Chick Update 1

I'm pleased to say that the little chick is still alive and cheeping away in a box in my study. For the first day he didn't use his leg at all but I was able to feel it and there wasn't anything obviously wrong, but I'm no vet and neither am I an expert in chickens. When I massaged the leg I thought I saw a little movement in the foot but wasn't sure.

Today I took the chick out onto the lawn, put it down and it hobbled about a bit in order to get some grass and it was obvious that although it was using the good leg primarily, it was using the bad leg too and moving the toes that had previously been limp. It also gave its wings a really good preen too so I think it is feeling a lot happier and I'm more hopeful that it will make a full recovery.

The Wheat Harvest

The last three weeks has also seen my wheat being harvested and it’s been a very poor crop. The wheat itself is excellent but there wasn’t much of it. I’d not sprayed the field with herbicides and relied on turning the soil and also used an organic fertiliser. My yield is about a fifth to a seventh what I think it should have been with a high level of other matter in it. There was a very high germination of last years sunflower crop, helped by the mild weather earlier this year resulting in the field being generally yellow rather than golden at harvest time and as can be seen from the photograph the wheat was quite sparse and stunted. I’m wondering if the winter and spring deluges washed the fertiliser from the field before it had time to do its job.

So I now need to think very carefully about what to grow next and whether I can afford to keep with the organic/permaculture idea or whether I will have to grow the cereal conventionally as I will be making a loss on this harvest, the question is how big a loss.

Endless Days that Pass to Fast

The last three weeks has had some long hot summer days that feel endless but at the same time the three weeks that my daughter spent here have passed in the blink of an eye. We had a wonderful time and I can’t wait for her return.
My elder son is here with his girlfriend for another 5 weeks which sounds ages now but I guess will pass far too quickly as well.

As well as days out to places like Rocamadour – my daughter needed to get some more of the room spray that she got there last year! We had time for a visit to the Gouffre de Padirac, which I love, that provided a lovely cool interlude to a hot day– there were frequent shopping trips with a very successful clothing trip to Sarlat market. We’ve also got nearly one field of posts in. The heat has not only made it very difficult for us to be out in the field for long periods but has also made the clay/soil too hard to ram in successfully so we need a decent shower of rain to wet the ground again.

Another highlight of her stay was the water pump failing again leaving us without water for a week. The probable cause of the failure was the pump being partially submerged every time it deluged with rain. Over the next few weeks, while it’s still dry, I have to figure a way to raise the pump; the hose from the well stops about 15 cm (6 inches) above ground level and the pump house is a tight fit around the pressure vessel with the pump situated near the back, requiring anyone trying to work on the pump to be a contortionist. So the hunt is now on for suitable above ground, drinking water grade, rainwater tanks here in France. The below ground ones are easy to find but not the above ground ones of reasonable size – I’m thinking of around 15 000 – 20 000 litres split between 2 or 3 tanks. The lack of water had one positive benefit as it meant a trip to the local swimming lake happened, we meant to do it last year but never got round to it and as well as a small monitored beach and snack bar there were also showers.

The latest batch of chicks has not been very successful with only one chick remaining from the 8 eggs. The two broody hens fought over the eggs and I think that resulted in eggs being left uncovered as well as one of the eggs being crushed and one of the chicks being squashed. I tried separating the hens, there is a divider in the hen house, once I realised they were stealing the eggs from each others nest and also both trying to nest in the same place but the hen that was moved abandoned her eggs and spent all her time trying to get back to the other nest site. Next time I’ll move the hen as soon as one gets broody.

The first set of chicks are doing well and now about half the size of mum and are now out and about with mum leading them round the garden. Two of them are the same size while the third is noticeably smaller. I’ve seen the two larger ones chest up against each other so I guess that they are likely to be males (chicken dinner) while the smaller one may be female. Whist the silver laced Wyandottes are very pretty I’m not so convinced about their egg production, I’ve had no eggs for around 5 weeks now. Mum number one was my best layer so I’m hoping she will start again soon and then the next two to go broody were my intermittent layers. The remaining hen doesn’t lay at all so I think I will have to get some different hens, but not the bare necked variety, in order to ensure a good egg supply.

Edit: When I went up to feed the hens the remaining chick could barely walk and I thought it had a broken leg. The poor thing was being trodden on by it's two mums, which left me with the dilemma - do I take it away from the other chickens and risk it dying because it hasn't got other hens around it or do I leave it and risk it being killed by the hens. One of them was taking the occasionally peck at the chick if it was in the way. In the end I've brought it into the house and have rigged up a small box with a light over it for warmth, and am hoping it will survive the night.

Fireworks and Edith Piaf

Yesterday was Bastille Day, France’s National day. We treated ourselves to a day of doing nothing but relaxing. In the evening we set off for Villeneuve as we’d been told there was a free firework display.

We got to Villeneuve for about 8.15 pm and headed for the river where the display was happening. Thankfully we’d heeded the instruction to go early and found a place to park relatively easily. The town centre was heaving with people, roads had been closed, café seating spilt out onto the pavements and roads and live music was on offer at many of the cafes.

Not knowing where to go, we wended our way over the river to where the boats moor and struck lucky. We were on the other side from the entertainment – a band that played well-known middle of the road 70’s and 80’s pop music for the two hours that we were there. Although we’d come totally unprepared we managed to find some firewood logs to sit on right next to the place serving hot dogs, frites and drinks. Next year I now know to take a picnic and chairs, as did many of the people round us.

