Ste-Croix-aux-Mines

Cured bacon from the market in St. Marie-aux-Mines, the little Alsatian town where my great-grandmother lived.  I discovered from the Archives that my family lived there since 1675 at least.

A really wonderful duck pate en croute.  It had three different layers, and raisins and almonds in aspic on top.

 

This was the ladder up to the hayloft where we slept.  We got five mattresses up this thing.

Blood Sausage - it was really good.  I want to learn to make it.

Bernard's sheep

Some kind of cool wild flower.  My dad probably told me what it's called, but I can't remember.

The boldest sheep.

Looking at the sheep with Bernard.  I felt bad he didn't have more for us to do.

Purple columbines in the meadow

All around was meadow with beautiful, forested mountains all around.  Lovely views.

Me standing by the stone water trough with a bowl to pick nettles for lunch

 

We didn't do too much yesterday, mainly the drive from Aurore's to Bernard's sheep farm where we're WWOOFing for the next few days. The drive was pretty smooth and uneventful, traffic wise, but except for the middle part on le autoroute was pretty hairy. First we had to come down out of the Alps, and then we had to go up into what I think are the Vosges. The goat track up to Bernard's farm wasn't even on the GPS or the Google maps we printed out, but we managed to drive straight there anyway. I think we must have good dirt-track-to-middle-of-nowhere-farm karma. We were a little worried about the WWOOFing, since sometimes they have people stay in a wiki up or teepee, but it's really nice. We're staying in a room in the hay loft. We covered the floor in mattresses so it's just like home with the super wide bed. The only thing it doesn't have is heat. We all froze last night until we got up and put on all our clothes.

It's incredibly beautiful here, and the wild strawberries are just ripening. Bernard's three daughters have been really nice and have taken to the kids. So far all the work we have had to do is cook dinner last night, and we're on the hook for lunch today. He uses the same netting we use, and his other fences are familiar, too. We'll get to move fences with him later and see how he does it. Between his limited English and the tiny bit of French I've picked up it's hard to talk shop, though.

We spent yesterday roving around Bernard's farm. For a couple hours in the afternoon Angie and I went with Bernard to move his sheep in the various pastures he rents up and down the valley. It is almost exactly the same as at our farm, except instead of the oak branches making it hard, it's the hillside, and finding a place with few enough rocks to get a post in. Marc spent the day rambling and went through both camera batteries. Angie has been cooking for everyone, and Bernard's daughters looked very surprised that everything tasted really good. I think they have had some WWOOFers who can't cook. There has been hardly anything to cook with, mostly just potatoes and onions, with a bit of prosciutto like ham. We have eked it out with some of the wild nettles and dandelion greens. Mathilde ate three bowls of the nettle soup last night. They seem to trust Angie's cooking now, because Bernard came back from Ste-Marie-aux-Mines yesterday with tons of groceries and is defrosting a leg of lamb for dinner tonight, and we have mutton sausages for lunch. We're going to the market in Ste-Marie-aux-Mines now, so here's some pictures. They're all pretty self explanatory, but the one at the bottom is Angie be the water trough in front of Bernard's house. The whole thing is carved from one block of stone and is constantly fed by a trickling spring that has been piped down the mountain. 

Saturday was our last day at Bernard's. In the morning we went to the market in Ste-Marie-aux-Mines. It took us a while to find it, but we got a nice tour of the town while we were looking for it. We might have gone a little overboard, but it was okay, since we felt like we ate more than we worked at Bernard's. The charcuterie stall was amazing and we got a couple different types of pate en croute, one duck, one chicken, a cured blood sausage, and a truly cured bacon that didn't need refrigerated. We loaded up with that and some vegetables and bread and went back to Bernard's. There was an exciting moment in the way home when said "If we want to go the back way to Bernard's, turn here". But Angie heard "turn here", and we had to turn around with a twenty point turn on the side of the mountain.

