Thurs 11th
This week has seen the arrival of our two new goats. They are called Mama and Princess; both female and mother and daughter. They are very tame although a little timid. My only experience of goats was being butted by my uncle’s goat when I was a child, at which point I took an immediate dislike to them! However, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment, and so far they have given me no reason to suspect them. The mother is apparently still giving milk, although the daughter has long since stopped feeding. We have tried to have a go, but she is very wary of us going anywhere near her udders and we don’t want to frighten her. The previous owner told us that the last time he milked her was two weeks ago. If anyone knows how long it takes for a goat’s milk to dry up then I would appreciate a comment, because I don’t know if it still worth trying to milk her!

We have started reading Anne Frank, which I get the feeling the boys are finding boring. It can’t be as bad as Robinson Crusoe! I can remember reading Anne Frank as a child although I don’t remember whether I enjoyed it or not. We’ll persevere. I think it’s one of these books in which the impact is from what is left unsaid rather than what is said and also in the reflection of Anne’s fate afterwards.

Formal lessons have again gone by-the- by this week. We just don’t seem to have time for them! Admittedly the children have worked on their French and maths, but alone because Grandma has left them a lot of ‘homework’ whilst she is in England.

A very French affair!

Saturday 6th
Today we attended our first French wedding. Our friends Stephanie and Laurant had decided to get married and Stephanie had asked me to be her witness. I felt very honoured; I have never been anything special at a wedding before – except the bride of course! As this was the only French wedding I have attended, I can’t tell if it was typical or not, but it was hugely different from any wedding I have attended in England. For a start, there was no pomp and ceremony. The bride wore a simple, woollen, short, red dress and black boots, and the groom an everyday pair of trousers and shirt, but accompanied with a very bright red and white jacket : a testament to his zany character. The ceremony itself was held in the Mairie (the town hall) and was performed by Monsieur le Maire himself. It commenced with the playing of an old, crackling version of “Here comes the Bride”, to which our lively friends danced around the room to the cheers and delight of the guests. Then, the very brief formalities were spoken, the signatures were made and it was all over. Back at the bride and groom’s house the celebrations continued in this informal style. Drinks and canapés provided by the parents were followed by a delicious main course of ham and potatoes brought in by the local butcher; followed by a cheese course and then deserts which I had offered to make. I had prepared pears in red wine served with crème fraiche and flapjack, then a traditional (English) fruitcake, iced and decorated with flowers to have with the coffee. It all went down very well and our dear friends were very happy. After we had eaten, the groom’s brother, a marvelous singer, sand us two, ancient (medieval I think) French love songs, the father of the groom sang a wedding song, and Francis and James played some Irish and Scottish jigs on their guitar and mandolin. It was a wedding as weddings should be…all about the couple and those closest to them who wanted to enjoy the day with them and wish them well. England can keep its ‘20 grand’ weddings with its flash outfits, cheesy disco and expensive dinners in posh hotels!

Charcuterie chez nous

4th December
This morning early the farmer returned to do the butchering of the pig. James, Lizzy and I all got up early to watch the proceedings and very interesting it was too. I hadn’t realized there would be so much meat on her as she was such a small wee thing, but by the end of the morning we had about 50 pork chops, about 8 joints of varying sizes, two fillet mignons; which are my favourite for making the little round ‘medallions’ of pork, bacon slices, 12 jars of paté and 76 sausages.

There were lots of other odd bits which I haven’t a clue what to do with…trotters, liver and the like, but for now I have bunged them in the freezer. I suspect the dogs will end up enjoying them. Lizzy took an active interest in all this and helped turn the wheel of the sausage machine and then count the sausages and bag them. She’s really not very squeamish at all…just like her mother. By contrast, the boys didn’t even come downstairs but as usual, stayed at their computer screens. However, they were happy to sample the sausages at lunchtime (which were delicious by the way).

As frequently happens, our formal educating seems to have gone by the wayside – at least, as far as the children are concerned. I, on the other hand, am having a full and varied education in farming matters!

A pig's tale

3 December
After a night of tossing and turning, we awoke properly at about six o’clock this morning. It seems something had been stopping us from having a peaceful night’s sleep and the most likely candidate was the fate of poor ‘Big Face’ the pig this morning.

