Rural Life

Scary things

Happy Halloween!  And to keep to the theme, I will draw out the scary side of everything today.  For a start, I went to a different Super U (local supermarket chain), as I was fed up with the one in Baugé and it's slapdash attitude to restocking things like Chicken Whiskas cat food, rose scented shower gel and its boycott of Duracell batteries.  So I went to the big one at Mazé - it's further away so I won't do it that often, but I felt like a complete hick when I went round it as it was so fresh, sparkling, well stocked and (dare I say it?) a bit exciting!  However, among the condiments I spotted Worcestershire sauce, which as you can see, flaunts that it has been matured for 18 months.  I would argue that it is still nearly raw, and therefore pretty inedible - it needs at least 30 months to mellow!  And as I lived opposite the trade entrance to the factory for over 10 years, I think I am well qualified to point this out!

The classic autumn sunsets continue - yesterday's was rather good, and I just managed to catch it over the top of the charming bungalow opposite.  Autumn leaf colour is also getting good.  We spotted a couple of sumac saplings showing off their best colours - the horror of that?  There are sumac roots encroaching into the Wildflower Meadow - as the nearest tree is over the road, the roots have made it under a tarmacked road, a 2 foot deep ditch and a leylandii hedge to get to where they are!

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Our spring time obsessions are cowslips and orchids, but wandering around the garden I find that they are already coming up.  Now I was well aware of the range of the cowslips, or so I thought, but the sheer density of them this autumn is a bit concerning - although something to look forward to when they flower in the spring.  The orchids on the other hand - there were no orchids there this year or last, where these two have been found.  That means that they have hitched a ride on one or more of the mowers or brush cutters, and are now colonising a new area.  They're coming to get us!

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And then there was last night - a hint of a social life again.  We went to the village bar to meet some friends and were faced with The Demented Bride, complete with knife through her head and glass shards in her heart, while the food offering wand handburgers!  For the first time in ages, I actually felt a bit festive, although as we arrived at 7pm and didn't get home until gone 10pm, I suspect I actually felt a bit tiddly!

Bring on November!

 

 

Orchids, roses and vegetables

The first half of the week passed in a blur of reading reports, analysing numbers and trying to get it all down in a logical way and make some sense of it all.  By Wednesday evening, when the first draft of the report was sent, my mind was mush.  Thursday I must have done something useful - but it is hard to remember what.  Ah yes, new cylinder for the sodastream, visiting a couple of clients, feeding cats and sewing labels into summer shirts - clearly I did quite a bit that was useful!!

After the usual Friday visits, the new normal allowed us to go to the pub, sit out on the terrace and enjoy being around people, while taking on a glass or two of something cold.  It is so good to start the old normal experiences.  Tomorrow should have seen a bit of yoga too, but local elections mean the large village hall wasn't available, while the room offered as a substitute, as well as having a huge framed photo of the President, was not really conducive to socially distanced yoga for seniors.  So we are cancelled until September, which is a shame.

Today we were out and about before the temperatures got too hot to do anything other than wilt.  As well as productive things (more later), I spotted three different types of orchid out - two in the Orchard, and one in the One Acre Wood.  Here are a bee, a lizard and a birds nest!

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The roses are also coming on nicely at The Shack.  There is a splendid white climbing rose with a delicate scent by one of the outbuildings, which is putting on a great display - next week will be all about dead heading I guess.  The Fergus Memorial Rose, or Orange King as the label more officially calls it, has also put out its first flower.  I photographed it both yesterday and today, but today's photo was after there had been a lot of strimming, so there were bits of shredded weed in the flower.  I've not included that one!

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The vegetables are coming on.  Today I picked all remaining broad beans, and also lifted one of the main crop garlic to see what was going on, as the leaves and stems looked like they had been ravaged by rust, but there was a nice bulb and later on we will eat it to check on flavour!  The sweetcorn I sowed last Saturday ALL came up, so I had to spend time thinning out the excess plants, which really, really hurt.  I also planted out three more butternut squashes and four Bright Lights chard, the latter hidden among the shallots to get a bit of shelter while they establish themselves.  The shallots will be lifted in about a month at which point the chard can do what it likes.  Getting rid of the broad bean plants will give the peppers, aubergines and tomatoes more light, which will be good.

