Red Squirrel - a photo essay

For maximum cuteness, click on the photos. They will enlarge into a new window. To learn more about Red Squirrels go to the species account in Loire Valley Nature.

Susan

Taille tôt, taille tard:

Rien ne vaut la taille de mars !

The saying here is 'Prune early, prune late: nothing beats pruning in March'. Strictly speaking it refers to the all important vines, but home gardeners will quote it at every opportunity at this time of year.

Tree pruning in particular is in full swing in Preuilly and the other day I spotted the father of one of our neighbour's up a ladder with loppers and a hatchet. And yes, he is climbing a tree whilst wearing rubber boots!

This particular tree is a Common Lime (Linden) Tilia x europaea. It is pruned like this every two years, keeping it just the right size to provide shade over the small terrace it stands next to. Non-Europeans are usually horrified at this type of highly interventionist style of gardening. They don't like to see nature so rigidly controlled and find the pollarded branches ugly.

The prunings are neatly bundled
and saved for next year's kindling.

The counter to this is that this tree remains manageable because it is regularly pruned. It is healthy too, because it never develops a huge head to be buffetted by the wind and drain all the moisture the roots can suck up. It will live maybe three times as long as an unpollarded tree, and in the summer its green lollipop shape is ideal for the smaller garden.

Susan

If you are interested, I wrote more extensively on the practice of pollarding trees a couple of years ago here.

The Annual Coucou VI

This was taken yesterday on the Loches bypass as we whizzed past in Célestine. Trust me, there's a coucou in there, and what's more, it's the very first of the season for us.

For other, clearer shots you can check here, here, here, here, and here. We like a good tradition in these parts, we do.

Simon

Jiggity Jig

Yay!!

When we arrived at Jean-Louis' on Saturday afternoon, things didn't look good. When Célestine's restoration was done there were one or two corners cut: nothing serious, but things like nuts and bolts not being greased, and old and almost dead wires being reused instead of being replaced. This meant that the process of putting everything together again was taking longer than it should have.

We hadn't reckoned, however, with the powers of a man on a mission. By 7.30 we were on the road, and the everything was feeling tight and precise.

First thing to do was to give some love

That always makes her smile

I don't recommend you ever break a gearbox in your Traction Avant, but if you do, we know the right man.

Simon

Garbure

...or what to do if the cabbage situation in the next valley gets out of hand, as it did recently.

Garbure is a classic French peasant dish from the south west. There are as many recipes as there are households. Traditionally it was made in a big pot suspended over an open fire on a crémaillere*. The pot just stays on the fire all winter, being topped up as the tide lowers periodically. Root vegetables and cabbage were combined with beans and meats to produce a thick nourishing stewp (as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall would call it). It is impossible to make in small quantities. I made it in a 10 litre boiler and only just got it all in. The quantity will serve 16.

Bringing it to the boil on Big Berta before transfering to the wood stove.

To start ours I first 'confitted' some duck legs. These are lightly cured by rubbing a mixture of salt, herbs and spices into the meat and leaving over night or even over 2 nights. Then they were put into a pan of melted duck fat and cooked extremely slowly (poached in the fat, not fried) for 4 hours on our wood stove. After cooking they were taken out of the fat and put aside to cool. It's easiest to cook them the day before you want to cook and eat the garbure.

See! You'd never know it's got 10 tonne of cabbage in it...

Then diced cured belly pork was fried in the boiler, joined by diced onion and crushed garlic. Once they are soft, add diced root vegetables such as celeriac (celeri rave), carrots (carottes), potatoes (pommes de terre), turnip (navets), swede (rutabaga) and leek (poireau) along with copious quantities of cabbage, a large can of white beans and pieces of meat such as lumps of confit de canard, shredded chicken meat and roughly chopped gizzards (gésiers) . Tuck in a bouquet garni and cover with stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for an hour.

Monster.

Susan

*a house-warming party in France is called la pendaison de crémaillere (='hanging the chimney hook', indicating that you are settled in and ready to cook and receive guests).

Clavichords and Harpsichords

While we were in Paris in February we took the opportunity to visit the Cité de la Musique, with its museum dedicated to music making.

