Bye Bye Birdie

I hardly knew how attached I’d become to my little birds prior to bringing them home, or what a challenge they’d be. We’ve sadly had two more losses; a death and one being moved to a better home.

On Tuesday morning I’d walked to school with my girls and come home with the intention of going to the market. On my way to the car I passed the chicken coop and went to let the feathered girls out. As I opened the door I saw it. One of my little ducks was lying on the ground, deflated as if all the air had left his little body. Which of course it had.

There was no mistaking what had happened. He was lying in the middle of the room, so there was no chance that it had been caused by something outside of the coop. As I looked closer I saw he had marks all over his body. He’d been pecked to death.

The goose and remaining duck were running round the coop chirping and, to me, seemed to be distressed.

I called over my husband and thankfully he took charge of the little body. We had a disagreement about what we should do. I wanted to get another bird about the same size and not let their girls know. He wanted to wait and see how the others fared.

As I approached the market I’d made a plan of how to protect the other two birds. I would keep them in a cage each night to protect them. I’d done this when I first introduced each chicken, but the size of the gosling and duckling obviously meant they were open to increased danger.

As I arrived at the market I immediately saw a stand with poultry for sale with ducks the same size and breed as the one we’d lost. I spoke to the man and explained the situation and he seemed surprised that the little one had died. He confirmed what I’d read, that ducks and chickens can live together. He added perhaps mine were a little young and when I told him what my intention was he agreed this was a reasonable course of action.

I made sure to ask him for a female duck this time.

With a new duck in a box I travelled home to put her in the coop. She wouldn’t go in the cage we had and seemed a little distressed. So I gave the chickens a time out for their bad behaviour and locked them in their coop. The gosling and the ducklings were left to room outside in the enclosure.

It became clear as I looked at them all together that the bird that I had already had was a male as the marks around his eye were a lot stronger and you could hardly see hers, which a distinguisher between the sexes in Mallard ducks.

I set off to my parents to borrow their dog crate, which I planned to house them all in that night.

In the evening the ducks went into the large dog crate and the gosling went into the smaller cage I already had, which was way to small for more than one of them now. They’re getting a lot bigger.

The second night the ducks happily went into the large dog crate and the gosling insisted on going with them. They were a firm team the three of them.

We had our French friends over for a barbecue and I showed them the coop with the birds. Being a former townie my knowledge is severely lacking, yet it seems the provincial French have a wealth of knowledge. Our friend Lennie looked concerned. « You know the goose is going to get a lot bigger? »

The thing is that, even though us city folks have seen farm animals we probably haven’t seen them up close since we were children. I take the girls to a petting zoo, but there are no geese there. So I was surprised as Lennie continued that the goose would need a lot more space just to stretch its wings. Annalise, his wife, said « you think they’ll grow how big, like this? » and indicated hip height. « Or even bigger » said Lennie, to my ears, ominously.

We talked about the possibility of the goose going in the wider garden, but as Lennie pointed out his, ahem, waste would be very large and messy. Also geese are known to be territorial and are happy to attack those who think are a danger. This was getting better and better 😧.

It was obvious that we couldn’t keep him. What were we to do? Of course the French being the French responded that we could eat him! 😵I replied that we got all our meat from the supermarket and I couldn’t nurture, then kill and eat him. I was about to add that I wouldn’t have blood on my hands, but it was time to offer the beef burgers and chicken skewers 😉😁.

Lennie suggested maybe a fiend of his could take him, making sure I understood that he wouldn’t be eaten. I was happy with that.

The next morning I got up and let the feathered girls out and immediately noticed that, despite being in the cage, the gosling had marks all down her neck. Any reservations I had flew out the window and I decided on additional steps to protect the ducks. I bought a large dog crate with a metal door on it. Everything was rearranged and that night the three of them slept there safely until I could make arrangements for our gosling. My heart was already breaking from the thought of separating these three amigos.