The sun finally set and the swallows darting up and down the river gave way to bats swooping and diving above our heads for the midges. We must have smelt wonderful to anyone standing near us having all covered ourselves in the various anti-mosquito sprays and lotions we had. It worked though as no one was bitten The band sang their encore at around 10.15 and we all waited in anticipation.

One rocket took to the sky, then nothing for a while, and then it was followed by a second one. Again a pause, we wondered what was meant to happen and then the music started and the bridge to our left erupted in fountains of fireworks. The musical accompaniment was Edith Piaf, which I loved, and the firework display was breathtaking. We watched, entranced, to a display of about an hour, the colours exploding over us, and the explosions echoing off the buildings that line the riverbank.

Then it was over; the explosions gave way to applause and then the murmur of hundreds of people wending their way back to the narrow steps leading up from the riverbank. It had been a delightful evening, one to be thoroughly recommended to anyone in France on Bastille night.

A Post about Posts.

Just a very quick post to say, thank you, to everyone who’s commented on the blog and apologise for not responding individually. We’ve started fencing the 3-hectare field; nearly all the post holes have been drilled by the tractor around the circumference – except for where the ground is so hard it can only get about 6 inches into the ground – but there are still all the inside posts to sub-divide the field to be done. Around 60 of the posts have been tamped in hard so only about another 440 to go! I’ll try and post more when we are not so exhausted, after 10 or more hours working on the field thinking is rather difficult.

The picture below was taken this morning with the first 60 or so posts in place waiting to be tamped in.

Mains Water

Last Sunday I had a visit from the mayor, finally after months of waiting the water board had sent the estimate to connect my property to the mains water supply.

The good news about it was that I would only have to pay 50% of the bill, the bad news was that my 50% still amounted to €15 000.00. The mayor was in shock too; "Bring the signed devis back to the Marie if you want to go ahead" he said and left me to mull it over.

Well after a few days thought I decided that it is just too expensive so rainwater harvesting is the route to go. When I first thought about it last year I realised that my roof is ideal as a collecting area as it large. We have just had a little over two weeks without rain though so I need to go back through the rainfall data I've collected over the last 15 months and see whether that is the longest gap between rainfall and how often it's likely to occur. Then the next few weeks will be spent finding out how much water I actually use so I can go through the calculations on size of holding tank.

Other news is that my daughter, C, and one of my son's, G, and his girlfriend, M, have arrived for their summer breaks so posting will be even more erratic - but then that's summer here in France, as the weather gets hotter time in front of the computer diminishes.

No Posts Doesn't Mean No Work

I've not posted for a while for a few reasons. The main one being that most of the work has been 'more of the same'. It's also been hot, 35°C and humid so working through the day has been impossible. As a result of this I've changed my routine; I get up early (well for me) and start work outside at 7:30 - I'm not a morning person so this is at least 3 hours ahead of my normal. I then work until 12 to 12:30 by which time it is getting too hot for me. Lunch and siesta follow followed by some housework until the temperature drops enough for me to carry on outside. My farm is in a shallow south facing valley and it seems to collect the heat from the sun. I then work until 9:30 or until it's either getting dark or I'm getting too bitten by mosquitoes. By then I'm far to tired to post.

Also Blogger has started giving me HTML errors if I try to cut and paste from Word; I usually write the post in a Word document that I add to and edit during the day. And I've noticed while writing this post it doesn't seem to be spotting all the spelling errors

So just what have I been doing? Well there's always the animals; the alpacas are still loving their new hay and devouring a bale a day. The chickens have stopped laying - the best layer is the one with the chicks so I'm wondering when she will start laying again. My second best layer has just gone broody as well and the other two, well who knows. I did wonder if they were laying alsewhere in the paddock but I've yet to find any eggs if they are.

I've been collecting the eggs daily from the new broody, she lays 2 eggs every 3 days and one of the other hens has I think laid twice in the nest in the last 8 days. When we finally got to 5 eggs I put the 4 I'd removed back under her and this morning she'd laid another one, so we now start the 21 day wait to see if they are going to hatch.

The 3 chicks are growing well although they are still far too small to be allowed out in the paddock. I have at least one pair of small birds of prey nesting in a tree adjoining the chicken paddock and the buzzards are always around too.

This week also sees my children coming over for their holidays and I'm trying to create 3 bedrooms for them. While I'm not quite there yet it's getting pretty close so they will have somewhere to sleep although they may prefer to be outside in the tent if it stays this hot.

The highlight for the week has been a visit from Debs of Lehners in France. She came over today to meet the alpacas and was due here at 2 pm. When it got to half past and she wasn't here I began to get a bit concerned. It turned out that despite reading and re-reading my direction to her on how to get to my place I'd managed to write a right when I should have written left - hang my head in shame. Debs being Debs wasn't too phased by it. She did a tour of my neighbours got an introduction to the mayor and got the correct directions from him. It was really lovely meeting up with Debs again and before we knew it the time had flown past and she had to race back to feed her animals.

I've been attacking the weed patch jokingly known as the veg plot and fruit area. The weeds around the fruit trees were getting on for as tall as me so thank goodness for the scythe. I've also had a go at rotavating a bit more of the area but the soil is now so baked that the rotavator just bounces over the surface. So I've had a re-think on weeding and am now scything down the large weeds and then hoeing what I can and trying to either fork out or pull out anything else. While it's not perfect it's quite fast and will stop the weeds from seeding.

Where I used the straw mulch it has been moderately successful. It has suppressed a lot of the weeds but has been colonised by the bindweed so I see a session of pulling that and burning it.

So while I may not have been posting I haven't been slacking. I still find the heat a bit hard to work in but it is easier than last year so I may be acclimatising at least a bit. It's so good to have the sunshine again after nearly half a year of grey weather.