Apparently the poor summer, if we understood our neighbouring farmer correctly, is due to there being 13 moon phases this year. I have heard this from another source as well, but cannot find out much on the internet about this. The French seem to be big believers in the Lunar Calendar here and don’t seem that surprised with the weather at the moment.
Anyway for the last few days the weather here has been glorious and according to the forecast is set to continue. So we have continued work in the garden. Rosie has been digging and weeding in her poly tunnel (warm work) and planting crops for autumn and winter food. I have continued tidying up the veg garden and doing a number of other small jobs around the place.
The two ewes seem to be over their ‘dickey tummy’s’ and we have put them back out in the field. Hopefully they will fatten up. They definitely prefer grass to hay and being back with their friends.
This Sunday, in Vire, is an event called Faire Play - a Journée Festive Franco-Britannique. I suppose it is culture exchange showing a mixture of French and British asp
ects of life – for example games such as welly wanging, darts or boule, arts and crafts and specialities from both sides of the water. Last year was the first time this event was held and it was an excellent day out and this year is going to be bigger and better. As one of the themes, this year, is environment – you’ve guessed – Rosie and I will be there. Rosie is doing a selection of Environmental Crafts with children. Natures Rainbows (see photo) is one of the activities which is making rainbow picture with natural materials, e.g. leaves and flower petals.
And me – well I will be showing the French how to hedge lay! With my limited French it should make for an interesting day. So I have been getting together the materials needed for my demonstrations and now working on which photos to use for the display (and translate the descriptions). I am looking forward to the day but I’m apprehensive about the language – but that will make it all the more fun (I hope). We are going to run a hedge laying course, again, next March so maybe we’ll get some volunteers here.
The hedges we laid earlier this year are growing very well. In fact they have proved very effective at keeping the deer out or our vegetables may have taken a bashing. Also the trees (whips) planted to fill the gaps up and the new hedges are coming along nicely, with very few whips needing replacing. This is more than can be said for the beech hedge we planted which needs, near enough, completely replanting. Oh well another job for the list!
Anyway for the last few days the weather here has been glorious and according to the forecast is set to continue. So we have continued work in the garden. Rosie has been digging and weeding in her poly tunnel (warm work) and planting crops for autumn and winter food. I have continued tidying up the veg garden and doing a number of other small jobs around the place.
The two ewes seem to be over their ‘dickey tummy’s’ and we have put them back out in the field. Hopefully they will fatten up. They definitely prefer grass to hay and being back with their friends.
This Sunday, in Vire, is an event called Faire Play - a Journée Festive Franco-Britannique. I suppose it is culture exchange showing a mixture of French and British asp
ects of life – for example games such as welly wanging, darts or boule, arts and crafts and specialities from both sides of the water. Last year was the first time this event was held and it was an excellent day out and this year is going to be bigger and better. As one of the themes, this year, is environment – you’ve guessed – Rosie and I will be there. Rosie is doing a selection of Environmental Crafts with children. Natures Rainbows (see photo) is one of the activities which is making rainbow picture with natural materials, e.g. leaves and flower petals.And me – well I will be showing the French how to hedge lay! With my limited French it should make for an interesting day. So I have been getting together the materials needed for my demonstrations and now working on which photos to use for the display (and translate the descriptions). I am looking forward to the day but I’m apprehensive about the language – but that will make it all the more fun (I hope). We are going to run a hedge laying course, again, next March so maybe we’ll get some volunteers here.
The hedges we laid earlier this year are growing very well. In fact they have proved very effective at keeping the deer out or our vegetables may have taken a bashing. Also the trees (whips) planted to fill the gaps up and the new hedges are coming along nicely, with very few whips needing replacing. This is more than can be said for the beech hedge we planted which needs, near enough, completely replanting. Oh well another job for the list!
The rainbow cards are lovely Rosie and I shall be doing something very similar next week at Forest School....but with scented stuff rather than colours ( Lavender, Mint, Chives etc!)
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