Rural Life

Lockdown III, Day 12 - out and about

Well actually the big excitement today was going to Super U for cat food and Cheddar cheese and one or two other bits and pieces - but you have to take variety and excitement where you can at the moment!!  I also washed all my scarves as I have a nasty rash on my neck, probably due to something I brushed against yesterday while mowing, but you can't be too careful.  So clearly an incident packed day, and not photogenic.

Much more photogenic were things I saw at The Shack today, including another of my pots of experimental seed sowing.  This was an old and open packet of coriander that I really held out very little hope for, and yet look what I found today!

I was able to dig up four leeks and a spring garlic (just like a spring onion but garlic) which will go nicely in a stir fry for dinner.  The leeks are starting to run to seed - I could probably have held that back by watering them rather better all the time they have been in the ground apart from the 4 solid months of rain.  Actually they would probably have been bigger and better if I had done that, but last summer's drought meant water had to be doled out very carefully.

Spooky Cat used to be very nervous about going down the garden, even just the bit attached to The Shack.  On Tuesday he accompanied me on a circuit of the three areas - the garden, the orchard and the wild flower meadow.  I was very impressed.  I'm not sure if he is more or less secure in his world, following the demise of Fergus Sunshine Supercat, but he allows me to pick him up, cuddle and stroke him and only mildly chews me.  These vicious claws are only used to attract my attention when dishing out food!

The quince blossom at the wild flower meadow is finally out - so pretty, but so delicate!  The frosts are due to stop soon and the harsh wind (or bise) from the East is due to drop at the weekend so hopefully the bees will do their thing and there will be viable fruit in the autumn.  Unless there is a glut we are unlikely to do another quince eau de vie for a year or two, but quince jelly is fab on porridge, while stewed quince and apple makes a superior crumble.

Tomorrow I am off to visit Azay le Rideau so there may not be a blog, depending on when I get back.

 

Lockdown III, Day 9 - that orchid rant

It's been a long day and I had to be out and about rather earlier than normal so got the full benefit of the hard frost and scraping the car, but when you are faced with a view like this when you arrive where you need to be, really it's not so bad!

Back in March, I introduced Mac the Knife and Jak the Ripper - our two new chickens.  I think one was hatched a bit earlier than the other, but anyway, yesterday, finally, when I let them all out for their daily vandalism session and checked the coop, I found our first new Black Chicken egg!  Isn't it sweet?  As there was another today, I know what we are having for lunch tomorrow!!

Back in November, when we were all enjoying Confinement Lite or Lockdown II, I noticed that one of my miniature orchids was doing something interesting.  I posted a few photos of it before the end of the year - you can see a nice "branch" with lumps on it which might turn into flowers or more "branches".

Well, now we are in April, and my mother's rather larger orchid has had a whole new flower branch and two large flowers, which have been out for a number of weeks in the interim.  Yesterday, we finally have an open flower!  Talk about taking your time!  I've bought more orchid "compost" or a bag of dodgy looking bits of bark, but don't like to disturb things while they are doing their best to bloom.  On this basis, I will be repotting in October!!

O so pretty and o so tantalising!

 

Lockdown III, Day 8 - down at The Shack

Sunday morning is generally our big time for doing work at The Shack - there is a period of 2 hours between 10am and midday when we can use petrol motors, so John can play with chainsaw, rotavator, strimmer, brush-cutter and other noisy things, while I supervise cats and do "stuff".  Yesterday and overnight we had the first proper rain for ages, so the machines didn't come out to play but we did have a good check round and cuddled cats.

