Rural Life

Winter is here!

It's cold, it's dark, there is Christmas music on the radio and threats of snow on the weather forecasts - I think it must be winter.  We have been so lucky with temperatures from a purely selfish perspective over the past two months of autumn.  That has freaked out some plants and trees and the oaks round here still have a good covering of brown leaves, while I hear rumours of things flowering out of season, although not with us.  With high energy prices and exhortations to keep electricity use to a minimum, keeping more than one or two rooms at a comfortable temperature gets harder and that pile of fluffy fleeces is particularly welcome when sitting still.  We have also rediscovered the joys of hot water bottles (wilfully ignoring the advice that they need to be renewed every 3 years at least).  Slower cooked comfort food is also the thing, and yesterday was my first winter risotto, using the liquor from rehydrating dried cèpes as the stock, Paris mushrooms to provide the content, and purple carrots to provide a certain je ne sais quoi.  Served with fried medallions of monkfish, it was delicious.  There was a bit of rice left for the chickens (sort of resembles maggots), and I look forward to seeing if that has an impact on yolk colour, should any deign to lay an egg.

Keeping an eye on the trail camera, there has been a mixed bag of activity in the corner of the meadow.  Inevitably, but disappointingly, there was clear evidence of hunting dogs questing up and down the line of fruit trees yesterday, so I fear it will be a while before we see deer, boar and hares in that area again.  On the other hand, I can understand that farmers get a bit hacked off with boar activity, as we have plenty of evidence of their destructive tendencies and a litter can be up to a dozen piglets, with no natural predators.  The badgers aren't out at a time when the dogs are but, and I could well be wrong, are likely to hibernate for a bit soon.

I also know very little about the private life of the pine martins, so whether this chap is getting ready for a long sleep or not, I couldn't tell you, but it is always lovely to see him around the camera area.

What we are seeing a lot at the moment are standard "garden" birds enjoying turning over leaves and checking boar damage for something interesting to eat.  There has been a jay, a pair of blackbirds, a green woodpecker I think, the inevitable pheasant, and also a thrush.  It is years since I have seen a thrush in the garden, but over at The Shack, I have heard them smashing snails and have found their anvils in and around the vegetable plots, which is delightful.  Not only do they help keep pests down for me, but the broken shells add a bit of drainage to the heavy clay.  So I knew they were around but had to take it on faith in general.  I was therefore delighted to find one posing in front of the camera for me, and also very pleased with the quality of the photo, even when cropped/blown up a bit.

While I am not one of those that advocates you leave your garden covered in leaves, with long shaggy grass and weed stems, I would suggest keeping a small corner untouched to allow thrushes and blackbirds to have somewhere to rummage, because they are getting rid of the things that will eat any crops and flowers next year.

Have a good week!

 

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 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!

 

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.

 

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!

 

Surviving the heat - just about

Well, I have to say that temperatures over 40ºC are just awful.  Monday was the killer day, although Tuesday was still jolly hot.  By just after breakfast, it was already over 30ºC and just kept climbing.  We had to go out to a meeting in the afternoon (fortunately somewhere that was air conditioned), and just the few kilometres in the car (with the air con on) were nearly unbearable and with the air con, extremely expensive in fuel too.  It didn't get down to 33ºC until well after 9pm, when we sat out for a bit but not for long.  In town, the two pharmacies agreed it was over 40, but couldn't decide if it was 42, 43 or 44.  Any were too hot!

The following morning I went to The Garden to check on the boy cats and see the damage to the potagers.  The cats were fine, but very pleased to have gravy.  As for the plants?  Well I was pretty convinced we had lost at least 2 of the butternut plants, half the chillies, half of the leeks, and some of the beans.  Some plants had just rejected the fruits they were carrying, so the five set butternuts were yellow and gone, the courgettes had no viable female flowers, and the aubergines had no flowers full stop.

