Yikes it has only been a month! Where has September gone? Apologies to anyone who has looked for updates but it really has been non-stop.
We have had family visiting for the best part of 3 weeks (all of whom have left their mark in one way or the other and we really want to say THANK YOU).
Firstly, Uncle Richard and Great Aunt Simone who helped in many departments but notably with the electrical installation, building a composter, pruning and bottling yet more plums and pears. Our store room is looking really full - if you like fruit that is! We have also made beetroot chutney, sun dried tomatoes, home-made tommy k, fig jam and quince jelly. Let's hope the shelves don't give way under the weight of all the jars!
Later, they were joined by Ruth and Graham - Als' Mum and Dad - who were their usual selves wanting to help in any conceivable way. Graham's lifetime experience in the farming business was tapped into and we now have a proper plan of which field we will bring into cultivation and he was also busy with his brother planting, pruning, identifying plants and all those little jobs we would never get around to! Apologies for his occasional afternoon siesta being rudely cut short by a running hug from Scarlett after coming home from school......
Ruth got her hands dirty as usual with plastering the electrical conduits and she even created a new trapdoor from the threshing room to the pigsty by going through a rotten floor board - sorry Mum! She also showed us the ropes when it comes to making quince jelly - yum yum. Only Ruth would get a 30 inch wide preserving pan along with the usual load of Lincolnshire sausages, pork pies and haslet in her Easyjet luggage and still leave capacity for 200 fags and a bottle of Gordons.....
We have made major steps forward in so many departments it is hard to list them all, but basically the plumbing system is complete and we are now using solely solar heated water (we actually have too much power with the beautiful Indian summer!) and Al has built the chimney stack for the wood burning boiler but it is as yet too warm to test (although Klaus our German plumber has given it the seal of approval). Thanks to Klaus for testing the radiators using the solar panels when it was 33 degrees outside!
The electrical system is finished and we can work even longer hours in the unfinished rooms as they now have lights! Fred our local spark has finished the system off after we did all the chasing out of the electrical conduits. We even have a large projector lamp illuminating the mill workings below the mill room and the future dining room so that if one day we can fulfill our dream of glazing the floor in the milling room, we will be able to see the workings below our feet!
John and Kate the carpentry team have been back to fit us some windows and patio doors (a job which Al hates doing) and to fit a very complicated solid oak worktop in the kitchen - they did a great job. The mill and threshing room are now sealed from the elements and secure for the first time and both rooms feel like the are on the road to being our main living spaces. The work top looks fab now we have given it a coat of dark oak stain and 3 coats of bullet proof varnish. Time to test beetroot pickling on it....
The main priorities in terms of DIY are to finish insecticide-spraying and insulating the loft and to get the 3rd bedroom habitable as it will be our own bedroom/storeroom as we need to empty the barn of our belongings as there are definite signs of mice looking for their winter quarters! Today we have poured a lightened concrete scree in the 3rd bedroom and we are having a late one tonight in an attempt to get it finished and finally have a decent level floor to work from. Here is what it looked like a few weeks ago; tempting though it was to keep the ivy motif wallpaper it had to go...
Bee has been mega busy in the vegetable patch with masses of beetroot, French beans, turnips, lettuces etc being brought in every day. The season is so long here that we have just put in another 15 lettuce plants to keep the supply up. Only some of the brassicas are a bit slow coming on because they suffered with flea beetle infestation that has proven hard to eradicate, but we have stuck to organic methods despite the temptation to nuke them! Scarlett has been hard at work hand-removing slugs and snails but she has stopped feeding them to the chickens as snails are her friends.
In terms of livestock, the kids are in fine form and both back at school and starting to make good friends and enjoying it. It was a little tough at first as they are now in different buildings within the same school but still see each other in break times. Fresh deliveries of sand in the trailer have become their after-school sandpit haven and toys in their bedroom are no competition to hammering nails into any old bit of wood they can find. They are still loving life on a small holding and a ride on the tractor or an egg hunt keeps them occupied when the combine harvesters in neighbouring fields are on a break!
We still have the two adult chickens and the two healthy chicks from the brood of 3 are doing well. They are kind of half grown to adult size and are very independent except they still like sleeping under Mum's wing at night. The cockerel is a proper lad - he likes to spend the days with the hens; entertaining them in his own special way and then he likes to fly out of the coop at dusk to get a proper nights roosting in and recharge his batteries. Talk about not taking the rough with the smooth. Did you know chicken eat mice? We didn't until today when the red hen was discovered with the back half of a mouse hanging out of her beak which she promptly swallowed. We are looking for some more layers to add to our brood as we feel we need to widen the gene pool in the near future and we would like to start eating our own chicken at some point..
We are hoping to acquire 4 organic ewes and their lambs in the next few weeks - they are of the Castillion breed from the Pyrenees and we would slaughter two lambs this winter and maintain an ongoing flock of 6 breeding adults. The problem of getting them tupped (pregnant) is sorted as the friendly local shepherd Francois is happy to lend us a ram for a month each year. We met Francois through his parents Jean and Marie Claire with whom, Simone and Richard were lodged during their visit. The deal was done over and exchange of eggs, organic lentils and fresh figs! We need to work on some electric fencing to move them around one of our fields which has the greenest and most inviting grass a ewe could ever hope for; the life or Riley awaits them - up to the point when they end up in our oven. We promise not to name them "Mint Sauce" or similar.
We have also been doing the rounds of countless boot sales and "vide greniers" which have turned up some bargains. We have purchased loads of Kilner jars for preserving our produce, 2 different loads of parquet flooring for bargain prices except we had to lift it, transport it, clean and treat it for woodworm. What we do in the name of originality!
All in all it has been a wonderful, if tiring month but it just gets better and better at the Moulin de Faget!
