The French Country Challenge

Catch Up!

This year was more or less a bust, garden wise for us.  Weeds took over while we were on vacation in California, and we were never really able to gain control again.  Sigh.  This makes me sad, but it is the way it is, so onwards and upwards.  

After thinking about it for quite some time, I think that we need to do something drastic to our plot.  This winter, or rather in a few weeks, we are going to rip it all out, the fence, the grass border, the little boxes where there were herbs at one point, and try to start completely over from fresh.  I think that years of weeds growing in that plot has made it hard to keep them at bay.  I am hoping that if we rip everything out and start over, possible covering it all with some compost or manure, we can avoid this problem next year.  We don't mind working in the yard, but weeding hours upon hours per day for a rather small plot (maybe 60m2), was a little bit too much, and not effective.  

So, we have found a U-pick place not too far from our house, and we went there this past weekend to get our halloween pumpkins, and some other veggies.  A local farmer made the rounds, house to house, and I bought enough potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic to make it through to next season.  Which means I bought a TON.  Our cave is full of food, and it is a really good feeling.  Something to remember and work towards later.  So, I think all I will need to buy are the occasional cabbage, leeks, and other veggies.  And some meat now and then.

In other 'garden' news, I think that we are going to get some chickens.  I am thinking 4 or 5, after all there is only 3 of us for the moment, and that is a lot of eggs.  I need to find some sort of a home for them, I am thinking of buying them an already built wooden tool shed, that you can get at the local do-it-yourself place.  We have a cement pad poured in the yard with an electrical outlet, so I am thinking that may be a perfect place for them.  For roosting, I am thinking about maybe wine crates.  Some hay on the ground and I think that it may be perfect.  Maybe a sodium lamp out there for the really cold evenings...  

As for the chicks...  Well, I am not sure yet.  I know that they can be bought at feed stores sometimes, and I even saw them on the news at a Truffaut (garden/pet center).  I am going to try to stay local, and I can't get much more local then my neighbor's place.  I know one of his hens had chicks a few weeks ago, I saw them running around.  So, I am going to try to ask him about it when I run into him next, but it may be a while because they never seem to be there...  I think that if he doesn't want to sell me some, he will at least know where to go to get some.  

Besides all of this news, Miss Lily, Bandit and I have been going on long walks everyday.  Very long walks.  Most days we get about 6-7 kilometers in, and I am feeling great, and I think we are all sleeping better with all the fresh air.  I just have to figure out how to get the rain cover on my stroller so I can keep the now freezing cold air off of her, because it is very cold out here in this neck of the woods these days.

Brocante-ing

I realise that some of you probably are not that into the brocante-ing (flea market, antiquing...) thing, but I think that I have just found something that I LOVE, and had to share.  There are many specific blogs out there on this subject - if you are interested let me know - here is just my point of view on the subject.

This past weekend we went to 2 different brocantes.  We were actually motivated to go because our gardener (I use this term loosely, our home used to be a vacation home and he was the caretaker/gardener and still helps us out often with different things, like lawn mower repair) and friend was running the saucisse and frites stand and told us he'd slip us some free fries if we stopped by.  And so, not being the type of people to say no to a free lunch, we went.

I have been wanting to go to the brocante now for a long time.  I have already been to a few, but was never prepared.  Never had cash to buy anything and was either super pregnant, or tired from work all week.  Lets just say that I loved it.  From the kids getting pony rides, to all the stuff people were selling, it was tons of fun.  A lot of it was junk.  Old cassette players, telephones, really really used clothes...  But there were a few gems...

I came back with three items.  One pair of never worn sandals for Miss Lily for next year, that I bought for 2 euros.  One little cupboard with the key(!) and glass doors that used to be used to keep one's jam until it was eaten.  (This item is going to be used as a jewelry holder for me).  And...  the cutest little Frenchie school desk for Miss Lily.  Someone, at some point, put a piece of lineolum over the top of the desk, but peeled back it looks great.  So I have to sand it all down, oil it up I think as the wood looks and feels really dry, and then seal it.  And then put it in my office so that we both can 'work' at the same time.  It is too dark to get any good photos at the moment, but I will take some asap and add them in.  Anyone want to venture a guess as to how much I spent?  We can play a game in the comments, I'll answer all guesses with 'more' or 'less' and the winner gets a prize...?

