I Can Fly

Yes don't children just think they can do *anything*? And here is Sammy, true to form, thinking he can fly. He can roll, and he can sit up but flying might take a little longer to master me thinks. He's learning.

And, as it goes in home-educating, this attempt at flight brought our family discussion round to Icarus. This led to a small geography 'lesson' (about the Icarian sea), a small biology 'lesson' (about which birds would have feathers big enough), a small science 'lesson' about the properties of wax, then a small science 'lesson' about the sun, and that led onto a BIG discussion about the solar system and lots of artworks being created by the boys to show all the planets. Then them raking out a gift they had been given last Christmas called 'A Moon in My Room' and they couldn't wait for bedtime to see it working properly. Rowan was all triumphant because he already knew about the term gibbous moon (having picked up on it when he was just turned 3!) And so ended another day of home-schooling.

Preserve Me

We have had a fabulous harvest of peaches - white fleshed ones that I didn't know existed until we bit into them. Every bit as gorgeous as 'peachy' coloured peaches, and tasting like honey when picked straight off the tree warmed by the sun. Now my family may well scoff at this knowing that I *didn't* like stoned fruit - seemed like a faff to me to nibble round stones or have them in your mouth just to spit them out after masticating all the flesh off them, so I haven't tried them since I was young - but now I'm old and since we're growing it, it's free food and I can't see it all go to waste so I've given it another go. Mmmmmm is all I can say. Cherries, plums, mirabelles, peaches and nectarines so far.

Some days I feel as though I'm in a jam and chutney making factory but I'm determined that we'll preserve all of this harvest for the winter months. Brilliant info HERE about all sorts of preserving. Next week I'm going to visit a neighbour and she's going to show me how she uses one of those big sterilising units to bottle fruit and veg. That's what I like about rural France - there are still lots of traditional skills used. I just have to find the folk that can show me how.

These sterilising units are on special at our local hardware store at the moment and, apparently when you're not using them to bottle your fruit and veg, you can use them to make yoghurt. I'm thinking of trying this too because it is very difficult here to buy yoghurt that is sans morceaux (without bits of fruit) and Rowan doesn't like the 'bits' ones but loves yoghurt. The trouble is that the only ones sans morceaux are loaded with sugar. I figure if I make our own then we can adjust it to suit us. I do kind of feel that I'm following in my mother's footsteps here as I do remember her making yoghurt when I was a child but I'm afraid that the memories of the yoghurt itself are not good ones - rather sour I seem to remember though I couldn't have told you that as a child, just that they weren't 'right'. Well we'll give it a go. We're contemplating getting some goats a) to eat the brambles and b) to milk. More on that I'm sure at a later date as I still have a lot to find out.

Roll Me Over In The Clover

Or rather, don't because there are SO MANY bees collecting pollen from it. The grass per se has not grown hardly atall in the last few weeks due to scant rainfall, indeed the last cut was 16 June, but the clover has flourished. Now we can't bear to cut the clover as it's such a rich food source for so many creatures. But the buzzing of bees has resurected my desire to keep a beehive so I'll need to think some more on that one. When the grass finally does start growing again we're going to try to follow the tips in this article "Organic Lawncare for the Cheap and Lazy"

Containing the Hoodlums

Hoodlums? That's the geese. Up until now they have been allowed to roam around this top area of garden and we have delighted in watching their antics but recently these antics have become more scary. As they have grown and their confidence increased, they have been exploring more and more all things NOT grass. Like plastic strands of landscaping fabric, like nibbling the number plates off the Bongo, like eating all the boys plasticine, like chewing the tops off of storage pots. You get the idea. So we've spent the last two days putting up a fence around the orchard (that was Ben) and making some woven willow gates (I did that with Rowan and Brodie) to keep them in the orchard. The fence is rather ingeniously held upright with string tied to various trees around the perimeter. You may think that that's a bit half-arsed but it actually works quite well as we can still move it to give the inevitable weeds a good grubbing out occassionally. Plus the ground is absolutely rock hard at the moment due to scant precipitation so getting posts in is a no-go without getting in mechanical diggers. The photo shows the Girlz looking very dejected 'behind bars'.

