Half a moon cycle into our French Adventure, and it's still fun!
We have fenced off our soon-to-be garden (everything around here must be dog- and horse-proof). The design is well underway, and we're full of ideas and inspiration from studying Edible Forest Gardens. We ordered a lot of seeds from a local company specializing in heirloom varieties, which arrived a couple of days ago; Chris can hardly contain his excitement about growing Malabar Spinach (a perennial vine with edible leaves), Cape Gooseberry (related to groundcherries and tomatillos), and a 2 meter tall variety of Kale! Rosemary is perhaps most exited about the mix of not two, not three, not even five, but TEN different varieties of cherry tomatoes! Next on our list of garden prep is starting to actively compost the ubiquitous horse manure and setting up more rainwater collection. Though there are a few plants we can put in the ground pretty soon (like fava beans, onions and potatoes), we still have a few weeks until we'll be planting the majority of our seedlings.
Progress on the room has been steady but slow. It turned out that beam in the center was worse off than we thought, and it took many hours of sanding. On the bright side, we met a man who owns a health food store in the next town who renovated his entire house with cob and other natural materials, and we had the opportunity to go visit it. He even has a reed bed that treats all of his family's waste water, and we were excited to learn that it has been tested and approved by the sanitation authorities. We've been studying up on cob and have a pretty good idea of what ingredients we'll be using for our room, aside from the necessary sand and clay: horse manure and dog hair! Both provide the fiber for structural support (the place often taken by straw, though there are many alternatives), are just about as close-to-home as we can possibly get, and are an abundant resource that might otherwise be treated as waste.
Progress on the room has been steady but slow. It turned out that beam in the center was worse off than we thought, and it took many hours of sanding. On the bright side, we met a man who owns a health food store in the next town who renovated his entire house with cob and other natural materials, and we had the opportunity to go visit it. He even has a reed bed that treats all of his family's waste water, and we were excited to learn that it has been tested and approved by the sanitation authorities. We've been studying up on cob and have a pretty good idea of what ingredients we'll be using for our room, aside from the necessary sand and clay: horse manure and dog hair! Both provide the fiber for structural support (the place often taken by straw, though there are many alternatives), are just about as close-to-home as we can possibly get, and are an abundant resource that might otherwise be treated as waste.
Other adventures include an evening trip out to a ravine where Eagle Owls nest; hearing the deep Whooo was amazing, as was watching the huge bird fly from tree to tree in the dusk. And just today, we happened upon some amazing ruins, learning later that it was the Château des Archevêques, a castle originally built in the 12th century. There was virtually no sign of tourism, and only a few walls remain of what must have been a quite impressive fortress. We'll certainly return, and don't worry, we'll take our camera with us next time!
There's been an unusual amount of snow here this winter; we were blanketed with a few centimeters just the other night, and it's currently snowing again! A thaw is forecasted for later in the week, however, which will be good for our garden plans.We hope you are warm and cozy wherever you are, and we love to hear from you! And as always, you can see more pictures here!