I sorted out my box of seeds about a month ago, throwing out most opened packets and anything over 7 years old (!).  Those between 5 and 7 years old and interesting (10 packets of seeds for kale and while it may be a super food, I'm still not going to grow it) I took to The Shack along with a stack of 6 - 8 inch pots.  A couple of weeks ago, I filled 7 pots with my miracle horse poo and leaf mould mix from the bin, and sowed the whole packet of each of cat mint, dill, coriander, basil, lettuce Webbs Wonder, chard Bright Lights and Autumn King carrots.  It felt rather good to be quite so profligate!  Anyway, despite pretty awful germinating conditions - first unseasonably hot, then unseasonably cold - today's inspection showed that so far at least the chard and the carrots are coming up!  Yes, I have spotted there is an interloper among the carrots - it has been removed.

Inspection of the bed planted with garlic, shallots and Hispi cabbage showed really good growth on the shallots, well apart from a Donald shaped gap!  I'm sure the delayed ones will catch up in due course and no one was rolling around on the wet soil today!

Things aren't so good on the fruit front.  While I have a small Victoria plum tree in the garden at home that is wrapped round with fleece at the moment to protect the fruitlets, the big tree at the end of the wildflower meadow does not have that luxury.  You can see the fruitlets are nearly black and when I picked one off and dissected it with my thumb nail, it was clearly unviable and frosted.

The cherry blossom has also been affected - I'm hoping that it is just that the petals have been fried by the frost and that the fruit will somehow survive, but with more nights of frost over the next week, I fear my ability to stand and scoff a kilo of cherries while allegedly doing something useful in the meadow will be severely curtailed this year.

Tomorrow I am likely to have a rant about orchids.  Just to warn you.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 42 - a dank day in the country

It really has been a totally miserable day.  I did go out to see a client this morning and feed the Boys in the Country - you can see from the photo below that the sky was sitting on our very low hills, and all was ridiculously wet.  The cats were not keen on being out and about and herded me back up to shelter as soon as they could, and basically were keen to see the back of me so they could go back to sleep.  No one came with me for my walk round the boundaries of the other two plots.

This afternoon I did get to go out again, this time to the hairdresser - o the bliss of being properly coiffured once again!  Cecelia is very strict about her clients following the rules of hygiene, and is working very long hours to try to catch up with the backlog from the very tight lockdown.  She says that December is normally frantic anyway, but that this year, it is even more frantic than normal.  To ensure she can meet customer expectations, she only has Sundays off, stops at 4pm on a Monday to collect her children from school, has a two hour lunch break on a Wednesday to spend time with her children but otherwise the salon is open 9am to 9pm, and she is the only person working there.  Don't tell me the French are slackers!

I solved the problem of the Christmas card picture - I have ordered 80 photo prints of the picture I want to use, and will stick those to the stiff paper we already have, to provide a mount.  That sounds like it should be an expensive option, but the total cost is under 9 Euros including postage and packing.  The only issue is wondering when the photos will actually arrive.

Again following on from yesterday, given the level of pain and swelling from the sting, we are pretty confident it was a wasp queen that got me, having decided to overwinter in the house.  However she is history as John dealt with her with severity.

I believe Love Actually is on French TV tonight, so we will watch it all through for the first time ever (seen bits from time to time) as our nod to the festive season, and hope that tomorrow is a bit more appealing as a day.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 37 - more like Winter actually

Just over 2 weeks to the shortest day, and it isn't really light here until nearly 9am on a good day.  There was also a bit of a frost here this morning - the weather station in the garden recorded -0.7ºC, but that was at head height.  The pepper and aubergine plants still standing in the garden and the canna lilies at the front of the house are all showing signs of having been well frosted this afternoon, and it is probably time to cut them all down.  Except that it is too cold and yukky to really want to go out side and do that.

Surely not, I hear you mutter?  After all the douceur angevine, and you are in western France and all that, means that it is always warm and glowing?  Not all the time, no.  This morning it was a real labour of love to stand in the queues in the market, although I have to say, they were a lot shorter as a lot of fair weather shoppers couldn't face it.  I did the circuit including the tea lady up Rue Basse in about 45 minutes as opposed to an hour or an hour and a quarter.

