The English Paysanne

 The weather turned today, wet and cold with snow forecasted tonight (we won't get it as it misses our sheltered valley) but it it chilly tonight. So with Christmas nearly here and the Grinch still being Grinchy and not paying for a tree we made a secret trip in the land rover over to the pine woods below us where Sorrel and I have a daily walk (or run depending if deer and wild boar have passed by) where I have been eyeing up a suitable tree. The Christmas ones of past years all looked a bit bare of limbs and once a few baubles are added said limbs would be dropping to the floor and each year Freya complains of have thin trees. So this year I found a spiky one (that had been planted) so sorry Mr woodmen  but I made farmer J chop one of your trees down. Hopefully you won't miss it too much as you don't really look after them, which if you did would help my walking off track so much easier than fighting through the brambles in tow of a long line with a dog o...

This week we were back at the vets with Franklin to have his stitches removed and find out the results of his biopsy of which are not clear so we are still none the wiser. He still is wearing his collar until one last stitch heals. Its been hard work these past days feeding the pigs with frozen water pipes there has been lots of water lugging and heavy food buckets carried up the hill to them. Although the pigs enjoy eating the ice from the water troughs they are not too sure about walking on frozen mud so have spent most of their days in their cabins. I finished my jumper, with the help of Fizz pressing the back its now sewn up, the neck band knitted, unpicked and re knitted as it was rather tight. It's now waiting to be blocked, although there are a few mistakes overall I'm quiet happy to finish a cable jumper. Miss F and Master C came back this weekend to celebrate C's 22nd Birthday, We even got them working on collecting the offc...

Its been a bit wet here this week, showers and cloudy with just a little bit of sunshine has meant everywhere is looking very green. The veggies are growing well (apart from the brassicas which have been severely nibbled by the pesky rabbits) which also means the weeds are coming along nicely as well. Today is suppose to be the last day of rain for a while which will be good news for our gite guests. The first big bunch of beetroot was pulled up. This year I have managed to grow white and yellow as well as purple (last year pulled up the yellow thinking they were weeds) Mabel and Maude seem to think their role at La Singlarie is watch ducks. At last they are coming outside on their own, jumping up on the wall where they spend their time surveying the chickens and pigs. If only they could do something about those rabbits ....    Gorgon and the girls were getting a bit over whelmed with their task of keeping the grass eaten so farmer J put the giro ...

A moment from the week Lumber jacking  La Singlarie style with an order for five trees 

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 st...

Each year we let a local apiarist brings his bees to feed on the sweet chestnut blossom in our woods.