What is this?

 Didn't come out very well but above is the plant with flower (bramble is growing round) and below is a leaf of the same plant without flower.
We thought it looks like giant hogweed - but smaller.

Outdoors kitchen

Between doing other things (buying sheep, strimming, bbqing etc) we have been beavering away on the woodshed.
At the start of today it looked like this

Which looks like nothing, particularly compared with what was there to start off with

But it took much of the day to clear it out and burn about 30 wheel barrow loads of twigs and rubble that were at the bottom.

It was a bit hot for having a huge fire but the cows seemed to enjoy it, I think the smoke kept the flies away. It was worth the heat though to get to this

The concept is to have an 'outdoor kitchen' here with perhaps a fridge and some way of cooking and comfy seating for eating in the shade in the summer. It is well ventilated as the roof has been designed to ensure this (I believe pigs and chickens would have been kept here originally). Initially we will just have table and chairs here.

The view is lovely - if the giant hedge is cut down (Ruth and Huw maybe it will still be waiting to be done when you are here...!!!)

Grass control

We have a lot of grass and weeds around the house as well as a very long drive. We have scythes which are good for cutting reasonable length grass on quite a smooth surface, but they are more difficult on a variable surface and for shorter plants. We have scythed all the way down the drive once (the drive is 300m according to the GPS which means when you do each side and the middle that is 900m...) and it was a lot of work plus we weren't really able to do in the ditch at the side.
So we thought perhaps a strimmer would be the answer. We wanted to give it a go though before we bought as they are quite expensive.

A (british) neighbor kindly lent us one... but we couldn't get it to start. We have learnt a lot about two stroke engines from the interent, but despite that we failed to get it to cooperate. In the end they couldn't get it to going either (which was kind of a relief) so in the end we hired one for half a day

There is no 'before' picture unfortunately - but the amount of growth higher up the bank shows what a jungle it was before Doug attacked it.

We have also ordered a 'tondeuse à main' or manual mower on the basis that the lawn itself isn't very big and we are more likely to do it often enough with something that isn't a hassle to get out (we had one in Camden that we liked - although it was a bit broken)

Eating nettles

We have a LOT of nettles, so nettle soup came to mind as a good idea.
I have never tried making it and have always been very suspicious of it. Probably because all the recipes I have seen, seem to be some other soup (leek, potato, veg etc) with a couple of nettles chucked in to make it green. This one strikes me as being rather more nettle intensive.
However we haven't given it a try yet, mainly because the blender is 'lost' somewhere in the millions of boxes - plus there isn't really anywhere for it to go at the moment even if we went to the effort of finding it.

You need a lot as they cook down

Anyway back to the point of this entry which was to say that we tried eating nettles as I have seen suggested many places as a veg (like you would spinich). They were reasonably tasty and picked up the butter well. It was a bit of a hassle as you need a reasonable number and apparently you should only eat the growing tips (ie not when they get big and dark green or gone to seed). Apparently they are best in April/May.

They still look like nettles and are a little furry - no sting!

Watermelon and rum cocktail

We had a watermelon which needed eating and some rum that needed drinking... what else were we going to do?

1/2 watermelon
3 lemons
1 measure Cointreau
1 measure grenadine (or just a bit of sugar if you don't have)
4 measures rum (or more...)
Some mint leaves
Dark brown sugar (or other if you don't have)

Juice the watermelon (you can blend and put through a sieve or use a juicer - I pressed through a seive as the juicer is lost in one of the many boxes but that is an effot)
Juice the lemons
Mix everything together except the sugar and keep back a sprig of mint if you want it to look nice.
Make sure you crush the mint some to let the flavour out.

Serve over crushed ice with brown sugar and a sprig of mint on top. Or do as we did and put the mixture in an icecream maker until it turns in to slushy then serve with brown sugar and sprig of mint on top

Marmite - not mastered it yet

When we bottled the beer we kept the yeast from the bottom of the fermentation barrel so we could try making marmite.
We had a very vague recipe which said add some water keep at 50 degrees for 24 hrs. Obviously it was quite difficult to do this so we ended up heating it for longer than that but at a more variable temperature.
Then after the 24 hrs we were meant to see the mixture separate in to a dark liquid layer on top (the marmite to be) and a paler more solid layer underneath.
We kind of did but the dark layer was very thin and the whole lot didn't smell really great.