We came downstairs and made a cup of tea and James confessed that he just didn’t think he could face the thought of sending him for the (pork) chop. I did have to agree that it was an unpleasant thought and so in a dramatic reversal of fate (again!) we decided that the female pig would be our candidate when the farmer arrived this morning. Consequently, at about 10 past 10 this am, the female pig was dispatched and by 11.30 am she was hanging up by her feet in the old hangar. The old farmer was very matter of fact and admitted he had been doing it for 45 years. He was certainly very quick and efficient which was a blessing for us and for the poor old pig! He’s coming back tomorrow to carve the carcass into appropriate joints. She’s not a huge pig, but there will be two reasonable sized hams and he’s going to make us sausages and patés along with all the other obvious cuts. We’re going to pay close attention to the ‘butchering’ as the intention is to do it ourselves next time.

The children kept out of the way, although after it was all over, Thomas and Lizzy did venture out to have a look at the carcass. Lizzy (8) seems the least phased by it all. She wants to watch with us tomorrow to see how the meat is jointed!

I never dreamt that one day we would be processing a pig on our own premises. It’s been quite an experience for us all !

Breton galettes

2nd December

We have some very lovely neighbours – two elderly couples who live in adjoined houses. The ladies are sisters and were born in the house nearly 80 odd years ago when it stood as one large house belonging to their parents. Standing in the grounds of this house is a small cottage; a partially renovated dwelling with one large room downstairs, which they use when they all want to eat together or if they want to invite guests to eat with them. Today we were all invited to their little cottage for galettes.

For the uninitiated among you, galettes are a savoury, buckwheat flour pancake which is fried on a large flat hotplate and then filled with all manner of delicious things. To finish them off, the galette and its contents are folded into a parcel. We are generally offered a ‘complet’, which consists of egg, cheese and ham, and then finished off with a generous blob of yellow Breton butter. (Now and again we buy readymade galettes from the local shop and make them ourselves, but ours are not a patch on Marie’s, because she makes her galettes from scratch to her own recipe and the filling is added whilst the pancake is still cooking on the hot plate. )

The conversation at these mealtimes ALWAYS gets round to the children’s education and whether they are working hard. I suspect they are slightly worried by the concept of home education, but they are too polite to say so. However, we are so used to the same questions being asked time and time again that we now know how to make the right noises to keep people happy.

As usual (this is a fairly frequent occurrence as our dear neighbours are very sociable), we all ate too much and felt too fat to do much this afternoon.

Ah well, such is life in Brittany!

One door closes and another opens.

30th November
To offset our disappointment at not receiving Ulotte the donkey yesterday, today at church we have been offered two female goats for free! We had been considering getting a couple of goats to start clearing the brambles in the lower field, so it was a welcome offer. They are mother and daughter and although the daughter no longer feeding, the owners have been milking the nanny-goat and so there is the possibility of having the milk and even having a go at making goats cheese (yum yum!). Have I really got time to fit all this in?

After much discussing, arguing and heartfelt consideration, we have finally decided that Big Face the pig is indeed going for slaughter as we originally intended. Tom is fighting our decision and declaring that he won’t eat a mouthful and we are cruel, etc etc, but this is what we originally intended and I’ve decided not to be bullied off the decision. The female needs to grow a little and so she will be kept until the spring. Wednesday is the day that our friendly local farmer is coming to do the deed. Thursday he will do the butchering and we are going to watch very carefully in the hopes that next time we can do that part ourselves. More on that after the event…

Dodgy Donkey Dealings!

29th November
We are in shock!
Today, we were expecting the delivery of the latest edition to our smallholding – Ulotte the donkey. At about half past two we had a phone call from the farmer and his wife who had got as far as the nearest town and were waiting outside the insurance office hoping that James might come and show them the way to our house. James duly went to collect them, and in no time at all we were unloading Ulotte into her new stable which James and Francis had put so much time and love into making. Next came the cup of coffee and the offering of a mince pie, as I had made a fresh batch this afternoon, whilst the papers were filled out to give us ownership of Ulotte. Then came the crunch. “That’ll be 800 euros please, “ said the farmer nervously (and obviously what he actually said was “C’est huit cent euros s’il vous plait.”. We both stood in stunned silence.

