The English Paysanne

A moment from the week at La Singlarie It has only taken Franklin 9.5 years to become a lap dog.

It is that time of year again, hay making. Tomorrow  our newly acquired rented fields, 7 kms from our farm will be cut. The weather has been good unlike the forecast on the Internet which is changing daily from dry sunny days to  isolated thunder storms and showers. So farmer J and his haymaking partner have decided to bite the bullet and start cutting. A few days of dry weather are needed in order to cut it,turn it over to dry a couple of times, line it up ready to bale. New machinery has been brought a second hand baler, which has been tested to see if it works before it is needed by lining up straw in front of the hanger a few times enabling enough to be fed in to make a bale. I am so glad I don't have to take part in making those small rectangle bales anymore, although an idyllic country scene pictures in your mind of working with friends following the tractor and  baler, stacking the bales ready to be put on the trailer and then all throwing ...

The rescue center Two weeks ago I drove through our end of the Aveyron, through a bit of the Tarn et Garonne and entered into the Lot, new territory for me. I had a meeting to see a lady, well two actually about a dog. Reading this blog I fell for a young girl of two years. Sue who runs pawpoors works with a French lady who has this blog who rescues dogs (and cats). After a few emails of enquiring and thinking hard if it was the right thing to do off I popped to met a furry friend in need taking Franklin along to see what he thought (he wasn't any help and more interested in chasing cats and sniffing everything, including said dog and then ignored her, at least he didn't attack her) Now the emails said she had been abused, abandoned and taken in to a local towns dog pound where she spent time before being rescued by Danielle, the french lady. Danielle had worked her best trying to gain (and had) her confidence but I didn't realise how timid and scared she was. ...

A moment from the week at La Singlarie Hoping the electric fence that's just been put up works.

Yesterday morning was spent at La Contie where we are renting 20 hectares of pasture for our cows to munch on and hay to be made. An electric fence was erected, over hanging branches and undergrowth cut down with an assessment of escape routes and fencing in place to keep part of our herd happy for the summer. This afternoon after the rain had stopped Mona, our eldest cow, her steer and two other steers were off on a holiday. They had split from the herd and kept in the hanger for a few days to settle them down before going in the trailer. It took two hours to get them as being large animals if they don't want to move its pretty hard work. Finally in the trailer we left them to calm down while feeding the pigs where we found 4 pigs out of their enclosures,one of three was easily put back in with a bucket of food, the other group of three also were easily moved into a new enclosure, which they were going to go into anyway so i guess it wasn't too muc...

After many, many months we have finally had the go ahead that we can rent 20 hectares of pasture land. This has taken many meetings with the owners of the land, the farmer who was renting it and now retiring although the farmers never really retire they just reduce their herd size, which i think they are allowed 6 cows, gain their pension and continue to be active as this is what keeps them going only through illness where they are forced to stop they then find life difficult missing what they have done for many years.  The farmer we will be taking the land over from is one of them, still keeping half of the land he has been and will continue to be helpful by letting farmer J use machinery and equipment and giving advice, something the French are very good at here. Farmer J has put in many hours wading through paperwork, form filling, identifying parcels of land and who actually owns them (which all are in Farmer Pierre's head) and need to be put under our name. Meeting...

A moment from the week at La Singlarie An AWOL cow from the bottom of the hill found her way to our farm having a holiday this week she will be leaving tomorrow.