Sunday, July 27, 2008
Grundy County, Iowa
Our last two days in sunny Paris were enjoyable enough that Reed was sad to go on Thursday morning. We were gathering the bags to go to the metro station and on to Charles de Gaulle airport and Reed complained that Paris was so fun he didn’t want to leave. This was a surprise since he usually complains when he’s been forced to gad about but I guess having a second afternoon in the Luxembourg playground on Tuesday afternoon and then a visit to the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes AND the sewer museum on Wednesday really pleased him.
We took a picnic lunch of cous cous and baguette sandwiches and strawberry tart to the Jardin du Luxembourg to meet Jack, our old friend from Verderonne. We sat in the shade of a large potted lime tree next to the central fountain and watched the kids sail toy boats and got caught up with each other’s news. Afterwards we took Reed back to the play area and let him work off his energy for a few hours before we headed back to the apartment for another yummy pasta dinner. Wednesday the weather heated up so we kept looking for shade as we looked at the interesting assortment of animals at the menagerie. Reed spent about 30 seconds on each one – various birds, monkeys, turtles, spiders, antelopes, yaks, and so on - until we got to the fermette and the goats, where he quickly settled down for long petting sessions with the various friendly goats pressing themselves up against the fence. Reed seemed to know where to scratch them as they generally stood still for him for a very long time. He came away after about 15 minutes refreshed and ready for the snakes and lizards.
We stopped for a break at the tables in the shade behind one of the refreshment stands where Reed noticed a pigeon with a long strand of narrow plastic band wound around its leg, hopelessly tangled. He and Walt managed to capture the pigeon and between the three of us untangled the strand and released it to a light smattering of happy applause from the onlookers.
I had planned to spend Wednesday by myself wandering around Montmartre or visiting Sainte Chapelle and the Louvre while Reed and Walt went to the Eiffel tower, but decided that it would be more fun to do whatever Reed wanted to do. He nixed the Eiffel tower plan – “there will be too many people and we’ll have to wait in line!” – and chose the botanical gardens and the sewer museum instead. The sewer museum was a cool underground respite from the afternoon heat, if rather smelly, and Reed and I were rewarded with a glimpse of a real sewer rat who popped up out of somewhere I couldn’t see and scurried down the concrete passageway next to the narrow branch line of the canal-like sewer. My favorite part of the museum was at the end, watching the videos, and learning about the Paris sewer watch squad: the municipal employees who come in their little truck with a flashing light on top to rescue whatever important thing people have dropped in a storm drain. Like most French people, they seem unfailingly polite.
So, we still have the Eiffel Tower on our list of things to do in Paris, and we decided to do it next time, when Reed is old enough to stay up until midnight and we can go in the evening to see the city light up. And I will have to save Sainte Chapelle and the Louvre for the next time as well, along with many other parks and gardens. And is it possible we didn’t eat in a restaurant while we were in Paris for 3 days? Well, yes. We got free yogurt and cereal as well as croissants and baguettes and pain au chocolats from the boulangerie down the street as part of our apartment rental deal; we packed picnic lunches for our days out; we made dinner in the apartment with the delicious provisions from the corner grocery also just down the street. When you’ve got a bottle of 2 Euro rose’, fabulous lettuce, ripe tomatoes, 3 kinds of excellent cheese, pasta, cream, salt and pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, a fresh baguette and a few slices of ham, there’s not any more a person needs for a great dinner. Why pay for a waiter to bring it to the table?