We made it back the usual way, which is crazy enough by itself, and had lunch with Bernard and his girlfriend Nadine and son Paulo, who was home for the weekend. He is in the French version of the 10th Mountain Division. After lunch Mirin played with the dog, Schmoozie, and we helped Bernard catch some sheep that he was selling to a couple from down in the valley. They were vegetarians who just wanted them to keep their grass short. We were all driving up to the pasture and got to the turn where Bernard would go half way around, back up, put on the parking brake, shift into first, gun the engine, release the brake, and peel out up the mountain with a cloud of stones flying out behind us, when the lady buying the sheep said "These aren't moutons, they are chamois!" We caught the sheep and helped Bernard hobble them so the couple could drive them home in their tiny little Peugeot hatchback. 

The alps

Captions will follow someday, but now it's bedtime.

Escargot.  There were millions of the things all over.  I don't know how they could stand the cold.  Aurore said it was their breeding season, and forbidden to collect them right now.

Mirin and Rose on the top of La Dole mountain.  It was cold.

Beautiful little fairy pool in the snow melt creek

Rose heading up to the top of La Dole.  We were walking on the rocks beside the snow melt.

Clothilde and I finally caught up with the big kids.

Jean-Francois the snow man.  There wasn't much snow, obviously, but my Florida kids were desperate.

Three local cheeses in Premanon

The beautiful milking cows in Premanon that make milk for Comte cheese.

Clothilde playing near my cousin's house in the Alps

Some lovely girls ruminating on the fragrant pasture.  They all had bells and it sounded beautiful.

An interesting wildflower.

 

The drive to Premanon was pretty normal at first, but after dark we started getting up into the alps and it was really white-knuckle driving. The GPS kept trying to send us the "short" way, over the mountains on cow paths. We finally got there and fell into bed, except there wasn't room for Marc and he had to follow Fred into Les Rousses to an apartment they had there. He could barely keep up with Fred's little sports car. It was a small miracle that he was able to find his way back to the house the next morning.

Tuesday we woke up after Aurore and everyone had gone to work or school and went into Les Rousses and had fondue at a fromagerie that made Comte cheese. This time the menu confusion meant we had twice as much food as we needed, but we could at least take the charcuterie with us. We went down the road to a couple different lakes, and into Switzerland. We made sure to have our passports all ready at the border, but it was deserted, so we went on. We walked along the lake a bit while Mirin tried to make a reed boat to float across and climb the cliff on the other side. We left before he could depart and went grocery shopping on the way home. The co-op biologique was a bit of a disappointment, but we restocked on diapers. It was like Mother Earth grocery on a bad day, but the check out line was quicker. The Intermarche was much better. Everything is more expensive except the cheese. Forty dollars at Dorn's is about 12 euros, and the selection is much bigger. We also found some soft purple shoes for Clo for only 6 euros, so she's back in action.

Back at Aurore's everyone was home so the kids played. The language barrier just seems to make them play louder and crazier. Aurore gets raw milk from some friends of hers with a farm down the road that you can see from her house. We went to pick it up for her while she finished dinner. Rosie stayed to play with Flore, and Titouan  came to play with Mirin and give us directions to the farm. He's five and only speaks French, so it took some finding. We would approach a place to turn and Angie would ask if we had to turn. There would be a flood of French that crescendoed as we got closer to the turn. Then we would turn and the crescendo would either end with a quiet "no no no" if we got out right or a squeaky "oui" if we got it right. After trying almost all the turns on the way there we made it and met Fred, Aurore's husband there. They were just finishing up milking and Aurore's milk came straight out of the huge bulk tank /chiller. As they finished milking we got a tour of the farm. They milk what we would call red Holstein cows, but they have a special name for them we couldn't catch. All of their milk from their hundred cows goes to make the Comte cheese. That breed of cow has been raised in the area for the past 900 years to make the cheese. To produce milk for the Comte cheese they have to abide by really strict standards. They get less than a kilo of grain and they can't have any silage, only hay because it changes the taste of the milk. The Comte is only made when the cows are on their summer pasture so the milk is as sweet as possible. They also have to rotate the pastures, but not very frequently, only a couple times a week. All of the farms in the area use electric fences, and you could tell that about a quarter of them rotationally graze. It wasn't until today that we saw any barbed wire. Anyway, we finished the farm tour and went back to dinner.