Let me explain… We need to go back to the time we first saw Ulotte. We had headed off, one dismal morning in October, to a livestock market in a neighbouring village. We were hoping to pick up some sheep, but when we arrived, it soon became apparent that this was a horse fair as the village square was filled with horses of every size imaginable. We were very taken by the Breton heavy horses which are similar to the English shire horses and used to be used extensively on the farms in days gone by, but we had no intention of buying one. However, James suddenly espied something that he HAD always hankered after; a donkey. He was straight over to stroke ‘Ulotte’ (as it turned out to be) and began to talk with the owner. After a few minutes he asked the price. “Cent euros,” (one hundred euros) replied the farmer. James commented that she was not at all expensive and continued the conversation. “Cent euros? Is that all she is?” he asked again, sure he must have got it wrong. The man assured him that Ulotte was for sale at 100 euros. Beginning to get excited now, James sought me out. (I was over by the miniature ponies which were the only ones I was not scared to get up close to!) I duly followed him to visit Ulotte and her owner and I made him AGAIN check the price. The children were with us and were all witness to the exchange between James and the farmer. The price was again confirmed as 100 euros. Well, who could resist such a dear little creature at such a good price? We shook on the deal and paid the farmer 50 euros as a deposit until such a time as she should be ready to leave her mother (she wasn’t yet six months old). So, you can imagine our shock when the farmer, having deposited Ulotte, written out all the paperwork and just about to take his leave, demands 800 euros for her. After a quick glance at me, which I answered with a shake of my head, James explained that there had been a mistake and that we understood the price agreed to have been 100 euros. The old couple didn’t express as much surprise at hearing this as you might imagine. “Mais non! The price is 800 euros.” We are usually careful to speak only in French in front of French guests as it’s only polite, but I must admit that at this point, James and I had a rapid conversation in English in which we agreed we would not, could not afford Ulotte at that price. James relayed our decision to the farmer who exclaimed in French “But what about all the paperwork we’ve filled out?” His wife then took up the mantle and asked us to perhaps pay in installments, but we were firm in our decision that we shouldn’t have her at that price. James gave them money to cover their petrol, his apologies for having misunderstood (had we?) and suggested he give the old farmer a hand putting Ulotte back into the horse box. So….have we been scammed? Were they trying it on? Did we really misunderstand the price after having verified it three or even four times because it seemed so good? We just can’t say for sure. We have noticed that many of the locals think we (the English) are loaded. In fact, on one occasion a French neighbor was selling his house and was keen that we should know he was selling as he thought we might buy it for cash! I suppose there are people who will ‘try it on’ all over the world, but it didn’t make us feel any better. Still, onwards and upwards! We will put it behind us and who knows; maybe one day another donkey might present itself.

A Porcine problem.

23rd November

‘Big Face’ the male pig has had a reprieve.
After much pleading and arguing by Tom, we have come to an agreement. In a complete reversal of fate, the female pig is now the one going for slaughter, and dear ‘Big Face’ will live on as half of our breeding pair. Our original intention was to keep the female (who incidentally has no name) as a breeding sow, to use Big Face for meat and to buy another male to breed with her. Big Face is her brother and so we couldn’t keep them both for breeding. Thomas argued that he is by far the nicer temperament of the two and as we had grown so attached to him we should switch the plan. We had to admit that he had a point. We would all have been sorry to see him go. The only slight hitch to this plan is that the female is not yet big enough to go to slaughter and we may have to wait until after Christmas; so no Christmas ham…unless we buy one from the butcher of course.

The next problem is to find a way of separating them before she becomes sexually mature. I don’t think we have long! I am hoping that sometime this week we can get over to the field and rig up an electric fence and a couple of corrugated iron pens underneath the apple trees. They would love this as they have completely obliterated their ‘garden’ next to their pen which means they have no vegetation to munch on, except for what I throw them. Ok, so along with their pig granules I am throwing them copious amounts of apples, but it seems so much more natural for them to forage for themselves.