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There is also a lot of wildlife around.  Yesterday we visited a friend so John could do his Lawnmower Repair Man act (not totally successfully, but there is a deeper seated problem than he can get at).  She has swallows nesting in her stables and while the parents were out gathering beakfuls of insects for the offspring, I was able to look in and catch a photo.  Today, after I had toiled and done hammock time as a reward, I did my nature walk around the Orchard and the Wildlife Meadow.  The wild scabious is coming out which means an explosion of marbled white butterflies, which are just lovely to watch and occasionally take a photo of too!

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Next week's episode may be a bit late, but should have more exciting things to discuss, assuming the weather is a bit kind.

 

 

It's starting to get seriously nice finally

The weather has mostly perked up nicely, but we did have a blip between Wednesday and Friday, first with storms and lots of rain (26mm over three days here, a bit more at The Shack as it was in the path of a big storm) and then a really nasty, cold, wet Friday, before picking up again yesterday.  If Meteo France are to be believed, we now have a clear run of fine and hot weather (over 25ºC apparently is the definition they use for hot) for the next 15 days.  We'll see!

Friday was a day for a bit of private contemplation and a vigil on the way to Chinon and Azay - the weather was "ideal", or at least reflected my mood.  At la Chapelle sur Loire you can get down the river, where there are benches, picnic tables and bike racks, as well as a slipway into the river.  It was peaceful, despite the traffic on the levee road, and I was on my own, but entertained by swallows and sand martins skimming the river for bugs, egrets doing what egrets do, and things that looked like plovers, but probably weren't, out on the sandbanks.  The river took a reed down to the sea with my blessing.

Cats have been relatively disgraceful during the warmer weather (during the cold wet weather, they got wet and smelly).  Zola and Nibbles demonstrate their personal preferences for drink, while if Donald spots anyone in the hammock, he launches himself on them and has a wiggly love-in!  All very cute.

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The vegetable plots are looking more lush, or overgrown, which ever you prefer.  The tomatoes are climbing up their supports, while the shallots are starting to sag as the bulbs start to swell.  I had to resow sweetcorn yesterday, as 7/51 is a pretty poor germination rate.  Checking the seed packets, they recommend sowing 4 or 5 seeds per station and then thinning out any stragglers - well I resowed at 3 per station as I cannot abide the thought that I might be throwing out so many plants.  Although I might have got the maths wrong...  Anyway, once they were all in and the bed tamped down, Clause launched himself onto it, rolled across the whole area and dug two test pits before finding the one that deserved his poo.  The seedbed is now covered in cut branches of leylandii.  Meanwhile I picked more broad beans and dug up another feral garlic for supper.

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While I tended to the plants that will feed us, John struggled with strimmer and mower to cut paths through overly lush grass and brambles to enable us to walk around the Orchard and wildflower meadow and admire wildlife and flowers.  Particularly in the orchard, this makes a lovely walk and provides enticing views that might make you think this was a serious bit of garden design (and of course, you would be right).  Following the paths cleared for me, I admired many bee orchids (but only so many photos of those today), and spotted that the badgers had been doing a bit of spring cleaning.

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At home, we have slightly less tasteful flowers to admire, but the bumble bee I spotted seemed very happy to work her way over the red hot pokers.

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So, have a lovely week, enjoy the weather, and look out for happy bumble bees and discrete bee orchids.

 

Spring proper, or even summer, has arrived!

It was pretty brutal and unsubtle, but at 5:45pm on Thursday afternoon, the fine weather arrived.  It had been announced for that morning, so I had planned to mow on Thursday afternoon, but as the rain didn't stop until perhaps 5am, and there was no wind, there was no way the grass would be dry enough.  Yesterday was therefore mowing day - and annoyingly, although promised that there would be light rain only on the western most tip of Finistere and the top of the Cotentin peninsular, I got remarkably soggy! 

Not much happened during the week - I worked, which is probably a good thing.  I had a tender rejected - not such a good thing, but kind of expected, as I am on an organisation's list for "good for a tender if you need to make up numbers".  I work on the basis that one day they will have to choose me out of sheer embarrassment at having put me through the process so many times!  Not this time it would appear. 

