Gobbling Guinea Fowl

Guinea Fowl is a popular bird here for the table. They are considered a tasty alternative to chicken and often used at Christmas time as the festive meal. These ones were photographed the other day at Maillé.

 They rush around the pen, catching any invertebrate unwise enough to enter and continually vocalise, making a gobbling call not unlike turkeys.

In French they are called pintade and birds for roasting are widely available, either from local poulterers or in the supermarket.

France is the largest producer of guinea fowl in the EU, but for all that guinea fowl is only 2% of total French poultry production.

La Voie Romaine

Last week we stopped off at a piece of Roman road at Saint Cyr sur Loire on the outskirts of Tours. It's part of the main road that ran between Poitiers - Tours - Le Mans, and connected Spain with northern Gaul. Bits of this road pop up all over the place -- the new high speed rail line had to spend time on an archaelogical dig near Nouâtre for instance. For a full description of where the road goes see here. But what is truly extraordinary about this particular section of the road is that it is still in use as a road, with its original Roman era surface. Local residents come and go on it all the time. 

I particularly enjoy that a cycle path has been laid down one side of the road.

Should you need any help planning your Roman style journey, this website will help, and this one goes even further, allowing you to work out how long it will take, depending on whether you are walking, marching, riding or going by boat, and how much it will cost. Hours of fun and displacement activity...

Looking Across the Canyon

Kings Canyon -- dramatic, hot, red.
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Firewood: Our firewood was delivered yesterday -- 3 cubic metres (known as stères in French), which added to what we had left over gives us about 5 cubic metres, plus another cubic metre of wood that came from a tree felled by friends and is too fresh to use. This won't get us through the winter, so I'll be getting another delivery probably in January. The woodman, who is a local farmer who does firewood as a sideline, has given up trying to deliver with his tractor down our narrow driveway with no turning space. This time he made 6 trips, delivering half a stère at a time in his station wagon. It is oak, cost €150, and was cut into 50 cm lengths for us by the woodman. He also splits it when necessary, if the logs are more than 15 cm in diameter, which is the recommended optimum size for our stove. The wood comes from the Forêt de Preuilly, which is sustainably managed for lumber, firewood, biodiversity and leisure by the Office National des Forêts.

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Car News: Célestine is back home, with a working gearbox. She still has some issues which may have contributed to the gearbox failure, but for the moment she is on the road again. Claudette is over at the Doctor's now, with a long list of relatively minor maintenance to be done.

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Loire Valley Nature: A new entry has been added for Western Whip Snake Hierophis viridiflavus.

Up on the Escarpment

 Looking from one side of the canyon to the other.

Kings Canyon, Northern Territory, Australia.

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French Expressions: The other day the subject of feral cats came up in conversation. I asked my friend Jean Claude, who is a retired ecologist, what the word for 'feral' is in French. Because we were talking specifically about cats he said 'haret'. I mentioned to our deputy mayor, Gérard that we have une chatte haret living in the back yards of our neighbours and she has now had two litters of 2-4 kittens. Gérard asked what the problem was! Luckily Jean Claude was there to explain exactly what the problem is. Gérard asked me if anyone was feeding them. I said 'no', but in fact, they are in very good condition, so maybe someone is. I've no idea who though, as neither Ghislaine nor the Leroys like cats, and I'm not going to feed them on the grounds that it will just lead to a population explosion. Gérard then asked what one could do about them, and that's a much trickier question. Ideally, one wants to trap, neuter and return, so that the territory is occupied but not overrun with breeding cats. But feral cats are notoriously difficult to trap, and who pays for the neutering? Presumably one approaches the nearest local cat charity, who may or may not have the resources to deal with the problem. Next time I run into the local vet I'll have a chat (no pun intended) with him about it.

Further reading tells me that the word haret only applies to cats. The general word for 'feral' is marron.

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Loire Valley Nature: Photos of a female Sweat Bee Halictus sp visiting an Early Spider Orchid Ophrys sphegodes in our orchard added to both the Sweat Bee and the Early Spider Orchid entries. The behaviour is a bit of a mystery, as theoretically this species of orchid uses sexual deception to fool male Andrena spp bees into 'mating' with the flowers, thus achieving pollination. I don't know what would have attracted the Halictus bee to the flowers, but it was clearly very excited and tried every which way to get into the flowers. Christian Schmid-Egger, from HymIS, had never seen or heard of this behaviour before either, so it is presumably previously unrecorded.

