Bletterans and Bellevesvre

After our morning chores we ventured out in the little diesel car to the nearby town of Bletterans and quite quickly located the market by driving down the main street, and following the crowds of people with empty baskets over their arms headed down the alley, only slightly put off by the American music blaring from some speakers mounted on the Cafe de Paris. I wondered if Americans are associated with shopping, so therefore, American music on market day?? The market winds its way through several streets and alleys and some of it is in a covered building, with no rhyme or reason to the placement of the various wares that I could see. We found local lettuce and spinach, and some farm-made organic goat cheese - buying the freshest ones, just out of the mold with the little mold marks still on it - and some fish. We also bought a slab of gingerbread, what I'm assuming is pain d'epices, or spice bread, moist and heavy and dark, filled with flecks of orange and chocolate; they also had plain, and fig, and nut varieties as well. I bought Reed a crepe filled with delicious regionally made strawberry jam (confiture); he enjoyed it but got cranky when he spilled a big glob of jam on the knee of his jeans. There is a fete paysanne in a week and a half at a farm not too far away from here that we'll go to - nothing like a bunch of local farmers throwing a party for a fun day. The post office was right next to the market so I was also able to mail some postcards that I wrote last week, too.

After our successful market trip - made so much easier by being able to speak just a little French instead of none - we headed down the road to Bellevesvre, where the mill is that makes the horses' munchies, and got a couple bags of the one we're almost out of. We tore the label off the bag this morning to make buying a new one easy, and indeed it was a piece of cake, everyone very helpful and nice.

The weather here is rather gray this week, with no end in sight. I wonder if it's because we're just to the west of the Alps.

The animals are settling down and we're getting used to our chores here. I got Hamish the dog that must be hand-fed to eat out of his bowl at lunchtime today. And the chicken who hadn't been pulling her weight laid us a tiny offering this morning, obviously doing her best to thank us for the raisins she's been getting from Reed's leftover breakfast muesli, and the spinach stems we've been tossing out there from our salads. Nice to know such treats are noticed by the small brained but big hearted chickens.

Bois de Gand, France

We've spent our week up to our ankles in straw and horsesh*t as we've learned the fine points of caring for and cleaning up after horses at the housesit where we'll be situated for the next month, in the Jura region of France. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon after two long days of bus/train/air travel from West Cork to Dublin to Grenoble to this tiny village situated in the countryside in the foothills of the mountains southeast of Dijon. We've been too busy taking notes about which horse gets which munchies and which giant schnauzer gets which pills to have begun appreciating being back in France but now we're getting the hang of it, and although today started out miserably drizzly, by lunchtime the sky had cleared and the afternoon was gloriously warm and sunny, lasting through the long evening. Within a few days we'll be settled, the dogs and horses will have relaxed too, and we can start enjoying field trips and going to the market in Bletterans on Tuesdays for our fresh salad greens and if we're lucky some farm produced cheeses.

Our generous hosts stocked the cupboards well so we shall eat like kings and queens, and tonight Walt did himself proud with the large carp that Alex and Tomas, the neighbor boys, caught in this house's pond the other day. They took home a creel full and brought us a large one, nicely cleaned. It was surprisingly delicious, fresh and tasty, baked with garlic and dill and lots of butter, the chef's secret weapon. The carp was accompanied by a delicately sweet pinot gris, and we thought Hugh Fearnsley-Whittingstall would have been proud, having been known to eat a carp or two himself. The bones were a pain but they helped us pace ourselves, otherwise we might have gobbled everything up much too quickly.

From this large house we mostly see pastures and woods, with one pasture leading down to a large pond. The nearby villages are undiscovered and a little rough around the edges, testimony to this region's slightly struggling economy. This isn't a place overun by Brits, which has its advantages and disadvantages both, apparently, depending on who you're talking to.