Second lamb!

Just after I was wondering where they were a second lamb was born to Canna. Another girl.

Here is Jura with her lamb - who has been frolicking around in a very Easter appropriate way.

Strimming and planting potatoes

This was all brambles. The hope is we can turn it in to a grassy slope with a few strimmings. We still need to chop down the holly tree at the end of the bank there, it has evn more brambles around it. We are slowly driving them from some areas - although they are taking over others!

The posts are holding up strings for the hops.

Here are the potatoes, I am trying planting them with the rows across the bed rather than up and down this year to see if we can manage to get them mounded up more thoroughly and therefore a better crop. Something seems to nibble on quite a few of the potatoes so I have put out a trap too.

The are Charlotte in bed F6, Monalisa in B5 and Charlotte at the front of F7 with Monalisa at the back of that bed (writing it down in case I forget!)

Where are the lambs?

Normally by the end of March almost all the lambs are born, with the odd straggler in April and maybe May. At the moment there is just one lamb!

We are not sure what is happening, it could be wishful thinking, but we think the rest of the Ouessant ewes look fatter than the one who has had the lamb. This flock have the same ram as last year, so no reason they shouldn't have lambs. The other flock the ram died around mating time and there is just a young ram so we have less feeling that they certainly should have lambs.

Happy Easter!

We had lamb stewed with home grown potato, butternut squash and carrot also with dumplings.

The lamb was rolled shoulder from one of last years lambs.

Here is Poppy wearing an easter ribbon. Bit dark to see, but she looks very pretty.

Ski tour from La Mongie to Bareges

The ski area closest to us is called Le Grand Toumelet and is made of two areas called La Mongie (which is the one we drive to) and Barages. The two meet at the Col de Tourmelet. There are various ski tours which start in La Mongie and end on the Barges side. We have been through Le Pas de la Crabe before. This time we climbed up a bit further along the same ridge and went over.

The day started with a bit of a setback when Doug forgot his ski jacket, which had his lift pass in the pocket! But luckily I had an extra fleece and the nice people at the ticket office gave him a free day pass because they could see he really did have a season pass attached to mine. 

This is the combined ski area. Where we skied last weekend off the Pic du Midi is at the North in the middle. We did something like the yellow track.

This is the view of the Pic du Midi from where we set off skiing today.

This is where we came down

Today we went up the Pourteilh lift and then Quatre Termes. From there, we traversed round and climbed up to the ridge. The dotted red is the second lift, the green is the traverse and climb and blue the start of the ski down.

Here is the full route in pink.

Putting on the skins. You can see them on the bottom of the skis.

The climb up

Really pleased at having made it!

View from the top

View on the way down. We are wondering if you can get over in to another valley called the Bat d'Ourdis at the low point of this photo.

Lovely day - although the snow on the way down was quite sticky and there was the odd place we had to take skis off low down to walk through streams!

Doug had another incident at the end of the day where he left his gloves on the bus back to the carpark. It has a happy ending because we waited until the bus came round again - not long - and someone had handed them in!

Planted some things in new propogator

Basil, tomato, camomile and lettuce oh and melons too.

The propogator has a slightly heated base so warms the soil from underneath. It is outside, so hopefully just enough to get these things going. I might have to bring it inside if this doesn't work out.

It is designed to go on a window sill so not sure how much cold it will tackle.

Finished Shelves

Now we just need to move the crap - er useful stuff - so that the next lot can get built.

There are some new chicken housing that we should get round to putting together for when the chicks hatch (or somewhat after as they need to grow a bit before they can move in to it)

Ginger is on a diet

She is about 18 months old and you are meant to breed them well before that, at something like 6-8 months. Otherwise it can become hard for them to get pregnant because they get fat (their bodies count on them pretty much always being pregnant or feeding a litter) and apparently it settles round the reproductive organs. She is feeling quite chunky, so I thought maybe it would help if she was a bit thinner overall. She is not happy, but it is get pregnant or be eaten!

Potato varieties for 2016

Last year we just did Charlotte and didn't get a huge crop - I think we need to mound them up more as they grow. I did just find a load as I was digging over those beds though.

This year we are going to do Charlotte and Mona Lisa.

Hopefully they will get planted over Easter.

In France this week

My flight was cancelled on Sunday. All the flights on Monday were full, so I have stayed and worked from home this week. It is a short week because of Easter and I have a day off on Thursday as well.

Nice to be around to see things happening - and help out by doing the animals and providing food at regular intervals.