The first gallery is early keyboards and these are just some of the instruments that caught our eye. These ones are all clavichords and harpsichords I think, but I don't really understand the technicalities - for a quick lesson see here.

The museum catalogue is online here if you are interested and can read French.

A pair of folding harpsichords by Jean Marius.

Wikipedia has a very comprehensive entry on folding harpsichords, featuring these very examples. Apparently making them portable meant compromising the sound quality and musicians are generally rude about them. They are called clavecin brisé in French.

Italian harpsichord from Bologne.

Made in 1677 and decorated with ivory and engraved mother of pearl it was ideal for accompanying a singer. The exterior is a trompe l'oeil, painted to fool you into thinking it is pietra dura (inlaid semi precious stones).

A table top harpsichord by Domenico da Pesaro.

Small, neat and not nearly as ostentatious as most of the others, this instrument was made in Venice in 1543.

The Lépante clavichord.

Although this instrument is called the Lépante clavichord, not much is known for sure about it. It is probably 16th century and probably Italian - although it might be German. The somewhat unusual choice of lid underside decoration is possibly a depiction of the naval battle of Lepanto, fought between a coalition of European Catholic states and the Ottoman Empire, off the coast of Greece in 1571. The outcome of the battle prevented the Ottomans invading Italy and dominating the Mediterranean. It was also the last major battle fought using galleys and caught the popular imagination of the time.

Do you reckon Hans Ruckers made this one?

The Ruckers family were based in Antwerp and made harpsichords for several centuries. Their instruments are highly regarded for their beautiful resonant tone and the family's methods of construction are still used today by instrument makers and restorers.

Susan

Out of my Orbit

Every now and then I point my camera to the sky and click. Sometimes I do it with more deliberation that at other times, and Wednesday evening was one of those deliberate times.

For a couple of weeks now we have been watching this spectacular show, one obviously a planet the other something else, maybe. I guessed wrongly that it was Mercury and a star, but eventually curiousity got the better of me and I looked it up. The program I use for these things is Stellarium, which is quite frankly brilliant - and free. All you need to do is download and install the program, then set the coordinates for where you are (getting these from Google Maps or wikipedia is easiest). For Preuilly the co-ordinates are 46°51′20″N 0°55′46″E.

This is what Stellarium showed me for 19.47 Wednesday evening.And this is my photo, taken at 19.47 Wednesday evening.

The photo is a 13 second exposure at 100ASA, taken with my Minolta Dimage 7i, tripod mounted and manually focussed to infinity. I suppose I could have driven out to where there are no street lights and we would have got the background stars, but then we would have missed out on the atmospheric buildings.

Simon

That Was Quick!!

A couple of days ago Susan and I were at the "do we need the fire lit" stage, and deciding yes. A week ago there was no choice to be made, and we were heating the house all day.

On Tuesday evening we let the fire go out, and haven't even thought about lighting it again. Even more startling, yesterday we had all of the windows open airing the house. The temperature was 21ºC : compare that with -20ºC but five weeks ago (for our North American cousins that is 74ºF difference). As I sit here typing the first blowfly of the season is trying to beat itself to death on the window, and the collared doves on the rooftop opposite are getting frisky.

The garden furniture may still be under wraps,
but it was even warm enough to sit in the shade

It is predicted to be this warm for a few days yet, before settling down to a more normal March weather pattern (i.e. rainy). In the meantime we have caught up with the laundry because drying it outside is so much quicker, thoughts have turned to painting because I can do it outside if necessary, and sitting in the garden isn't the act of a masochist.

Spring? I'm ready for it.

Simon

Gardening on the Ocean Floor

With this spell of warm dry weather we've been having I am madly digging to prepare our vegetable garden. The soil here is full of degraded chalk and limestone. Mostly it's just rocks made out of little sea creatures or bits of creatures too small to identify. Every now and then though, whole chunks of fossilised coral sponge emerge from the earth.

The coral sponges in our garden are easily recognisable.