When I went to Aldi yesterday, enough people were generous to their mothers and well prepared (it is mother's day here), so that there were some of their annual batch of cheap small orchids left over.  So I got me one - a different colour to the other two.

As I said, I went mowing yesterday, and the wild irises are out at the lake.  One of ours that hasn't flowered before was out at The Shack, while some that I hadn't noticed before at Chinon were looking nice and blousy, so here are a selection of irises.

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This morning we were working at The Shack in the garden there.  John needed to rotavate a patch that had been covered since last summer before the underlying clay sets hard for the rest of the season, so lifted the weed suppressant mat.  In doing so, he met three of our assistants in keeping slugs and snails under control, although they had to be evicted or they would have become blood and bone fertiliser!!  Meet the slow worm, the adder and Timid Toad!

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It has warmed up enough, and the plants have got so tall, that we could remove the plastic cloches from the tomato plants and tuck them away somewhere away from the sun, so that they are ready to use in the autumn or next spring.  If the peppers and/or chillies are doing well enough, they may need a bit of cover in October to finish ripening fruits, but otherwise it will be next April or so when they come back out.  There is a bit of caterpillar damage on a couple of the cabbages, but they still look good and we are munching our way through the broad beans.  I'd better confess that the sweetcorn has once again been a disappointment with 51 seeds sown and only 7 coming up.  We did a bit of forensic seed seeking and found nothing, absolutely nothing.  Some something has had it away with my seeds, and I need to resow, assuming I can find any more seeds of course!

I also went on a bee orchid hunt, as usual, and while some had disappeared, I found a new patch and got a half way decent photo for once!

All that left me a bit tired, so I had to offer myself a chunk of hammock time to recover - well that's my excuse anyway!  And it is Sunday after all!  Until next week!

 

Waiting for Summer, although Spring might be nice!

No lockdown title at the moment, although we do still have curfew between 9pm and 6am, and aren't really supposed to travel across international borders unless it is really important.  I said I would continue to do the odd blog - I'm going to try for Sunday afternoons, once I've done my afternoon's work.

The big news this week was of course that café, pub and restaurant terraces could open to customers outdoors - our local opened on Thursday (officially he could have opened on Wednesday, but it isn't one of his "days"), but we were tied up with work until 7:30pm, so our first indulgence was on Friday evening.  Normality was restored and beer o'clock (or wine o'clock) was back!

Of course this had to be outdoors, and while there is a high roof over the terrace, that doesn't stop wind, and when it rains and there is wind, it doesn't stop rain much either, so we had to move tables.  The showers currently are very localised, so while it was pelting it down with rain, there was also sunshine and therefore a rainbow, or even two!

This morning we spent at The Shack, hedge trimming, a bit of mowing, a lot of weeding, some potting on and some planting of seedlings, but probably the most important activity was getting the ropes installed for the hammock.  And then we had to try it out - OMG!  Really rather blissful, to lie in the hammock, swinging slightly, listening to the birds and the blasted wind in the leaves, because yes, that wind is still going.  Cats also thought that this was pretty good, as whichever of us was in the hammock was also pretty horizontal and therefore unable to do much about being laid on and licked.

I also beat the bounds and found more bee orchids coming into flower - I'm quite pleased with this photo.

Finally, a serious bit.  The past 18 months with Covid have been hard in many ways for many people.  I guess John and I have got away with it pretty well, as we are fairly antisocial, and with our outdoor lifestyle and the gardens, have been able to be out and about without too many constraints.  But we have been pretty limited in how far we can go and who we can see, and this was brought home rather brutally, with news that an old friend died during the week.  I'd seen him in September 2019, and had planned to see him again in April or May 2020, when over for work, but of course that didn't happen, and in any case I wouldn't have been welcome because of the virus.  But I have good memories of September 2019.  Worse is that he was one of a pretty tight knit bunch of us that worked closely together in the early 90s, and at this time in normal circumstances, we would be able to get together, share stories, memories and a glass or three, and that most basic of human comforts, a hug or four.  This blasted disease has deprived us of that comfort, and that is the same for so many families and groups of friends across Europe over the past months.