With regards to home edding, the children have had very little input from me this week as we seem to have been plagued by visitors almost every day. However, Thomas found plenty to do on his blog sites and websites which he is constantly creating and updating, and Francis, when asked, said he has been editing films. They are both also working on a new business idea which they are sure is going to make them loads of money! It’s something to do with games sites and graphics for games. They did try to explain it to me but I’m way behind them in this area so I can’t explain it to anyone else!

I can see why parents get worried about what their children are doing on line. It has more to do with the fact that parents don’t really understand what their children are doing on line which makes us nervous! The best we can do is to be as informed as possible, take a healthy interest in what they are doing (even when we don’t understand it) and then make sure that the children are aware of the dangers around. I’m always popping my head around the door and saying “Hi, how are you getting on/what are you working on at the moment,” and they are usually very happy to tell me, even if I don’t have a clue what they are talking about!

La grève and la garderie

20th November
Today in France the teachers were on strike (la grève). I always notice when this happens (which is all too frequently), not just because it is plastered all over the French news, but because numerous friends come sidling round ‘wondering what Elizabeth is doing tomorrow’, and ‘would she like a playmate for the day?’ I’m sure this is a phenomena experienced by many home educators who find themselves ‘babysitting’ for the children of friends and family when an unexpected day off from school occurs. Luckily for my friends I like children and yes, Elizabeth would welcome a playmate for the day. It doesn’t seem to occur to any of them however that we might actually be doing something. Goodness me, no… all we home educators do is sit at home all day watching TV, didn’t you know! Sometimes it feels a bit like a garderie (nursery) around here. On the positive side, Elizabeth got to practice speaking French whilst she had a lovely day playing with a friend. She is still so much more into ‘playing’ than anything else and it’s nice to indulge her.
James and I took the sheep granules that he bought yesterday over to the field and it certainly had the desired effect. We took and shook a big black bucket with a handful of granules inside and they all immediately came running. They didn’t quite go so far as to eat out of our hands but I reckon they will eventually.
Tonight James is going to ring the number of a man recommended for organizing the butchering of our pig. It’s a bit sad, but that was what he was reared for. Tom is still insisting he won’t eat any of the meat, but I reckon he will change his mind when it comes to it. I am trying to stay detached but I have got so used to him being in the garden and coming running when I arrive with the pig bucket. And of course his dear sweet face looking at me through the wire; and the way he snorts when he…..STOP IT KIM!!!

Have 'ewe' seen our new sheep?

19th November
Today we have added two more ewes to our flock. They are Texel crosses and very sweet. They seem friendlier than the other ewes and we were told that it’s because they were often ‘tempted’ by sheep grains bought from the farm shop. James rushed straight out to our local farm shop to get some because he is anxious that come worming/shearing/ feet attention time, he should be able to entice them to him easily. Gilbert the ram seemed perfectly happy to accept another two ladies into his harem and we left them happily munching on the windfall apples under the tree with Gilbert paying special attention to their hind quarters!

Pommes for the pigs and pomme crumble.

18th November
Despite the grim weather we had a really good day. I dropped the children off with their grandparents where they were to spend the day doing some French and maths and James and I were left to our own devices. For James, this meant working on a film project for a client’s website and for myself, I decided to get started on trying to use up some of the hundreds of apples we’ve collected. The orchard here has 13 apple trees, although 11 of them are cider apples. We have collected huge bagfuls of apples, most of which have been eaten by the pigs but the apples collected from the eating apple tree have been sitting waiting for me to do something with. Today I finally had the time to slice and cook the apples gently in a large saucepan with a little pinch of cinnamon, some sugar and some mixed spice. Then, I piled the soft steaming juicy pieces into freezer proof dishes and piled on generous helpings of crumble mixture. Viola! Four large spiced apple crumbles for my chest freezer. After a morning of hard labour in the kitchen, James treated me to lunch in a local restaurant. One of the good things about France is their cheap, all-in lunchtime menus. For 12.50 euros a head we supped on chicken terrine, belly of pork with a barbeque sauce and vegetables and then a selection of mini desserts with coffee. Add a very delicious glass of Cote de Rhone and we were satisfied, happy bunnies for the rest of the day.