Our trip back to the states was uneventful, just long and tiring; fortunately we were welcomed in at the restful and restorative home of college roommate Ann and her husband Harry in Chicago, giving us a break in between the plane to Chicago and the train to Iowa. Now we’re back at my parents’ in Iowa, eating too much sweet corn and potato salad and chocolate zucchini cake, watching out the window as a severe thunderstorm threatens to flatten the crops and cause more flooding. It seems as appropriate place as any to bid adieu to this gastrosabbatical blog, and refer you to my other blogs, some of which will get more action than others as we get back into daily life in Idaho in a couple of weeks. For my ongoing food explorations, check out Palouse Locavore. For our family’s continuing battle to avoid gratuitous plastic, see A Plastic-Free Life, Sort Of. And will we be moving to France in the future? Time will tell, and so will one of my blogs.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Montmartre and Paris
Monday, July 21, 2008
Montmartre, Paris
We bid adieu yesterday to K and K, very sorry to have to leave but inevitably drawn towards home now that our time in France is almost over. We arrived in Paris and made our way to our studio apartment at the base of the Montmartre butte without any incident except for the entrance gate of the Montparnasse metro station going shut on me, pinching my shoulders in a death grip I slowly managed to extract myself from by brute force – backwards, of course. That’s what I get for trying to get through with Reed and myself on only one ticket, hustling Reed through first. Fortunately I was rescued by the kind young man behind me who beckoned to me to come through with him, since my ticket had been rendered invalid once used. So I snugged myself up against his back and we made it through together, yet another example of the kindness of French people.
We spent Sunday evening among the hordes of tourists, going up and down the stairs of the various levels below the face of the whipped cream edifice towering over the rest of the city that is Sacre Coeur church, and admiring the view of the streets falling away Montmartre to the rest of the city laid out below, before bathing in the miniature bathtub in our miniature bathroom in this typically tiny Paris apartment. Still, it’s ours for a few days, with our own mini kitchen and t.v. and it’s much better than a claustrophobic hotel room.
Today Walt had his day out and about alone while Reed and I went to the playground in Luxembourg Gardens, where we stayed from 11 am until 3 pm, breaking only for a lunch of a panini, quiche, and some ice cream at the Buvette café right next to the playground. I sat on a bench and read while Reed ran around with the other children of all nationalities and gave his utmost to the fabulous play structures. Unlike four years ago, this time he protested but only mildly when I said it was time to get back. I didn’t have to carry him kicking and screaming all the way back to the Odeon metro stop, thank goodness. This time we got to admire the wrought iron balconies and window grates and geraniums on windowsills that are everywhere in Paris, which must be my favorite thing about this city. On the way back home on the metro train I thought how nice it was to be getting to know that one little bit of Paris so well. Even though Reed and I aren’t charging around the city visiting lots of museums and all the other beautiful parks, I don’t mind. I’ve got this relaxed feeling about Paris, that we have plenty of time, and that we will have many other visits in which to discover new corners and new views.
We had a delicious dinner in the apartment of pasta with cream sauce, sliced tomatoes in vinaigrette, salad, cheese (Roquefort, fresh goat cheese, and Lou Perrac – a runny sheep’s cheese K&K introduced us to), melon, and chocolate cake. Walt’s headed out again for an evening walk and Reed and I have settled down for an early bedtime. Tomorrow’s another big day.
Montmartre, Paris
We bid adieu yesterday to K and K, very sorry to have to leave but inevitably drawn towards home now that our time in France is almost over. We arrived in Paris and made our way to our studio apartment at the base of the Montmartre butte without any incident except for the entrance gate of the Montparnasse metro station going shut on me, pinching my shoulders in a death grip I slowly managed to extract myself from by brute force – backwards, of course. That’s what I get for trying to get through with Reed and myself on only one ticket, hustling Reed through first. Fortunately I was rescued by the kind young man behind me who beckoned to me to come through with him, since my ticket had been rendered invalid once used. So I snugged myself up against his back and we made it through together, yet another example of the kindness of French people.
We spent Sunday evening among the hordes of tourists, going up and down the stairs of the various levels below the face of the whipped cream edifice towering over the rest of the city that is Sacre Coeur church, and admiring the view of the streets falling away Montmartre to the rest of the city laid out below, before bathing in the miniature bathtub in our miniature bathroom in this typically tiny Paris apartment. Still, it’s ours for a few days, with our own mini kitchen and t.v. and it’s much better than a claustrophobic hotel room.
Today Walt had his day out and about alone while Reed and I went to the playground in Luxembourg Gardens, where we stayed from 11 am until 3 pm, breaking only for a lunch of a panini, quiche, and some ice cream at the Buvette café right next to the playground. I sat on a bench and read while Reed ran around with the other children of all nationalities and gave his utmost to the fabulous play structures. Unlike four years ago, this time he protested but only mildly when I said it was time to get back. I didn’t have to carry him kicking and screaming all the way back to the Odeon metro stop, thank goodness. This time we got to admire the wrought iron balconies and window grates and geraniums on windowsills that are everywhere in Paris, which must be my favorite thing about this city. On the way back home on the metro train I thought how nice it was to be getting to know that one little bit of Paris so well. Even though Reed and I aren’t charging around the city visiting lots of museums and all the other beautiful parks, I don’t mind. I’ve got this relaxed feeling about Paris, that we have plenty of time, and that we will have many other visits in which to discover new corners and new views.
