And So It Begins

Well here we are, my favourite time of the year, the blessed spring when everything is waking up and  bursting with life and I can start digging my fingers in the soil and growing vegetables and preparing  le potager. The winter here is long and cold so every tiny little flower I spotted in the early spring, lifted my spirits while I toiled in the garden turning the soil. Except, in fact,  this year I'm not doing much of turning really, since I prepared the veggiebeds in the autumn, losely following the permaculture principles. Which is to say that I just piled on sticks, leaves, manure and hay in layers like a lasagne and let it stew all winter, ready for planting in the spring. I shall report the results of all that in due course.

So the incessant and manic following of the weather has started, as well as all things plant-related. Every morning I am checking the weather channel the first thing, and hereafter several times a day, keeping a beady eye on the horizon at the same time, just to make sure I might divine the weather god's moves for the day. Despite the endless checking and cloud-gazing, the weather has proved to be tricky to predict this spring. We got some extremely warm and lovely weather already in April/May, but after this promising start things have gone a bit sideways and the weather has been stubbornly cold, windy and rainy again.

The first few bursts of warm weather got me all excited and I just might have started the gardening ball rolling a wee bit too early, I have to admit, but the gardeners are by nature optimists and I figured I would be a fool not to get a good headstart to the growing season. If it's all been in vain and my work will vanish with a surprise frost or hailstorm, so be it. I would just have to start all over again. But, we're not there yet, so I shall face the future with rose-red glasses firmly planted on my nose and keep thinking positive.

I emptied every seed packet and filled every available windowsill space with little pots on rainy days when it was impossible to work in the garden. Here are my tomato seedlings (all from the last year's tomatoes) coming on, newly moved onto slightly bigger pots.

One bow fell on the floor by accident but most of the seedlings seemed to have survived this freeky test of life force, luckily!

Mon Cheri managed to get the required extension ready in record time, so we might indeed have space for all my tomatoes. I did plant quite a few...mind you, it's good to have reserves in case of other accidents or similar mishaps!

Here they are, first ones in! Grow well, for I have done everything I can to make you a nice home.

I am not a morning person but maybe it is just a question of motivation....

While waiting for the extension being built, I had a job of painting all the wooden parts to protect them from the elements. My favourite!

The roof of the old greenhouse.

Between the painting and garden work, I started to fashion a fence from branches and sticks next to a bench I made earlier. It's not terribly pretty but it might work as a sort of wind barrier anyway.

I ran out of space to plant potatoes so I had to start digging the grass up on the first terrace. I knew I wouldn't get off so easily when it came to digging and turning the ground, there's always something...

Even the bees have started their work now, so I am not the only early bird. Or a bee, in this case. And the neighbour's fruit trees still have all their flowers. Just looking for any hopeful signs that the summer's on its way.

Despite having been cold and wet enough, this winter was milder than normally, the thermometer dropping no lower than -7 °c. Few neighbours though put the fear in me by talking about the late frost which was 'a sure thing' but this 'sure thing' never arrived and I can finally breathe normally again. Oh, the gardener's woes!

This other beastie is apparently a pine processionary, spotted on a nearby field. Fatal to the pine trees and painful to anybody touching it. I didn't. Even my curiousity knows its boundaries.

Lindströmin pihvit (Lindstrom Patties)

While it's pouring down cats and dogs, and the summer refuses to start properly, I shall cast my memory back to last summer and its bounty. One success in the garden last summer was the beetroots. And it was the first time I grew them as well, so I was well chuffed! Can't believe I 've never tried growing them before. It seemed so easy, or maybe I just got lucky, since apparently it is not!

 Maybe the memory of the pickled beetroots from my childhood has been putting me off, and I forgot completely that there are other things I can make, that I actually like. Mainly, the Lindstrom Patties (Lindströminpihvit), which are very popular in Finland (originally the recipe comes from Sweden). And beetroot/chocolate muffins are pretty great too!

Here they are, my beetroots from last summer, lined up to enjoy the sun and drying off, before being stored for the winter. When I was little my mum used to put all the carrots in the boxes with sand and that kept them good and safe from the moisture and cold (and rodents as well) for a long time. I think the same thing will work in this case, alors, sand it is for my beetroots!

So, off I was to the nearest hardware store, where I purchased two buckets and enquired the man at the checkout if it was possible to also fill them with sand and how much that would be. He looked at me curiously for a little while (to be sure, not many people ask this question apparently...) and nodded a hesitant approval, oui, it was possible. Few more glances to the left and right and he told me quietly that the sand would cost nothing. Maybe it was not worth counting how many cents such a tiny amount of sand would cost. He even came with me to fill the buckets and carried them after to my car. Oh, la la, super service for the little lady! Lucky me!

At home I spread the sand on the ground to dry off before storing the beetroots in the buckets filled with sand.

