Some joys in old age...

 Failing memory is said to be one of the 'afflications' of old age.   Now that I acknowledge that I am officially 'old' - I succumbed to this definition also.  When I am in my usual cafe in St Astier quite often elderly women come and join me in my solitude - and they start chattering...

I know I know them because the faces are familiar.  But I do not know who they are or why/how I know them.    So I mostly just listen to their outpourings and interject - where I can - polite questions or comments but I never accept a drink...

But when at home my failing memory has had a positive result.    I do not remember where I have put things, sometimes I do not even know specifically what I am missing.   The positive side of all this is the amount of exercise I get walking round the house, going up the stairs, even sometimes to the garage or the vegetable garden, all in search of whatever it was.    Sometimes I even find things I did not know I had lost....

My new motto:   be positive

Same old, same old.....mushroom madness.

 Yes, once again it is mushroom madness in the Dordogne!   The only difference this year is that the sun is shining and no one is getting wet...There are cars parked dangerously behind trees, there are elderly people in rubber boots in ditches....And for why?   Because there has been an exceptional emergence of BOLETUS EDULIS...

Stephanie - with the aid of TDH* Martin - managed to collect 20 kg just from the La Chaise fields and woodland fringes.  It took only a little persuasion on her part for me to acquire an electric vegetable dryer....a very elegant, transparent device that now lurks on a shelf in the barn...It has been working night and day - I have been assured that its electricity consumption is very light.

Now - while no-body is really listening - I will confess that I dislike the boletus, it is spongy in consistency and very strongly flavoured, even in an omelette I find it disagreeable...Now for the big BUT...the reason for drying it.  Slivers of the dried mushroom give a most wonderful flavour to red meat stews - beef or game - obviously long term stewing with the appropriate strong local red wines.

But I must be patient....although the formal hunt season has started my hunters have not yet come up with their usual tribute of haunch of venison or wild boar...it will happen.

*TDH = Tall, Dark,Handsome

An informal community...

It has just occurred to me that - although I am the legal owner of the property known as 'La Chaise' - it seems to have developed into a sort of commune where various outsiders' skills and needs meet my lack of skill though much in need.

The fields are an example: grassland needs mowing or pasturing otherwise it just rots.   Since I gave up sheep-keeping because of age - (mine, not the sheeps')  I have had to find well equipped strangers to do the mowing - largish mowing equipment is needed, proper hay making machines. The deal here is that the person + machine who does the mowing and gets to keep the hay and I get clean fields, hopefully in time for the mushrooms to show their caps...

The individual trees are an even better example...I forget how many walnut trees are planted but I have not forgotten the chore of picking up the individual nuts...assuming the wild boar has not ploughed through them...Since my time some clever person has created a gadget for collecting the nuts.  This looks rather like a football made with metal fencing on a long stick,  The gather strolls to and fro, rolling his gadget into which the nuts neatly fall.

But it is the surrounding woodland that has produced the best partnership of all - between this land and woodland owner and the local 'chasseurs'  - the 'hunters' who want to stalk and shoot the wild life in both field and woodland.  It is in their interest that the wild game stays localised in my woods and fields.  So I have had much help with fencing - I buy the material, they install it.   There is 

  

1001 ways with a home grown courgette

1001 ways with a home grown courgette

Fatly sliced, or in chunks, to be stewed or pan fried

With onions, garlic, tomatoes, herb bouquet all tied;

Or grated into spiced flour and dropped in hot oil

To emerge as that gourmet delight, zucchini fritti;

Or hand cut, lightly battered to make vegetable chips

Whose deep fried nature on children plays tricks

Or layered with potatoes, topped with strong cheese

Baked over lamb mince, moussaka will usually please;

Or if too big, stuffed with plain rice and poor meat,

An old English Fifties country house watery treat;

Or if very young, finely sliced, dressed oil, first pressee

Expected by the modern, advanced diner as salad entree.

The Great Green Marrow is Vegetable-in-Chief,

Bullies cooks all summer till winter breaks, oh blessed relief.

La Chaise's strangest pest?

 This is a slug - anyone can see that it is a slug.....but Stephanie knew its proper name - it is a 'Leopard Slug'  and she said it is cannibal - somewhere there is a picture of one slug eating another - but I think that is too horrible to publish

Pine trees - the new crop for savy landowners...

 When called to attend an Annual General Meeting most people, I suspect will think various thoughts - starting with 'Oh Gawd, no' then conscience kicking in and saying ' you really should attend..after all, who knows what stupidities might be decided/executed that affect you..??

