Leaving Ella

The lovely Ella
Artichoke blossom
New ducks
We've come to the end of our WWOOFing days this time around and with some wistfulness and some anticipation for home we've prepared to leave the countryside and head to Paris for a few days of fun before our flight back to the U.S. I feel glad to have been here at XXX long enough to see Ella the goat recover and turn into a good little milker (with delicious milk!), to have gotten most of the garden weeded although I didn't make it to the beans, to have helped with some projects like getting the new patio area finished, and to have made some new friends, which was easy with K&K's wonderfully friendly friends (thanks everyone!) who kept inviting us all over for meals and feeding us copious amounts of delicious food washed down with equally copious wine. Last night we ate dinner at D and P's and were gratified to understand and participate in the French conversation, which all the English spoke since Jean-Francois, former mayor of XX, and his wife Christine were there as well. Jean-Francois is to mow the hay in the field we de-thistled, but unfortunately we'll just have to hear from K&K when the hay is finally cut. Despite dreaming about seeing it green and fresh Jean-Francois had other things to do first.

We've seen 10 young ducks graduate from the lawn to the pasture and have welcomed 5 new ducks and 2 chicks into the world, said goodbye to a sheep and a lamb and two chicks (Reed's favorite little black one that always was getting lost was taken by a fox or a crow earlier last week while we were celebrating Bastille Day in the village).

My hands are strong from milking (a bit stiff in the mornings) and roughened and dirty from weeding, my skin is brown from days in the garden and field, my hair has been somewhat bleached although I wore a hat on the hottest days, and I feel infinitely more capable of handling projects around my own little house and tiny yard, a miniscule space, really, compared to the places we've been working. If I can stay in the WWOOFing mindset - that is, I need to do manual labor every day in order to earn my bed and my bread - I might actually get some real work done!

Petanque

Our favorite chat de la brousse
Eric taught us how to play petanque, or boules, while we were at Hameau de la Brousse. The balls are made of metal and heavy, and about the size of a baseball. There is a smaller wooden ball called the cochon, or something like that, something to do with a little pig. There is some minimum and maximum distance that the wooden ball has to be thrown from the playing line, and then you try to get the metal balls as close to the wooden ball as possible. There are several kinds of throws, one just to get the ball in there, one to knock another player’s ball away and replace it with your own, and another to drop your ball in to a specific place without hitting someone else in front closer to the pig. Generally you hold the ball in the curve of your palm with the ball facing the ground and throw by lifting your arm and flicking your wrist and hand upward. Whoever has the ball farthest away has to go next, so whoever is winning gets the last play. Whoever gets the closest metal ball to the pig wins a point, and if that person or team has another 1 or 2 or however many balls close to the pig without someone from the opposite team having one closer, they’ll get another point for each ball. But if the 2nd closest ball is someone else or another team, the winner just gets the 1 point. The perfect ground is a little sandy but not too soft; we played on the gravel driveway fairly well although it was tricky because of the varying amounts of gravel and the slope too. Petanque turned out to be the perfect game to play while we were waiting for dinner to be ready – you can drink a little wine, take your turn, talk. No wonder we see retired people playing petanque in the early evenings in so many places. I guess we learned it just in time, now that both of us are above the age of 40.

We had some pretty wonderful meals our last few days at la Brousse: stewed chicken in tomato herb sauce with polenta; cabbage gratin; Normandy style crepes (by Eric) with sautéed mushrooms, ham, grated gruyere, sautéed leeks, and eggs; lots and lots of leftover borscht; couscous with a Moroccan style vegetable stew and merguez sausages on the side; pre-cooked quinoa sautéed with olive oil and diced onions. The strawberries ran out – kaput – so we ate Helene’s cheesecake for dessert for a while, and then I made a North Douglas Chocolate Cake, my favorite from the Fiddlehead cookbook, which was well received but it could have been better because the tournesol oil I used instead of canola was too strong, I should have used melted butter instead. So when the subject of gateau des carrottes came up and I offered to make one, I used melted butter and was not sorry. The recipe came from Sheila Lukin’s international cookbook, and the cake was called Berthe’s creole carrot cake or something like that. I left out the coconut and the pineapple, since I prefer a simpler carrot cake, but Walt and Eric saw the walnuts in the ingredient list and quickly measured them out and chopped them up for me quite finely. I also had to substitute the light brown sugar that we had at la Brousse with the white sugar called for in the recipe, and I didn’t precook the carrots, as Helene recommended just using fresh grated carrot instead.

