgy at best.  Still, you are only young and foolish once, right?  And I survived.

So here is the Drove Road - a wonderfully atmospheric place.  One day I will walk the whole of it from end to end, while I am still young and foolish enough to.

Life is difficult sometimes!

Two excuses, actually probably three, for why updates are slow at the moment on both blogs.

First off, my main desk top computer gave up the ghost - I think the technical term was a boot drive failure, anyway it is taking ages to sort out.  While we have Windows reloaded, we haven't got an Internet connection on it, and while I have downloaded the driver for the ADSL box, I need an ISO reader to get it to work, which the lovely Internet Provider a) don't bother to tell you, and when they do, b) don't provide a link to one.  So far I have only found ones to download that work with Vista or need an Internet connection to run, which I haven't got as I need an ISO reader to make the link between my computer and the ADSL box.  Someone needs to do a computer update to the Flanders and Swan classic "The Gas Man Cometh" about computer assistance call centres.

Secondly, I have been off working and being trained quite a bit recently, which has reduced my sitting in front of a computer time nicely, and has also meant that while in front of said computer, I have had other priorities.

The final excuse is that when I do get to work on my computer, and as it is getting quite wintry now, two furry people think I am there for one thing - cat comfort.  As you can see from the photo below, doing anything under these conditions starts to get a bit fraught.  I will get this sorted out in December - I will!?

Slinky new outfit!

Things have been a bit quiet on the blogging front, partly as the hard drive on my main computer gave up the fight against cat fur and died, and partly as I am away on work travels.  However this weekend is a lull at one of my favourite places (Bants at Upton Snodsbury) before I go and get qualified next week.

While all good French rural folk are able to use a chainsaw by their fifth birthday and are fully convinced of the protective powers of bright blue gabardine, we Brits are not so relaxed (if that is the right word).  However we have had to come to terms with the fact that John cannot be totally responsible for the production of fire wood chez nous and that some jobs are done quicker when two are tooled up.  Consequently Anjouhousewatch has bought me my very own chainsaw and I will be attending Pershore College for the next two days, learning how to use it.

This new skills acquisition has also meant that I have shelled out £160 on a natty trouser/boot combo that makes my elegant lady friends in the UK worry for my fashion sense, while giving me some form of BS/ES norm protection when working.  I have fired up my nice new chainsaw (a Stihl MS170 helpfully called Svennnnnnnnn) a couple of times so I am not a complete novice on the course, but as the picture shows, there are lessons still to be learnt!!

Brive la Gaillarde and Sete

It has been all quiet on the posting front as we have done the unimaginable for us and taken a holiday.  Our excuse was that we needed to buy southern French wine and good quality olive oil - something we achieved, but in reality, having not had a holiday for two years, we needed time out.

We got in the car and headed south and indulged ourselves at our favourite restaurant - at Brive la Gaillarde down in the Correze, and called La Cremaillere.  It is actually a hotel as well, but as we hadn't booked we couldn't get a room, but we could get a table for dinner.  The chef there is a master and our meals were sumptuous but well judged so that we could actually move afterwards and didn't feel at all bloated or uncomfortable.  We asked them to recommend a wine and it went with the meal fabulously without being the most expensive on the menu.  The amuses bouche of pumpkin veloute, toast with tapenade and the most amazing mushroom fondant (or cappuchino as they called it) were perfection and live in the memory.

So if you are in the area - perhaps for a rugby match - this is the place to look for!

 

From there we went over the Millau viaduct and headed for the Med.  There is now a service station by the bridge so you can stop and wonder at this edifice before driving over it and heading on your way.

 

We headed for Sete - a fairly substantial port near Montpellier, with a fishing fleet, a regular ferry service to Morocco and an active port that had the Arianne collector ship and loads of bits of wind turbines in when we were there.  We were lucky to get a fine room at the Grand Hotel overlooking the canal junction.  The canals join the Mediterranean with a lagoon behind Sete and its spit of beach that leads to Agde and Cap d'Agde to the east, so are salt water.  The water is so clear you can admire dog fish drifting in the current and the oysters and sea urchins that have populated the sides of the canals.  Another place we recommend!  Here is the hotel -

 

And here is the excellent view of the canals at dusk from our third floor room balcony.  About a kilometre along the canal straight ahead is the local MacDonalds that was pelted with octopi by Jose Bove and his chums in protest at Americanisation and fast food.

Rural bounty, rural poverty

It is a bizarre balance to life here between bounty and poverty.

On the bounty side of things, there are currently excellent quality chestnuts to be had for free, after the recent rain there may even be some good quality cepes.  Our neighbour has a fishing licence for the year, and frequently brings back large carp, that feed him, his two cats and the chickens for a couple of days.  There are fine quality walnuts going begging, while we are able to take advantage of absent clients' gardens for apples and figs, which would otherwise attract vermin and make a mess.  We get our firewood for free from the One Acre Wood.

Yet life is also precarious for many of our neighbours.  The one with the fishing licence eats well when he can catch a fish, and does have fresh eggs but he lives on the equivalent of £400 per month.  In our village the average household income is 11,500 euros a year.  For fans of my other blog, I will confirm that the average quoted is a median - so half the households have less than that.  There are several houses in the village that are not connected to the mains drains or the mains water supply.