I do feel like this is going along with my goals of consuming less.  I am not buying anything new, just reusing things that others don't want anymore.  And it is way more fun than going to the store, you have to look for the treasure amid all the junk.

(Oh, and wearing your cowboy boots leads to interesting experiences.  I got invited by 2 old men to the local, and new, Line Dancing club.  And anything horse-related was pointed out to me by the sellers...  Next time I may wear sandals, but tromping around in those fields, my boots were sure nice!)

Demise of the tomato plants

Things have been really busy around here.  We've re-furnished parts of our house, so that leads to late nights trying to figure out what screw goes where, and how to get everything in its 'place'.  Plus, we have a standing baby, yes, at under 9 months old she figured out how to pull herself up to standing, and even 'walk' along pieces of furniture.  This also leads to a lot of craziness.  Where I could plop her down for a few minutes before, she is now crawling over to appropriate pieces of furniture and standing/walking.  I can only imagine how crazy it will all be when she really walks.

Plus, I've had some rather large projects come my way professionally, and since the key to this whole adventure is having a work from home income, I throw myself into those when they come my way with gusto.

So, after thinking about options for propping up my plants, I ended up doing, well, nothing.  And I am kind of embarrassed to admit it.  After I planted 6 cherry tomato plants and another 6 heirloom tomato plants, spent all this time caring for them, I kind of let the ball drop.  The good news, is that they appear to be thriving anyways.  Parts of the plants are lying down, but they seem to be still making tomatoes.  Which is great, but it makes me a little sad, because we are leaving, on a rather long trip, right when I think the tomatoes will be ripe.  Sigh.

I think next year we might go on vacation in September or October.  Missing my tomatoes makes me sad.  Even if I can have all I can eat at my parents place...

Photos from the moisson last week.  I love living out in the country.

Picking up the slack

 
Poppies in the wheat (?) field.  I think that they are going to cut the wheat soon, and I hope that I am home when they do to get some photos.  I love the machinery, the dust, the farmers, all that goes along with it.  Last year they got to the field in front of my house at dusk, it was beautiful!

Since Laura is off on her vacation, I am going to try to pick up the slack on my end of things.  I am not sure how this will work, since Laura has to push my posts through, but I think she might have the time now and then!

Our garden was looking great.  Salad, fennel, radishes, and carrots starting to poke their way through.  And then the tomatoes came in.  And sadly, it appears that the fruits are too heavy for the plants and the sticks I propped them up with and everything is flopping over sadly at the moment.  According to my Dad, who I usually turn to for this type of advice, it might be too late to do anything.  The plants themselves are, apparently weak, and if they broke or opened during the mighty fall, there just might not be a lot to do, they might all die off!  Needless to say I am a little bit upset.  I didn't get as much even planted this year, so I was really hoping to have those tomatoes to makes some sauces, eat in salads ect. 

In California we use what we call cages to help hold the plants up.  The cages are a cylinder of wires, with wires also running horizontally every foot or so, so the plants can lean on them.  My parents manage to get tomato plants 6 feet tall, and even taller with the cages and with just 6 plants or so have enough tomatoes to keep them in sauces for the whole year, not to mention all the eating of the tomatoes that we do while in season as well.  In France, I have never seen these cages.  I have seen these curly sticks that people use I guess, but they seem kind of feeble compared to the wire cages.  So I am off to the hardware store when the baby gets up from her nap (praying that they are open on Mondays, which is probably NOT the case, but I have to go see anyways, in case they are!) to try to find a solution.  Some of the Papy's in my village seem to make some sort of stick and string contraption.  I might have to stop and check it out more carefully before leaving.  A good rule of thumb in my book is if the old folk are doing it, there is probably some good reason behind it.