My decision to attend the AGM of  the Syndicat des Proprietaires Forestiers Sylviculteurs de la Dordogne was rather more I dignified I like to think.  There is a new inhabitant at La Chaise, one who is beginning to be particularly interested in wood, woodlands and woodland management generally.  Martin had just recently cut down an oak much higher than the house because I wanted to decide where it should come to land rather than wait for a random wind to drop it just anywhere...

In order to encourage his interest I had entered him for a course run by the SPFS especially for young woodmen.  It pleased him and furthered his interest - he also met other youngsters looking for these skills. The Dordogne is one of the most densely forest covered of the French provinces, mostly oak and chestnut according to local information.

Also I have vague ideas about tidying some scrubby woodlands on the edges of my valley and replanting with oak and chestnut - and perhaps some other species - I was thinking of elms in particular. (As a Dutchwoman I feel somehow responsible for 'Dutch Elm Disease' but why, i do not know). There is a France wide national plan for re-wooding and some 800 hectares could possibly be involved in the Dordogne.  Doubtless there will be some form of financial aid.

In the very beginning of our ownership of La Chaise , well over 40 years ago, we cleared a scruffy valley and planted all pines - which particular type of pine I cannot remember, there are, after all, over 170 different types of pine.    These pines had to be kept standing for 30 years according to some agreement details of which I do not remember - but some costs were tax deductible. They were duly cut and sold to a wood mill to be turned into paper or slats for crates.

In the years we had to keep this pinery, it had to be kept clear of invader greenery especially whilst it was still short.  There are quite a few wild animals that like pines - rabbits will eat the new growth, deer will feast on the higher, tougher branches, wild boar will trample them and turn them into mush....This is where the local 'chasse' comes in and we make a bargain.   The chasseurs will keep the destructive wild animals and so keep the woodland clear and they will be allowed to keep the game.  I do occasionally get a sizeable joint of wild boar but it is not easy to cook - in fact is probably an acquired taste.

The meeting was quite well attended with quite a noticeable number of women - so I did not feel conspicuous.  There was the usual interchange of opinions - during which neither speaker listened to what the other had said - and the solitary voice of a 'chasseur' drew attention to their contribution to woodland management.

Somehow the general tone began to unsettle me, nobody said anything disagreable but the general attitude to tree planting seemed somehow wrong.    It was the discussion as to when best to cut down the pines and how to market them - I heard that the cut could be done as early as 14 years after plantation.....

Only last year we were obliged to cut down a centennial oak because of a malady that made it unstable and likely to fall - some of the smaller branches had already fallen.  I organised an evening farewell party for the tree to which our closest friends had been invited.   The following day the professionals would come - the elegantly named 'elageurs-grimpeurs'...who with terrifying skill took the tree down bit by bit as you can see below...

All right, I am being overly sentimental....I remember as a very young girl putting a long veil on my head and, leaning out of my bedroom window, giving an emotional speech to an enormous Lebanon Cedar, subject not remembered...but there was quite an audiance of red squirrels...

But I cannot get my head round the idea of getting trees to grow - then cutting them down before their maturity - to me they are not like vegetables, not maize or sweet corn - there is still a link to the gods of old.

The joys - and annoyances - of a Dordogne spring...

 Oh, joy!   It is well into Spring here in the Dordogne - in fact we have just left May but the wild orchids are still flourishing.    Or so I am told because I (poor me) suffer from 'hay fever' which should perhaps be more correctly described as 'pollen fever'.   Not only am I alergic to the grass pollen but also to that of the pines of which we have a great number....I had better stop here or I shall be accused of boasting...

Wild orchids seem to be great individualists...they come up where they like which is not necessarily the best place for people or other co-users of the property.   It complicates Stephanie's gardening life because she will not  mow in order to save the orchids but is very disapproving of uncontrolled grass.   We shall skip over the feelings of 'Kevin' who is supposed to take the hay off my fields but has been told to delay - like last year.   However, he should console himself with the possible fact that the grass might possibly be very nearly hay dry by the time he gets to cut it.

And here you have three of the best:   from the top..'orchis jaune', followed by 'orchis hybride = because combines two types of orchid, the insect and the spider,  lastly is the 'orchis troll'....

which should please all Nordic readers as well as readers of Nordic myths.

Curiously enough this year the 'orchis bouc' - the one that smells of billy goat - has not come back to protect my front gate from unwanted intruders - in fact it does not seem to be appearing anywhere.