We had a delicious dinner in the apartment of pasta with cream sauce, sliced tomatoes in vinaigrette, salad, cheese (Roquefort, fresh goat cheese, and Lou Perrac – a runny sheep’s cheese K&K introduced us to), melon, and chocolate cake. Walt’s headed out again for an evening walk and Reed and I have settled down for an early bedtime. Tomorrow’s another big day.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Leaving Ella
The lovely Ella
Artichoke blossom
New ducks
We've come to the end of our WWOOFing days this time around and with some wistfulness and some anticipation for home we've prepared to leave the countryside and head to Paris for a few days of fun before our flight back to the U.S. I feel glad to have been here at XXX long enough to see Ella the goat recover and turn into a good little milker (with delicious milk!), to have gotten most of the garden weeded although I didn't make it to the beans, to have helped with some projects like getting the new patio area finished, and to have made some new friends, which was easy with K&K's wonderfully friendly friends (thanks everyone!) who kept inviting us all over for meals and feeding us copious amounts of delicious food washed down with equally copious wine. Last night we ate dinner at D and P's and were gratified to understand and participate in the French conversation, which all the English spoke since Jean-Francois, former mayor of XX, and his wife Christine were there as well. Jean-Francois is to mow the hay in the field we de-thistled, but unfortunately we'll just have to hear from K&K when the hay is finally cut. Despite dreaming about seeing it green and fresh Jean-Francois had other things to do first.
We've seen 10 young ducks graduate from the lawn to the pasture and have welcomed 5 new ducks and 2 chicks into the world, said goodbye to a sheep and a lamb and two chicks (Reed's favorite little black one that always was getting lost was taken by a fox or a crow earlier last week while we were celebrating Bastille Day in the village).
My hands are strong from milking (a bit stiff in the mornings) and roughened and dirty from weeding, my skin is brown from days in the garden and field, my hair has been somewhat bleached although I wore a hat on the hottest days, and I feel infinitely more capable of handling projects around my own little house and tiny yard, a miniscule space, really, compared to the places we've been working. If I can stay in the WWOOFing mindset - that is, I need to do manual labor every day in order to earn my bed and my bread - I might actually get some real work done!
Artichoke blossom
New ducks
We've come to the end of our WWOOFing days this time around and with some wistfulness and some anticipation for home we've prepared to leave the countryside and head to Paris for a few days of fun before our flight back to the U.S. I feel glad to have been here at XXX long enough to see Ella the goat recover and turn into a good little milker (with delicious milk!), to have gotten most of the garden weeded although I didn't make it to the beans, to have helped with some projects like getting the new patio area finished, and to have made some new friends, which was easy with K&K's wonderfully friendly friends (thanks everyone!) who kept inviting us all over for meals and feeding us copious amounts of delicious food washed down with equally copious wine. Last night we ate dinner at D and P's and were gratified to understand and participate in the French conversation, which all the English spoke since Jean-Francois, former mayor of XX, and his wife Christine were there as well. Jean-Francois is to mow the hay in the field we de-thistled, but unfortunately we'll just have to hear from K&K when the hay is finally cut. Despite dreaming about seeing it green and fresh Jean-Francois had other things to do first.
We've seen 10 young ducks graduate from the lawn to the pasture and have welcomed 5 new ducks and 2 chicks into the world, said goodbye to a sheep and a lamb and two chicks (Reed's favorite little black one that always was getting lost was taken by a fox or a crow earlier last week while we were celebrating Bastille Day in the village).