There was a ceremony at the War Memorial as I left - poor Anciens Combattants freezing as they saluted the monument and then had to listen to a speech by a Mayor.  There weren't many of them due to Covid.  But then it started to rain too!  Once home, I had the honour of being sat on by Zola to help me warm back up again - even she couldn't be bothered with the outside world today!

After more rain, which fortunately didn't turn lumpy, it brightened up enough this afternoon for me to pop out for a bit of a walk, not much and not far, but something.  Looking to the south east from one of the lanes I went up, there is a nice view across the valley, although the clouds were not at all friendly.  There is more rain on the way, and as it gets dark, I guess it may become solid.  There was snow this morning in Normandy I gather - brrrrrr!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 36 - a better day

One of the things that made yesterday so dismal and depressing was the weather - heavy overcast from morning to night and wet and dank and cold.  So it was with huge relief that once the day dawned today, it was with sunshine (and a bit of frost).  That golden luminosity makes even the most challenging day seem better, and while today wasn't hugely challenging, some of yesterday's issues are still lurking.

The morning was devoted to dealing with a backlog of emails and phone calls, after lunch I had to honour my commitment to the Boys in the Country and go and feed them.  They all appeared, were pleased to see me, and most were very hungry too - well cold weather and growing a good layer of thick underfur takes it out of a chap.  Once they had munched their fill, we went and checked the enclosed garden - I had to sit on one of the chairs so they could all have a good love in with me for 10 minutes.  Then washing up cat bowls in cold water, which is always a joy, before I went out to explore the other plots.

I always like to have a look to see what is going on in Badger Mansions, slap in the middle of the wild flower meadow.  The damp soil made it so much easier to see their paw prints, including claw marks.  There seemed to have been a bit of activity since the rain stopped.

I then walked round the edge of the meadow, accompanied by Clause who managed to raise a pheasant, but not catch it.  That was much more interesting than me, so I was able to go the rest of the way without being shouted at in Cat.  When I got to where the old log pile used to be, I found an excellent example of the disgusting Giant Killer Orange Slug that lives around here.  We don't have any in the garden, but we have loads in the One Acre Wood.  This one was about five inches long.

At this point, Clause decided I needed to be defended against the slug, so came back from pheasant bothering and stood around shouting at me.  I felt it was time to leave.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 25 - back to normal

Yesterday was one of those days when social media really did come into its own.  Sunday birthdays are always a bit annoying as there is no postie to wait for, and in lockdown, there is no nice restaurant or pub trip.  What I had instead were loads of lovely messages from all over the world, including a few that developed into conversations with people I haven't been properly in touch with for ages.  The weather was also fabulous (but no sunburn in the end), so I was able to take a nice photo of the dusk (the new house blots out the sunset).

In the morning I also took a moment to enjoy the play of sunlight on the walls of the staircase.  The stone walls are unfinished (and have been for over 20 years), and we do plan to get a bit of a skim on them while keeping the stones visible... one day.  The wooden panelling is relatively new (a bit under 3 years) and was part of the staircase renovation project.  We love the contrast and the patterns in the wood.

Back on the 9th November, I put up the first photo in the new orchid watch collection, and here is the second one.  The new stem seems to have gone a bit further and the bud nodules seem to have got bigger, but as it is winter, it's not growing hugely fast, so this could get very frustrating!!

It seemed colder today as it wasn't so sunny - it has taken ages for my office to warm up and now that it is a supportable 21ºC, it is time to close down, turn off the point heater and go and cook supper.  I have spent most of the day wrapped in a serape I bought from a charity shop in Worcester about 17 years ago - so that was £5 well spent!

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 14 - lovely November weather

The end of the second week of lockdown - there are big announcements tonight from the Prime Minister, so things may change a bit.  I've got an appointment shortly, so today's blog is short, sweet and early.

What a beautiful morning!  The church looked particularly fine from the garden. 

The lane looked enticing and there was a brilliant X in con trails to be seen from where the Boys in the Country hang out. 

I also spotted a few orchid rosettes, preparing for next spring.

