No Pressure Then?

Posted by Simon

Now with our website up and running to advertise the gite it's all go for the building works. With help from a neighbour I am getting along much faster now. Over the last couple of weeks or so a lot has come into place. Internal walls, insulation, ceilings and floors are nearing completion - well the first stage.

Also the electrics have been started and the first fix nearly completed. The plumber was suppose to also start last week but gladly he had to delay for a week. I think if the plumber had been here as well it would have been mayhem - plus I wasn't quite ready for him. He should be in this coming week and I think I'm now ready.

Like the UK we are experiencing wet and windy weather but I managed to spend a dryish afternoon doing some work on, our 'ongoing saga', the fosse septic filter beds. Although a bit wet for soil moving both Rosie and I are fed up with piles of soil around so I decided to do something about it and at least half of it is now buried under ground and all the pipe work finished.

This morning I took a turn at feeding the animals. I must admit I hadn't done it for a while. So with Ben's help we did the rounds. When we got to the sheep's field I found Saari in the sheep's field, then I realised one of the ewes had not turned up for breakfast and finally it sunk in. The missing ewe was the one who hadn't lambed yet. So a recce into the field and there she was with one little lamb. Both mum and baby seem fine but what a day to bring a lamb into the world - cold, wet, windy and bleak.

And Saari just wants to protect and mother the lambs. She is constantly going into the field and checking on the lambs and we are constantly calling her out again. This is another reason to get the soil piles removed as she uses these to jump over into the field.

Eco-gites booking website launched

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new Eco-Gite de Lénault Information and Booking web page. To access the new page either click here or on the picture at the top of the right-hand sidebar.

We have also finally decided on a name for the gite. When we first arrived here the barn was full to the rafters with hay and our first job was to clear it all out. Our neighbouring farmer took much of it and we kept some back for animal bedding. Whilst using some in the sheep pen a week or so ago the gite's name came to me - The Haybarn or La Grange à Foin.

La Grange à Foin is available for bookings from July 2010 and we look forward to welcoming our first guests this summer.

Rosie and Simon Hill

Today was a good day

Posted by Rosie

To begin with, Droopy Drawer's 2 lambs are doing well - they are feeding well, starting to play (so sweet) and their eyes are looking better. Little Ben is also doing well despite being bottle fed and the piglets are getting brave enough to come out and play in the mud now.

Whilst in the lambing pens this morning I saw a car draw up, not one I recognised and it wasn't a local number plate. It turned out to be Tof and Manuji, the couple who were walking with their donkeys across Northern France and who had stayed with us back in the June. They had finished their journey in October and were now re-visiting people where they had stayed. It was lovely to hear all about their adventure and to see their wonderful photos. They also told us about friends of theirs who have a donkey sanctuary nearby and who offer donkey trekking, something that may be of interest to visitors to our gite. (A gite whose booking web page will be uploaded very soon I hasten to add!)

Just after lunch I sent the boys off to see if we had any post. Remember the hassle we were having in our efforts to get French Child Benefit. Today I received a letter confirming that our dossier was now complete and we are eligible for Allocations Familiales to the tune of 123.93€ per month and payments would be backdated to October 2007. Yipppeeeeee. The moral of the story there, don't give up even when you have received a refusal letter. Why it took us so long or was so difficult I will never know but we got there in the end.

It also looks like Simon has been having a bit of fun in England, chopping trees down and playing with his favourite chainsaw and seeing just how much stuff he can cram into a Renault Megane and still be able to shut the door!! I'm not sure even he could even fit in "just one more wafer thin mint!" (With thanks to Monty Python)

Yawwwwn ...... Baa

Posted by Rosie

Droopy Drawers, our magnificently fat sheep has finally given birth to twin female lambs and not triplets as I was rather expecting by the size of her. It was, however, not without incident and when I went to check on her at 10pm last night it was fairly obvious that she was in difficulty. The lamb's nose was showing but no feet and it tongue was lolling out of it's mouth. Not good. Oh well - what better way to learn about the finer art of lambing than with a quick tutorial over the phone from my friend, Jane, and then a hands-on practical, all alone and in the middle of the night. Somehow I managed to get the front feet forward and pulled out the lamb. For what seemed like an eternity it lay there, not moving and I thought it was stillborn. I cleared round it's airways and rubbed it vigorously with straw until it finally coughed and spluttered it's way to life. I remember a James Herriot story where he swung a lamb through the air to get it to breathe but if you have ever held a just-born lamb you will understand how slippery they are and I worried I would lose it in mid air so stuck to straw rubbing. After this drama, Number two arrived about an hour later, this time unaided.