My hands are strong from milking (a bit stiff in the mornings) and roughened and dirty from weeding, my skin is brown from days in the garden and field, my hair has been somewhat bleached although I wore a hat on the hottest days, and I feel infinitely more capable of handling projects around my own little house and tiny yard, a miniscule space, really, compared to the places we've been working. If I can stay in the WWOOFing mindset - that is, I need to do manual labor every day in order to earn my bed and my bread - I might actually get some real work done!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Good Food from the Farm
Carol assumes her position in the garden
Reed cools off in a water storage tank
"Our" thistle-free hayfield, ready to cut
There are much worse jobs than weeding the strawberry beds, I've found. Sitting on a garden cushion, pulling out the mauvaise herbes (weeds), and popping ripe strawberries in one's mouth, warm from the sun... well, as I said, things could be worse. For instance, strimming (weed whacking) an entire small orchard since the riding lawnmower is out of commission and the grass was too tall for the small push mower. Phew.
Last night some English friends of K & K's came over for dinner and K made a fabulous meal of stewed lamb (from their own lamb) with carrots and onions (fresh from the garden), couscous, and green beans (fresh from the garden). To make the lamb he just cuts it into small pieces and cooks it slowly for a long time with the onions, carrots, sage, rosemary, and thyme, and a small tin of tomato paste. It goes fabulously with plain cous cous. A nice touch for people who like a little heat is some harissa paste, which is a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern stuff made from chiles.
Then for dessert he made a vanilla sponge cake baked with cherries (from their own tree) underneath. Mmm. The unique thing about this sponge cake was that the recipe calls for it to be steamed - but K just cooks it in the microwave. There are few baked things that I would recommend actually doing in a microwave but this is one of them - it was delicious and done in just a few minutes.
Recipe: Vanilla Sponge Pudding (from Marguerite Patten)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
few drops of vanilla
3 Tbsp. milk
Cream together butter and sugar. Whisk eggs well and add gradually to butter mixture. Mix flour and baking powder, mix vanilla and milk. Fold the flour and milk alternately into the creamed mixture. Grease a 5 cup ceramic baking dish, pour in the batter, and cook on high in a microwave until risen and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Alternative: spread jam or fruit in the bottom of the baking dish before adding the cake batter. Serve warm with cream or creme fraiche. Serves 4 to 6. To make a lemon sponge add the freshly grated zest of a lemon to the butter and sugar, and replace some of the milk with lemon juice or a bit of lemon flavoring.
The other night we had some lamb and green beans and I also made some mashed potatoes, also with potatoes straight from the garden. I've never had brand new potatoes before, with the skins so thin they almost come off just scrubbing them in the sink. K & K have been waiting patiently for the tomatoes and they're almost ready - so hopefully we'll get to eat some of them before we leave in a few days. The artichokes seem to be done, but that's okay - three or four artichokes per person over the course of a couple of weeks in mid-summer is about perfect.
A good way of eating cold cooked green beans is in an olive oil/balsamic vinegar vinaigrette, with either finely chopped onion or shallot and some salt. You boil the fresh beans for a few minutes in salted water until they're perfectly tender and then immediately pour out the boiling water and replace with cold water. Pour off the warm water a few times and replace with cold. When the beans are cold, dress them with the vinegar, oil, salt, and onion, and voila - salad.
Because K and K have some good fruit trees we've been eating as much jam on our toast in the morning as we like, and sometimes we get canned peaches to mix in with our oatmeal. And for special occasions, elderflower champagne - delicately sweet and refreshing and bubbly; or for after dinner, vin de noix - a fragrant liqueur made from green walnuts. These recipes I do not yet know, but I will be seeking them out! The French and other Europeans have so many kinds of homemade cordials, liqueurs, wines, and sparkling drinks and everyone we've stayed with has had a supply tucked away in the pantry that they made at one time or another, along with the ever popular French drink called eau de vie - which is really strong homemade booze. I'm sure I couldn't drink more than a thimbleful of eau de vie, but elderflower champagne is a different story. Such a delicious alternative to the same old things from the store.
Reed cools off in a water storage tank
"Our" thistle-free hayfield, ready to cut
There are much worse jobs than weeding the strawberry beds, I've found. Sitting on a garden cushion, pulling out the mauvaise herbes (weeds), and popping ripe strawberries in one's mouth, warm from the sun... well, as I said, things could be worse. For instance, strimming (weed whacking) an entire small orchard since the riding lawnmower is out of commission and the grass was too tall for the small push mower. Phew.
