la Ferme de la Baie

Last month we started taking Frodo for walks in a local forest.  On hot days it’s lovely and cool and when it’s wet it somehow seems dryer under the trees.

We visited a few times and spotted a trail that was signed as 5.5km.  Sounded like the perfect walk for the dog.  The first time we walked it we left confidently with neither map nor watch.  After what seemed like a very long time, when all the trees had disappeared we found someone to ask where we were… about 1 hour outside the forest.

We got back to the car eventually.. and it had taken us 3.5 hours so we definitely hadn’t found the route.  Frodo was very concerned that we had missed his dinner slot.

Next time we took a map and it was easy!  Now Frodo knows the way and sometimes remembers to stop and wait for us.  The last time he had run ahead and then we heard a splash – his first time in the lake without being thrown a stick first.

The ducks are nearly grown up.  Some of them are bigger than mum and all of them enjoy flying lessons.  Yesterday one of them managed to fly over the garden fence.  Frodo was very interested in his new friend, who hot-footed it overland to get back home.  Obviously not experienced enough to be able to turn the flying on when needed.

I cut Big Red’s toe nails yesterday.  That was after Henry had lassooed him and turned him onto his rump (the ram’s rump that is).  No mean feat with Big Red – he’s a big ram.  I’ve not done this before, so it was a little disconcerting especially when the ram decided to wriggle.  Fortunately he didn’t escape and his toe nails look much neater.   He didn’t seem to bothered after the event and just wandered back to the rest of the flock.

Word has got round about our boy, and a neighbour recently asked if she could borrow him to tup her ewes too.  He’s going to have fun this autumn.

The ducks are great fun and now huge.  No up-to-date photos, but I have attached the latest from a couple of weeks ago.

Mum is still keeping an eye on them all, and when she heads off they all follow in a long crocodile line.  They sometimes get a bit tired trying to keep up and just sit down for a moment to catch their breath and rest their legs.  Last week they had a flying lesson, when mum ran and flapped her wings and the ducks ran behind her flapping too.  Noone left the ground, but it’s good exercise.

It was at the end of June, so writing about it now is a bit late… but we have some regular visitors who happen to be Swedish.  This year they chose to celebrate their Midsummer holiday on the farm.  Midsummer holiday is at the end of June.  We were invited to midsummer lunch.  Lunch was mostly herring, and in more flavours than I thought possible.  The children had meatballs, and we got to try those too.  All was washed down with some Swedish Schnapps.  After lunch we danced around the traditionally decorated pole and sang in Swedish!  Henry and I mostly just danced, but with the help of a phoenetic translation, did sing about the little frogs.

It was great to share in another country’s traditions, if a little weird that they were Swedish traditions being celebrated in France with we English.  So thank you Maria and Charlotte for the invitation to share, and to both families for such an enjoyable afternoon.

We planted an apricot tree in front of our cottage ‘Abricot’ in 2007 and this year the crop has been amazing, not least because we were told we wouldn’t get fruit!  Suddenly the apricots seem more precious than if we had just bought them in a supermarket.

Other fruits are abundant too.  Our raspberries seem to have been begging to be picked for weeks, the redcurrants dripped off the tree and the red gooseberries look tantalisingly tasty, but give a nasty stab when being picked.  Frodo has got gooseberry picking off to a fine art, gently easing in to pluck the fruit without getting speared by the spines.  Unfortunately, if he is fruit picking, nothing ends up in the basket.

I planted a lot of sunflowers this year, and the display is gorgeous.  The bright yellow flower heads seem to capture the sun’s rays and magnify them.

As for the ducks, all is well and the detail will be in another post.

.

Jemima has been a star.  She sat for a month on a clutch of 12 eggs and now has 12 tiny balls of fluff to look after.  They are so cute, but will not be named.  We are concerned for their safety as we have a lot of natural predators around here, including martins and foxes.  The only consolation is that if the ducklings don’t make it to adulthood we should at least get some stunning photos of birds of prey.

For now, it’s the adorable photos of baby ducklings instead.

Well, I have achieved something apparently impossible.  My blogging since February has disappeared and I now have to start again.  The benefit is that I reduce the risk of repeating myself for a bit longer.  I have decided to reshare some of the photos to date but the stories are gone.  Since my animals have a habit of repeating themselves I’m sure some of the stories will come back.