The Holiday Season – For Some!

It’s the holidays – well, in theory! Rors has his eight weeks of school-freeness stretching before him, but the rest of us still have our noses to the grindstone. Summer is the busiest time for gite owners and the good weather seems to be making indie authors very productive so my editing services are in high demand. Added to that there’s lots to do round the farm and vegetable patch, especially now that it’s hot and dry and a lot of water needs to be lugged about for thirsty pumpkins and animals.

Benj is lending his muscle for all the heavy jobs as well as keeping himself busy with his own projects, and Caiti is about to start her four weeks of computer coding up in Paris. They’ve been told they’ll be working 15 hours a day so that will certainly keep her out of trouble! She’s packing at the moment and has theoretically sorted out her accommodation for while she’s there so we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. I’ll keep you posted how things are going for her. She’s looking forward to taking in the Bastille Day parade this coming Sunday and the last stage of the Tour de France the week after that.

The piglets are now huge and lots of fun. They’re eating solid food and are all now expert rooters and rollers in the mud. One of the females already has her future home sorted. We’re swapping her for a young pink and brown sow to either do some cross-breeding with or dine on.

Our hay is cut, dried and baled now. It’s been a good year for hay after two bad ones so there’ll be a lot of happy farmers. We’re pleased that we have good quality winter fodder for our animals.

I’ve finally got all the poultry apart from my feral grey chicken into the henhouse, which soon celebrates its anniversary. Anastasia, the black hen, has found her own way out but she’s happy enough to be herded in with the others of an evening, even though she’s back out five minutes later!  This year’s turkeys are proving to be very well behaved and stick on our land as opposed to wandering for miles across the neighbour’s fields which the last couple of batches have done. And after an extensive brooding period, Cynthia has condescended to start laying eggs again so all is well amongst the feathered residents of Les Fragnes.