Picture Catch-Up

First a couple more pictures of the flooding this morning – the little brook that runs along the bottom of the slight valley just couldn’t cope so water meadows were the order of the day.


There is a mega storm forecast for early tomorrow morning too so more rain plus 70 mph winds – oh joy, I think I’ll keep the shutters bolted, thankfully there are no longer any tall rotten trees to fall on the house. There are also warnings of power/telephone failures due to trees falling on lines.


So what have I been doing during this last week of blog silence? It’s been lots of little things and time-consuming things. I did some baking as I had lemons to use up and the bananas I’d just bought had been in far to cold a place and when I got them home and they warmed up they went soft. So I now have lemon cake and banana cake. If anyone is wondering, there is no added colouring in the lemon cake, just free-ranging chicken eggs.


Time has also been spent going to the tree nursery, ordering and then two trips collecting the next batch of saplings. There are only 166 this time and I’m really hoping that having ploughed the ground I should be able to plant much more quickly than last years.


A rainy day earlier on and I decided to fit the oak workbench. It didn’t need a lot of work, battens on the wall and the other workbench cut back to give it room. Once I got started I realised that I had to cut out a section for some pipes; that was tough going, while the workbench might be made out of bits of oak, they are solid bits of oak, really tough and the bench its self is really heavy. So here’s just a selection of the tools.


The circular saw is on the floor having already trimmed most of the workbench by the sink. It could only get to about 4” from the wall, and then it was the turn of the jigsaw. That got to about an inch from the wall and then it was the handsaw. Having got that done, I set about the small cut-out for the pipes. Thankfully I had a corded drill as my battery one would never have had enough power to drill the guide hole through the worktop. The jigsaw took out the bulk but it still needed rasping and that felt like it took forever especially as despite my very careful measuring I hadn’t realised that the two walls weren’t at right angles.

Why I thought this corner would be a right angle when the other corner that gave so much problems putting up the corner cupboards wasn’t I don’t know. So a little trimming and a little bodging and it finally fitted and had its first coat of oil, just don’t ask how long it took, I really don’t want to think about that.

I Thought I Heard Rain

The view is of my neighbour's field at the end of my road; maybe I should start building a boat.

Monday’s Ploughing

As promised a view of the ploughing I did on Monday. The area just over half way up on the left is the extension to the wood I’m planting. The ploughing started reasonably well even though the land is clayey and still waterlogged.

As I had a row of trees planted at the top I was only ploughing down the slope, (towards the front of the shot) which was fine until the left-right slope got a little bit steeper. Then, because you plough with one set of wheels in the grove cut during the previous pass, the tractor was gradually leaning over more and more. I finally chickened out, I’ve no idea how far the tractor can tip before it does fall over but it felt uncomfortable and I didn’t want to tip over either.

I then tried ploughing at right angles so I was going up the steeper slope but the wet ground meant that it wasn’t possible to get any grip. In the end I ploughed in the original direction but instead of running the tyres in the channel I moved onto the unploughed surface by a foot or so and ploughed strips that are roughly where the trees are meant to go. That’s why the rows to the right have the appearance of raised beds, as that’s effectively what they are.

I've also ploughed a small area further down the field, middle right in the photograph, and that's where I'm planning on growing a bit of maize this year. I've sown a few kernels in the house from the bought in maize I have and a few from the maize I gathered to see if either are viable otherwise I will have to look at getting a small quantity of seed maize.

Today was a relatively lazy day – I think I find it easier to work when the moon is waxing rather than waning as it is at the moment. Most of the day was spent getting rid of various pots and pans of grease. I try not to put grease into the septic tank system so I pour into containers. When they get full I then bin it. Not the best thing for landfill but at the present I don’t know what else to do with it – it’s usually past being useful for cooking.

Final picture for today shows what happens if you forget to close the gate to the patio. At least one of the chickens though there might be something tasty in the pots.

Morning Has Broken

The sunrise this morning was truly wonderful and despite the rhyme there was no rain, although we might get some overnight.

Looking to the west where the moon was setting there was a lovely pink glow on the house on the hill. Unfortunately I only realise when I downloaded the photographs this evening that it’s not possible to make out in the photograph the work I did yesterday. It seemed light enough to the naked eye but the camera thought differently and if I try changing the lightness in the photograph, the colour balance goes so I’ll photograph it again tomorrow in daylight.


Today was taken up by bill paying, ordering the next 166 trees ready for planting and buying this.


I spoke to my neighbour last week who has a mini digger and once he’s finished pruning his plum trees he’s going to come over and dig a couple of drainage ditches for me that will hopefully protect the pump house from the run-off of any deluges. This pipe is to go in where the bridge into the alpaca fields is to go. Mind you I’m reeling a bit at the price, 147€ for 6m by 30 cm. Still it’s less than the vet’s bill I paid and a lot less than the cost of the trees. I keep telling myself that these one-off spends will diminish but I’m beginning to think I’m kidding myself. There will always be something else, that’s the nature of life, isn’t it.

Time Flies

I'm finding it very hard to believe but it's only two years ago today that I was leaving the UK for France. Completion on my house happened at 12:30pm and I was on the 11pm ferry to a new life. Little did I know it would be 6 more weeks before I was allowed to buy my farm but the time has passed so fast.

I think the cats have forgiven me for their one and only stay in a cattery, they were there for 10 days, the time it was supposed to take for my house money to reach the notaire but that was without the bureaucracy taking over. I could have been on my way back but thankfully everything was finally resolved.

Here's to the next two years and the ones after that too.

In The Eye Of The Beholder

Some might have looked at this piece of wood in the 1€ chuck-out bin at the local bricomarche and just seen something used as a shelf with boot-marks and spilt paint on it. Along with a few other bits that I’d bought earlier from the off-cuts bin and some bits I had lying around plus an old kitchen unit front courtesy of S & P, I looked at it and saw the back and base of this.

So tomorrow my chickens will have new nest boxes. At the moment they just nest on the floor. The nest boxes that are there are too high for most of the birds and have been taken over by those that can reach them as extra perches and as such they are fouled (no pun intended). My silver-laced Wyandottes are far too heavy to get up high so I’m hopeful they will take to the new boxes and I will have clean eggs.

With these two boxes being portable it should be easy to clean them and treat them against insects.

Today has been foggy all day and there was a little frost around this morning too. I love the way the frost brings things like spiders webs into view, they are just so pretty.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

I thought it was rather quiet when I woke up this morning. This was the view that greeted me on opening the shutters.

The temperature hovered between 0 and +4 during the day so most of the snow has gone wherever the sun was able to get although I still have a bit around the back of the house which is in permanent shade during the winter.

What I love about a fresh covering of snow is it lets you ‘see’ things that have happened. For instance, during the night a rodent visited the area where I feed the chickens their grain, probably looking for anything the chickens missed. How do I know? I found this lovely trail; you can even see the line where the tail went.


I’m not sure what type of rodent but looking at the trail the prints are in pairs as though the movement is a series of jumps, each set being about 5cm (about 2”) apart.

The weather people have said tonight that we are unlikely to get more snow but the temperature is due to drop to between –7 or –10°C tonight and is unlikely to go above 0°C tomorrow, so depending on how the roads look tomorrow I may go in to town tomorrow and have a look at what’s in the sales which start tomorrow.