Skip to main content

This week



The seven piglets are now a week old. Out and about running around, play fighting and looking cute they are time wasters watching their antics.Plastic tape has been put up between the sows enclosures to stop the piglets running into the black sows enclosure. Sandy is a good mum, a little clumsy with her brood. While I distracted her farmer J was able to catch the four males which have now been castrated.



The donkeys have been moved to autumn pasture next to the pigs, they have been trying to befriend our 2nd gite guests by standing at the fence braying loudly (and early). Chewing bark of the trees and trying their hardest to get into the chicken barn and let the chickens out it was time to move them on.




The veggie patch is in need of serious weeding (again). Not so many tomatoes this year with a lot damaged in the storm we had, hence the marks on them, once these have been cut out they still taste pretty good. The haricot blanc have been picked and stored just before the rain came. Borlotto beans are beginning to dry on the pods ready for winter soups and casseroles.





Work around the farm has meant moving a fallen tree from one of the fields ready to be chopped into logs and stacked for drying for next year and beyond. Last years wood piles of chestnut and oak were collected and stacked in the dry next to the house ready for us to use once the evenings start turning chilly. Enough kindling from the offcuts of fence posts made in the early summer have also been stored, all of which is very dry to should have no excuses for lighting a fire.

Our dear children headed back on Friday and Saturday to take over looking after the farm while Farmer J and I  have a short break away. This meant putting in place enough food (for animals and children), moving fencing for cows to move to new pasture, writing instruction lists of feeding and husbandry, including emergency contacts. Things get a bit more complicated when you have animals!

Our break away to a small village on the Lot river (about 2hrs away so do able if we need to get back for an emergency ) will be a break we are really in need of. I have my holiday reading, the weathers planned to be not that great but just to be somewhere different with a break from the routine will be lovely.


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