Pretty as a pigpen!

17th November
Today I attempted the horrendous job of cleaning out the pigpen area. Since we’ve had copious amounts of rain in the last couple of weeks, their grassed area was an absolute quagmire and I nearly lost my boot several times walking through it. The hard standing outside their pens was not much better, so caked was it with mud. It took me several hours with a shovel to scrape away the worst of the mud. Still, it will all go towards a quite delicious compost! Their little houses never need cleaning out because pigs are actually quite clean animals (contrary to common belief) because they don’t ever go to the toilet inside. All they need is some new straw now and again.

Home education on a Breton smallholding

14th November
Grey, grey, grey, dull and grey! This weather is seriously affecting my mood. I just want to sit by the fire or hibernate, but in actual fact I feel better if I do actually go outside. I dragged myself out to feed the pigs and chickens and the usual stuff, but I’d really rather sit in the kitchen by the fire which has been exuding a pleasant warmth all afternoon. It’s on days like this I feel I would happily sell all my worldly goods and chattels and head for sunnier climes. I saw on the news yesterday that in Corsica it was 18 degrees and sunny! I said to James “what are we waiting for, let’s go and live in Corsica.” He, being used to my harebrained schemes, half baked ideas and constant hankering after adventure, just ignored me.
Today was maths and French day which means the boys are busy learning with their grandparents, so Lizzy and I spent lots of time together. For maths we started off with a page of a workbook which was all about euros and centimes. She quite enjoyed this and after we’d finished she spent a good half an hour making notes and coins out of paper and then she insisted I play a game of ‘shops’ with her. Sometimes I was the shopper and she the checkout girl and sometimes vice versa. It was sometimes difficult for her to work out the correct change and money to be exchanged, but she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She also painted a beautiful picture of a tree in autumn colours which she could see from the window, and we also read some more of her book. Finally, Grandma did some French with her. Quite a full day for a seven year old, but a lovely relaxed day too.
This evening a French friend Richard came round and James and the boys spent a long time practicing. They really are getting quite good. It was mostly folk rock, forced upon them by James I think!

12th November
Today, as the sun was shining, I thought I would dig out the remaining carrots and store them in sand to see how long they would last. The trouble is, there were so many which were no good for storing ie they had damage or were too small, that I now have the most enormous bag of carrots in my fridge which need using up. I guess we might be having carrot and coriander soup tomorrow!
One of my chickens is missing. I’m a bit miffed because it is the ‘other’ baby chicken which escaped the dog when her sister was killed. She survived that only to disappear into thin air. I can’t find any holes under the fence where she could have crawled out and she is too small to fly over the fence. It’s a mystery. Lizzy swears she heard a cheeping noise coming from the woodpile. If she’s right then the woodpile is now home to an escaped chicken and an escaped rabbit. I hope they will be very happy together, although I’m not sure how safe from foxes they will be in there!
We have had no telephone for almost 48 hours which has meant no internet access to the house. The children, who normally spend a great deal of their time on their computers and on the internet, have had to find other ways to spend their time, hence they spent a good couple of hours at music practice (oh my poor ears!), an hour or so devising methods to ‘round up’ our new sheep (oh poor frightened animals) and more time than I liked on the play station. I mustn’t forget that Thomas wrote a short play for inclusion in our church youth service and we also read some of Robinson Crusoe. Thankfully, Mr Crusoe rescued his man Friday from the savages today which gave the story a much needed injection of action and interest. We will persevere with it!