Dinner was vegetable soup with cooked sausages, and then bread and cheese. Aurore had bought the three main cheeses that are made in the region, the Comte, a lighter, younger cheese with a line of ash in the middle, and a blue style cheese that was more grey than blue but really good. It didn't have the same sweet tang of a blue cheese but had more of a brie funk to it. After dinner we took the kids on a walk along the cow paths while Flore and Titouan got ready for bed. After about forty five minutes we went in and put everyone to bed, and Marc went off to the apartment.

I almost forgot, but Tuesday evening with Aurore we went on a walk through the forest around her house and picked nettles and wild spinach for soup. We played a game where the kids pair up and one of them close their eyes. The other leads them to a tree and with their eyes still closed they have to feel around the tree and it's immediate surroundings. Then they are led back to where they started and can open their eyes. They then have to find the tree that they were led to. On the way back there was a old man scything some grass for his rabbits. Aurore said he was a little crazy and always thought that the neighbors were trying to poison his rabbits and chickens. The first picture is his pile of grass and wooden wheelbarrow.

Today we woke up earlier and had a quick breakfast. As we were finishing it started to snow. Mirin and Rose must have set a record for the most excitement about snow in May for the alps. After it stopped we drove a little way to the base of La Dôle. Mirin, despite his whining about the stairs in Nice has been excited to run up things as long as there's snow or a castle at the top. Aurore teaches at the mountaineering school nearby and pointed us in the right direction and gave us a topo map. We parked and asked a local the way to the trailhead. He took a long skeptical look at our shoes and pointed us up the alp. Mirin and Rose ran most of the way up, Angie and I took turns with carrying Clo. Marc brought up the rear with the camera. We made up it past the snow line, although there wasn't much snow. It did snow on us a bit, and we made a tiny snow man. There were also some snow balls whizzing about. The clouds started closing in, so we headed down. Our legs were like jello by the time we got back to the car, and we went back to Aurore's for lunch. Flore and Titouan were waiting for us and once the kids had eaten more cheese and whined for more bread with butter and jam they all went outside and ran up and down the road on bikes and scooters and climbed the rocks by the neighbors house. Hopefully they'll sleep on the way to Ste-Marie-aux-Mines tomorrow. Angie took a long nap while I was writing and Clo played almost quietly. In a moment we'll have cake for Flore's seventh birthday. The other new is that Titouan lost a tooth recently and a little mouse (the French version of the tooth fairy) brought him a candle powered boat. We have been attempting to sail it in the sink with very limited success. It's cake time now, so until tomorrow. 

 

Nice to Crest

A view of (I think) Nice from up high near an old cemetery

Clothilde running up a cobblestone road in Crest

Mirin, my dad, my friend Vincent, and me walking in old Crest

(I think) a picture of the rooftops of Crest with mountains in the distance.  Mirin couldn't wait to get to the Alps.

My dad and Clothilde in downtown Crest.  Pollarded trees are very popular for landscaping there.

One of the many beautiful roses growing in Crest

An old prison (Vincent said built maybe around 1000 AD for the Protestants) in Crest

The beaches in Nice are pebbles, not sand

Playing in the Mediterranean.  It was cold.

Rose at the Roman-Gaulish ruins in Nice.  We ended up walking up a crazy number of stairs to get there.  It looked so short on the map.  Mirin almost didn't make it, but it was good because by the time we got to the Alps, he didn't complain at all.