You might think with all the changes a disaster was in store, but the result was absolutely spectacularly good – we served it without frosting with a crème fraiche and mascarpone mixture on the side. Eric could hardly stand it; he applauded and was almost moaning in pleasure as he scarfed down two big pieces, and Amandine gave me a hug and said MERCI!! When I get ahold of the cookbook I will definitely put the recipe into my favorites file, and post it in this blog. North Douglas chocolate cake too, it’s wonderful when made correctly. Of course, it always helps when you have Brittany butter at your disposal, there’s nothing better.

We said our sad goodbyes yesterday morning to the other WWOOFers who remained (Ragi, Phi Lee, Amandine, and Eric), Iva and Yuki having left the day before already, making a hole in our la Brousse lives. We left the last pieces of carrot cake for Eric to eat, and waved goodbye to Helene as Michel drove us down the driveway and on to Angouleme to the station. It was a short train ride, just two hours in total on two trains, and happily, our new situation in Deux Sevres is very very pleasant, and the bed more comfortable. Reed is thrilled because there are baby chickens and ducks everywhere, plus goats and sheep, and two little pigs, and he has a bunk bed in which to sleep, that he’s already turned into a tent using extra blankets.

Hameau de la Brousse

Hameau de la Brousse

We’ve moved on to our next WWOOF host after Chateau Lassalle, after we said goodbye yesterday morning to the Cutts family in Aignan. It’s never easy to go after sharing peoples’ lives for a couple of weeks, doing the dishes, dealing with cranky kids, enjoying good meals and staying up too late, worrying about the weather… but we consoled ourselves with the thought that we’ll be back in the Gers in a few years, hopefully.

Steve took us to the train for what was for us a very easy 3 hours of train travel from Mont de Marsan to Bordeaux to Angouleme. Helene picked us up and ran some errands with us in the car and then we came back to Hameau de la Brousse, which is out in the rolling countryside very near the border between the Charente and the Dordogne. Hameau means hamlet, and this hamlet, a group of houses and barns, is owned entirely by three artists who have slowly renovated the whole place into houses, a gite, artist studios, performance spaces, etc. There is a huge garden and a park area in which there is a sort of natural amphitheatre, a river, a pond, limestone cliffs, and old quarrying caves that go into the cliffs. We’re out in the middle of nowhere and don’t mind at all, it’s so interesting.

There is quite a community of people here, several other WWOOFers, all younger than us of course, one from Austria, one from Japan, one from Norway, one from Belgium, a couple of friends of the owners, some paying guests, a resident artist, all of whom add up to a lot of mouths to feed. But with so many WWOOFers we get a lot done and the dishes don’t take too long. Things are surprisingly clean and organized for a place that gets so much traffic in the kitchen – this must be due to Helene and Michel’s skill at making lists of things for their WWOOFers to do immediately after breakfast. They are easy going and friendly and also organized and efficient – which is great, because it means meals are on time and the bed sheets are clean.

We’re eating very well – all the food appears to be organic and so far it’s been vegetarian although I’m told that only one of the WWOOFers is vegetarian. Last night it was sautéed carrots, millet mixed with bulgur, dandelion salad with vinaigrette, and strawberries and cream for dessert. Lunch today was scalloped squash, dandelion salad, leftover bulgar/millet, cheese, and more strawberries. And dinner this evening, spicy red beans and squash, rice, dandelion salad, and even more strawberries with cream. And always lots of sourdough bread and butter. And no, I’m not tired of the strawberries yet – they are fabulously fresh and delicious, straight from the garden. Helene isn’t tired of the strawberries either, tonight I saw her brazenly licking her plate after she’d eaten her dessert. Everyone rushed off after dinner to the theatre event happening down in the hameau’s park, something about “And Zeus created his woman…” but Reed was tired enough that he took himself to bed to read so I stayed in the room with him to help him get showered and ready to sleep. He’s having to adjust to being the only child again after having Ella to play with for the last two weeks. But there are plenty of friendly cats, a couple of dogs, and some chickens that he can visit with, and an amazing amount of really varied and interesting outdoor space complete with sculptures, caves, woods, stone steps, and numerous paths to follow. You can visit the website by clicking on the title of this post above.