I Need Some Tools!

Having a big garden and a vegetable patch is great but it also means a lot of work. Back-breaking, sweaty work. And although some former occupant here had already made a potager before, there was still a fair amount of digging, cutting, clearing and stone-picking to do. I did find a trowel in the garage/atelier, that little Aladdin's cave of ours, but that's just not enough, eh.
Ooh, I think we need some tools!


Unfortunately we don't have one of these. Although saying that, our landlord has got a HORSE and he did propose to bring it in to eat all the grass (gotta love the countryside!). Throw in a plow mister and I'll say YES tout de suite!

What we have is this. Not really fair, is it? At first opportunity we headed off to the nearest hardware store and bought couple of tools to get started. Mon Cheri's papa had given us a fork thingy and Mon Cheri put a handle on it. Three times. The first two wooden ones broke almost immediately and then he found an old iron stick in his atelier, which was finally up to the hard work.

And that was really all we needed to start with preparing notre potager. Tres bien!

Oh, and I found two axe heads as well in the garage. Funny what things people leave behind when they move (or in this case when they separete from the boyfriend, leave in a hurry and don't give a flying piece of cow dung what happens to the tools etc which the boyfriend forgot in the garage).

Well, all the better for us. We need all the tools we can get.

Another found treasure; handy with cutting all that grass and dandelion jungle while waiting for the trimmer (luckily we have received it now!). I am not scared off hard work but I have to say that it was especially back-breaking to start clearing the yard with this one. That big flower bed you saw in an older post was cleared with this baby. Oh yeah, no joke, and don't I just know it. My back is going into spasms just thinking about it.

Mon Cheri's papa is a very handy man, the McGyver Senior, so to speak. He had found this old lawnmower in a bin, then fixed it and gave it to us. And it still works like a dream. Mon Cheri has inherited this bin-digging hobby and has also found many useful things that we still use around the house. Can't say I disapprove.

From early age I have had a great attachment to hand tools. Ever since my mum gave me a hunter's knife at the tender age of seven (that's Finland for you!) I have enjoyed using every possible utensil and tool to build huts, tree houses and what ever my imagination could cook up.

As I have said before, we need to gather wood for winter from the nearby forests and so we bought this very useful wood saw. I have already spent many happy hours (hic!) sawing away in the garage. And Mon Cheri's work table comes in handy just for that!

But this is really not enough. If we want to fill our wood stores with any serious amounts of logs, we need some serious tools. The winter is coming!!

And this is what I am talking about! Nice little new-home-present from Mon Cheri's papa, how kind!

The next thing is to find the wood. Shouldn't be difficult when there's so much forest everywhere you look, but apparently the landowners here are guarding their forests jealously and would rather see the already cut and useless, shitty pieces of wood rot on the forest floor than allow someone to clear them away. Not very neighbourly, I say. And doesn't make any sense either.

I suppose I have still a thing or two to learn about the mentality of the people here.