In the distant past this area was under a warm shallow ocean. It advanced and retreated several times until finally, millions of years ago, it retreated never to return and leaving us with what geologists call the Paris Basin. Some of the Paris Basin is still under water - for instance the English Channel (aka la Manche). Other parts, such as south-east England and northern and central France are now high and dry.

The soil here is chalky and the rocks limestone because of this marine legacy. The sea left behind the coral sponges in our potager and the stone our house is made from. Here in Preuilly we are about 90 m above sea level, on the southern edge of the Paris Basin. To our south and beyond the Brenne to the east the land starts to rise towards the Massif Central.

Susan

The Medical Desert

Apparently we are very lucky in Preuilly - we have un médicin généraliste (a GP) with a surgery in town. He does house calls in the morning and surgery in the afternoon. You used to be able to just turn up in the afternoon between 14.00 and 16.00 or make an appointment if you wanted to see him after 4pm, but now you have to make an appointment whenever you want to see him. The surgery used to be closed on Thursdays but now he has a female locum who runs the surgery on his day off.

Reserved parking spot for the GP in Preuilly, opposite the surgery.

According to the local newspaper, the Renaissance Lochoise of Wednesday 7 to Tuesday 13 March 2012, GPs are getting older (43% of GPs in France are 55 years old or over), and young practitioners fewer and anyway they want to work in the big cities and prefer to be salaried rather than self-employed. The paper says that if you are going to get sick, try to do it in the Ile de France (the Paris region) or PACA (Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azure region) and definitely not in Picardie or Centre (that's where we are). PACA has 370 GPs per hundred thousand of population compared to Centre's 242 GPs. The national average is 306 GPs per hundred thousand people.

The Conseil général d'Indre et Loire is worried. We are a very rural département and this exacerbates the problem, especially in the Touraine du Sud (that's where we are!) It's all very well promising universal healthcare to all regardless of financial circumstances, but we have to be able to provide it geographically as well, says the remarkably aptly named president of the Conseil général, Marisol Touraine.

The solution the Conseil is working on is to establish a number of new multi-disciplinary health centres in Saint-Flovier, Descartes, Villeloin-Coulangé, Genillé and Ligueil. The doctors who come to work in these new centres will be employed by the local communes (municipalities). One of the possible models, at Le Véron / Avoine, cost 2.24 million euros to set up (funded by the government at national, regional, departmental and municipal levels) and employs 22 medical professionals, including 6 GPs, 3 dentists, 6 nurses and 2 physiotherapists.

Susan

Pine Processionary

The big white balls of silk you see decorating the sunny side of pine trees, from the south of France to Paris, are not leftover Christmas baubles. They are the communal 'nests' of caterpillars who nightly devour the pine needles, following each other in single file along a silk track. You need to be careful of them and observe from afar, as they are very irritant. The older caterpillars are capable of releasing their irritant hairs into the air around them, and the hairs persist a long time in abandoned nests.

Each hair is a tiny harpoon which contains an extremely irritant protein called thaumetopoeine. If you scratch or rub the hairs into your skin they release the substance. Often the effect is mild and passes quickly (especially if you take a hot shower) but it can be serious if you get the hairs in your eye, breath them in, are allergic or are repeatedly exposed. For serious exposure you should consult a doctor. Horses and dogs are particularly sensitive to thaumetopoeine and you need to be on the alert for any signs of distress in your pets. Also be careful handling your pets, as they can collect the caterpillar hairs in their own coats, bringing them inside and transferring them to your hands and arms if you pick the animals up or pat them.

Certain fellow bloggers may recognise this
tree with its silk nests...

Pine Processionaries Thaumetopoea pityocampa (or les Processionnaires du pin) owe their English and French names to the remarkable behaviour of the caterpillars. The adult moths are good flyers, but only live a short time, as they do not eat at this stage. Everywhere they occur they are kept under surveillance and control of their numbers is attempted, as they can cause considerable damage to commercial forestry. A single colony can eat 2kg of needles, and it only takes 4 or 5 colonies for a 20 year old tree to be denuded. The consequence is that the tree can't photosynthesise, so it doesn't grow, and repeated defoliations therefore have an economic impact. The trees also become more likely to succumb to other stresses, such as drought or wood boring beetle larvae.