The view from the crazy long staircase on the way to the ruins in Nice

 

Hey everyone,
No internet until late last night, but here's what we did.
We left the gite and met Vincent for lunch in crest. Then we walked up winding covered streets to the big jail/castle on the hill. This time Mirin and Rose ran on ahead and Clo on my shoulders kept shouting "Catch Mirin Rosie!". Her new shoes give her blisters so she couldn't catch then herself. They are Nice shoes, so they are very stylish, very expensive, and not practical at all. By the time we got to the top we didn't have time to go in, and it was tres cher anyway.
On the way down, there was a spring coming out of the wall with a non potable sign on one side, and a historical plaque on the other explaining that people had been drinking there since the 1300s and that it was famous for tasting so sweet that it was called the sap spring. Vincent said he drank there all the time and it was fine. It was the best water we've had the whole time, even the alpine springs aren't quite as nice.
We finally left Crest after stopping by Vincent's apartment and wading in the river, about two hours later than we planned.

Out the Door

We are all packed, and heading out the door - yes, a true backpacking trip - we're taking only hand luggage.  Any more than that, and it's expensive and a pain to drag around.  I've got my good, old yellow backpack I took with me back when I was 17 and wandering around France with a Eurail pass and a hostelling guide.  It's served me well, and while I was packing I realized what a great back pack it is.  I bought it more than a decade ago at the local camping-gear store.  I told the guy at the store I was travelling in France for 3 months, and he urged me to get something larger.  He said, "There's just no way you're going to make it in France for 3 months with that back pack."  But I did, and it was great.

The most amazing traveler I've ever met was a Canadian girl at a German hostel.  She had hitchhiked all over the place in North America, and was now making her way around Europe.  She had great stories.  When she went to leave, she picked up her teeny, tiny back pack and all the rest of the girls in the dorm room just gaped at her.  "Is that ALL you have?" said one girl incredulously.  She was just in the process of cramming her clothes back into her huge metal-framed pack.  The Canadian girl shrugged and said, "Yeah.  You just wear the same thing when you're traveling, anyway."  She was a genius.

I hope that we will be able to post little snapshots of our trip here and there, so there won't be complete silence.  Wish us luck!  We're going to need it!

Leaving Off

We put the calves back on the mamas, and skimmed the cream off the last of the milk for now.  Last batch of butter here, and we also made some ice cream with a half gallon of cream and a dozen egg yolks.  There's nothing like fresh, home-made raw butter, except maybe fresh, home made raw cream ice cream with a dozen egg yolks.

There's a little bit of packing left, and some loose ends to be tied up at the farm.  There were a lot of things that got crossed off the to-do list as we realized that we wouldn't have time, and they weren't that important, anyway.  It's hard to believe we will be on a plane tomorrow.

Mirin and I are feeling much better today, so at least it was quick.  I worry about Ethan - he's still feeling fairly fit, but that means we'll probably be somewhere over the Atlantic when it hits him.

Some things

These were some pictures I forgot about from last week.  The only harvestable vegetables in the winter garden now are kale, some parsley and dill, and onions.

Mirin found some Lactarius and Chantarelle mushrooms, and we got a few peaches.  Not a good year for peaches, because of that last late frost that got all the blossoms.

Ethan got a rabbit in the garden, that has been doing quite a bit of damage to everything (did you know rabbits like marigolds?  Mine are eaten to nubs).

For the most part, all our focus has been on the impending trip, and all the preparations for that.  Unfortunately, Mirin and I are sick right now, but we hope we will all be healthy for when we leave.

In the Garden: Setting Down the Pitchfork, Resorting to the Sythe

 

As for the garden, it's all been just trying to get ready for the lack of our presence.  One thing I had really wanted to get done was mulch the rye down in the paths.  Last year it was a very dry spring, and all of the rye had died and was easy to manage.  This year it was getting really out of hand, and starting to strangle garden.  But there just wasn't time.  So, inspired by this great little video, I picked up my blade and snath, and mowed all the paths.

