Rural Life

Mushroom Time!

I had an excellent time in the UK (thanks for asking), including four days of interesting visits in and around the Broads, catching up with projects and chums.  The V.I.P. visit to the Museum of the Broads was a particular highlight - so many fascinating exhibits I could have spent a day there!  Norwich is always a nice city to visit, although those that aren't keen on spiders probably kept away from City Hall over the last couple of weeks!  Family time was also very special.

I did also visit a full-size windmill but haven't downloaded the photos yet.

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I've not yet been home a week, but have really noticed the difference to before I went away in October.  There has been quite a lot of rain, although it is still unnaturally warm for this time of year.  That has meant that fungi are finally making their presence felt at the One Acre Wood and in the Orchard and Meadow.  The ones in the Orchard and Meadow are interesting enough and meant that we felt it was worth frequent visits to the Wood in case.

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There have been lots of interesting sightings.

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The red ones are interesting as there is a silly rumour on social media that you always find cèpes near them!  Anyway, having a wood that is full of interesting mushrooms makes one a bit paranoid about "visitors" having it away with anything edible.  Before you accuse me of being paranoid, this did happen once - we surprised a bunch of dubious industrial mushroom pickers, challenged their right to steal our mushrooms, which had no effect at all, and the scale of their picking meant we had nothing at all for three years.  So, while the lot of bolets of the left were fine, I did wonder if these other ones had been tampered with!

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We are ultra-cautious about mushrooms.  Some bolets are fine, others taste very nasty, and some are downright poisonous, so we left all these where they were.  But there is one type of bolet that is not confused with any other, the mighty cèpe de Bordeau (or Pennybun or porcini depending on your country/language of preference).  We have those from time to time, and this last week has been a good week!

We've eaten some and we've dried some to keep the joy going through the year, and we also have a couple in the fridge for supper tomorrow - very good in omelettes!

The boar have mostly moved on, but one came back on Friday night in the rain to eat more nuts - the last few are still there, in case she feels hungry again, but with the hunting season now upon us I fear boar and deer will be much more discrete for a few months.  There is more good footage of boar eating nuts and when I have the time, I will get more videos loaded up for all to enjoy.  In the meantime, have a good week!

A few autumn photos

I'm sorry, I'm going to keep it brief today as I am trying to get a report done for a client for tomorrow and it's not going easily. 

As you may have spotted - it's autumn!  Leaves have been turning colour and falling since August, but we are now starting to see some good colour, including Red and Amber maples in town.  In the One Acre Wood, the colour is provided by Common Service (also known as Chequers - yes, the same as the PM's country mansion or many pubs).  Here is a bit looking particularly fine!

The pheasant shooting season will open soon in the UK, I'm not sure when it is here.  They aren't native and they aren't bright, but they do seem to like the Orchard and the Meadow.  Here is one fine fellow.

I also spotted a garden helper late one night after I had locked up the chickens, in the guise of Timid Toad, although actually he wasn't at all timid, he just sat and glared at me until I took my torch away.

The boar have been back to have another go at the walnuts and have also attacked the trail camera more than once.  There are videos, but I'm afraid today, that would take too much time to sort out, so how about a few photos instead?

So now I'd better get back to my report, but before I go, you can read up on the project here and if you like what you read, please consider voting for the Marches Mosses BogLIFE in the ICE People's Choice Awards!

 

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!

 

 

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.

 

Traveller's tales and wildlife videos

Apologies for not posting last weekend, but I was away in the Broads, visiting the Broads Life Festival at Beccles Quay.  When I would normally write this blog, I was actually attending the final performance of the commissioned piece, Booming Voices, by Eastern Angles theatre company in a large marquee by the quayside.  What an excellent and friendly festival it was.  There was enough to do and to look at to keep me occupied on the Saturday and the weather was magnificent.  The Wherry Maud and her pop-up museum were there too - a lovely day.

The photos below are: the results of a dyke dipping day, nicely displayed in a three layered viewing tank and with lots of lovely water thingies; the Chet Boat - a reconstruction of a mediaeval boat discovered on the River Chet, and the original (now in York) dates from about 1350 or so, the reconstruction made by the International Boatbuilding Training College at Lowestoft; and a general view of the Festival site.

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Well that all went nicely wrong and it is too hot and sticky to fix it - so the Chet Boat photo is a totally different size, but is not that much more important than the other two!

From the Broads I went over to another favourite place - Shropshire, and more specifically the Marches Mosses.  There is a new bird hide at Sinkers Fields near Morris Bridge on the Llangollen canal - I'd been prepared for it to be well appointed, but hadn't expected it to be so beautiful.  The Mammoth Tower also has its tusks attached now, which it didn't have when I last visited in November 21.

Both structures are paid for by National Lottery Heritage Fund and LIFE.