Tours Cathedral

Like most cathedrals, Tours' is well worth visiting. The stained glass ranges from the early mediaeval to the contemporary and the building houses one of the most highly regarded monuments of the early renaissance in France. On the day in July that we turned up to visit, we just missed what was apparently an impressive circus performance on the cathedral square involving a woman on a device that was a cross between a trapeze and a seesaw.

The first time we visited it was an absolutely arctic January day a few years ago. This visit was conducted in the far more pleasant ambient temperatures of early July, and was positively hot outside, cool and quiet inside. There was a steady stream of wedding parties entering and leaving. Some of the women were wearing the most extraordinary outfits, but unfortunately, one can't discreetly photograph or publish such things.

The cathedral building took 450 years to construct, and as such provides a nice romp through medieval and renaissance architectural styles, and especially stained glass styles, with the earliest window from 1267 and the latest from 2013. The recurring themes are of course Bible passages and the stories of the saints, especially Saint Martin and Saint Maurice, but you can also learn something of the society at the time the windows were made. There are royal symbols such as fleurs de lys, certain colours are significant, and there are scenes of everyday life. Stained glass techniques, although remaining basically the same over all this time, did develop a number of innovations which can be tracked using the windows in Tours cathedral. It's a remarkable and valuable repository of the history of stained glass.

I recommend taking a pair of binoculars if you want to get the best out of the stained glass. Most of the really old glass is very high and super detailed, so you need to look at it through the binoculars. There are numerous excellent panels explaining each of the windows.

Save the Ceramic Panels in Tours Station!

Anyone who has entered the station in central Tours will have noticed the 18 picture panels made of ceramic tiles that decorate the walls and entice travellers to destinations south and west.  Heritage listed since 1987 they've adorned the walls of the station since 1898, and now they are at risk. SNCF wants to restore them but can't justify spending the money, so Patrimoine-Environnement has set up a crowd-funding site to raise the money needed.

For the leading railway companies of the time, these panels enriched the station surroundings and influenced travellers. The panels are 1.2m wide by 2.1m high, made from painted and glazed square ceramic tiles. One of the artists who created them was the potter and theatre set designer Eugène Martial Simas, working in close collaboration with the factories of Sarreguemines and Digouin.

The panels themselves, and their method of fabrication, are rare and unusual. Stylistically they are a sort of meeting of Impressionism, photography and Art Nouveau. Simas outlines his subjects with a couple of lively brush strokes and broad sweeping curves, filled in with soft colours and accents inspired by Japanese art. This is particularly notable on the landscapes done in successive planes in tones of sepia, sea green and sky blue, with pairs of two toned figures to provide contrast, depth and clarity. 

The panels have been subjected to the degradations of time and air pollution in the station. The original lime mortar which fixes the tiles to the walls is crumbling and is no longer stuck to the painted tiles, which are coming loose and threatening to fall and smash. In addition, the soot produced inside the main hall by over a century of steam and then diesel locomotives has badly scratched the painted tiles. A recent test cleaning has revealed how fresh and colourful they could look.

The current crowd-sourcing campaign is aimed at raising the money to restore the first of these 18 panels at a local ceramics conservation studio. Situated in a stone frame in the middle of the eastern facade, 2.33m above the floor, the Arcachon panel, typical of the attractive invitation to travel these pictures represent, has been chosen. The composition of plants, seaside and built landscapes, with its depth of field and the subtle movement of the pines presaging Art Nouveau, the fineness of patterns and colors, the detail of the low growing vegetation, transports us into a world that is both real and imaginary. 

The panel bears the signature 'M. Simas' at lower left, and the manufacturer's stamp 'UC / Paris/Digoin' and is composed of 120 fifteen centimetre square tiles, 1.3cm thick. Each tile weighs 520g and the whole panel 62.4kg. Some traces of its history are visible -- patches of abrasion and scrapes; scratches and moulds; the glaze is lifting in places; one square has been touched up with wood paint; another has been broken and a third is cracked; and the tiles on the edges are coming unstuck.

The panels need to be cleaned and consolidated, and it's hoped to complete the project under the more general auspices of the upgrading and restoration of the station that has been going on in the last few years. There is a lot of public affection and interest in these panels, which is why the crowd-funding approach is being trialled. It is hoped that individuals and businesses will give generously in order to save these rather special works of art.

Donations are tax deductible if you are a French taxpayer. For example, if you make a donation of €15, after your 66% tax rebate your actual outlay will amount to €5.10. For a donation of that amount you will be thanked publicly on Patrimoine-Environnement's Facebook page, for bigger donations you could get your name on the benefactors list in the station, receive a certificate acknowledging your gift, a guided tour of the station with an architect, visit the conservator's workshop, be invited to the unveiling of the restored panel or even get up onto the roof of the station.