Last night some English friends of K & K's came over for dinner and K made a fabulous meal of stewed lamb (from their own lamb) with carrots and onions (fresh from the garden), couscous, and green beans (fresh from the garden). To make the lamb he just cuts it into small pieces and cooks it slowly for a long time with the onions, carrots, sage, rosemary, and thyme, and a small tin of tomato paste. It goes fabulously with plain cous cous. A nice touch for people who like a little heat is some harissa paste, which is a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern stuff made from chiles.
Then for dessert he made a vanilla sponge cake baked with cherries (from their own tree) underneath. Mmm. The unique thing about this sponge cake was that the recipe calls for it to be steamed - but K just cooks it in the microwave. There are few baked things that I would recommend actually doing in a microwave but this is one of them - it was delicious and done in just a few minutes.
Recipe: Vanilla Sponge Pudding (from Marguerite Patten)
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
few drops of vanilla
3 Tbsp. milk
Cream together butter and sugar. Whisk eggs well and add gradually to butter mixture. Mix flour and baking powder, mix vanilla and milk. Fold the flour and milk alternately into the creamed mixture. Grease a 5 cup ceramic baking dish, pour in the batter, and cook on high in a microwave until risen and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Alternative: spread jam or fruit in the bottom of the baking dish before adding the cake batter. Serve warm with cream or creme fraiche. Serves 4 to 6. To make a lemon sponge add the freshly grated zest of a lemon to the butter and sugar, and replace some of the milk with lemon juice or a bit of lemon flavoring.
The other night we had some lamb and green beans and I also made some mashed potatoes, also with potatoes straight from the garden. I've never had brand new potatoes before, with the skins so thin they almost come off just scrubbing them in the sink. K & K have been waiting patiently for the tomatoes and they're almost ready - so hopefully we'll get to eat some of them before we leave in a few days. The artichokes seem to be done, but that's okay - three or four artichokes per person over the course of a couple of weeks in mid-summer is about perfect.
A good way of eating cold cooked green beans is in an olive oil/balsamic vinegar vinaigrette, with either finely chopped onion or shallot and some salt. You boil the fresh beans for a few minutes in salted water until they're perfectly tender and then immediately pour out the boiling water and replace with cold water. Pour off the warm water a few times and replace with cold. When the beans are cold, dress them with the vinegar, oil, salt, and onion, and voila - salad.
Because K and K have some good fruit trees we've been eating as much jam on our toast in the morning as we like, and sometimes we get canned peaches to mix in with our oatmeal. And for special occasions, elderflower champagne - delicately sweet and refreshing and bubbly; or for after dinner, vin de noix - a fragrant liqueur made from green walnuts. These recipes I do not yet know, but I will be seeking them out! The French and other Europeans have so many kinds of homemade cordials, liqueurs, wines, and sparkling drinks and everyone we've stayed with has had a supply tucked away in the pantry that they made at one time or another, along with the ever popular French drink called eau de vie - which is really strong homemade booze. I'm sure I couldn't drink more than a thimbleful of eau de vie, but elderflower champagne is a different story. Such a delicious alternative to the same old things from the store.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Bastille Day in France
>The two teams we played play each other
Girl guides get wild
Mesdames celebrating Bastille Day
Monday, July 14th is Bastille Day in France, the anniversary of the day the French Revolution really got underway, when they dumped the monarchy. Every little town had some kind of fete yesterday and we attended the one nearby in tiny XXX, which started in the blazing afternoon sun with a petanque tournament. We didn't realize when we went with K and K that we'd end up playing in this tournament - we thought we were there to watch - but what the heck, we said, pourquoi pas? Walt and I played first against the two teenage boys, Thomas and Charles, and we took an early lead of 6 to 3. Then our concentration faltered and they went on to win 13 - 7, although we made them fight for every point and we had quite a few really excellent shots. Our second opponents were Michel and Michel, older gentlemen; we gave them a run for their money but I ended up being their best player a couple of times, when in trying to knock out one of their balls out I actually bumped it closer to the cochonet. But again, it wasn't a complete rout, with a final score of 13 - 6. Our final match was against K and K, and we beat them 13 - 1, a humiliating defeat for the English, tongue in cheek.