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All that travelling meant that today was my first chance to see what had been going on by the trail camera - I will ,move it again soon, but it is doing jolly well where it is.  The 7 videos that I link to are just a flavour of the activity that has been going on.  The badgers seem to have drifted off at the moment, but the hare and/or rabbit is a new and regular visitor, while the piglets are just so darn cute!  There is water nearby which may be why there is so much activity at this point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The parent boar really are rather scary and there are a couple of photos that are the stuff of nightmares!

This could be a hare or a rabbit - difficult to say without a good look at its tail and anything around to get a feel for its size.

These could be pheasant or partridge young - normally I would say pheasants on the basis we hear a lot of them around, but John and a cat put up a flock of a dozen or so partridge during the week, so I'm hedging my bets.

 

That's it until next week!

 

Frost!

Last weekend, the weather was amazing, and we knew it couldn't last, that it wasn't right for the time of year.  Although looking back through my diaries, it's not the first March that has been warm and sunny towards the end.  We were promised rain during the week and a cold snap, perhaps snow.  Well earlier in March they had been promising an end to relentless grey and sunshine, which didn't happen when promised, so you could forgive us for thinking the same about a cold snap and snow.  We did rather yearn for rain.

Up until the end of Tuesday, it was very nice indeed.  Warm and sunny and humming with bird and insect activity.  I even had to water some bits of the vegetable patches.  It was supposed to rain on Wednesday - a couple of millimetres at most doesn't help.  But the cold and then the snow flurries did arrive, and really weren't nice, although nothing settled.  Last night there was a sharp frost, and there will be another tonight.  It has done bad things to flowers - the honesty, which I thought would be fine, is sagging as are the yellow tulips.  The feral potatoes also caught the frost but I'm not too worried about them!

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Not everything has been badly affected - yet.  The cherry blossom is still pretty, without brown frost burns, although that may still come, and whether there will be any fruit is also a moot point.  The Bright Lights Chard I sowed last year is also doing fine, although preparing to go to seed - there is enough for a good quiche later in the week and the chickens will enjoy it too.  The plants will need to be sacrificed as we don't want them setting seed and that part of the plot will need a go with the rotavator in order to prepare it for other planting in May.

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It was too cold and promised to be too cold again tonight to do much useful gardening today, so after a fairly short visit to supervise cats at The Shack, we went to the open weekend at l'Or de la Ruche nearby, a honey business.  They got subsidies to put up a larger building to house stocks, the equipment to maintain 300 hives and also the equipment to manage the harvest from 300 hives.  The roof is covered in solar panels which should produce 100kW of electricity - a good boost to local capacity.  They are also home to the local campaign against Asian hornets.

There may be Saharan sand around, or it could just have been the clouds, but the sky to the east turned pink yesterday evening at sunset.  It was most odd.  This photo has not been tinkered with other than cropping out things I don't want you to see!

Finally, trail camera news and was there anything last week?  Just one visitor this time - I think the cows in the back field and their electric fence have limited who is doing the rounds at the moment, so I have moved the camera again to see if I can track down the badger activity.  Anyway, this fine fellow came visiting.

So first we have some footage of him nibbling a branch and looking around.

Then he seemed to think that the camera was edible!

We'll see what next week brings.

 

Cattle egrets and badgers

I became aware of the cattle egret when we first went to Guadeloupe in 2017 - we were fascinated to see odd cows tethered around the countryside, each with upwards of 3 egrets wandering around them.  I'm sure there must have been some here before then, but now we have hoards stalking the cows that we pass on the way to The Shack, and indeed on the country route home from visiting the Azay One.  It is not uncommon to see groups of a dozen or so, but more recently we have become aware of groups of what looks like a hundred or so.  This morning I tried to get a photo of them - difficult in the car, but as soon as we stopped and I opened a door, they moved so that there was at least 20 metres between us.  Still, here is a view of lots of cattle egrets - they will soon disperse for the summer, so enjoy while we can!

More to the point, it would appear that the end of February is when major changes happen in Badger world.  There is an entrance to a set in the middle of the Meadow, and over the winter it has been unused.  Badger Towers, over on a bank about 2 fields away shows more activity, so we assume our set is summer quarters for young lovers.  The trail camera picked up stills and video footage of two individuals (at least) passing through the orchard, but while I had looked at the set entrance earlier in the week, it was only today that I spotted activity.  Specifically, spring cleaning.

There is no doubt that this old bedding has been cleaned out of the set as the surface of the set entrance has been scuffled up nicely.

So what did the trail camera pick up?  It is set to take a photo when it spots movement, then take a 15 second video.  For a fox passing through, I generally just get the photo, as the fox is long gone before the video recording takes place.  As the camera is pointed at a badger path, 15 seconds is too long for a badger too, and I have reduced the time to 10 seconds for the next week.  Badgers can clearly see the infrared spectrum a bit, as they can start and look straight at the camera, before carrying on, or running away!