There are only 19 days left to donate for the Arcachon panel, and to do so, please go to Ulule - Gare Tours.

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An Overview of Neonics and Their Effect on Pollinators:  An important paper pulling together European research into the effects of neonicitinoidal insecticides on pollinating insects was published this year in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. It is purposefully written in layman's language, in as neutral a tone as possible. Personally I think all stakeholders, from farmers to ecologists, and interested persons should read this document carefully. It says, among other things:

• pollination of food crops is achieved by both wild and managed species -- honey bees (which are virtually all managed), bumble bees, solitary bees and true flies (including hover flies).
• there is evidence that a range of pollinators improves crop yield.
• the major crops in Europe relying on pollination are arable (canola, sunflower); soft fruits (strawberries, raspberries); 'top' fruit (apples, pears, plums, peaches); vegetables (melon, zucchini, runner beans, tomatoes).
• decline trends in pollinator numbers since the 1950s are unclear -- mostly due to lack of long term data. Expert opinion is that the primary cause of declines is likely to be habitat loss or alteration.
• the introduction of the varroa mite has severely affected honey bees. It is a parasite and a vector for viruses. Overwintering mortality rates have increased in frequency in some areas but not in others.

None of which is to say that neonics are not a problem. The problem is lack of robust and replicable evidence, mainly due to the difficulty of designing and running field trials which will tell us anything meaningful. A similar review of the evidence came to the conclusion that: “The combination of prophylactic use, persistence, mobility, systemic properties and chronic toxicity [of neonicotinoids] is predicted to result in substantial impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning”.

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A la cuisine hier: Three jars of grape jelly, and about a cup of molten grape jelly all over the stove top when the wretched stuff boiled over. Grape jelly goes well with game, foie gras or on toast. It's a great way to use up the last of the Black Hamburg grapes from the orchard. Grape seeds have lots of pectin, so there is no problem with it setting.

The Sound of Cranes Flying Over

Eurasian Cranes Grus grus have a distinctive and very noticeable call when they are on the wing. They fly over Preuilly in February/March and October/November, on their way to and from their Spanish wintering grounds and their Scandinavian breeding grounds. Normally we notice them first because we hear the bugling call.

And that brings me to my point. Earlier this year scientists discovered how the crane makes this remarkable noise, that can be heard for kilometres.

It was already known that cranes have enormously long tracheas. They are longer than the bird's neck and twist and coil their way down to the lungs. It was assumed the trachea acted like a kind of trombone to amplify the call.

It turns out that the trachea is actually attached to the sternum, where it vibrates like strings over the bridge of a violin. The lungs form the resonating chamber and amplify the sound. Check out the sound in this video Simon made in February 2014 when they flew over our house.

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Au jardin hier: Yesterday I picked up the last of the walnuts, and the last of the grapes are ready to make jelly with. I raked some more 'hay', taking it from the windrows and putting it under the fruit trees. Many of the orchids are making big healthy leaf rosettes -- for once I manage to time the autumn mow perfectly for their brief dormant period, so they are in no danger of being chopped off. Lizard, Pyramidal, Ophrys spp (Early Spider and Bee) and Autumn Lady's Tresses all have leaves showing at the moment.

On the way down to the orchard I ran into our neighbour Edouard. He was taking a break from sawing his firewood and was up for a chat. Apparently he's just had a few days in hospital, and while he was away some blighter sneaked into his garden and stole his tomatoes. He reckons they took about 14kg of ripe tomatoes.

Bones and Roses

Archaeological digs in 2009-10 at the Prieuré de Saint Cosme, at La Riche on the outskirts of Tours, once home to the Renaissance poet Ronsard, uncovered 450 graves. Now the human remains found at the monastery have been inventoried, recorded and dated. The mostly men, but also women and children, have been blessed by the Archbishop of Tours and respectfully put into storage. The bones were those of monks, but also pilgrims and benefactors, all buried between the 12th and the 18th centuries, when the site, once an island, was active. Pierre de Ronsard himself was buried there in 1585.

The graveyard at the Prieuré de Saint Cosme.

The bones will be put into individual caskets, along with a photo of their excavation, details of dental condition, any indication of medical conditions, etc, all recorded on special non-reactive archival paper. They will be stored in the ceiling of the ambulatory. Although the site is now owned by the state, the curators and archaeologists felt they could not just pack up and store the bones like other objects, so they called in the Church to hold a suitable ceremony.

 The dramatic ruins of the priory church.

The site is currently closed while the garden is reconstructed, and will re-open to the public in January 2015. The new garden will feature all the plants Ronsard mentions, and remind people that Ronsard was not just about roses.