We left it to settle out for a few days after which there was a tiny bit more dark liquid and it did smell slightly marmite-y, but it had also grown some mould. So we chucked it out
Not entirely successful but we could see we had managed to extract some of the yeast at least and we were heading the right way. Unfortunately the internet doesn't hold much info on this...

Lazy Breadmaker Cake Recipe

This cake recipe just needs everything mixing together, no creaming of butter and sugar or anything. We don't have an oven at the moment so good to be able to make something in the breadmaker.
Maybe not the most stylish cake, but tasty nevertheless.

8 oz self raising flour (or in france 8 oz plain flour and teaspoon of baking powder)
4 oz caster sugar
3.5 oz oil (eg sunflower seed oil)
2 eggs
Splash of milk
teaspoon mixed spice
2 handfuls sultanas, you can add more or less as you wish (more makes a heavier but more moist cake)
Icing sugar and lemon or orange juice for icing

Mix everything except the milk in a bowl until smooth
Add a bit of milk and mix, mixture should be stiffish
Mix in the sultanas

Put in to pan of a breadmaker and run on 'bake only' setting (give it a go or read the instructions of your breadmaker - I find ours cooks it pretty slow so takes about 1 hr 10 mins). You don't need to put the mixer paddle in.

Make the icing by mixing icing sugar with a little bit of lemon and some water or orange juice or whatever fruit juice you feel will go with the cake. You want a reasonably running mixture but not too runny :) sorry precise description - it will taste good whatever you do.

From this basic cake you can make a variety of things eg
Banana cake - put in a mashed banana and less sulatanas
Ginger cake - Replace the caster sugar with dark brown sugar, add some ground ginger instead of mixed spice and add some chopped glaced or chrystalised ginger

Sheep

We have bought a couple of Ouessant sheep. They are a small breed from an island (called Ouessant) off Brittany.

The ram (Le Bélier)

The ewe (La brebis)

The idea is that they are going to eat grass and be organic lawnmowers for various areas. I don't think two of them will make much impression on the amount of grass, but the plan is the flock will grow (slowly as they only have one lamb each year unlike a lot of breeds that often have twins).
It is alledged that they are easier to keep fenced than a lot of sheep breeds... but we will see...
They won't be moving in until we get back from the UK and fence in an area for them, so maybe end of July.

Sssssssssss

EDIT: Apparently it is a Western Whip Snake. Often called a grass snake although technically not the same kind of snake. It is non-venemous but will hiss and rear up if challenged. More likely to live in walls or roof of a human residence than a grass snake...

Tu apprends français?

Oui et non!!
Nous parlons à beaucoup de personnes françaises (le plombier, l'électricien, la mairie, dans les magasins, nos voisins) et jusqu'à présent ils ont tous été très utile et très sympa. Nous avons apprenons les mots de plomberie etc mais nous n'avons pas le temps pour les livres et les leçons sur la internet donc le grammer n'est pas très bien et les mots sont limité et le/la est mal.

Notre instructeure vielle française (òu peut être 'notre instructeure française vielle'? Meaning she used to teach us not that she is old) a suggéré que je devrais écrire des entrées de blog en français pour la pratique. C'est une bonne idée je pense. 
Dans les Pyrénées les gens parlent lentement mais avec une accent très fort. Il y a un 'nng' au fin de beaucoup des mots

Bien est Bee-yeng
Bon est Bong
Semaine est Se-mayng
Demain est De-mayng

Je pense que bientôt nous allons parler comme ça aussi (mais aussi avec un grammer unique)

The sun doesn't always shine

In most outdoors photos on the blog the sun is shining. I guess most the things we do are outside when it is sunny and inside when it is raining and maybe we are not thinking about taking photos when it is raining.
It does rain quite a lot here (which luckly we both like coming from Scotland), my impression is that spring feels very wet and the rest of the year less so although monthly averages look quite high apart form July and August. When we came to see the place at the end of August everything was lush and green then.
When it rains life goes on the same and the pigs still have to be fed...

The view still looks nice when it rains

Pigs still need feeding in the wet. They don't seem to mind it

We have seen some very impressive lightening over the Pyrénées. Often we are out of the storm and we can just witness it flashing and growling a few miles away.

Hot water!!

We have adjusted the pump (that lives in the deathtrap barn) so that the pressure various from 2 to 3 bar instead of 1.5 to 3 bar (I never thought I would be so interested in how water pumps work...) because the 'death boiler' didn't seem to like the variety in pressure and so switched the gas supply off every time the pump fired (about every 30 seconds if you are having a shower...).

