The chickens have escaped!

I’ve been too busy to write blogs as I’ve been organising this…

Another day of indoors-only weather, and even more forecast for the weekend (snow, even!) so I’ve been indoors trying to catch up with housework. What a joke! We worked out that even if I had an extra person here cleaning from 9 to 5 daily the place still wouldn’t be clean and tidy!

Ian’s been doing some paintings for an exhibition which starts in 3 weeks’ time. He’s put some paint on the canvasses, but quite a lot of it has ended up around the house… on his clothes, the floor, chairs and tables, plates, even the knobs on the cooker. It’s like a kind of artistic garnish on the house which I have given up trying to get rid of. I wonder how many years I’d have to leave it before the house became a work of art in its own right?!

Anyway, I showed you some pictures of the bathroom as I demolished the walls,

here is what it looks like now… The walls have been covered with a rustic-finish mortar (more English country cottage than French farmhouse, but who cares). Ian made this sink unit with recycled wood and floorboards, and I did the plumbing. I know that two sinks seems unnecessary but, believe me, it’s FANTASTIC!

I’ve also started the tiling – just the little bit behind the bath for now, there are still 3 metres square left to do! This bit was done with recycled mirror and a few tiles. Getting the mirror to break into nice-shaped pieces was pretty hard and more than half the mirror ended up in pieces which couldn’t be used – tiles are much easier to break. I’ve also collected broken plates, stones and pottery found whilst digging the garden for the main wall; but I haven’t steeled myself to start to mammoth task yet – it’s a little daunting and I’m worried about it going wrong at some point and having to start again!

An interesting programme today on Radio 4 about smallholding, which you can hear thanks to the BBC’s ‘listen again’ feature… Go to

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingtoday/

and ‘listen again’ to Farming Today This Week (on the right hand side of the page).

I’ve managed to get the new fruit trees planted – 12 dwarfing and two “proper fruit trees” as Ian says! It seemed to take much longer than expected, the irrepressible couch grass probably doesn’t help, but two days of hard labour and frequent tea breaks and… voila.

Anyway, we now have an orchard, and the first element to really break up the dull expanse of grass which is our land. Four plums (Victoria, Quetche and Mirabelle), two apple (Belle de Boskoop, of course) two pear (Beurre Hardy and B Giffard) and finally four cherry (Biggareau Moreau/Burlat/Reverchon and Hedelfinger Riesen). Ian’s “real trees” are both Reine de Reinette (sometimes called Queen of Pippins in the English-speaking world). These are all heritage varieties which I researched on the internet. I was going to buy them online from a French specialist nursery but just thought I would ask at my local garden centre and they had all of them – and much cheaper! I hope to put in another 12 at least by next spring so that we can produce a surplus, and it will be a great place for the bees that will hopefully be arriving in May.

We had a guest come to stay in our B&B at the weekend who grows heritage veg in the Manche (north-west of here by 2.5 hours). He has 10 hectares of veg plus 250 salt marsh lambs and supplies lots of posh restaurants in the north of France (including the Ritz Paris!). We had an hour-long chat over breakfast which was very inspiring and he gave me a huge box of parsnips, some carrots, swedes, and Jerusalem artichokes. Any Brit living in France will have been missing their parsnips – they only started selling them in our local supermarket 12 months ago and they are dry and tasteless – but these parsnips were the most incredible we’ve ever tasted! His purple carrots were also delicious, however I have decided not to eat the Jerusalem artichokes but to chuck them in the garden and see what happens! I’ve read that they will suppress all weeds, so I’m hoping to form a barrier at the edge of one of the veg-plots with them.

I spend every spare moment digging in the garden, but the profusion of perennial weed roots is such that progress is very slow. We were hoping for a wwoofer to arrive mid-March, but she cancelled and no-one has so far replaced her. As the 15^th May approaches (our official safe-to-plant-out date) I am beginning to wonder if I will ever get this terrible ground ready for seeds; or if it will all just become a jungle of couch grass, buttercup and bind weed again.

Someone must have told the good-for-nothing chickens that it was my birthday last week because (sit down those of a delicate disposition) they have finally started a-laying again!!! It’s been a long, long time, but we’re finally back in the land of eggy-bread. Full of joy, I sped up to town yesterday and bought some more girls to swell the ranks and give the cockerel a sense of importance (to make sure he comes up with the goods this year). The new hens are only 6 weeks old and very timid, but I’m hoping they’ll grow up to be good layers and great mums as I’m really starving for a proper home-reared roast lunch!

So I’m officially another year older; this year’s “don’t buy me anything unless it’s something truly useful” present was an MP3 player… being un-techi I wasn’t sure how it worked and couldn’t believe the size, nor the fact that it doesn’t need batteries (how is THAT possible??!) – but it is a real pleasure to listen to music while out in the garden, and the best thing is that no-one can spoil it by suddenly announcing that “we’re now going over to the cricket”… Aaahhhhh!

Now that the year really feels like it’s in-gear, I have steeled myself to write a new ‘to do’ list which I am hoping will be achievable in a year (though previous experience laughs in my face!).
Here is my list so far, obviously it doesn’t even include the most essential jobs such as ‘plant vegetables’ nor any of the things I’ll have to do in relation to the set-up of Projet Capucine… it could be that I’m going to go completely mad this year and end up in a nice padded cell. Watch this space…

• Get materials for compost loo; make
• Get tyres
• Buy electric fencing and lambs
• Water butts and guttering installed
• Collect old windows and bottles
• Buy wood for raised beds
• Plant fruit trees
• Clear flower beds of couch grass
• Plant willow bower
• Paint dog house and install
• Plant fedge for new chicken yard
• Plant more hedging
• Plant next 2 rows of willow coppice
• Plant woodland
• Plant orchard
• Plant wild flowers
• Make beehive area
• Order bee equipment
• Paint shutters
• Make ‘windows’ for chicken shed
• Fix leaking roof – potting shed and chicken shed
• Paint inside chicken shed and woodwork
• Renovate attic above cottage
• Build greenhouse
• Apply for grant/funding for polytunnel
• Lay out paths in Plot 1
• Take out couch grass from new soft fruit bed
• Transplant raspberries
• Order comfrey and plant out
• Plant grove
• Build gazebo
• Make outdoor shower
• Prune thuya hedge
• Sheet mulch all veg plots
• Install filter for B&B, start layouts of greywater system
• Dig over and plant clover bed

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!!!