The petanque tournament was accompanied by what had to have been a CD of New Wave Hits of the 80s - which in the movie of my life is THE soundtrack of my college years. Can you remember Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark singing Electricity? Or Video Killed the Radio Star? If you can, try to imagine it blasting out a speaker while a bunch of old French guys play petanque in the shadow of a Romanesque church while their wives hustle around organizing the food and a bunch of girl guides in uniform play tennis nearby. That's Bastille Day afternoon in France.
The other thing we didn't realize when we started playing the tournament was that the losers get treated to a drink by the winners, taking the sting out of defeat, for sure.
We hadn't originally planned to stay for the community dinner either but we were all having such a nice time, the weather was so lovely in the shade, and everyone was so friendly that we joined the crowd for the meal of carrot slaw, celery root slaw, grilled steak (local beef) and frites (french fries), bread, cheese, and fruit tart for dessert. It was during the meal, after our hunger was satisfied but before the cheese and dessert had been served, that we began to see the silly side of the French come out, a really amazing capacity to have good honest fun shared by young and old alike. The small crowd was enlivened by the presence of a visiting troupe of girl guides, all dressed in their khaki shorts and blue camp shirts. As Walt said, it is impossible to be pessimistic about the future when you're in the presence of a group of adolescent girls. First they started grooving a bit to a particularly good song that they all liked, and the next thing we knew they were on their feet, waving handkerchiefs in the air, joined by most of the citizens of XXX - I think it was a favorite French song although I don't know if it was patriotic or not. A few songs later a conga line was formed, and then a human tunnel. Then everyone kept dancing, old people, kids, teenagers, girl guides, French, English, Americans.
Finally, it came time for the fireworks, a small but well-organized and crowd pleasing display that lasted about 5 minutes. Fireworks are fabulous when you've been fed well, danced to the Village People, had a few glasses of rose', and spent the afternoon concentrating on nothing more and nothing less than getting a heavy metal ball as close to a little wooden ball as possible. Reed and I covered our ears and he was quite tickled to see them, old enough, perhaps, for the first time, to really appreciate the spectacle. We got home at 11:30 pm and fell into bed, partied out.
Girl guides get wild
Mesdames celebrating Bastille Day
Monday, July 14th is Bastille Day in France, the anniversary of the day the French Revolution really got underway, when they dumped the monarchy. Every little town had some kind of fete yesterday and we attended the one nearby in tiny XXX, which started in the blazing afternoon sun with a petanque tournament. We didn't realize when we went with K and K that we'd end up playing in this tournament - we thought we were there to watch - but what the heck, we said, pourquoi pas? Walt and I played first against the two teenage boys, Thomas and Charles, and we took an early lead of 6 to 3. Then our concentration faltered and they went on to win 13 - 7, although we made them fight for every point and we had quite a few really excellent shots. Our second opponents were Michel and Michel, older gentlemen; we gave them a run for their money but I ended up being their best player a couple of times, when in trying to knock out one of their balls out I actually bumped it closer to the cochonet. But again, it wasn't a complete rout, with a final score of 13 - 6. Our final match was against K and K, and we beat them 13 - 1, a humiliating defeat for the English, tongue in cheek.
The petanque tournament was accompanied by what had to have been a CD of New Wave Hits of the 80s - which in the movie of my life is THE soundtrack of my college years. Can you remember Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark singing Electricity? Or Video Killed the Radio Star? If you can, try to imagine it blasting out a speaker while a bunch of old French guys play petanque in the shadow of a Romanesque church while their wives hustle around organizing the food and a bunch of girl guides in uniform play tennis nearby. That's Bastille Day afternoon in France.
The other thing we didn't realize when we started playing the tournament was that the losers get treated to a drink by the winners, taking the sting out of defeat, for sure.