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Fungi Foray: The Association de Botanique et de Mycologie de Sainte Maure de Touraine has organised a fungi outing to the Forest of Chinon for Saturday 18 October. Meet at the carpark by the Carrefour (crossroad) Charles VII at 2.30 pm. The fungi gathered will be displayed and identified in the carpark after the outing.

From the carrefour de la Pucelle take the forest road towards Rivarennes, on the right if you are approaching from Tours.

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Farming News: Yesterday was clearly 'seed drilling day' if you are a farmer here. Presumably the soil moisture and air temperature was just right and more or less every farmer was out sowing their winter crops. The rain has paused for a few days and the sun is shining. They are working the fields while they can.

Pneuclear Power Posts

Clients often ask us what local people do for a living. Until last year, one of the responses could have been 'they work in the Michelin tyre factory at Joué lès Tours'. Nowadays that answer has to be tempered by adding that last year they laid off 700 workers and are due to lose another163 this year.

Bibendum waves from the Michelin tyre factory at Joué lès Tours.

Recently the local newspaper ran an article to the effect that one of the other big employers in the area, the nuclear power station near Chinon, is very open to receiving applications from ex-Michelin workers. The power station employs up to 5000 people and sees the Michelin workers as coming from a similar work culture, with transferrable skills.

The steam from the cooling towers of the nuclear power station looms over the chateau and town of Chinon.

There is no formal agreement between the two companies, but informally, the out of work Michelin staff are being encouraged to attend business forums organised by the employment centre in Chinon. Electricité de France, who own and run the nuclear power plant at Avoine, near Chinon, will welcome them at their stand, and recruits regularly.

L'Autre Euro

These two macropods hanging out on the cliffs of Kings Canyon are Euro Macropus robustus erubescens, a common and widespread subspecies of Common Wallaroo. The name Euro comes from an Adnyamathanha (Australian aboriginal tribal language from South Australia) word yuru. 'Wallaroo' is a word combining 'kangaroo' and 'wallaby', as wallaroos are halfway between the two in size.

Tackling the Escarpment

After a day spent walking at the lower level of Kings Canyon, we tackled the escarpment. This is my family heading up to the top.

A Dog's Life

 This beagle was photographed in Chédigny. He is obviously deeply disappointed not to have been taken on whatever errand his owners were on.
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Fungi Foray: The Association de Botanique et de Mycologie de Sainte Maure de Touraine has organised a fungi outing to the Forest of Loches for Sunday 12 October. Meet at the roundabout by the Pyramide des Chartreux (on the road to Montrésor at the junction of the D760 and the D9) at 2.30 pm. The fungi gathered will be displayed and identified in the carpark after the outing.

Making a Lawn

How many people does it take to make a lawn?

This class of high school students got to spend a day in the sun last week at the Logis Royal in Loches, preparing the soil and sowing a new lawn for the terrace overlooking the river.

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A Happy Winemaker

This is a picture of a happy winemaker*, from last week. He's dressed in waterproofs and busy hosing out his pneumatic press. All the chenin blanc from his flint soil has been picked and the yield of juice is high and good quality. Most of his neighbours are saying their yields are low. The juice will be fermented in stainless steel vats to make the base wine for vintage sparkling Vouvray.

 New oak barrels waiting for the juice that will make a distinctive dry wine with a nose like a sweet wine.

Diatomaceous earth being used in the filtering process. Unusually, Chateau Gaudrelle filters the juice prior to fermenting. The juice is allowed to sit for 24 hours to allow large particulates to drop to the bottom. Then to make sure fine particles of skin, seeds, stems and leaves that might lead to bad tastes in the wine are removed, the juice is forced through a pad and plate filter until it runs clear.

 Eole the Belgian Shepherd helps himself to the grape juice that drips from the filter pads.

*It's Alexandre Monmousseau from Chateau Gaudrelle.

Claudette Maquette

Simon has been having fun playing around in Photoshop. This is a real photo of Claudette parked on the side of the road with the Auberge and Chateau of Montpoupon in the background. He's manipulated the image using a style known as maquetting so that the scene looks like it is made of models.

Early Autumnal Villages

 Above is Chédigny, below Montrésor, still looking good in the early October sun. Both of these villages are picturesque enough to want to visit at any time of the year.

Wilderness Walking

Walking in this sort of wilderness area is always a privelege and a pleasure.
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Quiz Results: The answer to Tuesday's quiz is Domaine de Candé. No one got close.

Red Canyon Walls

The walls of Kings Canyon in the Northern Territory are weather worn and dramatic.