They have been present for a long time in the south of France (except for higher altitude locations such as Ventoux) but for some decades now they have been moving north and gaining height. Now they can be found in the south of Brittany and the north of Burgundy, although there is a mysterious lacuna around Orléans. The progression has been rapid - about 50 km every decade - seemingly associated with climate change and the practice of preferentially planting pine trees along autoroutes. In this way, it is predicted that Belgium and England could be reached, up to a latitude where the days are too short to allow the caterpillar to develop.

A file of over 70 Pine Processionary caterpillars
crossing a farm track in April last year.

The caterpillars eat all types of conifers, including cedars, Douglas fir and larch. The female lays her eggs on the trees which get the most light. If the plantation is mixed, she will target Black Austrian Pine over cedars. The adult moths emerge in July and August and can fly as far as 25 km away. They are very dull grey night flying creatures.

The newly hatched caterpillars immediately spin themselves a lightweight little silk 'pre-nest'. They leave this shelter every night (unless it is very cold) and feast until the early morning. Fabre describes them following their silken trail, and we now know that they impregnate the trail with a pheromone which tells them and their brethren how old the trail is, how often it is used and so on.

Well nose to tail here, but even if they get
separated they can follow the pheromone trail.

At the beginning of winter each group of a hundred or so caterpillars construct a big nest on a twig well exposed to the sun. This nest is a double layer of silk strands, without an opening. To come and go the caterpillars work their way through the matrix of strands without cutting a hole in the structure. The nest acts as a sun trap and the interior can reach over 20°C more than the outside. The caterpillars spend all day huddled together in the top of the nest, whilst their droppings accumulate in the lower part.

From February to May they start coming down from the trees and forming the processions they are known for. A caterpillar destined to become a female moth will descend, followed by all her brothers and sisters, nose to tail, to search the ground for a suitable spot to pupate. At the end of an expedition, which can take 5 days, she will stop, the troop will regroup around her and they will all dig themselves into the earth 5-20 cm deep. Underground, each caterpillar spins its cocoon and goes into diapause. This state of suspended animation can last from anywhere between a few days and 5 years.

The rash caused on a moderately sensitive person after she picked
up a cat which was carrying the caterpillar hairs in its fur.

Where there are large plantations a biological control is now being used. A bacteria* is being aerially sprayed onto the trees to kill the caterpillars. For isolated trees, mechanically cutting the nests out and burning them is the most effective. Although not really recommended (or strictly legal) some people deal with the problem by shooting the nests with buckshot. If they don't succeed in bringing the nest down it doesn't matter because the wounded caterpillars become infected and transmit the infection to the others. Once they are down on the ground, pouring boiling water over the caterpillars will kill them, but there will still be hairs floating down from nests and in the surroundings. No method of control is guaranteed however, because of the long diapause.

At the moment there is a lot of research going on to develop survey methods, improve control and find out more about less problematic biological controls such as the role certain birds can play (e.g. tits).

Susan

*The bacteria is Bacillus thuringiensis. To be affected the caterpillar must eat the bacteria, which produces a poison on exposure to the gut fluids. This bacteria can kill many types of caterpillar, not just the target species, so must be used in an informed and careful manner.

Vanille Réunion

I love vanilla, but to buy the pods in the supermarket is barely affordable - they work out at nearly €2 each for the cheapest brand. So naturally I was very interested to see a stall with vanilla products at extremely affordable prices at the Foire au Safran in Preuilly this February.

The pods looked good - rather like oiled leather- and they smelled good, but it seemed difficult to believe that they were less than a euro each. I quizzed the stallholder, who said that he dealt directly with the producer on Réunion and because the vanilla was not going through multiple hands and getting fancy packaging, he could price very keenly compared to les grandes surfaces. The vanilla on display was the harvest of 2010 he told me, and should keep till 2014. I complained to him that very often the keeping quality of supermarket vanilla pods is poor and they go mouldy in the packaging before I've even opened it. He said the best solution was to individually wrap the pods and freeze them. Half an hour on the kitchen bench and they have thawed ready for use, according to him. Somewhat to my surprise, this turns out to be true and they freeze and thaw quickly and conveniently, with no appreciable loss of quality. (Much of the advice I have found online says you must never freeze vanilla, but no one is going into any real detail about why and I can't help wondering if they are all just mindlessly regurgitating the standard advice. I've also discovered that the mould I've seen so often on vanilla beans might actually be crystalised flavour compounds and not something that will ruin my vanilla.)