I do, however have to say that I am little concerned about the first lamb. I have seen her suckle but she seems more listless than her sister and I worry that her protracted birth may have affected her. She also has an eye infection. In her favour though, is the fact that Mum has readily accepted her, she has plenty of milk and the exceptionally cold weather seems to have gone for now. I'll go and check on her shortly (and the other ewe who is yet yo lamb) but we will have to see what the future holds for her.

And much as I want Black Face to lamb soon, I would prefer she doesn't chose tonight. I finally crawled into bed at 3am last night/this morning and I don't fancy doing that again so soon. Yawwwwwwn.

Change of routine

Posted by Rosie
With Simon away for a week and a lot of snow still lying around, I decided we needed to get the VERY pregnant ewes inside. The shelter in their field was full of snow and I'm not sure I could move them into the sheep pen on my own so with a bit of cajoling ...... actually no, a lot of cajoling, chasing, pushing and shoving we got the girls into the sheep shed. That was Friday and there is still no sign of any lambs.

Pig (Boris) has also been moved as leaving him in with Charlotte leaves her vulnerable to getting pregnant again and he was already showing some amorous intentions. I have to say though, he was a lot easier to relocate than the sheep - one pig, one bucket and hey-ho - welcome to your new residence in the pig ark. He quite happily played in the snow all afternoon but come dusk the reality set in that he was here for the duration and he was a trifle miffed. I'd given him extra bedding though and he was fine this morning, if still a bit peeved.

With all this moving around - and the fact that the Rammy and Lamb Chops need extra food in the snow and we have not succeeded in getting White Face to accept Little Ben, my morning routine is now totally different and to be honest I have not quite got it right yet. I keep getting somewhere and realising I've got the wrong food or forgotten something. That's not a major problem but I wasn't too happy to get part way down the valley before I realised I needed grain for Rammy and Lamb Chops! Never mind - I'll just about get this worked out and it'll change again.
Well at least some-one is enjoying the snow:

Famous Last Words

Posted by Simon

Yesterday we had some snow and sleet showers on and off most of the day, but it was quite wet and only settled a little then disappeared, before the next shower. An ever hopeful Ben, said we are going to get loads more snow but I said 'No chance, it's too wet, and we are not forecast anything but light snow and rain showers'.

In the evening I worked late in the gite and when I came out I was taken by surprise and nearly slipped on a couple of centimetres, but it was a starry night so I thought there would be no more snow.

Well this morning I was woken up by Ben saying ' I told you there would be snow and I'm right'. And he was. Overnight we had had 15 to 20cms (6 to 8 inches). This was nearly as much snow in one hit as we had the last time.

Feeding the animals this morning was a trudge. Finding feed trays and buckets was near on impossible, but all the animals were fine and the little piglets decided the best thing to do is to snuggle down in the hay.

And of course the boys are off school again and enjoying themselves playing in the snow.

A Bit of a Surprise

Posted by Simon

I arrived home this afternoon from a trip to the dentist and was greeted at the door by the boys and Rosie. They had rather gleeful looks on their faces and were calling out 'we've had triplets, we've had triplets' . Having parked next to the sheep's field I looked at the ewes. As both ewes were munching their way through their evening repast and no sign of any new offspring, my first thought was 'oh no not another mother rejecting all of her lambs'.

Then I heard oinking noises from Tom and Ben, and even then it took me a few seconds to realise they meant the sow (Charlotte) had had three little pigs. Now this was a bit of a surprise as we had not realised she was due quite yet - we were expecting them in about a months time. And it was the last thing Rosie was expecting when she went to feed the pigs this evening and her first thought on seeing something small moving around in the bedding was 'RATS' and then it sunk in rats are not normally that colour - we have piglets.