Sheep Farming in France

Sheep farms in France are often small, with no more than 200 animals in a flock, but flocks of twice that size are more common on lowland farms, and flocks of 1000 are not unknown. Mostly the farmer is working on his/her own. There are around 5 million head of breeding ewes in France, of which a quarter are dairy ewes. French people consume an average of 3.4 kg of lamb meat per year and the most popular cut is the leg (Fr. gigot).

A small flock in the Vienne, a major sheep producing area where farms remain largely traditional.

The sheep usually spend the spring, summer and autumn on pasture. They may or may not be shedded in the winter and fed a supplement (usually for a couple of months while lambing or in the final weeks of fattening prior to market). Dairy herds are more likely to be kept mainly indoors. The stocking rate is generally lower than one beast per hectare because the farms expect to be self-sufficient in grass and fodder.

The sheep are usually crossbreeds using various combinations of Berrichon de Cher, Ile de France, Vendéen, Texel, Charollais, Suffolk and Chamois for meat, whereas pure bred Lacaune are the most popular for milk. Wool is not a significant market. The main lambing season is February to April (winter lambing) but about half of producers aim to have about a quarter of their ewes lamb in the autumn (September to January) and it is now common to aim for lambs throughout the year (known as aseasonal lambing). The autumn lambs can be sold in the first half of the year, when prices are higher (eg at Easter time). Lambs are sold once they reach 30 - 40 kg, from 2-3 months old and no older than 10 months.

Solognot sheep (a heritage breed) in the Brenne.

Since 2010 radio frequency identification tags (RFID) have been compulsory for sheep and goats in France. The idea is that it allows swift identification of disease sources in the case of an outbreak. The tags hold a minimum of information such as transport permits at all times, but can be used to monitor all sorts of husbandry related things such as feed management.

The tags are seen by some mountain farmers with very small herds as expensive and double handling (there is already a manual tag and record book system in place). About a quarter of farmers refuse to use RFID, and the requirement to do so is currently being challenged in the courts. There is considerable resentment that cattle and pigs do not have to be RFID tagged. Earlier this year sheep farmers 'invaded' the Louvre to protest about the changes to subsidies which they argue favour industrial style farming and penalise the small traditional farmer. Certain subsidies are dependent on the use of RFID tags, and my impression is that the current system of subsidies and tax does indeed favour the larger operators over the small. Industrialised production, where lambs are fattened indoors not on pasture, lambing occurs throughout the year and flocks are getting larger whilst the industry as a whole is shrinking seems to be the trend. Certainly the national flock has declined by half in the last decade, consumption of lamb is down by a third and the price to the consumer has doubled.

I've written before on the blog about French lamb meat -- here about affordable French lamb and a campaign to improve the market for Lacaune lambs (the breed whose milk is used in Rocquefort cheese); and here about lamb from traditional bocage pasture.

Comparison with Australia: there are 75 million head of sheep (45 million breeding ewes) in Australia, but the industry here has declined greatly from its peak in the 1950s. Once, Australia was said to 'ride on the sheep's back' economically, but now cattle, cereals (especially wheat), dairy, market gardening and orchards all outstrip sheep production.  Nevertheless, Australia still produces about a quarter of the world's raw wool and it is 3% of Australian exports, reknowned for its extremely high quality. Australians are amongst the biggest consumers of lamb in the world (spending AUD$2 billion a year on lamb and consuming 10 kg per head per year) and the country is the largest exporter of mutton and live sheep, and the second largest exporter of lamb. The sheep meat industry is worth about AUD$4 billion and a third of all farms are involved in sheep production. Sheep dairies are almost non-existant.

Sheep are mainly grazed on native grassland, often in the semi-arid areas of the country, where sheep farms are known as 'stations'. The principal wool breed is the merino, accounting for three-quarters of the national flock. When producing sheep for meat, merinos crossed with border leicester are favoured.

For an insight into the management of an Australian sheep farm, see the Murnong Farming website. The farm is run by my cousin. I've written about typical Australian sheep farming country on the blog before here.

The Nature of the Touraine Loire Valley in October

 Botany outings are replaced by forest fungi forays.

October gives us notoriously changeable weather, often wet and windy with lots of mist and dull overcast days. Sunrise is about 08.30 and sunset about 19.00. Temperatures and hours of sunlight will drop significantly -- no more maximum temperatures of 20° or above, and back down to about 150 hours of sunlight. Average minimum temperature does not drop as quickly as average maximum though, so minimums are around 10°.

Late flying butterfly species such as Clouded Yellow Colias croceus will make the most of any sunny days.