Pimento and vanilla on a map of Réunion.

He had a number of different vanilla products - powder, essences and paste as well as the pods. In the end I settled on a conservative purchase of a pack of 6 pods for €5, after considering getting 25 for €20 and/or some paste. I also bought a €2 little packet of pimento (allspice) berries, poivre de jamaique in French, which I have found impossible to source elsewhere in France.

The vanilla seller is called Dany Blot and he is based at Montlivault in 41. His mobile number is 06 85 90 86 59. I recommend keeping an eye out for him at the specialist markets in the area.

The island of Réunion is a Dom-Tom. That is to say, it is a French overseas administrative region, a Département d'Outre-Mer - Territoire d'Outre-Mer, and as such, part of France politically, sending representatives to sit in the National Assembly and the Senate, with the same status as Centre and Indre et Loire, the région and département we live in. It is situated in the Indian Ocean, between Mauritius and Madagascar and is the farthest outpost of the Eurozone. Quite a few local people here have strong connections to the island, having grown up there or visited regularly for holidays . I think at least one of our readers grew up on the island too.

Vanilla orchids have been successfully cultivated there since 1841, when a slave boy on the island called Edmond Albius developed a method of hand pollinating the flowers so they could be grown commercially outside their native Mexico and away from the single species of stingless bee that pollinates them in the wild. As a result, the variety of vanilla grown most in the world is known as Bourbon, after the island's pre-Revolutionary name, and Madagascar, Réunion and the Comoros are the world's major producers. The labour intensive need for hand pollination continues to this day and is one of the the reasons the spice is so expensive. Vanilla pods are often called vanilla beans, and in French they are gousses de vanille.

Susan

Visiting Célestine

We went to see Célestine yesterday - Jean-Louis said that while he had the engine out it would be a good opportunity to clean. We assumed he meant clean the engine, but what he was getting at was that the engine bay itself was greasy and could do with a going over. Part of the problem was that I had overfilled the bidon I put in the oil can clip, so that a small amount of oil spilled every time I used the brakes.

This is the sight that greeted us
at Jean-Louis' garage when we arrived.

Simon cleaning her engine bay.
Luckily it was a nice sunny day.

While we cleaned the oil off using a little white spirit and a compressed air blower, Jean-Louis was working on the gears, dismantling and checking every piece. A number of cogs were missing teeth, and it was this that caused the gearbox to split: a loose tooth getting jammed between two rotating cogs and "clac!". (Clac! is a word always accompanied by actions: make fists of both hands and hold them together in front of your chest, then jerk them apart and say clac!. It will make you look more French.)

Jean-Louis doing something fastidieux
with the gearbox innards.

Fastidieux is a false friend. It does not mean fastidious, although in this case the English sense also applies. He was putting half a dozen pieces together, testing them, taking them apart, adjusting and repeating as necessary until perfect. He described it as fastidieux, meaning it was tiresome or tedious.

He is going to start putting Célestine back together on Tuesday and she should be ready by the end of the week. It amazes us : not only is the engine and gearbox out (and the gearbox in a billion pieces), most of the electrics are disconnected and body panels have been removed. And yet all this will all come together in the next 7 days . Incroyable!

Susan & Simon

Where are we At?

It's been a while since we updated stuff, so here goes:

Célestine is still at the Doctor's, but we are confident she will be home the middle of next week - or not long after. Today we are going to visit her, but taking paintbrushes and white spirit rather than grapes. It's time her engine bay had its spring clean (I know, at least 2 weeks early) and it will be easier to do while the gearbox is out - there will be all those extra nooks and crannies we can get into.

The computer is still not well, but that is mainly due to me not getting up enough steam to follow the latest batch of instructions. I am confident I will get it working without having to load a new operating system, it's just a matter of time.

