Accordeons at Picherande

I'm just back from a week's course in accordeon playing in the little village of Picherande in the Puy-de-Dôme département in the Auvergne region of France.   A great time with players of all abilities from beginner to a sexagenarian who has been playing since he was six.

The main tourist activities in the area seem to be skiing (in Winter) and hiking in Summer.   I was able to take some pleasant walks along the local farm tracks.   The fields are left to be grazed by the cows, or cropped for hay or for silage for winter feed.   You could tell the presence of cows even when out of sight, from the sounds of their bells.   Though one farmer has gone modern and has (silent) GPS tags on his cows.   Seems to lose something of the romance, somehow.

I was struck by the proliferation of wild flowers by the roadside.   Perhaps it has something to do with the method of farming, but it seemed to me that there were more, and more varieties of, naturalised wild flowers.   Maybe I should look into herb lore....

I saw no grains being grown; no maize, wheat, oats, etc just fields of pasture and grazing cows.Water seems to be carfully managed there.   Ditches beside the roads were deep and wide, often with rivulets at the bottom.  Bowsers of water for the cows were freely distributed about the landscape.   The edge of the garden uphill from the gîte had a ditch along its length to take the descending water away.