Agriculture

The Mayenne being a major agricultural area, we have agricultural shows, and last Saturday the Harmonie was invited to play a traditional rôle and serenade the cows and visitors at the show. The day was hot, the music just fine, and we got free drinks after. All to the good.




















In the afternoon, we combined three Harmonies and played in the grounds of the castle at St Suzanne, as part of a "Planète en fête" celebration, which seems to be a show of eco-friendly technology (windmills, solar panels, etc) and bio food. And locally brewed beer. And an excuse for a drink. There being three Harmonies present, we played nine pieces in all, three chosen by each band. That meant that for every piece there were about 1/3 of the players who were well familiar with it, which always helps.

This is a neat scheme for watering a tree. My friend Leo gave me this fine Copper Beech tree last year, and it suffered a bit in the drought, being a way away from the house and out of reach of hose pipes. There is a limit to how much water you can carry in cans. I hit on the idea of taking water in the trailer, and was thinking of waterproofing it with a scrounged bit of pool liner (the pool installer being obliging). It was the wife's idea to fill the three dustbins that I use in Winter to store the Dahlia tubers, and so I did, putting the lids on to reduce spillage, and took them over using the mower as a tractor. A bit of hose for a siphon, and it all seems to work. 160 litres for the tree, 80 litres for the pumpkins.