We have done no painting recently, although we have plenty left to do. It just hasn't been quite warm enough (or is that just an excuse?) to have the doors open to let the fumes vent and the paint dry in good time.

The Hyacinths had their first flowers 5 weeks ago,
before the snow. They are having a second go at it now.

Spring is just around the corner, and the garden plants that were flowering before the snow arrived have just started to recover their vitality. The Hyacinths have new blooms, and the daffs are that close. We also have many tulips sprouting, and Susan has just done our first lettuces of the year. Weather wise it has been typical late March really : a bit sunny, a bit windy, some rain, a little mist, and one or two frosts. Temperatures have been around the 0°C mark overnight, and between 10° and 16° during the day.

At the moment then we are just girding our loins ahead of getting started for the year. We're hoping to be busy, and already there are indications that this will be the case. As well as work we already have various family and friends lining up to visit during summer. Hopefully that means plenty of exploring and lots of new places to blog about.

Simon

You Have Got to be Joking

This jester adorns a Renaissance window high up on the citadel walls in Loches. You can only see it from the street below. It would be interesting to know why the window is topped by a jester, as opposed to another character or motif.

No doubt it is part of the extensive remodelling done on the Logis Royal by Charles VIII in the late 15th century, so not a window from which la dame de beauté might have gazed out.

Susan

Infected.

At about 10.00pm on Friday evening our main computer caught a virus. Or to be more precise, some malware, which hijacks your screen and tries to extort money from you to get it back.

The virus we have isn't a new one: it's been knocking around in some form or another for a couple of years. Every now and then it causes a fresh bout of infections, usually caught from perfectly legitimate and innocent sites. Usually those businesses sort themselves out quickly (as did the site I caught it from), so no names, no packdrill. It's is known under many names, most of which include the word "ukash" - the system by which you pay to supposedly sort out the problem.

The first thing you see when the virus hits is a variation of the following screen - there are French, Italian, German, Spanish, and a couple of UK ones (at least).

What we had on our monitor.

One of the UK variants

Once the virus is there, it is very difficult to do anything at all with the computer - the screen image continually reappears, and it corrupts your explorer file (the one you use for navigating windows) so that "ctrl-alt-del" doesn't work either.

I restarted the computer in safe mode, which at least gave me access to some of the computer's functions - I ran a couple of antivirus programs, including Malawarebytes, SUPERantiSpyware and AVG, all of which found infections, but didn't manage to sort it out. I also followed some of the manual removal advice found on various pages to no avail.

In the end I have posted to a really good forum - bleepingcomputer.com, and last evening received advice which I will start following some time today when I feel stronger. The great thing about the forum is that one tested expert gives you advice on your problem rather than getting a dozen different opinions, and the process is followed up with repeated tests of your system until all problems are definitely sorted. This may be a long and precise process which requires plenty of patience and brainpower, so starting it at night may not be the cleverest.

In the meantime, we are using our netbook (as mentioned here), but connected to the main monitor (I deliberately bought a netbook with an external monitor connection) and an Apple USB keyboard and mouse. I am also running it on LAN (wired) networking, which is so much faster than the wi-fi. So far this setup has been so good that when we have to replace our computers I am tempted to buy another netbook and run it like this as our main machine. It is certainly no slower than the Dell I am usually using, and having no fan it is amazingly silent. As I am fairly good about backing our information up, everything we need to continue operations we can continue doing: we have up to 5 copies on data on different hard drives, depending on how important it is.

So - plenty of coffee and a steady hand, I'm going in. Wish me luck...

Simon

Edit - 1st step of the devirusing proceedure done, so far so good,. Judging by how long this one seems to take to conquer, it could yet be some time!

Sooty Coppers - a photo essay

Click on the photos to enlarge in a new window. If you want further information about this butterfly please go to the species page on Loire Valley Nature.

Susan

A Lunchtime Feast

Yesterday was the annual automobile bourse at Noyers-sur-Cher, the town across the river from St-Aignan. We went last year and were sort of ambushed: we thought it was just a car bits sale, but in fact the Centre chapter of the Traction Universelle club have lunch together with food they have brought for the occasion. Realising this too late, we added roast chicken and chips (frites), which was slightly embarassing as we had to buy them from a stall.

