Self-service beer

Self-service beer is a new idea to me, I must try it out.  And don't you just love the name of the bar?

Stumped

I have removed a few trees from the garden over the years, and as a result I have some stumps scattered about.  They lurk in the grass, and the longer the grass the more they lurk.  This can be a problem for the mower.  I more or less know where they are, and if I am alert, I can lift the mower blades as I approach, and no harm is done.  Sometimes however, I'm not alert, I'm drifting off into daydreams, and forget to compensate for the stumps.  This can result in a noise like a lawn mower imitating a chain saw, a sudden jolting stop, or the need to repair the mower before I can carry on cutting the lawn.

I saw a product in the garden centre the other day, that promised effective stump removal.  You drill holes in the stump, pour in this chemical, drench the ensemble with paraffin, and set fire to it all.  The stumps are then supposed to turn to ashes over the next couple of days.   Since I want to remove the stumps and also enjoy setting fire to things, there was nothing not to like.  Did it work?  Judge for yourself.  These pics show two different stumps after the treatment.

The second one is a bit better cooked that the first one that is hardly touched but it was sell rotted beforehand.   They still represent a hazard to dreamy mowers.  If I was a politician I could call it a partial success.   I suppose the torrential thunderstorm didn't help.

Bak to werk

It's la rentrée time in France.  The August holidays are over, and people are going back to work or back to school.  The event happens every year but the back-to-school aspect of it still gets wide news coverage, with a good five to ten minues devoted every evening for a week, on what needs to be bought, how much it will cost, and the implications.   It seems to be bigger than the real new year on Jan 1st in its significance to French life.

It's also the time for car boots sales, vide greniers.  We're quite lucky in that there are four that we could go to, all in a straight line journey.  We went to two of them; the one in Laval and the one in the smaller town of Argentré that is on the way to Laval.   We had some small difficulty in confirming beforehand that the Laval one was in fact taking place, but it always happens at the same time as the other three, and "everyone knows this".  It's normally the biggest one around.

I was on the lookout for a used hose reel (didn't find one), but it's always good to nose around.  I bought a few CDs (25 cents each, you can't argue) and a length of plastic tube that I have a use for in the veg patch.

The Laval one was poorly attended; not many stands and few buyers.  It was covered in the local paper the day after and everyone agreed that it was way below expectations.  Next year we are promised more publicity together with bouncy castles to attract a bigger audience.

Argentré by contrast was hopping, so Laval's poor showing wasn't anything to do with any fundamental changes in outlook for consumerism in France.  We shall see what happens next year.

BBC wildlife attempt No 3

The special characteristic of my new camera is its zoom capability; 84 times optical, or to 2,000mm equivalent for a 35mm camera.   It's certainly more than I can hold steady in my hand - to use that sort of magnification needs a tripod or some other physical stabiliser.  But it means that I have a fighting chance of being able to photograph some wildlife without having to get so close I scare it away.  Assuming that I spot it in the first place, of course.

This bird looks like a cormorant to me, and it was drying its wings on the Mayenne river near Laval the other day.  The wingtips are a bit blurry because it was flapping them about.  Unforgivable in a bird, I know, but there you have it.

Festival de la viande

The Evron harmonie played at the opening of the Meat Festival at Evron this weekend, as we usually do.  Notable were the big concrete blocks scattered around as defence against terrorist attacks.  Some had lumps on the tops like giant Leggo bricks, rendering them useless for sitting on, but others had flat tops where you could put music bags and instrument cases.

The machinery at the event was impressive as ever; the tractor here is at least the height of two men.  And the bunnies and ducks were present alongside the cows and sheep.  I didn't notice any pigs, but I'm sure they were there.

There were also numerous stands for energy management products; wood-burning stoves, solar panels (significantly cheaper now than a few years ago), boilers and so on.  This is becoming increasingly important to farmers.

Quite a lot of farms have good lengths of hedgerows surrounding their fields, and the management of these results in big heaps of wood suitable for burning.  You can either burn the logs as they are, or shred the wood into little chips for feeding automatically into a boiler.  In any case, the winter heating is free, or very nearly so.

The vegetable year

This year has been good in terms of veg crops; my best yet, but that's probably because I'm still very much a beginner, therefore still improving.   My time has been limited both by customers in the gîte and by a big DIY project to renovate our main bedroom in the house, but even so I'm pleased overall.

My first observation is that the new raised beds have worked very well.  They delineate a growing area together with an access path to it, and filling the bed with compost mixed in with the pre-existing soil means that the earth is easier to work and weed.  I will install two more this Winter.  The wood for the next one is ready as soon as the waterproofing dries; the second one will have to wait a bit.

I also installed an automatic watering system that pumps well water into little nozzles spaced evenly along a hosepipe that runs along alongside the plants.   This seems to work well and is economical with the water too.  It works best on the raised beds, which is another incentive to install more of them.

I have put a lot of effort into the compost heap as well.  The shambling mound of detritus is nearly all gone, and in its place are three compost heap compartments.  The compost in the first bay is ready to go, and will go into the new raised bed.

Now for the plants.  Carrots are interspersed with onions and weeds in a raised bed in this pic.  Apparently, onions ward off carrot fly and carrots ward off onion fly. Or something.  The Onions are the worst crop this year; I bought a pack of about 1,000 seeds and have five onions, two of which are small.  They are the variety Walla Walla, very sweet, excellent with salads.  I will have another go next year.  The carrots are a mixture of different varieties.  The red ones are especially sweet and I will go for those exclusively next year.   I am pulling them as and when they are needed.

I grew runner beans this year for the first time.  Apparently they are thirsty plants, a fact that I didn't take into account.  None the less I got a good crop.  The variety is called "Lady Di", chosen without reference to the recent anniversary, but in the hope that they would live up to the hype on the packet: "Heavy crops of tender, delicious, dark green, 12 inch long pods".  They did not disappoint.

I wonder if she was ever bemused.  "When I was a kid, I never imagined I'd have a runner bean variety named after me".

Note: when making a runner bean support, make sure you can reach up to the top of it.

Around the back of the gîte is a new bed.  Since it was large and empty I decided to try it out as a squash / pumpkin patch.  I was a bit doubtful about it, since it doesn't get a huge amount of sun.  The plants seem to have grown well enough, and I have acorn squash, pumpkins and a huge grey thing that I will have to look up again, but I think it's a pumpkin.  They're not quite ripe yet, but we have six weeks to go at least before the first frosts.

We got a huge glut of courgettes this year, but that's because I planted four plants instead of just the usual one.  Tomatoes also were prolific.  This year's most successful variety was Rio Grande; I got tens of kilos of nice red, nearly cylindrical tomatoes with a nice flavour.  I will grow them again.  The Italian plum variety San Marzano did less well, but they really need a greenhouse, and I don't have one.  The pic shows the San Marzano - the Rio Grande are all finished, you can see some of the ones that didn't make it on the ground behind the plant.

As for the brassicas, it looks like I will have a few cabbages this year, and the purple sprouting broccoli should be plentiful in the Spring.

Oh yes, I got some spuds too; they seem to like it here, and I got a decent crop, more than we can eat, so they're being inflicted on the gîte guests until they run out.

First photos

I visited a FNAC in Le Mans yesterday.  It's a fatal thing to do - they sell lots of fabulous toys; PCs, televisions, drones, CDs and books, plus a camera that I have had my eye on, a Nicon P900, on special offer.  I took it out today to try it out.   Here's some pics.