I am trying to talk my husband into chickens.  Our neighbor has quite a few, and I love it when they are out of the run and cruising around his yard.  I was super excited the other day while out on our walk to find that one of the hens had about 10 little babies running after her.  I think he could be talked into it, but I need to find a way to salvage our vegetable plot before.  You know, prove that I can handle what I already have on my plate before taking something new on...  

*Testing out the new car seat.  Excuse the rug that needs to be vaccumed.  Country houses are a little dirty I think from all the in and outs.

Weeded Veggie Plot and other news

As I am sure you have all assumed things are pretty busy around these parts!  At least for me, for Laura, I am not all that sure, but the lack of blog posts makes me think that she is in the same boat as me, minus one baby, but plus one big dog. 

I am also, yet again, experiencing technological troubles, this time being my power cord for my Mac.  A certain little one was recently caught with the computer end, IN HER MOUTH, which can't be good for anyone involved, including the computer.  Since then, well, I have a problem getting a decent charge on my computer and when I do, well, a girl has to work before she blogs.  Right? 

As I mentioned in previous posts, my veggie plot was an absolute disaster.  And I was having trouble finding time to tend to it.  But, as I have a wonderful husband who smokes, he spent all of his smoke breaks at home weeding my veggie plot.  But it was such a disaster, that he only did half.  Unless I really motivate myself, well, we will just be doing half this year.  But that's ok, I never got around to planting the other half, so it worked out just fine.  

A few photos, for the road, I have a project I need to finish, but didn't want to leave the blog empty!

Yes, those are weeds, and yes that is lettuce among those weeds.  I know, I am hanging my head in shame.

A view of a street in our village.

My man saying hello to the neighbor's dogs.

A quick tour

A recent quick tour of the veggie garden reveled chaos. 

I guess that is what a week plus of pretending it isn't there will do to it.

My once really nice rows of plants are being overtaken with weeds, and I need to find a solution rather quickly.  I am actually considering buying some of that black cloth stuff to cover up my ground with, because I can't seem to find the time to weed as much as I would need to.  I think another possibility would be to buy a bale of hay and spread it all around, hopefully snuffing out the weeds as well as maintaining some moisture in the soil in the process...  Anyone have and ideas/opinions on what is best?  I am kind of leaning towards the hay because it will just decompose into the soil eventually, but I am not sure what is best in regards to keeping the weeds at bay. 

I wanted to finish my planting today, late I know (!), but the weeds are so intense, that I need to do some serious work out there before anything else can be planted.  The good news is that my lettuces are looking great through the weeds and so are my tomato plants. 

After a beautiful day yesterday, with temperatures in the 90's, it is raining again today.  Which would be great, if I had a clean weeded plot!  We spent yesterday at a birthday party for two little girls way over on the other side of Paris.  We had a lot of fun, and it was nice to see some people that we only see once a year.  Besides the kids we are the only people who change year after year.  Last year I was pregnant, this year we have a baby.  Hopefully next year we will be pregnant again, or thinking about it.  All the adults are the same from year to year more or less.  A gay couple (the godfathers of one of the girls, I love how the French are really open to this sort of thing), two eternally single women, the parents of the girls, and another Franco-British family.  This gathering has turned into one of my favorite meetings of the year...  Now anyways, I am off to weed some in-between rain clouds, and I look forward to any feedback on my weed situation!

And a few pictures from a festival that we went to last year and hopefully we will go to again this year!  We had a lot of fun, if anyone is in the Seine and Marne, look up the

Les Médiévales de Provins

Rain, rain go away!

Or at least please lessen up a little. 

As Laura mentioned we've been having really strange weather.  Rain pounds down for about a half an hour a few times a day, and out in my neck of the woods we even had some hail yesterday.  Needless to say I haven't been out watering due to this, but I also haven't been out to check on my plants in a few days...  I think that I am scared.  I don't want to head out there to an utter disaster (plants sprawled out on the ground, things washed away in all this water), so I have been avoiding going out altogether...  Not the best strategy, but one nonetheless. 

