Loose cattle, Sunset and Flowers

This afternoon I went walking along the lane and saw one of my neighbours in his garden raking up leaves. I mentioned to him that his two loose white cattle were in another neighbour's orchard again this morning and had visited the veggie bed with my newly sown onion seeds during the week and left huge footprints in the earth. 

He said he hoped to sell them within eight days and didn't seem unduly worried about them being loose. However, when I walked up the lane to put the animals to bed this evening he was in the field looking at the footprints in the veggie bed and then drove off, presumably looking to see where they had got to now. I hope something happens as I don't want cattle trampling my veggie beds once things start growing. He did say I could put a rope across my wide field entrance to deter them, but that's really inconvenient when I'm driving in and anyway, why should I have to take precautions against his loose beasts? Moan over!

Five days ago the sunset was truly spectacular.  I was on my way back from shopping and had to drive past the end of my lane to park with an open view.  I just love these winter sunsets, the colours are so intense.

On Thursday, a good friend came for a chat in the afternoon and she brought me flowers.  This is a photograph of  one of the sprays in my vase. 

I bought myself a begonia when I was coming back from lung specialist on Friday - what a red!

In a previous blog, I talked about a fire which had happened on Boxing Day night, and how badly damaged the house was.  By chance yesterday, I passed by the house concerned.  How lucky the owner was to be rescued by the pompiers, but what a terrible thing to happen in the early hours of the morning.

When I got home there was an email asking me to drinks with neighbours which was a nice surprise.  There were just five of us and it was a good evening catching up with each other's news and for me learning some more about the area around my village.

The weather has been so mild this winter and the birds haven't stripped the berries of the holly in my garden or on this tree in the lane.  I even have a rose in bud in the garden.

Petrol on the lane yesterday and moss on slates along the verge outside my immediate neighbour's abandoned house.

Here's a peek through my driveway window as I arrived back home after putting the animals safely away for the night.

I received my blood test results in the post last week and my parathormone levels are almost twice the maximum normal range and rising in spite of my calcium being within the normal range. This is worrying to both me and my doctor who I saw to discuss the results and who contacted my consultant endocrinologist to see if I could have an earlier appointment than the 21 February one I had with her. It seems that the most likely reason is that there is another tumour on one of the other remaining parathyroid glands.  I had a tumour and gland removed in June last year.  Almost more worrying is the bony growth which is evident on the right clavicle, directly under the original parathyroidectomy scar.  Unfortunately, my previous surgeon has now retired so I shall have to have a different surgeon if surgery is necessary.  The endocrinologist has brought forward my appointment to tomorrow, so I shall see her then and presumably then have to go for more tests.  I'm trying to think good thoughts, but am rather worried.

Three things I like:

1.   Beautiful winter sunsets.

2.   Having a long and happy 'phone conversation with my daughter today.

3.  Only two weeks before she, her lovely partner and my grandson arrive in Brittany.  

Frost, my new Legbars and my afternoon walk

The weather has certainly changed since I last blogged.  We have now had three clear, frosty nights and the duck pond was lightly frozen over this morning.  All the water containers had thick ice which had to be broken for the animals and poultry to drink.

Sun rising on the lane as I walked back home today at 09.15am - my feet were cold.  My head was wrapped up in a fleece thing which can go over your head or round your neck - because my ears get so cold, I wear it over my head - it's not a fashion statement!

Here is the lane at 16.30pm when I walked back this afternoon.

My new trio of Cream Legbars are now settled in a run with an adjacent house.  The cockerel couldn't fit into the integral house, so another one, with a larger pophole, had to be adapted and attached to the side of the run.   He's very shy and I couldn't get near enough to eliminate the wire of the run without him hiding in his new house.

I'm hoping that when they come into lay the girls will provide me with either eggs to incubate or chicks - fingers crossed.  These are two photographs I took on the way to Mur de Bretagne late Saturday morning on my journey to get the trio.

It was so lovely this afternoon that I walked down the lane towards the bridge, but stopped and turned round at the horses because Jean-Louis drove up and started chatting.

The horses are used for endurance races throughout France and they are very successful often being placed in the top three.

The first photo is back sunlit moss on a boulder along the lane and the second one is looking up a tree into the beautiful blue sky of this afternoon.

I am only 5ft 3ins tall, if I stretch my neck a little, but in the late afternoon my shadow takes up over 25ft of ground!   It makes a change to want to see it in a photograph, usually I am having to move around so my shadow doesn't become part of it.   While I was in the poultry area I snapped my lone Muscovy duck, who's rather lovely I think.

This is a snail with its casts in the flowerbed on the driveway which was cleared on Friday.  Purrdy has found a worm and isn't sure what to do with it.

                   

You'll need to click on the photo of Purrdy to see the worm!

It's cold again this evening.  I've collected two eggs and locked all the animals away safely, although the rabbits gave me a run for my money this evening, not wanting to go inside at all - they only just missed being left out for the fox.

Three things I like:

1.   Sitting in front of the woodburner with a bowl of black olives and radishes.

2.   Looking at my new weather station monitor and noting that the temperature outside is 21 degrees centigrade less than it is inside!

3.   Nodding off unexpectedly in the middle of a pre-recorded programme, so you just have to rewind and everything's ok again. 

Veggie beds, Cow and Cockerels

Yesterday morning my worker cleared and composted the two long veggie beds outside the barn. There were still loads of carrots and beets in there which will now be stored in the garage until I cook them. 