The plasterer is getting on well. This is the 1st rough coat.

Doug is building some shelves - I helped! Ok not extensively, but I planed some bits of wood.

There are more shelves still be be done, there will be a similar unit the other side of the ex-fireplace and  eventually there will be shelves in the ex-fire place and higher up the wall above these ones. For now he is just getting enough done to store some things so we can clear out the house a little for the upcoming move in to a smaller space.

Skiing off the Pic du Midi

The Pic du Midi is the highest mountain in this part of the Pyrenees. We can see it from the house.

Although the other bit looks higher, in this view from the house, it is the furthest left snowy bit.

The cable car to get up there goes from La Mongie which is the village in th ski resort. It is included in the ski pass which is good as it is expensive to do just on its own.

Part way up the cable car

Me looking excited

Doug looking cool

Setting off from the top. I am not super keen on this climb although it was easy this time - I think good snow and steps rather than braver me!

There is an observatory up there. This is the view on to it after the short climb up 

Lunch before we set of down

Looking down where we are about to ski

Just off the top. It actually looks quite steep which normally things don't in photos

At the bottom of the steeper bit

Looking back

On down the valley

Lovely view

Looking back to the too from in the ski area. It is far away!

Was a nice run. In the middle bit it was a bit rubbly, had obviously been warmer then frozen, but some nice snow in places.

Starting to plaster

There will be three coats. First one to level it off, then a rough coat and a fine coat.

The plasterer has started on the levelling off 1st coat.

He says it is hard going in some places because the hempcrete underneath is crumbly. We will see how he goes, but we might do the hempcrete in the main house differently to give a flatter and more level finish. It will be harder work and take longer, but will save effor on the plastering. He would probably only need to do 2 coats on to a smoother finish.

Cutting down a big dead tree

You can't see it super clearly, but it is in the middle of this picture in the far away tree line leaning over to the left. It has been dead since we moved in, but recently has started leaning more.

So Doug and Don tackled it this week. 

Doug thinks we got maybe 3.5 stere - which is the French measurement for fire wood. It is a cubic meter of meter lengths of wood. Which means when you buy it in 0.5 meter lengths to fit in the fire it is a little less than a cubic meter as thy pack closer together when shorter.

You can see the stump in the background.

Seeds plan

If you can make it out, this shows all the different types of the various veg we are going to plant, plus when we need to put them in. I did it on a bit of paper I had already drawn something else on so it is a bit scrappy. Where it says France, just indicates that those will be bought locally rather than ordered online. Much cheaper in the UK generally and wider choice.

I have bought a propogator like this

It heats the soil from underneath so we can get things like tomatoes and squash started a bit earlier than we could otherwise.

The seeds should arrive next week and we will start planting the March ones along with those bought locally.

Nice hole!

Still supported while cement dries round the lintel - maybe there is still some work on th beams on the other side to be done, not sure.

New floor surface through the doorway

These wooden posts support the door lintel above, they will either be painted or plastered over. There will be insulation in that space between them, then plaster over the top.

All the rubble. It looks more when not neatly packed in to the wall!

Lambs (good news!), rabbits (bad news)

The first lamb has been born. In the Ouessant flock. We are not sure if the other flock will have lambs as the ram died around mating time. There is a young ram in there, but he might not have been old enough to do the business at the time.

Not a good photo, but you can see her to the right of the photo, by her mum sitting down.

Saddly the baby rabbits have died, we think of cold because although the nest had plenty of hair it didn't have enough hay at the bottom and the nest box is metal. If we had believed they were really coming we would have made a better starter nest for her (quite a few of them don't manage to do it very thoroughly, I guess a hole in the ground works better in some way.

Spring?

Officially, Spring is du any moment (20th March apparently - the Spring equinox) and it is starting to feel a bit like Spring (although it is cold and more snow wouldn't surprise me).

There is blossom on the mirabelle trees (small plums). You can see at right of the photo.

There are baby bunnies, and we have just put some eggs on to incubate (we would have done it sooner, but it has been so wet and muddy all the eggs have been dirty which isn't good for hatching as they tend to get infections). These aren't 100% mud free, but better.

The grass is growing a tiny bit, you can see it looks a bit green round the cows.

Bif is pretty, but stupid. You can see the burning of his horns to stop them growing didn't work very well! The castrating did though so hopefully they won't be a problem to us in his fairly short life.

There are no lambs yet which is a bit surprising.