Skip to main content

The first day of Autumn and the last week






What a difference a day can make, the first day of Autumn has been glorious, far different than last week when it was damp and wet for most of it. Enough girolle mushrooms were found while walking in the woods along with a bag of blackberries. Hopefully if the warm weather stays ceps will soon appear. Apples and pears are ripening and a second crop of raspberries were picked today.

The week was spent with snippets of days when the rain had stopped cutting docks and seed heads of weeds in one of the hay fields before the seeds fall. It is a job that needed to be done otherwise the hay field next year will be a dock field and no animal eats a dock leaf round here.




 Our young sow has gone off for a holiday with Champion, the boar Sandy visited a while back. She is such a gentle pig, hopefully he is being a charming male.


Sandy's piglets are filling out now starting to eat cereal. As they get more adventurous they (or Sandy being bored) have pulled away the plastic mesh keeping the piglets away from our black sow. Piglets have been running under the electric fence to say hello to said sow who seems to be very fond of them.

Two more pigs went off to the local abattoir Tuesday. The carcases came back on Thursday with the day and Friday being spent in the butchery, a lot of pig to process. Boxes of mixed cuts and sausages have been packed and sold with bacon curing, pate made   ham hocks brinning and confit pig cheeks slowly cooked in fat, probably not very healthy but very tasty and once confit they stay preserved in fat for ages.

Franklin spent another day with Huggie the vet to asses his blood sugar levels, which are still way to high. Insulin dose has now been upped and booked in for another 10 days. An injecting pen has been ordered as his getting weary of the needle and giving a grumble. Milo's visit to the ophthalmologist the week before left my payment card lighter, I've asked for a designated parking as I seem to be spending a bit of time (and money) there recently.


Our gites still have guests in, the last week for our second gite as unlike our first one which has a log burner it has no heating. We have a lovely Australian couple staying until the end of October so they will really get a feel for the area and rural life. As the tourists season is nearly over Najac gets a lot quieter. The Sunday market is now back to a few stalls and will stop altogether in a couple of weeks,shops will be closing including the little grocery which can't afford  to stay open as there just isn't enough people to use it for half the year, as will the hotels and a few of the restaurants. Even the post office will only be open in the mornings. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2ENJ093 - FRANKLIN

Eight years ago today Franklin came into our family, a rescue dog from the SPA in Rodez we drove to see if they had a dog to re home. He had been there a month after being left tied to a bin in the town centre, chosen because he didn't bark, he came to us to say hello and was completely different from the dog we had lost days before Christmas. 120 Euros he cost, a young boy still a pup, very thin but with a look of take me home please. A collar put round his neck, forms completed, cheque handed over and a kiss from the manager and he was ours. Five minutes down the road in the car he threw up. Five minutes in the house and he had weed up the settee and collected an assortment of treasures including socks, toilet roll inner tubes, tissues and soft toys all placed in a pile under the table and garded. He ate at an amazing speed, fearing he would loose it to our other dogs. Then he started to bark, he has a fine bark on him. He barks for his tea, when a visitor arrives, the ...
2 comments
Read more

Parisot lake

As it is a holiday today here in France (Bastille Day) we took the afternoon off an popped over to Parisot lake for a walk with Sorrel. It has all changed, since the lake was emptied and cleaned up this year you can now swim in it, as well as inflatable toys to play on, a life guard, bikes to hire, a new fenced in play area for small people and a total spruce up. But there is a price we were charged! 3 euros an adult, which I guess is OK if you are using the facilities but Sorrel didn't fancy a dip. The cafe is still open but that would of been too much for Sorrel to cope with being so close to people and music so we opted for a bench to sit on in the shade before walking around the lake. Sorrel opted for being Billy no mates and laying by herself, if be it for a short period of time before bikes and people went by. We are now waiting for the free firework celebrations over the chateau tonight - if we can stay up that late.😃
4 comments
Read more

Lavender

One plant that does grow well around the gites and garden and that I don't seem to be able to kill is lavender. In the summer the bushes are swarming with bees, hummingbird moths, butterflies and other flying insects, lot of holiday photos have been taken by keen photographers, some setting up chairs and waiting for ages with big cameras and lenses waiting for the right moment and right insect to land. It does give a lovely show and smell as well, its picked and placed in vases in the gites by guests. Its very tactile and difficult to pass without a rub of a flower that's if you like the smell. I think its very much like marmite you either love it or hate it, a smell of memories of grans and old aunts who use to get given Yardley's old lavender smellies for presents. I like the smell but it can be quiet overpowering, especially when this year I have finally been able to save the dried flowers. Previous years other things have got in the way and its bee...
1 comment
Read more