This year we went prepared, with two bottles of wine, some carrot and beetroot rapée, and oven dried tomatoes, both of which Susan had made. We also took some shop bought paté de tete and half a home made cake.

This made joining in a lot more comfortable, but we were still outshone. Not only were there two varieties of home made boudin noir, rilletes and terrine, but Fabien had also brought some of his home made wine - a 2009 still aunis rose and a 2010 méthode traditionelle sparkling from the same grape variety.

A table laden with meat and wine.

I don't think I have ever had such a meat laden meal in my life - the only vegetables available being what we took, and a jar of cornichons. It was all incredibly tasty, and a bit unexpected: it appears that if you drive a classic Citroen you also need to be able to make smallgoods from wild boar that a friend has shot. Or at least méthode champenoise wine.

Boudin Noir and Rillons

Simon

Occupe-toi de tes oignons !

Literally, 'busy yourself with your onions' ie 'mind your own business'.

I find myself minding my French onions (in both senses probably) most days. Proper French yellow Mulhouse type onions are my favourites for cooking. They are often a flattened sphere rather than bauble shaped and are usually a bit more expensive than other types. I don't know what exact variety they are as a general rule in the shops, but we grow one called Stuttgarter Reisen which seems to be what is commonly available in the garden sections of the local bricos. They look exactly like these ones that I bought at the market, and perform very well if we get some rain (as opposed to none at all in their growing period last year).

These onions are very much sweeter than their round rivals and make by far the best onion gravies, tarts and marmalades. They are a bit softer at the stem end, so don't have quite as good a storage life as hard round onions and for that reason are not generally exported. If you want real French onions outside of France you will probably have to grow your own.

They are called Mulhouse onions after the town in Alsace where they were developed. Mulhouse (pronounced 'moolooz') has an annual onion festival in September at which you can eat your fill of onion soup and onion tart. The town's other claim to fame is the remarkable Automobile Museum.

Susan

Let Battle Commence!

As regular readers will know I resolved to buy a grelinette (broad fork) for working in the vegetable garden this year. Simon was very dubious that it would work and that I would like it. Mostly what he objected to was that they were expensive.

However, he was kind enough to point out to me a few weeks ago that Point Vert had them special for just under €60, albeit called bio fourche-aérateurs. This was such a good price I was extremely skeptical about the quality and the picture in the catalogue did nothing to reassure me. Since I went past them on the way home from the supermarket though, I called in to look. I was amazed to find a robust garden weapon, exactly what I had been looking for!

Grelinette, with the serfouette on the bench.
In the middle distance is our completely cold frizzled
strawberry patch - they look dead, but I expect they will recover.

After coming home to tell Simon I felt it was worth buying I went back there the next day and purchased it and a serfouette for €16. I don't know for sure what you call this smaller tool in English (according to Reverso it's a weeding hoe). It is a sort of cross between a hatchet and an ice pick. I bought it because the man we bought the orchard from had one that he used to plant the half dozen tomatoes he gave us when we exchanged.

Yesterday being extremely mild and dry in the afternoon I decided the time was ripe to go down to the veggie garden and do some digging. I need to get the rest of our onions and garlic in (some were planted back in November and have come through the cold with no particular issues, and a third batch have now been in the ground for 12 months, having done nothing during the drought).

About an hour's worth of digging.

I am very pleased to report that the grelinette is just as I had hoped. Two of its tines are shorter than the other three and offset, which I think allows it to slide easily into our quite stony soil. I like the fact that I can properly stand on it if necessary to get it all the way in (I've never mastered the art of doing this with an ordinary fork). The main advantage is that to dig you do not need to bend, lift and twist all at the same time. For people like me, who aren't particularly strong or athletic, it is so much less exhausting to use the broad fork with its step back, press down action. The hardest work is shaking it from side to side, which you need to do if your soil is clumpy like ours. I'd like to be able to leave it down at the orchard too, as it is heavy to carry, but even in Preuilly I think I would risk getting it stolen.