We hadn't originally planned to stay for the community dinner either but we were all having such a nice time, the weather was so lovely in the shade, and everyone was so friendly that we joined the crowd for the meal of carrot slaw, celery root slaw, grilled steak (local beef) and frites (french fries), bread, cheese, and fruit tart for dessert. It was during the meal, after our hunger was satisfied but before the cheese and dessert had been served, that we began to see the silly side of the French come out, a really amazing capacity to have good honest fun shared by young and old alike. The small crowd was enlivened by the presence of a visiting troupe of girl guides, all dressed in their khaki shorts and blue camp shirts. As Walt said, it is impossible to be pessimistic about the future when you're in the presence of a group of adolescent girls. First they started grooving a bit to a particularly good song that they all liked, and the next thing we knew they were on their feet, waving handkerchiefs in the air, joined by most of the citizens of XXX - I think it was a favorite French song although I don't know if it was patriotic or not. A few songs later a conga line was formed, and then a human tunnel. Then everyone kept dancing, old people, kids, teenagers, girl guides, French, English, Americans.
Finally, it came time for the fireworks, a small but well-organized and crowd pleasing display that lasted about 5 minutes. Fireworks are fabulous when you've been fed well, danced to the Village People, had a few glasses of rose', and spent the afternoon concentrating on nothing more and nothing less than getting a heavy metal ball as close to a little wooden ball as possible. Reed and I covered our ears and he was quite tickled to see them, old enough, perhaps, for the first time, to really appreciate the spectacle. We got home at 11:30 pm and fell into bed, partied out.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Neolithic Field Trip
A French friend, Christine, took us on a field trip on Sunday to the Tumulus de Bougon - an archeological site dating to neolithic times - 7000 years ago - that consists of a group of burial mounds. They made a little room with rock walls, some big rocks from 35 to 40 km away and little rocks taken from a little quarry right beside the tumulus, covered the top with a huge slab of limestone, and then built a wall out of a circle of rocks and filled in the space with gravel. Then they built a smaller ring of stones on top of the gravel and filled that in, and so on, until there was a big mound going up to a sort of peak. Then the bodies or bones were buried inside. This site is the oldest known burial site in Europe, with the most intact tombs. Pretty cool. They don't know much about why they built them this way, or why some of them are rectangular and some are round and some are oval, why they are oddly shaped, why some of the inner chambers are round or rectangular or with a domed roof, why some of them had adults and children and stone and bone tools and dogs and why some were just adults. Those neolithic people didn't leave a lot of clues unfortunately. But as a result of this field trip I now know the order of prehistoric eras: early, middle, and late paleolithic, megalithic, neolithic, bronze age, iron age. Nothing like a field trip to help a person make sense of stuff she was supposed to have learned in school.
Christine brought along a neighbor boy, Nathan, aged 9, to be a companion for Reed and they had fun running around despite not being able to communicate very well and not being allowed to climb on the mounds. My favorite part of the day was the picnic, eaten under the glass roof of the renovated 18th c. barn near the tumulus site. This kind of roof would be expensive but wow, what a way to renovate an old barn. My imagination has been fired up. It was comfortable and airy and bright, with a garden in the middle. We had leftover lamb, a chard and bacon frittata that I made, zucchini cake that I made, cold cooked green beans (the first from the garden!) with balsamic vinegar and olive oil (the French eat balsamic vinegar a lot, as do the Italians, and it comes from Italy I think, but I don't know its history very well - I'll try to find out more about it!), potato chips, bread and fresh goat cheese, and some other tidbits.
The little black chick keeps getting lost and I think that after I've rescued it twice I might not be able to find it this time. This morning I got it out of the middle of the pigpen, just before the pigs noticed it. Ella the goat is recovering from her ailments - no more blood in the milk and some E45 cream (something K had around from when one of the pigs was all broke out in an allergic rash) on the udder is working wonders. The thistling isn't finished but we've made great progress, and tonight we're all invited to some friends for dinner.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Life, Death, and a French radical
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
It's finally dark at 10:45 pm. Chicks and ducklings are especially vulnerable to crows and foxes and hawks so as dusk falls we make sure everyone's under cover and warm. The 5 brand new ducklings come from the barn into the house, the 3 newish chicks go from the ark in the yard to the barn, the 10 teenage ducklings go into the ark, and the chickens and ducks tuck themselves in to their chicken house which is actually a stone cow shed with a tiled roof that must be 200 years old. I'm not sure if the floor is made of dirt or rock; I'm raking up the mixed chicken manure and straw on the floor and carting it to the garden and so far I haven't reached what I think is the bottom. Occasionally I uncover a rock which I toss into the corner and there is a small pile collecting there.