In other news, Miss Lily does not like prepared baby food.  She prefers what her Mama makes her.  We went to the south of France to see my in-laws, and I bought jars of baby food to take with us for her to eat.  And she didn't like them that much at all!  I think that I am raising a petite gourmande... 

Babies and Such

First of all, let me start with my humble apologies for not posting that often...  Wearing all these different hats is starting to wear this mama down, and every once in a while one ball drops...

I am not sure who all is reading this, and don't know if there are people with babies, or soon to have babies that read this, but I thought I would post about it anyways.  Please keep in mind that I am far from being an expert, but I do have one baby so this pretty much reflects my personal experience.

Having a baby can be pretty pricey.  But there are many ways to keep the cost down, all while doing what is really best for your baby, and for Mom. 

We bought Miss Lily a crib when she was born, but most nights she ends up sleeping snuggled up against her Mama.  Breastfeeding a baby means always being ready for a feed.  Many night feeds past a few months of age aren't really for nutrition, but to check in with Mama and make sure she is still there.  Co-sleeping is a debatable situation in the United States and Western countries.  I don't say that you should or shouldn't co-sleep, although studies show that co-sleeping is ONLY safe when Mom is breastfeeding.  (Look up Dr McKenna if you are interested in those studies, or check some articles on Kellymom.com). 

The biggest cost saver with regards to a new baby is breastfeeding.  My baby was exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months, and I plan to breastfeed her until she is one year old, in addition to the solids we are starting to introduce and some water.  I believe that I read somewhere that the cost savings of breastfeeding until one year is upwards of 1,200$. That is just counting the formula.  My baby has never even had a runny nose.  Another benefit of breastfeeding is losing the baby weight quickly.  I think that I was at my pre-pregnancy weight about 3 weeks post-partum.

Another thing we do, which I think saves us a pretty penny as well, is no baby food.  I mean Lily eats food, but all food that I prepare for her.  I am hesitant to introduce pre-made baby food, as I can never find a list of ingredients on the jar, and I would like to know what is in it before feeding it to my girl.  It seems to me to be really important to introduce food one item at a time, so for the moment we are just on different pureed foods.  For example, pear-sauce, sweet potato, applesauce, carrots, ect.  Once you are sure that individual foods do not cause any sort of a reaction, they can be mixed together, for example, sweet potato/carrot.  I am holding off on milk products (yogurts, cheese, ect) as well as flour for a while just to be sure she is ready to digest them and to avoid allergies if possible.  Her teeth are starting to come in so as she is allowed to eat more things, the plan is to slowly get her used to adult food, just cut into teeny tiny pieces, or watered down.  For the moment I puree/prepare what I am making for her, and I have been using an ice cube tray to freeze individual portions.  Once they are frozen, I pop the cubes into a ziploc, and just pull them out one or two at a time and reheat.  I am excited for my apples, quinces and veggies to come in, so I can not only make her food, but have grown it as well!

Another thing we do, is cloth diapers.  I admit to not using them 100% of the time though.  If we are out and about, we use disposables (I don't want to end up carrying around a dirty diaper all day!), and over night we use a disposable as well, but probably 50% of the time I would say we use cloth.  It isn't that big of a deal really, and it means our diaper budget is cut in half, and we are doing something good for the planet. 

Another essential for us at least is a car-seat.  I think that this is an item to buy new, and a top of the line one as well.  No pinching pennies on this purchase, unless you can buy one during the sale season.  Perhaps finding one from the previous year on sale.  But it is worth it to do some research, sometimes the only difference one year to another is the color or something equally minimal.  In that case, no harm in buying last year's model on sale!