11th November
The pigs escaped today. The first I knew about it was when Lizzy glanced out of the kitchen window only to see two fat tamworths heading for the neighbour’s garden. Having been alerted, I grabbed a chunk of dry baguette (which was the only think I had to hand) and dashed out of the door to try and divert them from going next door. Luckily, my piggies love me and no sooner had I called them, then they were quite happy to come running back towards me. However, as dry bread is not their favourite, they were pretty miffed at my offering and immediately left me to see what there was in the kitchen. Luckily, Grandma, who was at the kitchen door laughing heartily, was able to bar their way in. Next they tried the utility door and had a quick rummage around, but finding nothing edible they headed back towards their pen. On the way they passed the outbuilding where their food is kept which is in full view of their pen. With a squeal of recognition (pigs are intelligent creatures), they rushed at the door, barging it open and headed straight for the grain bin which has a lid with a small opening to access the grain. Then ‘Big Face’ (the male pig) always the fastest, put his head straight into the bin through the small opening in the lid and started chomping, but when he tried to withdraw his head he found he couldn’t. It was stuck fast in the lid of the bin. He immediately started squealing and shaking his head. I tried to pull it off, but he was panicking so much he wouldn’t stand still. The lid was off the bin and stuck fast around his neck. He ran into the garden, squealing and shaking his head and tearing round and round the garden, much to the amusement of the rest of the family who had gathered to help. I managed to tempt both pigs back into their pen with some grain, but Big Face was not happy about his predicament. It took two of us to finally pull off the lid, but apart from a scratch above his ear, he was none the worse for his adventure.
The children had lessons in French and maths from their Grandparents today, so I was fairly free to do other things. The trouble is, those ‘other things’ invariably end up being things like: cooking, washing and cleaning. I made a tomato and lentil soup followed by lemon meringue pie for lunch, cleaned the kitchen and did three loads of washing. I did manage to read to Lizzy again, which I am trying to do every day. The books we read as a family are really a bit old for her.

10th November 2008
The weather was foul and so we have mostly stayed indoors today, except for the daily ritual of checking and feeding animals. The pigs are fattening nicely. The male is likely to go to slaughter this or next week once we have him tagged up, but the fate of the female is at present uncertain. Some folks have suggested that she shouldn’t be left ‘a pig alone’ as she will pine for her brother, but others say they have kept a solitary pig just fine. My inclination was to keep her as a breeding sow especially as she doesn’t seem to have much meat on her yet, but looking at her this morning she’s actually putting on weight albeit more slowly than her brother (He can be rather a bully and shoves her out of the way when food arrives!) Lizzy and I also went to check on our new ewes, Milly and Baa Baa, which arrived yesterday. They seemed to be happily settled in with the ram Gilbert, at least he was no longer chasing them round the field with an evil glint in his eye. Perhaps he’s already got what he wanted?
The Puppy, Tony managed to worm his way through a hole in the fence into the chicken pen this afternoon and killed one of my new baby chickens. J was furious, but although I felt sorry for the chicken, I guess it’s just the way of animals. The death toll due to our dogs now stands at 1 rabbit, 1 guinea-pig and a chicken. We’ll just have to be more careful to protect our small fluffy creatures!
‘Education’ today consisted of;
1. Reading together. At the moment it’s Robinson Crusoe (hard going) and we started a fairly basic book on the life of Shakespeare. We’ve already tried a couple of synopsis style booklets on some of Shakespeare’s plays which they found a bit boring. Their preferred style of book is action packed James Bond type. Still, we had to try. I’m hoping that by learning more about the man and the times it might be a bit more interesting for them and also help in a historical timeline way. Tom has enormous trouble with space and time awareness. He can’t seem to grasp the concept of 100 years ago, or 500 years ago. It means little to him and worse still he’s not interested! However, the boys then went on to research on the internet and write up a brief overview of Shakespeare and his life which I must say they did very well and very fluently. I naturally accused them of copy and pasting the information from a website, but they insisted they hadn’t! They also spent half an hour or so practicing music before taking themselves off to their computers to write stories and catch up on French homework for Grandma.
2. Lizzy and I did a couple of pages in her CGP English book, learning about headings and subheadings. Later we looked in some of our normal reading books and she noticed the sub headings (without my asking or pointing them out). We also read one of her reading books and spent quite a while on Gridclub website which Lizzy rather likes. It’s a good job she does too, because I had to pay to subscribe which is something I rarely do. They have games covering all sorts of games and subjects and the most of it is good fun as well as educational; essential if the child is to stick with it. Lizzy also did a jigsaw puzzle and decided to teach herself how to play the drums. I’ve suggested she might like to ask Tom for a lesson some time.