However for some reason, at present I can't load any of the photos to show this.  Perhaps later on, if I can be bothered when I get home, or more likely tomorrow.

But I am thinking of my public, honest, it's just that technology is letting me down!

Update - the photos are now there - a new day and it all works!

 

 

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 8 - looking up

Well for the first thought of the day anyway.  It was another beautiful morning and not so cold as the last two, when I went up the garden to feed the chickens, so I took my time.  There were a few clouds in the sky - classic harbingers of a change in the weather, wispy cirrus that I was told were called horse tails when I was at school.  Goodness knows what they call them now, but I'm sure cirrus still stands.  There is a front on its way, although it may avoid doing much to us, other than raising the temperatures - they forecast 18°C for us tomorrow!

The chickens were being rather good this morning.  Normally Delenn (the grey one) gets bullied away from the place where I drop the treats, I do that so that I have a clear run at the grain hopper, but today they all played nicely.  Either they have finally established a pecking order that all agree with, or they are plotting something.  The two brown ones are Muck and Brass, couldn't tell you which is which, but where there's Muck, there's Brass, so who cares?  When we are down to only one brown one, it will be an issue, at which point I will have to be more decisive.

We are in an at risk zone for avian 'flu, and the next commune over is on high alert.  If we go on to high alert, we will need to cover the whole chicken run with fine mesh to keep the sparrows and other wild birds out of the run.  There is a colony of about 30 sparrows living in our bay tree, so it is a real issue and risk.  The only other solution would be to cull the chickens but we obviously don't want to do that.  That's fine for the normal hens, but Bridie the Bantam is another issue altogether.

Bridie arrived in our garden late last year, worked out we were a soft touch, fell in awe of Dummer the Big White Chicken (now deceased) and stayed.  She roosts in the shed mainly, has a feed station outside the main chicken run and spends her day (when they are confined) watching the big chickens and paying homage to whoever she thinks is Chief Chicken (now Delenn it would appear).  When they are out and about trashing the garden, she follows them around, never too close, and avoiding Poirot the Cat.  We can't really get near her, so I am not at all sure what happens if we move to High Alert.  Something to worry about, if it happens, I guess.

 

Autumn Lockdown - Day 5 - a change in the weather

What a difference a day makes!  The hot but wet front has gone through, and today has been noticeably colder, but o so much brighter.  The cooler weather meant I slept better (or relatively healthy eating) and the fear of missing an important phone call ensured I was up promptly.  Not everyone thought that cooler was better, and despite the sunshine, or perhaps because of it, Zola decided it was a donut day.  It must be so nice to have such a snug fitting and cosy bed!

Today was a day to feed the Boys in the Country - what a difference to Sunday!  I stood at the view point, and this was so much better and more uplifting to look at!  I also clearly had the right mindset, as I didn't fret that the hill in the distance is unattainable.

We are forecast frosts over the next few days, possibly quite sharp ones out in the rural areas, so it was time to check over the tender crops and see what needed to be gathered in before being damaged.  I cut the final 3 butternut squashes, and got 6 courgettes ranging in size from pretentious restaurant to what you might find on a market stall.  We've not been inundated with courgettes this year - just the right amount really - and I've been impressed that they have kept going so late into the season.  In the garden at home I found 1 aubergine hiding away, a load of green peppers and a small number of chillies on the only plant to escape the chickens.  The top pepper in the bowl came from a self-seeded plant, not sure what it self-seeded from though!  Anyway, that's why it is a different shape to the others.

I pulled up the chilli plant and it is now hanging by the bananas in the faint hope that the fruit will turn red - you can eat them green but visually I prefer red.

Tomorrow is market day at la Flèche - I'm not sure if I dare attempt the trip or not.  One the one hand I need raw butter, croissants, decent cheese, bacon, fish.  On the other hand, I don't want a 135€ fine if some jobsworth decides I'm not allowed to go there.  Decisions, decisions.....