As for all of the things people say you need, well, we really have very few of them.  I have a stroller, but she prefers to be carried in the Ergo or scarf, I just have one little seat/chair for her, a crib, and a changing table.  And that is really about it besides some toys, and for the moment I am happy because even those we've kept to a dull roar.  I try to avoid Made in China toys; I would rather pay more for fewer toys, but have nice wooden ones made in the Jura of France...  But that is just me maybe.  We do not have a swing, we use a hand-me-down high chair.  A lot of Miss Lily's clothes come from Costco or Target in the US, and now that it is brocante season in France perhaps some will come from there as well.  I am hanging on to everything for now, as she is likely not going to be our last and hopefully all of our stuff we can use again!

I would love to hear any feedback or questions anyone has... 

Disclaimer: We are human and we did recently splurge though...  On a pair of sunglasses for this summer for Lily...    

Computer = Saved, Among other news

Or at least according to the lovely Apple Genius that left a message on my phone yesterday!  I was expecting a 5-7 day wait as they told me when I dropped it off, but it appears that they are making a real effort on their customer service stuff; because not even 24 hours later it is fixed, functioning and nothing was lost according to them!  While this is more than great, now all I want is my computer back!  And trekking the 78 kilometers into Paris on a combo of car, train, metro and back, all while either carrying a baby or pushing a stroller seems a little daunting to me.  So I am going to try to convince my husband to do the dirty work for me and go pick it up!  Then I will be back in business on both of my blogs, and I will send off hundreds of photos to print, and back-up my stuff!!

As Laura has told you all, the weather took a slight turn for the worse out here.  And while Laura's plants are covered, mine aren't.  What can I say, I have a baby that likes to nap on her Mama, and has been teething as of late and all she wants to do is nurse, nurse, nurse.  I did run out to the plot this morning to check on things.  It seems even the tiny bit of rain we had seriously encouraged weeds to pop up all over the place.  So I have some serious work to do.  I just hope my husband gets home a little early tonight and can do the bath time thing while I get the weeds out, and perhaps some of the plants covered a little... 

Now that I have a car though, we have also been cruising the countryside quite a bit with my little posse (meaning me, Lily and Bandit; the latter two in the backseat while Mama navigates her way around, without GPS thank-you-very-much! although it is not that hard out where we live).  I have been invited to participate in a photo contest for the region by someone who follows my Flickr page (let me know if you are interested, I will publish the link), so I have been trying to get some good images for that as well.  I just can't wait to get my computer back to see the photos is real size - the LCD screen on my computer is going to start causing damage to my eyes soon!

Exciting things to come folks, I tell you!

Just when things get going...

Just when things start to get a little exciting, my computer goes and dies on me...  I am taking it in tomorrow to see what the prognosis is, so please, if you don't mind cross your fingers that even if the computer is dead, that I can at least get all of my stuff (mainly photos of my baby that I haven't backed up in forever) off!!!

I have started to put plants in the ground, and so far, so good.  I am not heeding the advice of many an old timer about the Saintes Glaces as I have plants now that need to go into the ground!  I am going to keep an eye on the weather and if it is supposed to get too cold, I saw someone that had made mini greenhouses around his plants, so worse comes to worse that will be my solution!  So far what has gone into the ground at my house are 12 tomato plants, 12 already started lettuces, one fennel bulb plant, 2 eggplants, 2 bell peppers, 4 zucchinis, and those are only the plants that I bought already started since I was a little late on the seed planting.  I am also planning on planting some sweet corn (not to be found in France so I am pretty excited about that one), herbs, green beans, some other type of bean I bought seeds for (I have no idea how this plant is going to turn out, but what is life without a little adventure!), tomatillos, carrots, radishes, and some more lettuce from seed.  Am I forgetting anything that I should be planting?

So things are finally getting started here at Ashley's Farm, as my husband likes to call it!  I planted some things just a few days ago, and I can already tell that they are growing.  It is pretty exciting to head out there a few times a day and check on things, pull up a few weeds...  Malheureusement, as the French say, I am without photos for the moment, as my computer is without life...  I am documenting it all so once things are back up and functioning (please again cross your fingers for my photos of my baby!!!), I will do a huge update with images.  (Oh, and I have a good post upcoming too about green onion and zucchini risotto with a little bit of chicken, but I will wait until I can show some photos as well!)