The compost in the second bin in from the entrance to the field had lovely friable goodness in it and Andy forked that through the existing earth in the beds.  I then sowed onion seeds in two and a half rows.  They were old seed, so may not germinate, but fingers crossed.  He then finished putting stones on the entrance through to the field to make life easier coming and going when it's muddy.

The runner bean bed was due for sorting out too.  He had to dig out the earth and fork in the hen shed floor straw and hen manure into the trenches before filling the earth back on top.  The runner beans this year should have a very good time with all this goodness at their roots.

The polytunnel looks so good now it's cleared and absolutely ready for sowing and planting.  The animal feed sacks are being stored in there at the moment, but I can work round those.

I sowed seeds of lettuce and radish in the polytunnel, which worked according to the biodynamic cycle of planting with phases of the moon and stars, as today was a roots and shoots (leaves) day.  Today is fruits and shoots, so I've sown yellow tomato and sweet pepper seeds in half trays.   It's so lovely starting the new cycle of growing again.

When I drove down the lane later in the afternoon to the supermarket and doctor I saw this lovely cow in a neighbour's field - she looks just as if she has eye make up on!

I received some more seeds in the post today, so have to sit down and sort them all into he order that they will need sowing outside or in the polytunnel.   I have found quite a lot of out of date seeds in the back of the cupboard in the garage, so will plant those too, and it will be a bonus if they germinate and give me some produce. 

Lunch was homemade soup with home grown veggies - butternut squash, carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic and my own chicken stock.  I added some pili pili to give it a bit of a spiced up taste - lovely!

Three eggs yesterday from my four laying hens and two more this evening - good news for the midwinter months.  I am managing to eat eggs now, only when hard-boiled and with Hellman's mayo, but that's a start and should bring my protein levels up again.  This evening I had them with lettuce, three large, shelled prawns, celeriac remoulade and one boiled potato sliced very thinly and deep fried in a very small milk pan - and it tasted good.  It seems to be the only carbohydrate I can eat at the moment - can't get on with pasta, rice is not too bad, potatoes dauphinoise are out unless I take some lactase capsules before because of the lactose, although they are my favourite.  Fried or roast are best for me, I only eat a one at a time anyway so the fattening aspect of the cooking doesn't really matter much.  Things are definitely getting better though and my range of foods is increasing week by week.

Here are my two cockerels.  The bantam is on the machine and the real cockerel on the ground.  I hope they will be ok with a new cockerel coming this weekend.  He is part of a trio of Cream Legbars, so I am hoping for blue eggs again.

Andy should be here again tomorrow sorting out the electric motor for the garage door.  I am so short I can't push it up all the way manually so have invested in technology.  While he's around I'll clear the beds around the terrace and the driveway and he will be able to barrow the weeds and spent plants up to the compost heaps.

Three things I like:

1.   Getting nice surprises in my postbox.
2.   Hearing  that my blood pressure is now good enough to let me come off my medication.
3.   Getting a Skype call from my friends in Tobago this afternoon.

Sunday's Walk and this Evening's Sunset

As I was clearing some leaves on the driveway I came across a primrose which had been flowering secretly.  The marigolds there have flowered continuously since they bloomed in the summer.  This unseasonably warm weather is having such a bizarre effect on plants.

I walked all the way down to the bridge at the end of the village after feeding the animals this morning.  On the way I met my neighbour driving back from fetching a newspaper and a baguette from Lanrivain and three walkers who were walking from St Nicolas du Pelem, which via this end of the village must be 4-5 miles and it was only 9.20am. 

The lane ends in a very sharp, steep hill and I walked off it into a friend's garden and took some photos of their lake before walking across a very small bridge which I'd never noticed before.  

Coming from the end of their bridge back round to the road bridge there is a little abandoned house up on the bank.  The road bridge goes over the mill stream which was full today and running fast.

There is a post with signs on which I photographed, but I have no idea what the measurements mean.

The sharp incline coming back was hard work.  Even the Peugeot has trouble getting up and I certainly did.  I zigzagged back and across the road to lessen the slope.  In one of the fields on the left of the lane was a hunter shouting at his dogs.  They must have been rabbitting as he was sending them into the undergrowth.  As I walked round the corner of my field I heard him shoot, just the once, so I guess he got his lunch sorted.  It's a national pastime here and there are chasseurs - hunters - with their dogs everywhere at the weekends and vans parked on all the corners in the lanes.

There was another fungi I haven't noticed before and the lovely yellow gorse everywhere, just like it is in Cornwall.  In fact, I think of Brittany as French Cornwall. 

Here Jean-Luc, a farmer from over the bridge, is just passing the entrance to my field with his tractor and bowser. 

I hadn't seen him for about eighteen months and I've seen him twice in one week. He commented on my weight loss and said he'd heard that I'd been in hospital. The jungle drums work well round here. 

A lot of timber has been cut down recently and is stacked at the roadside.

The large lumps discarded on the verges have metal tags attached to them, as in the second photo above, and I wonder why this is? 

This morning Andy came with two tons of stone and made paths everywhere for me to walk on so that I don't slip on the mud.  Here he is beginning to dump the stone and the birds are very interested in it - they can never resist inspecting anything new!

Tonight the sky was amazing during sunset and I drove out to get an open sky to take this, and many other, photographs.

Three things I like:

1.   Enjoying walking as I haven't done for years and years.
2.   Discovering a garden hand fork lost for months under the nasturtians.
3.   Being able to walk on the new paths my worker made this morning.