So we still have two ewes waddling around their field looking as if they need inducing. The other ewe is penned in with her lambs and is not fully bonding with her second lamb so we are continuing doing the controlled feeds - which may go on for 6 weeks. So the animals are keeping us (well mainly Rosie) busy at the moment.

They don't stay little long do they?

Nearly a call to the pompiers!!

Posted by Rosie

The turkey au vin recipe in my 52 new recipes list was based on a coq au vin recipe by Hugh Fearnly-Whitingstall. He said substituting a turkey thigh or two was fine but it was my adaptation to add Cointreau instead of Brandy as I had none of the latter.

So I get to the bit where it says - add Brandy and set fire to it. I added the Cointreau, and set fire to it. WHOOOOOOSH. Now that was either impressive or exceedingly dangerous depending on your pyromaniac tendencies!! So there I am holding a pan sending up impressive flames and wondering what do do. "Move away from the extractor fan!" yelled Simon. I did and just as well - it was already well singed and smoking slightly.

Well I am pleased to say the pompiers (Firemen) were not needed and the turkey au vin tasted delicious. Whether I'll ever make it again is another matter although Simon wants me to so he can get a photo!

La Galette des Rois

Posted by Rosie

On Sunday we went up to the village hall for the annual Galette des Rois, basically an excuse to eat a rather nice but fattening almond pie and drink a glass or two of wine and Calvados. Meaning King Pie, the Galette was traditionally eaten on Epiphany or Twelth Night to celebrate the arrival of the Kings to Jesus' stable but is now more often eaten throughout January. Families, or like us, villagers, gather to eat the Galette and see who will be lucky enough to win the little token or feve hidden within. Who-ever gets the feve wins a crown and becomes King or Queen for the day. Originally the feve was a bean (feve is the french for broad bean) but as the winner was expexted to buy everyone a round o fdrinks, people took to swallowing the bean so in the 19 century the bean was replaced by a small ceramic figure.

The boys had already eaten 2 Galettes before Sunday, at a friend's house and at school. On both occassions Tom had won the feve but Ben had been unlucky. Tom's luck had run out though on Sunday and it was our neighbout, Mme Milcent who was crowned Queen and wore her crown with pride.

The friends who cooked us a Galette last week also gave me the recipe and I hope to cook my own soon. And just to avoid a confusion, you will also see Galette on the menu at Creperies as a Galette then, is a rather delicious thin savoury pancake. They are equally nice and proably a lot less fattening!

Two Babies? Not Me!

Posted by Simon

Yesterday, after finding we were the proud owners of two lambs, we soon realised the mum did not appreciate that she had given birth to two lambs and number two was getting ignored. Rosie and I managed to get it to suckle once but mum was not impressed. So we penned her in with both lambs.

This worked to some extent but in the main number 2 was on the way to be rejected. We had to hold mum whilst the little fellow fed, but mum would try anything to stop it feeding. So action was needed.

We did some research and asking around and in the main the answer was to get mum to bond with the lamb. Or we could end up bottle feeding or worse the lamb dying. Having penned them in together we found mum was butting this lamb around and even managed to push it out of the pen. At 4 o'clock on a snowy morning sorting this out was not want we wanted to be doing.

One solution, we were told about, is to make a small corner lamb pen within a pen. The two lambs are placed in their small pen next to mum but they cannot get to her. Then the scent of number 1 lamb rubs of number 2 lamb and hopefully fools mum. We then control the feeding, making sure both lambs get a feed.

So after our trip to Caen this morning (see post below - Hassle) we set this pen up and after checking that i) mum had milk and ii) both teats were working we moved mum and lambs over. At 8pm we did the first controlled feed and this went quite well. We had to hold mum but at least she let lamb 2 get some milk. She was a bit confused when she sniffed the lambs but when she was feeding both lambs all went well so we let them feed on their own. But lamb 2 was hungry and wanted to carry on feeding after lamb 1 was full and again mum started butting it.

We felt more positive though after the first controlled feed and this method will hopefully mean mum cares for both her lambs. Well it's off to do the midnight feed soon and I'm sure Rosie volunteered for the 4am one!