All in all I am very happy with my purchase (and the serfouette made short work of some wild parsnip roots). I am very grateful to Simon's parents, as the grelinette was bought with money they gave me for my birthday.

Susan

Puzzled

There is a word that puzzles me.

Truth be told, there are many words that puzzle me - mainly French ones - but this is an "English" word that seems to have entered common usage quite recently.

Foodie.

People are claiming to be "foodies", and I am not sure what they mean. Strictly speaking, I would have thought we are all foodies - try being a non-foodie for more than a week and you will see the benefits of eating. Judging by the places that self proclaimed foodies recommend on travel blogs and forums I can only guess that a foodie is someone prepared to pay over the odds for a mediocre meal. Friends of ours (who will remain nameless to preserve their blushes) often comment that they occasionally have "foodie" guests who gush about a restaurant that most locals use as a place of last resort. We have eaten there, and most of the food seems to have been micro-waved.

Food. We love it.

Maybe the term foodie is like the term muso. I have never met a professional musician (or even a serious amateur) who described themselves as a muso. Other people may do so, and so may people who listen to a lot of music and occasionally dabble with an instrument, but never in a professional situation have I heard someone describe themselves as a muso. Most musicians I have met hardly ever listen to music unless they're looking for inspiration, and never have background music playing. To a musician, music is never "background", it's there to be properly listened to, even if it is clearly rubbish. Anyone who spends 18 hours a day plugged into their i-thing and calls themselves a muso is usually dismissed as a wannabe.

So - foodie. What's it all about?

Simon

(The photo is of the excellent buffet at the Hotel de la Gare in Montrichard - generous, delicious, and mostly made in-house or by local artisans.)

Wildlife Watching in March

What can you expect to see in March in the Claise Valley and the Brenne? Spring comes early to this area, so flowers will be blooming and as a consequence early emerging bees will be foraging. Look out for frogspawn on ponds and in ditches. Even a few hardy butterflies who managed to survive the big February freeze tucked away under the ivy or in your barn will flit about if the days are warm.

Female Nomada fabriciana foraging on a dandelion in our orchard last March.

Some species of solitary bees such as Mining Bees Andrena spp, Sweat Bees Halictus spp and Nomada spp will be out. Several of the early emerging species of Andrena depend greatly on the Sallow catkins that appear in March, and the Nomadas will be out because they parasitise the Andrena. Several Andrena spp are also important early pollinators of fruit trees (they look like small Honeybees). Honeybees Apis mellifera themselves will become active at this time too, visiting what ever they can - fruit tree blossom, daisies in the lawn and the shiny yellow flowers of Lesser Celandine Ranunculus ficaria. The odd bumblebee queen will cruise about looking for suitable nesting sites.

The most anticipated wildflower at this time must surely be the Cowslip Primula veris, and the first flowers normally open in March, on roadsides, meadows and woodland clearings. If you are in the Brenne, keep an eye out for the earliest orchid species, the Tongue Orchid Serapias lingua. Wild Pansy Viola tricolor is common on waste ground and almost always has a few flowers at this time of year. The first of the Common Dog Violets V. riviniana will be out too, in the grass under trees. I noticed the first one in our orchard at the end of February, under the sour cherries.

Pine Processionary nests.

Take care around conifers, as the notorious Pine Processionary Thaumetopoea pityocampa caterpillars will be active. They are clearly spreading and we got our first infestation ever in the single Scots Pine in our orchard over the winter. Remember that their irritant hairs float in the air and you and your pets will pick them up even if you don't touch the caterpillars. For more information about them, see my species account on Loire Valley Nature.

If you are digging in the garden you may well disturb larval or even adult ground beetles and chafers which are semi-active. The adults dig themselves into the earth and emerge on sunny days for a bit of foraging.

Male Orange Tip.

One of the cheeriest butterflies you could see this month is the Orange Tip Anthocharis cardamines. The males emerge very early (late March or early April) and have to hang around for the females for a week or so . In this time they can be seen purposefully flying up and down ditches and hedges, in the hope of bumping into a female.

Expect the weather to be cool and changeable, with lots of windy rainy episodes interspersed with sun which brings out the insects.

Happy early spring wildlife watching!

Susan