But looking forward, have a good week all!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - the day after

Well, I am pretty sure the vaccination yesterday is doing something as when I woke up this morning, all my joints ached and were only soothed by a hot shower and an ibuprofen.  In addition I felt tired and woolly.  None of this was worrying or unexpected really, in fact, like I say, I am sure it is doing something, so actually a bit reassuring.  (And clearly I am still a bit woolly.)

Yesterday evening I spotted a few interesting things in the garden after I had locked the chickens away for the day.  In no particular order - chive flowers, poppies that could be a bit dodgy, set raspberries and strawberries and the display from the red hot pokers getting going.

Stuff at home

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Then after lunch today, I went to The Shack to feed the boys and see what was going on there.  The vegetables are coming on OK although a bit more heat might be good for them, not least for helping the sweetcorn to germinate (now there are 4).  I did meet some butterflies trying very hard to make new butterflies, which isn't easy when you are also flying (which they did, but had stopped that for the photo).

Walking round to the wildflower meadow, I noticed a lesser spotted woodpecker in the sycamore tree, so flushed with the success of the butterfly photo, I tried to capture that too.  It is honestly in there somewhere, but I need a posh camera with a telephoto lens for that sort of thing!

Anyway, the wild flower meadow was looking fabulous as the clover and the oxeye daisies and the linseed are all going great guns, plus I did spot and photograph badly the first of the bee orchids.  Soon there should be lots more with the sun and the rain that we have at the moment.

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My favourite irises are coming out even more, and looking rather fabulous.  The irises I covet are starting to come out too, in a neighbour's garden - jet black!  I might get a photo of those tomorrow, but for today I bask in my purple and white ones!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - flowers!

Outside of work, I managed a quick trip to The Shack to feed 3 ravenous boys and check up on the planting - so good to get a breath of fresh air and see how things are coming on, even if we also got well and truly rained on!  First stop was my gladioli experiment which is coming on nicely.  You should be able to see the progression.

Developing gladioli

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We checked over the vegetable plots - 38 out 48 seed potatoes are now up, broad beans are filling out nicely, the cabbages are getting fatter, and John's experimental seeds are coming up - lots of carrots and beetroot.  We took the weed suppressant mat off the sweetcorn bed as the shoots should appear soon and I don't want them held back by matting.  It is wet enough for the bed to not be appealing to cats either (famous last words!?).

Checking round the Orchard, the false acacia is coming into flower - about the only time that there is any real value to these trees as they grow like weeds and sucker off and away and have nasty thorns.  However the flowers are pretty and provide the wherewithal for good honey.

This time last year I bored for France with slightly out of focus pictures of bee orchids, but for the moment they are still hidden.  This spring has been vile, and they are delayed, but I did find one starting to think about flowering.  Clearly it won't be doing so for a week or so yet!

If the bee orchids are being shy, then while late, my favourite irises are starting to come good.  Given the appalling conditions, I hadn't expected to see them quite yet, but here they are!

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And on that happy note, I think it is time to close down the computer for the day and find a drink and dinner!

 

Lockdown III, marginal release - brief notes

Yesterday was a glorious day - sunny, hardly a cloud in the sky, and a nice temperature for doing things.  Occasionally there was a cool wind, but not too often.  The change came through overnight with wind, then cloud bringing finally some much needed rain.  Our lawn should not have yellow patches through dryness at this time of year - yellow patches where we left things on the lawn and didn't pick them up for sure, but not due to poor growth.

On Sunday evening, I stopped on the way back from closing up the chicken run to admire the song of this little fellow, serenading the beautiful sunset.  I think he was a nightingale, from the size of the bird, the volume and twiddles of the song and the time of the evening, but I could be wrong.  Whatever, it was very pleasant.

We have hardly left the house at all today, and when we did, it was the signal for rain to start - every time!!  Paranoid?  O yes!  The first time was this morning when I got the paper out of the post box, and stopped to admire the flowers on the red iris.  This year the flowers look more iris like as it has been so dry that the snails that usually munch them have been hiding - that'll stop this evening.  I can almost here them starting to eat their way through the flowers!

We needed to stop off at the One Acre Wood to get a couple of logs from a stash we have there (we shouldn't still need log fires in May for goodness' sake!).  The rain got quite intense then, but as the trees are mostly leafed up now, we were fairly sheltered.  I took the opportunity to look up an oak tree we don't often talk to, but who is really rather magnificent!