Nature is amazing though - among the photos below taken today, there are aubergines ready to be picked, flourishing borlotti beans, a newly set butternut, some small chard seedlings that survived and are pulling away, the parsnips that survived (2 didn't make it), and a chilli set on a different but equally abused plant.  The leeks are flourishing too.  Sadly the sweetcorn has been provoked into flowering too soon and too short to produce much of interest, but hey!

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How did the wildlife survive the heat?  OK as far as we can tell - there is evidence that the resident doe and faun made it through and in fact the faun looks pretty healthy to my eye.  The local buzzards are making a lot of noise as are the wood peckers.  There are no obvious corpses - I think they just head for cover and wait until it's over.

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It's the opera season in Baugé, so I must cut this short and do a bit of ironing before making salads for the interval picnic (it's a Glyndebourne style opera festival), but this week has seen a notable anniversary.  It is five years since Zola's Gotcha Day - to celebrate she rolled around on hedgehog pee for a happy 5 minutes.

Until next week!

 

Scorchio!

As of 30 minutes ago, it's official, here in Maine et Loire we are on red alert for high temperatures.  I won't disagree as in my office on the north side of the house, it is 29ºC and heading to 30ºC.  One thing that means is that I will not be doing battle with YouTube to load up more video, you will have to make do with stills.  If you don't believe me, see the outdoor thermometer, hanging in the shade in the garden at 2pm (so two and a half hours ago).

It has been hot, averaging 28ºC or higher for over a week now, although last weekend there was a bit of a breeze.  Even so, we have seen the ravages of relatively mild heat stroke and I can only exhort people to be careful. 

As an example of what the heat is doing, here are two photos of one of my butternut squashes - the first is in sunlight, the second this morning while still shaded.  The squash has a natural defence mechanism to allow the leaves to flop when really hot and then repump up when it cools down, however the yellow scorch marks are not part of the plan.  A couple of squash plants have set fruit, but they may well reject them if this continues.  The courgettes  have given up for the moment too - I had to buy a couple at the market yesterday!!!

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We grow potatoes under weed suppressant mat.  It keeps the awful perennial weeds at bay, saves the need for earthing up and bizarrely provides habitat for a number of useful critters - slow worms, snakes, toads.  This year the potatoes are planted in soil that is as near to clay without being able to use it on a potter's wheel as you can get.  It's really heavy and horrible when wet.  Currently the top layer resembles pusilane - the pumice-like rocks you can get as decorative mulch or for use in a septic tank filter bed, but about 4cm below the surface, there is still a hint of moisture in there.  There are also potatoes - look what we got from just one plant, noting that it has hardly rained and I do not water the spuds!  Dinner in the making.

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I have rarely had a conversation with a farmer when they didn't complain about the weather in some way.  There is chuntering going on now about drought and poor yields.  They are working day and night to get the cereal crops in, collect in straw and hay, turn the stubble so it is less likely to catch fire (although that process can also start a fire if a plough hits a flint), and get water and feed to grazing cows and goats.  This year I can understand their angst, as I watch a crop of fodder maize near us develop - it is very early, but the cobs are meagre and the leaves are now curling with the heat and lack of water.  Maize is a very greedy crop.  Sunflowers, once they germinate, need less water.  Again they are a bit early this year, and fields have gaps where germination was poor, but there is still little better than a field of sunflowers against a blue sky, even when slightly past their best.

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The local wildlife has to cope with all this too.  The southern part of the Meadow includes a small bog and three small, spring-fed ponds which means that the deer, boar, badgers and others have somewhere to go and drink.  I strongly suspect that a family of boar are actually living in the bog at the moment - they would be foolish not to - but it is off limits to us at this time of year due to scrub overgrowth.  The doe and her faun are knocking around the area, while the faun develops - they seem to come past the trail camera every couple of days.  She enjoys eating the lower leaves off the good pear tree, but fortunately not the pears (we have other plans for them...).  The faun is getting braver and larger.

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And with that, it really is too hot to sit by a computer any longer!  I'm off to watch the end of the Tour stage at Carcassone.