Saturday 5th June in the Pyrenees-FRANCE- We are all sitting down and chatting, 13 of us around this table, waiting for Pierre. This morning the last few kilometres before Porta in the Orient Natural Park, offered us spectacular views of dark green wooded mountains and deep misty valleys. Some of us came from far like …
It has rained all night and there is plenty of picking for the hens: worms on the ground everywhere. I have never seen such a sight. It’s like mushrooms in the forest, you see them or you don’t. Bibi and Didier were brilliant with those. They used to bring back boxful of ceps and all. …
Our builder has lost his daughter in a car crash at 6am, just down the road from here. She was a kid, a young woman in her twenties….The bloke we buy the chicken grain from told me yesterday. We are a small community where everyone knows everyone and news travel fast. Gerard was going to …
This morning as I was feeding the ewes Cinders came into the shed looking for something and not finding it, went back out and disappeared fast….Of course, silly me, she was simply ready to lay her egg. Then I heard such a strange noise coming from the coop and opening their coop-door gently so as …
March 30th- The girls have been here one week. They have settled and one little one, the smallest one, is giving us an egg every day. The others are busy with other things. They have not been using the ladder to come out in the morning, they have been flying down. The egg layer goes …
A beautiful and full day here today! Getting into the garden in the orchard and weeding the strawberry beds in sandals felt good. A lot needs doing but time is on my side, there is no need to panic. I have been so busy with everything to do with the hens and now they are …
(from the 22nd march) Am I broody or something? My hormones are playing havoc with me….The coming of this little ones is filling me with joy. Last week Pierre was telling me: “don’t worry; sooner or later the fox will get them”. I don’t want to believe him. I have worked so hard to make …
( from the 3rd March) My chicken pen is nearly ready. Only a few bits and bobs left to do to protect them from the fox and the pine marten. I met the pine marten by the pond one evening at dusk. Jean-Cri has asked me to record our tree frogs so that he could …
Dearest child, When you’ll come into this world you’ll be thousands of miles north from where I want to take you, in a land where I was born, and where my mother and my mother’s mother and her mother’s mother were born. Over 2300 years ago this beautiful land was called Numedia. Berber tribes and …
Now is the time for pruning in the orchard. My mum used to love the pruning time back at the farm. With her dog and her radio it was her own time away from the house and away from worry. Us kids were at school, beds were done, downstairs swept, lunch was on the stove …
