Waitangi day....

A walk with the team in the woods....

Mum and little one healthy and happy...

Looking a little bare!! Still cold enough at night to keep everything reluctant...

Feijoas in Brittany! Well I hope there will be, shall find out probably next year...

Just about finished kitchen (at last)..currently working on the white gite before tackling the new bathroom in here...

Frustrating this week, seemed to have pulled something in my calf so now hobbling around plus the rain has arrived and now does not want to stop :(...

Spring foal

On Saturday a foal was born from one of the mares of our friend Lisa. Mother and baby are doing great. Such a beautiful little thing!

Adventures...

Lola and Charlie have discovered a great new that is called going on adventures. They pack their backpacks with some food & drink, a blanket, notepad, and a map they've made themselves and then go wandering around on our land. They have a picnic at the river and have a wonderful time. After a while we go looking for them, but before we find them they've already found their way home again. You gotta let them go...

UFO lands in Plouyé

UFO lands in Plouyé



Aliens have a lovely view over the village



Winter, but not too cold to do some landscaping for the mousies with fairy moss....

Christmas dinner in the new kitchen

Wow, it's been a while... The days are getting longer and we still haven't even posted our christmas pictures! In the mean time winter hasn't really arrived (two days frost so far). The kids were worried that christmas would be cancelled without any snow!

Thierry, Linda, Lucia, Xavier, Pascale, Lisa and Jerome, came for christmas dinner in our new kitchen. We had loads of lovely food and two of our amazing meat chickens. This is really the best and most pleasant way to practice our french.

More recent news? The kids had lovely presents (Thank you everybody!!) and now Charlie is bigtime into lego. Rod's had surgery on his carpel tunnel and is recovering fast & well. He'll get his other wrist fixed as well because the french health system is such a nice experience :-) Milo's had his stifle locked (again) but seems to be getting a bit better. We might be getting some wwoooffers in the springtime, hoping we get some more work done in the gardens.

Anything else I need to blog about? No news is good news, I guess!

Update

November 2nd....

Finally the lovely, warm weather is receding and the wet begins...we have had a fantastic summer/autumn so no complaints. I am looking forward to some real cold weather not only to test the renovations but also to kill off some of the less desirables...one in particular being the Asian hornet, similiar in size to the 'native' one here yet much more aggresive. I found a couple cleaning up one of my hives this week, I think the hive had already been robbed by another colony yet these hornets have the ability to do alot of damage in small numbers...

Time to manure the raised beds and cover them with straw before the real winter arrives, ditto with the polytunnel although I shall need to plan out the beds in there in readiness for the new year. Also am looking to collect as much dead leaf as possible to put in a clamp for next year.

We now have three black sheep, brothers born this year and left entire so not wanted but their owner...we shall keep one and hopefully exchange the other two for young ewes, thus starting the flock! Home killing of sheep is still permitted here so this will be a great way of ensuring we have our own meat...in addition to our meat birds that will be ready for Christmas I think.

We have had a variety of harvestable foods yet it is obvious to us that it will take sometime and a lot of work to get the soils replenished and techinques right to reduce the slugs, catepillars etc! Amazingly, the rasberries are still going (only just) which gives some indication of just how warm it has been here. However, the wet weather that is due to arrive will mean that I can focus on the many indoor jobs that await...

Kids are back to school in the morning having had a 10 holiday (it felt they had only just gone back!?) so hopefully I can have this kitchen finished (before Christmas (2011 that is)). Sadly, no such progress can be reported on my ability to speak French, maybe I shall discover some latent gift soon...(sounding alittle like a Tui ad)...

R

Kitchen...

Kitchen floor is ready. We're just waiting for the new stove to arrive and then the kitchen bench can be moved in. How exciting!