As Lennie had found it difficult to speak with his friend I spoke with a woman at the school. She’s a teaching assistant there and I remembered that someone had told me that she owned the beautiful duck pond I’d fallen in love with when I first saw our village. I explained the situation to her and she was so kind, suggesting I bring the gosling to her and then the girls could still come and see her.

On Friday night I put her in a pet carrier. My heart is still breaking just thinking of it, but I knew we couldn’t keep the little darling. I drove her to the pond, only a short distance away, and we took her into the pond area.

When I let her out of her cage she wouldn’t leave me. She just stayed nearby, chirping. She could see and here the other foul, but just stayed.

I walked away, trying to give her an opportunity to meet the others, but wherever I walked to she followed. Some large geese came over, three of them. These are really big creatures! No wonder fairy tales have geese laying golden eggs, they must be significantly bigger than chicken ones!

The little one igñored them and just came to where I was stood, further round the pond. I videoed her a little, so I’d having something to show my girls, and moved on. Again she followed. This time the large geese, who had immediately recognised her as one of their own, chased me off. Honking and flapping their wings – they were quite a site!

I came home, amazed at how much I missed her.

We’ve gone a few times to walk down and make sure she’s ok. Each time she’s come over to the fence to say hello. It’s amazing that she seems to have attached to us after such a short period.

The ducks are doing well in the carrier. More on them later.

The First Meal From La Potagère

After my last, sad post I thought I’d update you on some more cheerful potagère news. The weather has turned very warm here so, rather than contain them for the extra week advised by their seller, I’ve let the ducks go out into the poultry enclosure.

They of course had their friend the gosling to keep them company. The trio are forever together and sometimes it looks like the little goose is their surrogate mum. After the loss of the other gosling this makes me so happy to see the little chap have companionship.

Their first night outside I had shown them the old, plastic dog kennel that I’d filled with grass cuttings. It was like a soft warm bed that I kept catching them up and placing them in. Of course the others would be running around and at first this made whichever member of the foul family I had in there waddle out asap. Eventually I managed to get them all in and they seemed to like it.

The produce in the potagère is growing well. My surplus of lettuce is being shredded and fed to the poultry and I’m going to pot some up and take some to the neighbours tomorrow. The beds are kind of crowded you see and reading my month by month veg grower book I’ve started,to think about planting others things that will come to fruition later in the year.

This week we had our first meal with our own grown veggies; lettuce and peas. I waited until my daughters came home to pick them as I thought they’d be excited to do so. I was right. They chatted away as we selected leaves from still growing lettuce, leaving their stems to continue on their merry way. My youngest, seeing me shred leaves that had been nibbled by insects and throw them in with the chickens thought that was the point and was happily grabbing handfuls to give them, eek!

So we moved on to the peas, squeezing the pods to see if they were firm and plucking some that were from the stems. We had them in a salad and I’ve never seen my eldest eat so much green.

I’m still trying to figure out how and when to harvest them; do I just keep them on the vine until ready to eat, or collect and store them? I do know that to store them I have to leave their little ‘hats’ on.

I’ve already spoken of how carrots can be left in the ground even after a frost, but I thought I’d show you how they are popping up from the ground. Yesterday I could only see one group, but I swear that after today’s intense heat lots more seemed to have shown themselves.

The beets have at least one plant that are the size of a golf or tennis ball and others are growing well.

The spring onions have grown so well that I’ll definitely have to harvest some tomorrow. The bulbs on some of them are just lying outside of the earth on the ground.

The red cabbages aren’t ready, but I’m finding how they grow fascinating. You can gradually see the shape form, with the central leaves closing in on themselves and the outer ones spread out.

As I can make space in the beds I’m thinking of broccoli, leeks, more parsnips maybe and carrots too if I can get them (they can stay in the ground so long so can be used in the autumn and winter), as well as Brussel sprouts -maybe even some pumpkins?