And now I am going to find a glass of wine and put supper in the oven.

 

Lockdown III, Day 29 - sort of coming to an end

The President briefed the press during the week about his path out of lockdown restrictions, with the first relaxation tomorrow - I show below the actual different phases, but realistically there will be very little change tomorrow as the curfew is still there from 7pm, only essential shops are open, you are still meant to keep away from people if you can and work from home.  The only difference is that you can travel anywhere during the day (6am to 7pm) without having to have a attestation.  It really is no change for me.

May 19th will be much more interesting, while the 9th June means that we know by what date everyone will want their lawns mowed!!  

Anyway, we continue with getting the vegetable plot at The Shack developed - I think there needs to be a manual on how to garden with cats as they can be absolute vandals, while thinking that actually they are really helpful and gorgeous.  Well the latter might be true, but the former isn't!!

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Anyway, after a struggle and a lot of sweating and pulling out of roots of perennial nasties, the sweetcorn has finally been sown.  I have recovered the bed with weed suppressant mat, partly to keep the cats off, and partly to protect the seeds from the cold temperatures we are due over the next few days.  While the maize is coming up in the fields around, I suspect that sweetcorn for human consumption is a bit less robust.

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While I was doing that, John did a bit of mowing in the wildflower meadow, not least to check that the new drive belt on Ginger the ride-on lawnmower is working as expected.  Now I know people are going all goofy about No Mow May, but here things grow about a foot to 18 inches in May (assuming it ever rains again), and hay is not an easy thing to mow.  We were pretty careful to identify the area on the meadow that needed to be addressed as it was mainly shoots of bramble and old man's beard with attendant horsetail and thistle, while leaving the massed ranks of oxeye daisies, pink clover, linseed and orchids to do what they do and look lovely (but impossible to photograph to best effect).  I found two bee orchids that had been caught, but close inspection showed that as the cutters were nice and high, they should still flower.  We can also walk round the meadow without too much difficulty.

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Once all that was done, we went for a walk around the One Acre Wood.  There we have a different sort of lawn - an oak lawn!  Very pretty, but they will not all survive, because that's not nature's way.

 

Lockdown III, Day 24 - possible slum renovation!

It's not really rained for days, and for two weeks we have had a nasty wind from East.  It's a dry, cold wind, which assisted the frosts a while back.  Closer inspection of our garden fruit trees shows nothing on the peach, very little on the pear and heartbreakingly, very little if anything on the Victoria Plum - so much for wrapping the tree in fleece! 

Despite the wind, we could sit at the end of the garden, sheltered by the back wall, and watch the world go by as we sip our evening drinkies.  Yesterday we were treated to the delightful spectacle of the biggest chicken, Delenn, keeping Zola pinned down on a plant stand for about 10 minutes.  Apologies for the slightly hazy quality of the photo as it was on maximum telephoto.

The dry conditions aren't ideal for some of the wild flowers and the normally magnificent lady orchid in the wildflower meadow seems to be suffering.  It is fully exposed to sun and wind, as it is right in the middle, and just to one side of a badger trunk road.  Nature will do her thing, and I'm not going to interfere, as she knows best, but it is sad all the same as I was looking forward to a magnificent orchid flower this year.

A disturbing ripple is in the offing.  The traditional longère next to our house has always been a bit of a pain.  The now deceased owner was something of a slum landlord, and we have seen a trail of tenants over the time we have owned our house.  We've had a slattern who ran a dodgy childcare business from there and chucked "things" down the well, two members of a family known for being mentally challenged (not at the same time), two artists, one of whom was chased by demons (although he stayed in the house the longest), a postman who had a vast menagerie of rescued animals, a few nice people (who never stayed long) and finally an alcoholic slut who brought the place into such disrepute that the mayor and police had to intervene.  When she left, she "paid" her removal boys with the antique floor tiles in the attic (not hers to sell), and a year later, the ceiling fell in on the middle room of the building.  It has been empty for perhaps 5 years now, which has been a relief. 

But on Friday, people started to visit the property, and we fear renovations are going to happen - while eventually probably a good thing I guess, it will mean at least 12 months of dust, rubble, no parking and inconvenience.  My word I'm going to have lots to chunter about!!