This gives a very different view to comfortable middles class views on things such as mice, blackbirds, pigeons, rats, coypu and muskrats.  If something gets into your stock of apples or nuts or chicken food, they deprive you of a meal or two.  If your roof slates get the acid treatment from bird poo, they have to be replaced at the cost of something else - food, electricity, a pair of shoes without holes in.  If the river floods due to the banks being washed away following coypu and muskrat damage, you live with the mess as best you can, cleaning what can be, but leaving the structural damage, because you don't have the cash.

Another set of neighbours tend a wonderful strawberry bed, hoping to get enough for themselves and also to sell some at market for a bit of cash.  When the mice go through and take a nibble out of each one, any hope of sales is gone.  A good mouser is therefore an important asset, and will be forgiven for the odd indiscretion in a newly turned seed bed, if they can provide the tail and paws of the strawberry thief.  Next door's cat catches rats and gets away with murder on the back of it.

The credit crunch will mean a hard winter for some.  If wise words about the numbers of berries are to be believed, the weather could mean a harder winter for others.  If that is the case, every nut, every stored fruit and vegetable will be needed, and anything that damages those food stores will be dealt with accordingly.  Poisons are indiscriminate and unnatural, and affect a whole food chain - give me a good hunting cat any day.

Making the most of fruit

It is undeniable that Autumn is now with us in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is a race against time to gather in as much of the fruit, vegetables and nuts as we can before the first frosts damage them.  I will add the proud photo of the four best pumpkins lined up in the sun to ripen once it is off the camera, as it is hugely satisfying.  Last year's feral pumpkin was late and never ripened properly so didn't reach the rich and satisfying red colour that we have this year.

The chestnuts are starting to fall and we have had our first outdoor fire with chestnuts roasting, and lovely they are too.  We must also go scrumping and collecting our own so that we have enough for savoury crumbles, chocolate cake and soups.

The walnuts are also starting to fall - it looks like it will be a mixed year this year.  Some trees are loaded, others have virtually nothing.  However the key thing is to get them gathered over the next couple of weeks and then let them dry slowly in nets in the garage, so they can be enjoyed over the coming months.

Grapes are ripening - they have taken advantage of the very sunny September here to add sugars and develop a sweet flavour.  We have picked a good 40 kilos and using the potato masher and a flat bottomed bowl, plus a large piece of kitchen muslin, we have managed to crush them and make a very palatable grape juice - strong, smooth and rich.  It lasts up to about 10 days in the fridge, although by the end it is starting to feel a bit sparkly on the tongue, showing that the first fermentation process has started.  Others are better at making wine than us.

Finally, we were introduced today to the joys of getting your fruit crushed and juiced.  Lydie and Dominique Edin at Clefs have a huge fruit press, pasteurising system and bottling kit.  You can take along 100 kilos of fruit (ideally apples) or more and they will run it through their press, pasteurise it (unless you want to keep some unpasteurised for cider making) and bottle it for you for a very reasonable price per produced litre of juice.  We went along with friends who were old hands at the pressing game, and had ordered a slot on the press, and came home with 50 litres of bottled juice, still hot from the pasteurising process.  The juice keeps for up to 2 years, but if it is as good as it looks, I doubt it will last much beyond May!!

As I eyed up the juice, jams, pumpkins, chutneys and nets, I felt that we might be nearly ready for winter.  If only we could just get the fire wood issue sorted out...

Cats and Toads don't mix!

Our two cats have taken well to out door activities and I will publish their respective tallies of the local wildlife (excluding butterflies, dragonflies and baby lizards, which we have decided don't count) at the end of the year.

Maigret is particularly outdoorsy - her thick and lush fur protects her from scratches, other than other cats, her perfect form means she is well placed for hunting and she doesn't set her sights too high.  Poirot, on the other hand, is not well formed and her coat is much thinner.  She also has large expanses of pink skin under white fur which all kinds of everything finds particularly attractive.  Consequently she has had bites, eczema, scratches and fleas through the summer.  She is also rather ambitious when it comes to catching things - pigeons (three this year), chickens (not ours, the neighbour's and thus very embarrassing), other cats, and her latest attempt was the garden toad.

Now Toad is a very good garden companion.  He or his descendants have been getting rid of our slugs for the past 8 years at least.  He generally stays near the house now, since we started to keep chickens 3 years ago, and favours the heaps of stone as his dwelling.  Imagine his horror as he started to get his winter quarters to his liking when all of a sudden a white furry paw followed by a white furry face tried to get in there as well! 

We presume he squirted some secretion or Poirot got some secretion on her paw, which she then stuck in her mouth.  The upshot of it was that Poirot jumped off the rock pile and started whimpering and foaming at the mouth.  She carried on slathering at the mouth for a good half hour.  Initially we were really worried - we thought she had been stung - and then I checked round the rock pile and found Toad and realised what had happened.

Once she had been sick, we provided a wee morsel of tasty food to take away the taste and over the next hour she perked up, had a fight with Maigret, had her little lump of garlic sausage and then a bowl of crunchies and was fine.  She won't go near the rock pile though!

I didn't have the presence of mind or heart to photograph the wild killer cat in her moment of frothing at the mouth, so here is an aerial shot of her pretending to be a jungle panther.