Where have all the walnuts gone?

•  So where have all the walnuts gone?    There was I, basket on arm, nettle proof plastic shoes on feet, mobile phones securely in safe places on my person, not quite striding but certainly walking firmly through the ankle high grass. Yes, of course I had my trusty stick with me... I use it to behead dandelions and thistles, also to lift up odd piles of what I can only describe as 'stuff'...to see what is going on.
• The fields have not been mown this year, nor grazed so the grass was moderately high except for the tracks left by the wood-bearing trucks...I had asked for some more firewood to be cut this year because it takes an expletive-deleted length of time to dry sufficiently to be used in the cooker or the sitting room fireplace.
• I cannot even blame the squirrels...we have the proper RED ones here - because they all seem to have gone on holiday somewhere else..
• Local wisdom says 'it was just a bad year' ...which is not very helpful.  But I do worry now about my ideas for planting more walnuts.   I shall need a good weather forecaster first....

Are the northerners hoarding winter?

Well, are the Northern countries hoarding the winter weather storms?  Certainly down here in the French Dordogne (possibly France's most densely wooded county) the leaves are still firmly on the trees and the tree fruit is not ripening.  Is this a dispute between two sets of 'gods'...one that sponsors the cold with some darkness, the other that sponsors the light with very brief, not quite rainy episodes?

As a consequence I am left with a vegetable garden overburdened with tomato plants of various varieties, none of which ripen.  My experience indicates that a fried, or grilled unripe tomato is NOT worth eating.    Unfortunately it is not much better as salad.  Local St Astier (in France!!) overheard gossip suggests what I have to do is to:

put unripe tomatoes in a wicker basket, add apples and bananas, cover with tea-cloth and leave outside in the sun light...

On verra....

The last orchid of 2024....

A splendid discovery during my last stroll in the damp fields....

 ..........spiranthe d'ete!!

This I saw only a few days ago - probably the 22nd September - pushing up through the coarse remaining uneaten grass of summer..

It was my orchid expert friend Stephanie Do-Re-Go Lima...with a name like that what else could she be but an expert in something rare..

Fortunately Stephanie did live at La Chaise for some years during which she worked very hard on her knowledge of wild orchids.   Fortunately for Stephanie, the La Chaise fields have always been well endowed by orchids, even when we had heavy footed sheep grazing the land.   When a local farmer was permitted to take hay from the fields Stephanie immediately armed herself with piquets and netting to surround the orchid patches.    It was a great success.   All the orchids continue to flourish as appropriate times at La Chaise.

The oak that spits, the rook that walks...

Does one ever get used to 'strange' things when in the deepest country side?  Not in my experience....

So, going up the drive from the house to the road, ignore the left-hand side vegetable garden - which is still mostly tomatoes - but look up at the great oak.  It will be looking right back at you...then make a spitting noise and - if you look down, you will see an acorn at your feet...Even when I go up the drive in the car (because I am going food shopping) it will spit and I hear a faint ping.    If I am luck the ping will be the acorn bouncing off the car's hood and will leave little or no trace of its passing...

The other curious thing that has struck in the past few days....there is a large rook that WALKS on the road....I meet this rook when I am leaving the village bakerie and general store.   Obviously no one wants to run over any animal on the road but most animals seem to have the common sense NOT to cross the road when something mechanical is in the offing - do the animals KNOW that a 'human' is in control of the tin machine?   Are they perhaps confused by the new fact that the majority of these machines are shiny white?  I am sorry that I do not have a picture of the rook - but I am a hopeless photographer...

All the fun with trees...even when sick...

 It's the trees that were sick - not me though I did have a few queasy moments as they were rolled into their man-designated places then levered into trailers for delivery to vans....

The trees were - I was told - a mixture of beech and oak and all had some infection under their skins or in their roots.   Beech and oak is most often used for furniture with oak being very popular for flooring...

And this is what the site looked like before 'men' got round to pushing and pulling it towards the tractor with its trailer....pls note the 'helpful' (???) cheroot in one of the worker's mouths...

The happy new owner of this wood is apparently going to use it as roof beams in various cabins that he has/is going to have built....

Waste not, want not - especially in deepest countryside. hth Very sadly I cannot remember whether these trees were a natural part of La Chaise estate when we bought it near half a century ago...or whether my beloved (late) husband planted them, along with all the other tree plantations he launched.

The tomatoes of despair

The tomatoes of despair

Rolling across my wooden kitchen table,

Just stopped by an outstretched arm,

Tomatoes, tomatoes everywhere…..

In a plastic bowl with lukewarm water,

Dirt comes off with its hidden riders

Ants, small maggots…a brave snail..

Rinse in a fine gauge sieve

Under a running cold tap

remove the sink plug…

Pour on boiling water to loosen the skin

Remove it - then split the clean berry,

Remove pips with a steel spoon

Bubbling and burping in a large steel pan,

Must not stir for they still spit,

Never miss the human skin…

Stir with your best steel spoon

Add crushed spices - stir some more -

Remove spices with a sterilised steel filter

Now for those glass jars on a small tray

Previously carefully cleaned with boiling water

Will be three quarters filled by a steel spoon..

Screw on the sterlized tin lids -

Then, in theory, your chutney

Is safe for later use…

Where has our summer gone?

So where has our summer gone?    Has it gone to the Scandinavians who normally come to the Dordogne for their summer.   A sketchy memory of a newspaper report - perhaps in The Economist - saying that the Scandis were having their hottest summer ever...

Anyway, here I am sitting at my desk as the rain dribbles outside - today it is 15 centigrade according to the temperature device on the door window - a flattened tin frog.  The children are safely at school, grumbling over their books and the canteen food, parents damply returning from the school run are faced with another chore:   the terrorist tomatoes are in a basket on the door step.

For some unknown (to me) reason the cool summer seems to have immensely pleased the tomatoes...I say 'terrorist' because I pass the box every time I enter or leave the house and I can almost hear ' do something, bottle me, crush me into soup....Do Something.'

The immediate answer is a glass of Viognier and a search through ancient cook books - books, you know - those things made of paper..for recipes...and the answer is CHUTNEY. 

Tomato chutney is unknown to the locals..they are going to be very surprised ...and I shall be very tired for chutney making involves several pans, skilled hands and - most of all - Patience.