It isn't ideal as the boiler must be about 30 years old and rather far from complying with current regulations. In addition we have discovered that the tank that the water from the source is collected in is only about 160 litres (500 or 700 would be more realistic) so we have to be very careful as the pump dies if it runs dry.
On top of this, due to the marvelousness of the electrics, if we run any other appliance (eg dishwasher or washing machine) the fluctionation in the power supply affects the pump power which means the boiler decides to cut off the gas. So no showering while anything else is going running...

It doesn't show well in the photo but this is looking in the hole at the side and out the hole at the top. The plumber nearly died laughing when he was looking at this bit, probably even if we spoke French we wouldn't have understood what he was saying through the hysterics (although he did kindly adjust it for us while stressing we were using at our own risk...)

Someone has to watch the boiler while the other showers so it is not a very long term solution but it is better than the bucket for now.

The planning process has decided we should speak to the plumber this week or next about future plans.

So what's the plan?

We obviously have a lot of work to do and we need to organise and plan it somehow.
We have been talking to a number of different artisans (plumber, electrician, carpenter/roofer) and we have some more to go (insulation expert for old houses, metalworker - to strengthen some beams, stone mason, septic tank, barn demolition).
From this we are trying to come up with a view what we will do to the house and how to go about it (what can we do ourselves, what order do things happen in, what do we need experts to do).
In parallel with this we have a lot we are trying to do now (get control of the grass, rid the house of vermin, plant some veg, acquire more animals, get health care, make the drive more usable, integrate by visiting people)
We found we were dotting around a lot and not finishing tasks because something else came up and we were having problems getting to our longer term goals.
So we decided to take some of what we learnt running IT projects and apply that (knew it would come in useful sometime)
It is work in progress at the moment, but we have introduced week long 'sprints', a morning 'stand up' meeting and 'retrosoectives'. You can see the concept here

The board

Things waiting on the left - things in progress on the board

Done items (filled in retrospectively)

Les nouvelles de Poppy

Poppy est le nom de notre chiot.
Maintenant elle est avec sa mère
Nous allons la prendre le 5 Juillet

Le éleveur dit - C'est difficile de prendre les photos, elle n'arrête pas de bouger

Doug being chased by savage pigs

Ok they are not savage, they are cute funny pigs.
There is no real point to this post, it was just a very funny sight Doug running round and round and being chased by the pigs (he had a cup of food for them to distract them while we moved their fence)

Is it falling down?

The carpenter noticed that the support for this roof is leaning somewhat. The insurance guy did too.

The beam on the other side is rather perched on the soil rather than looking properly supported by anything

We are a bit concerned it is getting more squint and that the beam will just slide of f the soil, so we have marked a line on it with the spirit level to monitor it (and we don't spend long standing under it...)
It has prompted us to think seriously about what we should do with the barn as it has various other structural issues.

Beam supported in shonky way after someone chopped through it

Another beam randomly chopped through so a door could be added

Most beams are fine but these key ones rotted at ends

Wall seriously leaning in (tape is on wall at each end)

We are looking in to the relative costs (and benefits) of
1.) Having it taken down and then building some more purpose built things (eg garage, storage shed, pig shed, stables etc)
2.) Having it repaired so it is safe and then using for some of these purposes

Seems a shame if it had to go as it was obviously a lovely old building before it was butchered and neglected but it is not very useful if we don't feel it is safe.

Wood pile update

We have been beavering away at the woodpile and have now got it down to the floor over nearly half the area.
Doug saw the snake disappearing in to what is left this morning! In to the wood on the right of the picture near the top of that pile. So we need to keep at it... it seems likely it is the one we saw in the house as M. Le Serpent thinks we don't have many snakes around (from looking for shed skins and snake poo)

This shows the wood we have removed

All this and a bit more

Taken from the other end - this shows all of it

At the bottom of the pile there as a lot of wood dust and bits that have rotted off the logs - more than 10 wheelbarrows full!. We had a big bonfire to get rid of it and will need to have a couple more before it is finished. We managed to smoke out the whole valley. But we don't feel bad about it as the neighbors do the same from time to time.

Doesn't show the amount of smoke generated

Good wildlife

There is a lot of wildlife we feel is too much and is encrouching (snakes, ants, flies etc) but there is some very interesting stuff around too.
There are hundreds of little lizards who hang out on all the walls. People who have been here a while find them quite boring but we still say 'lizard!' in excitement every time we see one.