Yesterday was so hot and muggy we could hardly move; pulling thistles for an hour and a half was torture. Then what we thought would be a storm blew through last night and it cooled off and rained just a bit so that today was about 60 degrees and cloudy - it was heaven in the hayfield aside from my wet feet. I pulled thistles in the bottom of the field close to the stream, where the wet ground made it very easy to pull the thistles, the mint grows thickly so every step smells refreshing, the water is gurgling by, and the grass issn't as tall as on the upper field so it was easier to walk. I was quite happy down there by myself for a couple hours while everyone worked further up. We had two more WWOOFers arrive yesterday evening and they energetically pulled thistles too so we really feel we're finally making progress. The garden looks good as well since Walt has been planting potatoes and hoeing in his spare time and today Margherita (from Greece) weeded too. The weather today was also conducive to the sheep butchering that K and D had scheduled for 10 am. It all went pretty smoothly I guess; I stayed in the hayfield although I was somewhat curious. Reed watched and told me about it later, and we talked about how it was always sad when an animal has to die so we can eat, but wasn't it good the sheep was happy right up to just a few minutes before it died? Sadder than the butchering was the lamb that died from an unknown cause just the other night, and the chick that drowned in a shallow bucket of water in front of the house last week. Now the excellent mother hen only has 5 chicks to watch over instead of 6. Reed was relieved that the drowned one wasn't his favorite little black one, which he feeds out of his hand and lets sit on his arm.
Ella the goat started getting blood in her milk last week so I started milking her twice a day instead of once to try to keep her from getting mastitis, but she's also got some kind of sores on her udder in several places which seem to bug her when I'm milking. First I tried cleaning her udder with salt water and then I left it alone and now I'm putting olive oil on it to see if that helps heal it up. She's such a sweet girl most of the time, except when she's being an escape artist. Her horns were cut off by her previous owner and she's brown so she looks very much like a deer, and her bleat is very dainty. I'll be glad when her milk clears up completely so we can drink it again.
Walt and I got to walk into the village of XXX just a kilometer away on Sunday before lunch, on a tractor trail between fields and hedges and across the stream, the same one that runs at the bottom of the hayfield. Just outside town on the main road we walked past a large group of senior citizens who had parked their cars on a gravelly pullout under some large trees and who had set up long tables and were having a picnic lunch, right there between the road, the ditch, and the cow pasture. They all nodded at us and smiled in a friendly way when we wished them bonjour messieur-dames and bon appetit!
XXX is small enough not to have its own tiny grocery store, but at least big enough to have a small post office, a bar/restaurant, and a boulangerie/patisserie. We sat in front of the 12th century Romanesque church and ate our pain au chocolat, and then headed back home, only to be hailed by a scruffy looking guy that we'd seen on our way into town on his bike. He had sussed us out as not the average foreigners, somehow, and when he discovered that we were American and not English he invited us in for a drink, in his modest apartment in a large old house in dire need of repair. He didn't apologize for the clutter, simply said we can't expect a man living alone to do the housekeeping. I have a feeling he's one of those tenants that the landlord would like to get rid of but can't, in this land of strong tenant laws.
We sat at the two chairs at the kitchen table while he prepared me a glass of sweet lemonade and Walt a cold alcohol-free beer. His walls were covered with posters and photos, one of him much younger with an accordion, another of his communist father, others of the Greenpeace and 70s hippie variety. First he explained that he didn't have coca cola, and when we said that's okay, we don't drink coca cola, he said, of course, you are normal, yes?; then we basically provided a receptive audience for his views on the ubiquitous English settlers in France, the ubiquitous American culture, the idiocy of the French farmers who spray poison on their fields and who grow GMO crops, the d--khead across the road with remote controlled gates and a video security camera that our new friend likes to moon occasionally etc. etc. He gave us a tour of his lovely organic garden, a mix of flowers and vegetables, let us smell the disgusting smell of fermenting nettle tea that he puts on his crops and he gave us two huge heads of lettuce that we accepted gratefully and ate for lunch and dinner on Monday. We finally said goodbye after admiring his pink and green painted motorcycle, amazed at the interesting people you'll meet when you're not in a hurry on a Sunday afternoon.
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