Nature's Bounty

A good part of the orchard has actually survived the fire and we are now eagerly awaiting our fruit (strawberries already well underway though they don’t make it to my jam pot as the boys sit up there all day munching them). We have plums, cherries, apples, pears, quinces, walnuts and peaches. Not quite as many as I might have liked due to some little folk deciding that the peaches made great ‘missiles’, better than the potatoes that they’d pulled up earlier!!!!! Grrrrrrr.

Visitors

Le Mans was buzzing with excitement on Wednesday as the 24 Hour starts tomorrow and the place is just coming down with visitors, mostly Brits in very fine cars. We of course know that the Bongo is indeed the finest car that one can own and were proud to be seen in it amongst all the Aston Martins, Porsches, Audis, Mercs, TVRs , BMWs etc. Actually, since saying that we sadly have to part with her (and we still do and are looking for a suitable replacement) we have had lots of offers from folk who will happily give her a loving new home.

June is a very busy month here at LPM with folk staying in every week. Made all the more busy by some friends from the UK just appearing on Wednesday evening (as Ben was about to change into his swimmers to go rescue the geese) and hoping to stay overnight with us!!! They had been saying that they *might* come over but that they would confirm exactly when at a later date. Well, I guess the ‘confirm’ bit happened as they drove through the gates!!! Still, it was fine and Ben helped them get their Blackberry phone/gadget thing working in return for them helping him to fix the rails for the doors of the solar tunnel. Worked quite well actually.

Feathered Friends

We have yet more additions to the family. We got some more hens. We now have 5 ‘normal’ ones (ie not bald necked) and they go by the names of Neige (a white one), Feu (a black one with orange flecks on her), Grace (a black one), Mrs Brown (a brown one – you’d never have guessed that one eh?) and Smokey Jo (a grey one). Their fortress is hopefully now very fox proof so fingers crossed as these ones are very friendly and the boys love them. They are totally free-range – so much so that they even try to venture into the house, the besoms. Calyx sorts them out though at that point so we have a seemingly endless flutter and squawk at the front door. The first day of being out of their pen, supposedly hen-tractoring the potager, they escaped into the main garden as we haven’t clipped their wings. And I’ve not laughed so much in ages when we tried to catch them to get them back to their ‘safe’ place. I say we, it was more Ben and Rowan, but the chooks were definitely not up for it and it was hilarious to watch Ben stalking one, go diving into a bush to get it only to have it happily zip out the other side laughing at him. Needless to say, all were safely shepherded back to their pen and are now, 6 weeks on, very tame. Three out of the five are now laying every day – well it might be 4 out of 5 as Mrs Brown has the right signs to be laying (red, long comb not pink and short) but she’s perhaps found an ‘away’ place to hide her eggs. Not easy to track down in this place! We found Neige’s stash in the tractor barn in an old pile of dry grass – 9 eggs! We all had omelettes for lunch that day. Yesterday Grace laid her first ‘egg’ but it had a really weird soft papery shell – apparently quite normal.

And we also have some organic lawnmowers by way of 3 geese. Actually they are goslings and just 7 weeks old at the mo (got them at 5 weeks old). Very entertaining. They are Dirty Gertie, Filthy Phillippa, and Minky Mel. They are supposed to be keeping the grass down in the orchard and actually are really brilliant at it even at this age. That is, really brilliant if they would stay in the orchard. Not their fault as Ben reckoned that a ditch and some very long grass would be sufficient deterrent to keep them up there but no. They came waddling down the drive on day 4 pooping everywhere (they do LOTS of poop). So we herded them back with them squeaking in protest and put up a little barrier. We went to Le Mans on Wednesday and when we returned they were out again and swimming in the pond, laughing. We thought that Ben was going to have to wade in in his bathing costume but just as he was about to effect the change of clothing, they waddled out and back to their bunks. So once again, the animals rule the humans here.