I won't say I felt great the next day, but I was certainly not as exhausted as after I mulched three paths in one day.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  It was easier than mowing with a regular mower, that's for sure.  And it made a huge difference.  You can actually see the garden beds now:

Before

After

This will be the last garden post for May, as next week we will be on our way to La Cote d'Azur. 

I feel like I'm going to have to be wrenched away from my garden.  It's such an uncomfortable time to leave all the little, starting plants.  I worry for the squash because of the stem-borer moths, and I worry for the tomatoes with the army worms.  But it will have to be.

Just to clarify, we are not going on a luxury trip to France where we will be put up in fine hotels and bused around to various tourist attractions in an air-conditioned bus, stopping now and then to gorge on expensive pate and sending bragging postcards home to our less fortunate friends.  Get that image out of your head.  We're going on a crazy, hellish, what-were-we-thinking backpacking trip with three children, one of them in the difficult age of two years.  We will be sleeping in dorm-rooms at youth hostels, except for the days when we will be put up at a dairy sheep farm and working as hard as possible to earn our keep (I've told the kids, it'll be like Cinderella.  No whining, just working.  We have to earn our bread).  If I understood the French properly, I think they had mattresses for us, but we might possibly have to sleep on the floor.

Just yesterday my friend said, "I can't believe you guys are going on an international flight with a 2-year old."  Honestly, I can't really believe it either.  Ethan is really starting to panic now.  For me, it's better.  I panicked about it months ago, and now I think I'm in denial.  I can't actually believe we will be on a plane to another continent in a few days, GASP!

The Meeting of the Queens

The answer to the riddle was Cassava.  Sorry, I kept forgetting about it.

Yesterday I kept meaning to sit down and write here, but life was too busy - dealing with all the cream and butter has me feeling chained to the kitchen.  Not only that, but there was a very involved chicken liver pate, and a raisin and brandy sauce that was destined for dinner.

The cows were just awful yesterday.  I was trying to trim the poor dog - she's really built for the Pyrenees mountains, or maybe the Arctic with all that fluff.  She always has way more fur than I think she does, and it was taking a long time, so they busted down the fence and ate their way down the first line, which we were saving for later.  I had planted a new native grass up there, which they destroyed.

The big kids had deserted us to stay at home with the grandparents, so I had to strap Clothilde on my back and go herd the misbehaving cows around with a hefty white fibreglass fence post.  All I had to do was look at Isla and Chestnut like I would really enjoy whacking them with it, and they ran off, heels kicking.

A friend of mine was really shocked when she went to visit a friend's dairy farm, and found she whacked the cows with a piece of PVC pipe.  She thought it was cruel.  It would be cruel to do that to a dog, or a cat, or another person, but cows are very rough and mean to each other.  They kick each other harder than I could even hit.  They gore each other with their horns viciously, leaving deep scratches in tough hide.  And man, if a crazy beast with deadly horns comes charging at me, which happens on a fairly regular basis, I want the fence post. 

Cows are interesting animals.  There's a good deal of honor and respect about them.  Not like the goats.  Goats are anarchists.  In our herd, Matilda is the queen, being the biggest and meanest and most vicious.  Geranium is like head lady-in-waiting.  She's second best.  Everyone has to wait for Matilda to drink.  And then Geranium.  Everyone has to wait for Matilda to eat all of the kelp.  Matilda walks ahead, or she gores the cow in front of her in the butt.  She demands respect, and for the most part, gets it.  Every now and then she throws her horns around, just for the principle of the thing, and chases poor little Sampson around, goring him all the way.  He's like the Squire's Lackey.  He's on the bottom.

