We have had a mixed month so far. May is normally very warm  with continued blue skies. This year it's been quite cool we've had a lot more wind and it's rained most days. We were surprised last week by a very late lamb, he isn't managing to take milk from his mother so I am bottle feeding him. It's more usual to have lambs in March. He's very greedy and looks like he going to be very robust. Most of our sheep are black, we have one white ewe who is quite old and that was our only white. It seems like magic to suddenly get a white one. The new lamb has speckled brown legs and ears.

This is the lambs mother, she is 4, our new lamb is her 3rd.  We don't sheer our sheep because of the very cold winters.  There are very few sheep around so we are pretty safe from disease. I like our shaggy sheep this one has been bleached by the sun.

I bought a packet of seeds 3 years ago in France. Here they grow wild in the hedgerows and the native variety is violet/blue colour. The one above is one from the packet.

I have been wanting some old bicycles for sometime now. They are often advertised around here on the internet but  they are  always a bit expensive or too far away. I found 2 in an old dump, very rusty one has a split frame and the other has rusted through wheel rims. I think I shall try and make a viable bike one day but until I find some wheels they are propped up in my garden looking poetic.

My seedlings are slowly trickling out of the verandah, some come back after I realise  I have been a bit optimistic. I have been enlarging my Potager as I was running out of room. It's filling up as fast as I can dig. I now have a plot in the orchard along a stone wall. It's a very sunny spot. This morning I was digging and I managed to snap my fork in 2, the metal part! This is why I am updating my blog. I am wondering what to do next.

Red Basil.

Found these boots in the secondhand shop, perfect fit, 3 euros. I was  in need of new boots too. 

1st May

We visited a lovely fete lots of plants, animals and crafts.  We bought 3 male Indian Running Ducks last year. I think we were hoping for at least one female but out of the 3 one died. The 2 that are now 1 year old are very healthy males. This spring the ducks have been chasing the female goose around too much. The Gander has got very good at defending her but I felt that I had to try and intervene somehow. I bought another duck, this time a female. She is also 1 year like our 2 here but being female she is smaller. It's not great though, we really need a few more females. They are quite expensive 26 euros this year, last year they were only 10 each. Anyway now we are back home I can't put the female out with the males as they jump on her and they could harm her. It's always good to have a plan. Today I made her a private run where she could be amongst her fellow ducks and not need to flea. It was  great to see her settling in today. I will have to put the males away while I take her to the pond or let her roam the garden freely. The goose seemed happier today, not being chased. I always feel very concerned about the animals, hope i'm doing the right thing. I just went outside to bring her in the house. She is in the seed room now where I think she will be safer tonight. I have to make her a secure pen with the other ducks soon.
The Indian Runners above and below are black with a wonderful oily bluey, green glint to them. 

Here's the female meeting our ducks for the first time. She has a speckled beak. They make very good slug predators, they don't fly so ideal in an organic garden. We have a spring fed pond that they love. 

Trip to the pond.

Thistle growing by the pond

I'm still busy in the germinating and nurturing of plants. It's still too early to plant things out. I have makeshift cold frames and I am potting up seedlings in larger and larger pots. I seem to spend hours shifting things in and out of the sun or rain. Night or day, cold or warm. I still need to find somewhere for it all to go in the ground.

Textile Forays

I am about to embark on a season of Brocantes, Vides Greniers or 'Emptying the Attic' or 'Puces' or 'fleamarket'. Before I begin to scour the many tables of goodies I am wondering what kind of things I may look for. I am always keen on old tools, kitchenalia, gardening things and textiles. I am struck by how many of us are stimulated by textiles and vintage living. It's a curiosity. I never would imagine the wealth of blogs and how many of us have this desire to be close to the past. Many use the objets Trouvé to authenticate the lives we have now. It's like we need these totems around us to reaffirm who we are and our aspirations. To enrich our homes.
Many artists have accumulated stuff around them. Picasso used old bicycle handlebars and he transformed them into cow horns. I remember my art classes at school having a variety of plants to inspire a drawing. Old crockery, bottles provided a suitable subject for a still life.
It's not everybody who likes old things. My family has no time for my collecting, in fact when I moved to France I stupidly left boxes of my favourite things to be saved until I was next able to retrieve them. I returned after the winter to discover everything had been sorted through and mysteriously the tins brimming with things were empty. I found the whole experience devastating but I couldn't express this because to other people the stuff I lovingly and sensitively saved over my life were no more than trash.
I believe the things I look for now in my forays are a bit about trying to patch up my loss of my props but also I wish to enrich my home with things that cost little but represent a lot.

