Deux Sevres

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Happy Birthday to my brother Doug and also to my friend Gretchen in Sitka!

Summer heat arrived here yesterday after a long, cool, wet spring. Now it’s hot and humid, with the grass and weeds gone crazy and everywhere the nettles and brambles trying to claim back this farm. It is a 15 acre place just a few kilometers from the nearest villages, with a medium sized old stone farmhouse and several stone outbuildings. We’re just about an hour east of the Atlantic ocean, and the weather here is relatively temperate, as evidenced by the artichokes in the garden.

The owners have made a nice sized potager/kitchen garden, and have quite a few chickens and ducks. Right now there are 10 young ducks, 5 half-grown chickens, and a mother hen and her 6 chicks who have free range of the yard, plus another couple dozen adults in the poultry house and fenced in area. There are also 3 goats, some sheep – one ewe has triplet lambs - , and 2 young pigs who are eating and growing fast, destined for bacon. We give everybody some grain in the morning and stale bread from the boulangerie. They don’t really need it, since there is plenty of grass, but K explained that it’s nice to keep them in the habit of coming when you call, in the event they break the fence yet again. The mother hen comes into the kitchen when she thinks it’s time for her and the family to get their grain ration. Altogether with the two dogs and 3 cats there are 60 some animals here.

I learned that it is possible to milk a goat that hasn’t had a kid. Maid milking, K called it. Ella the goat is giving a couple of cups a day now and I’m sure her production would increase rapidly if Kate started milking her twice a day instead of once. Reed had her milk on his cereal for breakfast and I’ll start having it too unless she wants me to try to make cheese.

We have been enjoying our sunny room upstairs in the farmhouse and fabulous cooking by both K and K. She makes pies and cakes and cookies and bread and he makes everything else and so far we’ve enjoyed fresh tomato soup, quiche, potato salad, tomato salad, artichokes with butter, lamb stew, jam tarts, macaroons, ginger cake, and lots of good bread and cheese. We were offered the whole weekend off work but I feel funny about eating meals and not doing any work so on Friday I did a little weeding in the strawberries and yesterday I weeded most of the day, getting through the artichokes and asparagus and starting in on the onions, and also picking strawberries. Last night was a huge thunderstorm but today is sunny again – I’m taking Sunday off while Walt works on cutting down the thistles out in the hayfield before it’s time to make hay this week or next.