The challenge is being the dominant cow to that kind of personality.  I've come to realize that many people act just the same way.  We might be able to reason a little better, and justify our actions, but in the end it's the exact same thing.  I've seen it so many times, someone will want to be the Queen Bee, and go around socially dominance-mounting everyone and throwing her horns around.  My natural tendency is to stand out of the way and let them be obnoxious (it's amazing how many people respect and admire this type of behavior.  As I said, there's not that much difference between us and cows), but they always become worse and worse.  It's the same way with the cows.  If you let them push you around, then you're mud, and you have to do whatever they want, and they get free licks whenever they feel their spleen twitch, which is fairly often.

No, the trick is actually to step forward, and confront her with confidence.  It shows you aren't afraid of them, and it makes them worry, even if you are so much smaller than they are.  The fence post helps with that.  If you step forward, they step back.  It's amazing how much confidence counts for, even if there's nothing to really justify it.

The goats don't put up with that.  You can be the dominant goat, but they still get away with bad things whenever they can.  There's no respect.  That's why the goats piss the cows off.  They're unprincipled.  The dominant goat can throw her horns around as much as she wants, but as soon as she's distracted horning an inferior away, the other ones lean in and grab as much as they can.  They don't really get discouraged.


The other day I was leading the goats back and Matilda was standing grouchily in the way, mad that she hadn't been milked yet.  There was an interesting meeting of the two queens of the different herds.  Each kept her head very high and dignified, especially Nougat, who is much smaller, but not less proud.  They very carefully circled around each other, careful not to step on the other's dignity and status.

Nature Finds: Spring Things

The insects and animals have been popping up all over the farm, busy, busy, busy.  In the very warm and wet spring weather we've had, mushrooms are sprouting up all over.  I had never seen this lovely, curly oyster mushroom look-alike.  They are all over where the hay bale was on the first line.

A big, beautiful Luna Moth on the oak trees.

Lots of immature true bugs all over the place -  some carnivorous and good for eating pests, some pests themselves.

I would have to ask my dad the particulars about this striking moth.

A big weevil, I think.

This last one was the most dramatic nature find.  Just that day a friend of mine was asking if we have lots of rattlesnakes at the farm.  I told her we really haven't had a problem with poison snakes, and we've only seen three or four rattlesnakes in the almost seven years we've been working out there.

Just that afternoon, as I was taking the goats back from milking, there was a big, rustling commotion in the grass near me.  I peered through the tall and growing pasture, and saw a smooth, brown snake I didn't recognize.  A second later, I saw a long tail, ringed with black, yellow and red.  It was difficult to see through the grass to tell the arrangement of the colors (to tell if it was a harmless king snake, or a poisonous coral snake).  The head of the brown "snake" slithered away, but the colorful one stayed.  I looked closer, and discovered that the brown snake had been a glass lizard, and it had left its tail behind with the coral snake, who was busy eating it!

Progress

 

Much progress this week.  The piglets are weaned (so I think that technically makes them shoats), and the baby chickies are out.  The piglets have been much more graceful about weaning than the calves.  No dramatic squealing or hoarse complaining at all.  Star seems extremely glad about the whole thing.  They were starting to annoy her, and I can relate.  Clothilde is two-and-a-half and still nursing, and beginning to annoy me, too.  If she were just nursing, I wouldn't mind.  It's the way she kicks her feet around and thrashes.  I remember that from nursing my other babies.  Two-and-a-half is an obnoxious age to nurse.  After that, they calm down.

The baby chicks are thrilled about their new moveable coop.  They look so tiny in it.  These are the next batch of laying hens.  As much as I like the beautiful eggs from the Americaunas, they always have problems, and are really mean to each other.  We went with Barred Rocks again this time, because they are just really good chickens.  Intelligent and healthy.  We need chickens like that right now, because we don't have much time to baby them.

The weather this morning made us all feel strange.  It's like Northern California in summer - very dry and much cooler than usual.  It's good working weather.  The garden is almost complete, and there are only a few other big projects to finish before we leave in a few weeks.  I think we can do it.