Potager

I love gardening, at the moment my studio is full of seedlings. I'm not great at rows but can be quite methodical at a stretch. I at least begin with a plan. I do get distracted when out shopping. Here in France, at least here in this area where it's probably more traditional than other areas. You have to buy it when you see it otherwise it's gone. So when I see potting compost in a pile outside Atac, the little supermaket, if I don't buy a couple of bags they disappear. It's taken me a few years to realise this. So if you see fruit trees in the shop and don't buy you have to wait till next year. I bought a peach tree this week. I am taking a gamble, in fact I am thinking I might grow it in a pot indoors.
 I love both of these images of the same theme Potagers. I have been looking up French veg growing blogs by images. I found the image above by Van Gogh and the one below is Pissaro's garden by various artist's including Pissarro.

Pissarro's garden by Cezanne

Pisarro's garden by Gauguin

Pissarro's vegetable garden

Les Pommes de terre | PhotoSeed

Ferdinand Coste, 1895 France photogravure.here

Matinée de Mai en Morvan, photogravure Ferdinand Coste 1861- 1932.

This is an area slightly below us near Luzy. On the way we pass through some very rural communities. I take a lot of photos as a passenger out of the car. Many of these I delete but sometimes there is something that becomes the idea behind a landscape painting. I often become instinctively interested in certain views. I either love the way a landscape opens up to reveal something, like a group of cottages or some interesting land feature. This interest seems to be increased by the amount of times I pass through it. Somehow a landscape becomes part of my memory of place and part of an experience.

This is an area that was neglected, we call it the fruit garden as it was where the lady who lived here before grew her fruit bushes. I am attempting to remove brambles, bracken and nettles so I can have extra garden. Not plain sailing! At the moment I have sprinkled flower seeds. The plan is to grow fruit bushes in memory of Madame Lequin, she lived here on her own for many years. The toilet was outside, no bathroom. There are jars of her things in the cave below the house. She kept herself very busy and in summer  gave away jars of her jams to the other villagers. I made 1 jar of blackcurrant jam last year. So delicious it's inspired me to take lots of cuttings to grow more.

Our cat flap is high off the ground. The cats have an angled plank to get up and then a stone shelf to walk along under vines. Puds likes sitting up here in the evenings, he needs more space. 

I have discovered some wonderful French vintage housecoats, as soon as I work out how to sell them I will be selling them. They are all different, handmade and, I think, very wearable. You can wear them layered with cardigans, woollies with wellingtons or flip flops. I find them really comfortable, cool and certainly not the kind of thing you find on the High Street. I shall be keeping 1 or 2.

Plant envy in my neighbour's garden.

Alpina Clematis, I'm really unsure about this planting. I read they don't tolerate much sun. As we already have high temperatures, 20+°C I imagine it won't like full sun where the soil can be a little dry. This is our only North facing wall and it would be wonderful to have plants crawling over it. It's rather ugly and not only this the main entrance to our house is here. Not exactly welcoming as it is. I do have little violets growing and that has opened me up to the idea of looking for more woodland plants. I just worry that the winter is too harsh, I may have to cut back and bring Alpina in. She has such pretty delicate blue petals.
My car behind is a little Nissan, it's a funny old car only 850cc so I get very good mileage. I go shopping and drive slowly, no one else on the roads to irritate. I wouldn't want to drive to the seaside in her but great, very cheap and always starts even on the coldest days. I also have a Morris Traveller and the VW Caravelle is at the garagiste waiting for parts. We will go travelling when this one is ready. The winter can send one a little stir crazy. 

Cherry blossom in the field. It produces small cherries, slightly tart compared with others  on the farm.

Charity larks

I just read a funny story on a blog about a bag and a charity shop. It really made me laugh. Do have a look here 
It reminded me of a friend's escapades one day and set me laughing about that too.
I remembered my friend, James telling me a story.  He had spotted a must have wet suit in a charity shop. As he told me the story it was still very fresh in his mind. It had only just happened that afternoon. He was just a little traumatised by it which made it all the more hilarious. Bearing in mind we were both living in darkest Herefordshire, not known for aquatics of any kind. Just the idea of a wet suit is kind of strangely other worldy. Anyway he decided to try the wet suit on for size, in a rather pokey changing room. The suit was quite snug, a little tight maybe, but nevertheless probably worth getting as you never know it might well come in very handy for a bit of wild swimming.

The hilarity occurs when he tries to remove the wet suit in a little shop. With only himself and a couple of very sweet, elderly volunteering, charity shop girls. He just couldn't pull it off. So all he could do was ask for assistance. You can just imagine how mad a scene that would have been to come across. It cracks me up whenever I try and remember poor James telling me and I, uncontrollably laughing.

Charity shops are thin on the ground here in Burgundy. I know of 3 shops, 1 is too far and the other I can go to on a trip to the supermarket. There are depots though, 1 is about to open in April. I've never been to it so I am quite optimistic. The depots sell everything, house clearance.

It's beautiful here today, warm enough to prove bread. I am making pittas for later. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I have included this photo of a caravan that I am a bit in love with today. I really shouldn't look on the internet for 'anciens' camping.