Lizard on one of our fences

Perhaps more interestingly we see a lot of big birds from the house. We are not really sure what they are but they are ENORMOUS. Today we saw a smaller one attacking one of the bigger ones. Not sure why.

Taken from our front door - coming in for attack

Taken from our front door - attack!!

Also from the front door - what is it?

Closer view - Golden Eagle?

We saw 30 large birds circling opposite just before these ones flew close. But not sure if they were the same type, we suspect not as behaving a bit different - we think they were vultures but that this is not.
We also see a lot of deer but haven't managed to get a photo yet and we had a very brief glimpse of some wild boar in the wood above the house.

EDIT - Apparently the big bird is a Eurasian Griffon Vulture and the one mobbing it is a Common Buzzard

Are they ready to eat yet?

The potatoes have sprouted. Perhaps not quite ready yet. There are 3 rows of them each with a different variety.
Doug is a potato expert and even did a training course at Dundee tech (or somewhere like that - Dundee anyway) and worked 'Potato Roguing' some summers while at University. I think the rows might have been a bit further apart than ours as there is no need to walk between the rows to see them all here...

Are they ready to eat yet?

Thursdays are 'Pig Measuring Day'.
You can estimate the weight of a pig by measuring round under it's 'armpits' and its length from between the ears to tail. There are then a number of different formula which give you a guestimate of the weight.
This helps you know when they are likely to reach the weight you plan to slaughter them at.
The weights aren't very accurate as they frisk around and try to nibble you while you are measuring them...
We aren't exactly sure of their final weight yet, we need to do a bit more research but we expect it to be when they are around 6 months old.

Boy Pig
Date	Age	Girth	Length	W=G*G*L*69.3 (live weight)	Growth
17/05/2012	2 months, 3 weeks	0.74	0.85	32.26
24/05/2012	3 months, 0 weeks	0.77	0.88	36.16	3.90
31/05/2012	3 months, 1 weeks	0.79	0.89	38.49	2.34
07/06/2012	3 months, 2 weeks	0.83	0.92	43.92	5.43
14/06/2012	3 months, 3 weeks	0.86	0.99	50.74	6.82

Gurrl Pig
Date	Age	Girth	Length	W=G*G*L*69.3 (live weight)	Growth
17/05/2012	2 months, 3 weeks	0.74	0.90	34.15
24/05/2012	3 months, 0 weeks	0.77	0.95	39.03	4.88
31/05/2012	3 months, 1 weeks	0.83	0.94	44.88	5.84
07/06/2012	3 months, 2 weeks	0.83	1.04	49.65	4.77
14/06/2012	3 months, 3 weeks	0.87	1.06	55.60	5.95

You have WHAT?! In your WHERE?!

Yes! We have SNAKES in our ATTIC!
Or technically in the first floor, it was built to be inhabited but has not been for some time.
Before you panic and refuse ever to visit us it is not as bad as it sounds (honest)
We were of course rather put out when we saw them mating up there one day - we thought the scrabbling was from mice. So we went to the Mairie (town hall) and asked what they thought we should do. They were very kind and sypathetic (we need to get round to taking them some chocolates) and called 'M. Le Serpent' who came round immédiatement to have a look. It seems it is a grass snake who are, in his words, 'aussi dangereux que d'un papillon' or as dangerous as a butterfly. I guess I have never seen a grass snake before because I imagined they were about 15cm long, but this one is quite normal for an adult at a bit over a meter.

He said that it is very unlikely to come downstairs (they are very shy) and checked that he couldn't see any way it could do so. His advice was that we clear round the house and it will go away of it's own accord because they don't like being in uncovered areas. The biggest part of doing this is clearing the big jumble of 'weird wood' that is in the covered area between the house and the bread oven. We have been at it for some time now and have reduced it from giant to just a bit big. A few more days solid work should see it cleared. We have found some cast skins in there so looks like the snake man might be right that they are spending time in there.

We have moved a bit already at this point

Wood already removed when the previous photo taken

Doug at work

After several days - still a lot to do

We have also scythed and strimmed round the whole house and removed a lot of weeds and bushes. There is still a lot more work to do there also. We are thinking of getting a more macho strimmer to make it easier.
In addition we spend time upstairs stamping every day so it is a less quiet nice place to live for wildlife...


We weren't going to mention it because we don't want it to put anyone off visiting, but we are spending a lot of our time at the moment on 'de-snaking' so felt we needed to mention it...! Don't let the lack of hot water or shower put you off either :)