Here are some nice stills.

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Here is big badger (perhaps Daddy Badger?) passing on through.

Here is a smaller, perhaps younger or female badger, coming through, and spotting the camera too.

And here is a young badger spotting the camera and running away - and you can tell here that 15 seconds really is too long!

So we will see what next week brings on the camera, before I move it away from badger highway and on to another site where I can see different tracks in the mud.  January and the first half of February were quiet and a bit dispiriting, but it was magnificent working my way through 34 files of activity yesterday (I only publish the best!).

 

Things are stirring!

The weather is brighter and we are nearly shot of February and with it the hunting season, so it is lovely to know that the trail camera has finally captured more evidence of wildlife in the local area.  A fox meandered through one evening, while a green woodpecker dug for grubs and other yukky things and a male pheasant turned up as it seemed to be a good idea.  

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While the fox went on its way too quickly to be captured on video, the woodpecker hung around looking for food.  The pheasant spotted the camera and posed most disgracefully, trying to offer his best profile!

As we have a couple of pine processionary nests in the Garden by the Shack, we do what we can to attract and maintain tits in the zone - both blue and great tits have developed a taste for the vile things.  So we keep a couple of stations where we feed the birds without the cats being able to get at them (unless the birds do something very stupid), and today I managed to capture a picture of a blue tit feeding!

In sheltered positions we are starting to get the spring flowers coming through.  Daffodils can be spotted blooming where they aren't in a wind corridor while in some sheltered spots, the cowslip flowers are starting to show.  In a week or so there will be a carpet of them, but for now there are just the odd sprigs.

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We are also starting to feel the joys of spring, as it was warm and sunny enough to get the hammock out this lunchtime.  Poirot has decided it is time to start jumping again, and has made her way on to the top of the bathroom wardrobe again for the first time in 3 years.  If it weren't for the international situation, all would be rosy!

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It doesn't really need saying, but it is important to remember, in these uncertain times, to look around and find joy in the small things.  Time spent outdoors is proven to be good for your mental and physical wellbeing.

 

Winter jobs and weather

While conservation organisations would like us to do nothing during the winter in the gardens and green areas we manage, that is a bit too utopian to be feasible.  Don't cut anything back until the spring they say, but then in the spring you mustn't cut stuff back because it is nesting season, you must wait until high summer.  Except you mustn't cut back things in the summer, when they are flowering and fruiting and providing nourishment for wildlife, but then in the autumn you mustn't cut things back either as things need seeds and protected areas to shelter and hibernate in.  If you follow that reasoning, of course, you never do anything and a wild area becomes a place of impenetrable scrub which nothing much likes.  The birds don't even eat the blackberries and they shrivel up on the briars and are very itchy if you get them on your skin or down your shirt.  This is not vibrant wild land!

So, John has been strimming it back, keeping an eye out for wildlife, but seeing none, not even a duck on the pond hidden in all that skank.  The toads will be abroad soon, and later in the summer, the dragonflies will be on patrol, but otherwise those are quite uninteresting ponds (or so I think, but I will do some dipping later in the year).

In addition, we have pruned one of the juicing apple trees - it was so overgrown with branches crossing, that it was impossible for the apples to fall off!  We removed the branch with the massive mistletoe - we have others, so don't need that one, and cut out a lot of wood, including dead branches.  Many were weighed down with moss and lichen, so that it was hard to tell the primary function of the tree!

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The signs of spring are ever more visible, although there is a lot of weather to go first I suspect.  In sheltered spots of the ground there are narcissi up and in some cases, flowering.  I had forgotten where I planted a load of anemone bulbs last autumn, but they are now showing, and I really didn't think I planted them through a poppy!  The late woodland snowdrops are coming up, with one flower bud to show for it, and the garlic I planted a few days ago in a low polytunnel are showing decent sized shoots.  But things are later than last year, as there are no cowslip flowers up yet. 

There are orchids everywhere!

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And then there have been storms.  Dudley was too far north to affect us.  Eunice meant we had some reasonable squalls of wind and rain on Friday, but fortunately nothing much over 75kmph or so - nasty if you were out in it.  Franklin or whatever he is called means we have annoying gusts that hit my office roof with an alarming sound, but again not too bad.  On Monday we had thunderstorms though, which are a bit rare at this time of year.  There were lightening strikes within a kilometre of the house and heavy rain - not much fun!

Bad weather means it isn't easy to get scaffolding up, so we would respectfully request some nice, dull weather so that the masons can get the frame up and do what needs to be done to the chimney!  Hopefully there will be news on that next week!