The markets here don’t just sell good food, you can buy veggies and some fruit ready to put in the ground to continue growing. I’m going to go with the girls and choose some more things to go in.

To hear the birds sing as you tend to, select and eat your own grown food. Yes, this is life pre fall in Eden. I don’t know why I’ve been blessed with this, but I’m so grateful. To think this was God’s plan for all of us. It still is when His Kingdom comes.

Living In Community Means Responsibility…

….and as an immigrant I know this from my hosts.

On Tuesday my husband and I left the house early to go to the market before I went ahead to pick our youngest girl from school for lunch. My eldest refuses to come home for this meal as she likes to ‘dine with friends’. In all honesty the menu they have at the school is far superior than that at home. Only when you’re living in France can you expect to get an answer to “What Did you have for lunch…” that begins with “Well for l’entré we had….for the main plait… and for déssert [proper inflection] we had….”.

I digress. We are fortunate that we have one, as well as local shops. Many of the villages nearer to the towns don’t as their proximity to large shops makes them obsolete with selection and prices. Yet these markets give us an opportunity to meet the others in our village, as well as buy from chains leading back to our local farmers.

Unfortunately this time I didn’t have my camera, and I’m rather shy about taking it out and snapping away so publicly anyway. I’ve included here some photos of the local market at the next town. Regularly visiting ours is a fruit and veg stand, with in season produce, a small delicatsen, some clothes, a fishmonger, a wine cellar. This in addition to the local butchers, hairdressers, ironmongers, pharmacy and boulangerie.

I must confess I am no longer used to prices of produce that hasn’t been hammered down by the enormous buying power of a supermarket chain. It shocks me that having bought an entire cod fillet we paid 20€. I bought a kilo of mince from the butchers and à tartine of pâte croûte and together they cost 14€. Needless to say the supermarket is cheaper and for someone who has virtually no physical taste (I thought it was diabolical, for instance, when they reduced the salt in Pot Noodles – If You add it back in it just doesn’t taste the same) this isn’t a selling point for me either.

Yet the importance of people and valuing what they produce is important and does convince me. Never more so than having read this astonishing article here. Unfortunately I have neither the cooking or home economic skills at present to commit successfully shopping at these places all the time. I say this because the expense means going without – perhaps we can’t have meat every day of the week, but it will be of a superior quality. In order not to have meat every day of the week and not just substitute fish I have to learn to cook meals with little or no meat, with leftovers; in other words the things our grandmothers did when produce was local and their shopping was too.

I want to do this, I feel compelled to as giving value to the food, denying the self in the process, means valuing the person doesn’t it?

Today I walked out of my front door and was met with the scene that made me fall in love with this village. The sweep of the road here is so beautiful – and our house is on the corner leading into this sweep. I remember driving through this village for the first time and being astounded at it’s beauty, constructed 100s of years ago, and lovingly developed since then.

As I walked round the area, its duck pond so beautiful which is actually owned by a naighbour, the clear waters of the river, I am aware that generations of these villages have contributed to this and I am inheriting it by grace.

I walk to the school and my presence is walmly greeted by others. They smile and are patient with my still struggling French. I am grateful for their patience and consideration.

When I return home a neighbour drops by. We walk through my garden and she gives me advice on plants and how to tend them as she knows I’m not a country woman. Again I am grateful for her time.

These people already practise the responsibility of small community. It strikes me that they are La France Periphique, those who are mocked and derided for their concerns about immigration, globalisation and the impact it has on their lives.  Yet I can tell you that I have not experienced any derision, only kindness from them. Even when I’ve discussed political issues with them and they have been vocal in their concerns in their grace they have always made it clear that it not born of hatred for the stranger, but a wish to have someone discuss and address their concerns without deriding them.

They are people I admire and I went to learn from. From their self sacrifice, their solidarity and, yes, the knowledge of this earth we share. I pray that I can be worthy of their inheritance.