The Official Inspector is inspecting her derrière instead of the vegetables...Hallo, what happened to the quality control?

So, onwards to the recipe...first I steamed the beetroots to make them softer and easier to grate.

The I mixed the with minced meat and other ingredients. I like to fry the onion before mixing it but I suppose you can put it in raw if that is your preference. Then I shaped the patties and put them in the fridge to await the evening. I like to make them ready a bit in advance so when the evening comes, all that is left to do, is to fry them. You can prepare them in the oven as well, just like meatballs, but I prefere the frying pan.

Like so. Couple of minutes each side and they're ready. It helps to have a quite a firm texture so they don't brake in pieces in the pan. Been there, done that.

Voila! Bon appetit! Especially delicious with homemade chips.

And here's the recipe. Enjoy!

Lindstromin Pihvit

• 400 g minced meat
• 1 dl breadcrumbs
• 1 dl cream
• 1 egg
• 3-4 small beetroots
• (1 tbsp capers)
• 1 onion
• pepper
• salt

Que-es qui se passe?

Well, the blog and I went into a short and late hibernation; no doubt the effect of the very confusing weather and the recent events in the world. It's only the beginning of April but enough has happened to make me want to hide in the bed and sleep for the rest of the year.

After the last post we've had couple more snowstorms, lots of rain and also some freak warm weather. But now it is getting steadily warmer every day (as it should!) and the sun is becoming more of a permanent feature on the sky. Hopefully we've had the last of the frosts as well. I sure hope so because I've started sowing seeds in the garden already and I wouldn't want to lose them. Remembering the May 5th last year (the day we moved in and it was snowing!) gets me a bit nervous but hey, we gardeners are a hopeful lot.

And then came the coronavirus. Well well, that has thrown the spanner in the works, hasn't it? The world has ground to a halt and it all is very strange and a bit scary too. The confinement hasn't really affected our day-to-day life. We are incredibly lucky to live in a place now, where we can go outside in the garden and the forest whenever we want, and do the things we would normally do. We only venture out into the 'civilization' to do the shopping when absolutely necessary, with the government-approved document (printed or copied by hand) to explain the necessity of one's outing, bien sure. Here in France, sans le document, you get fined 135 euros, which should encourage people to think carefully about their movements.

But even more so, reagarding this highly infectious and dangerous virus, it is astounding that so many people (all over the world) are still out and about, carrying on as they please,  like nothing has changed. Just watching the evening news one time shows that everything has changed. And much has been revealed. Now we all know who the really important people are, who keep our societies running, cared and safe.

On a more positive note, before the spring really got going, we had couple more snowy days which I love. Mon Cheri sat inside, next to the fire, with the cat and complained that he'd never been so cold in his life. Little did he know he would soon come to realize the real meaning of cold...
But anyway, before I'll get to that, here's a few lovely, snowy pictures.

I managed to make another bonhomme de neige which lasted exactly for one day.

A few weeks before the c-virus really kicked in, we had a small episode of 'excitement' with the car. We went to the petrol station and Mon Cheri put the fuel in. Great, I thought, since normally I have to do it. Except that out of the habit he put in the same stuff he puts in his scooter. And we have a diesel car. Oops, big big mistake. He didn't realise this until we were nearly home and the car started behaving strangely. Apparently petrol in a diesel car can totally f**k up your car's engine and why it didn't do that to our car is anybody's guess. Safely at home, he called immediately his dad (engine maestro and currently holidaying in Morocco) to get instructions how to deal with this tricky situation.

And then to work; we borrowed some large containers from the neighbour and siphoned out as much of the petrol from the tank as possible. After that Mon Cheri jumped on his scooter with another container and drove back to the nearest town to buy some DIESEL. With a 25 litre petrol can he had to do three trips, since we had managed to practically empty the tank. And now with almost a full tank of diesel again, the car should be ok. But we were not out of the woods yet. There was still the filter to remove and to clean of all trace of petrol. Once we opened the bonnet and managed to locate the filter, we (i.e. Mon Cheri) couldn't open it. Despite several instructive youtube-videos, phoning a friend (papa), brute force and all, no joy. Next day he tried again and managed to remove the whole thing but accidentally broke one of those pipe-thingys sticking out to the side. Grrrr.... So off he was again on his scooter, to buy another filter with its casing.

Finally, with some difficulty, the filter was back in its place, tank full of diesel and miracle of miracles, the car was saved. Phew! I don't even want to think what our life here would have been like without a car.

And soon after that saga was over, it was time for Mon Cheri to go to Montpellier for his six-month check-up at the hospital. He decided to go a bit earlier to see his friends and enjoy the warmer and sunnier weather. I would join him later on for couple of days. He wanted to have a bit of an adventure, so he set off on his dear scooter. Yep. 200 kilometres. On scooter. Now you know who is the real 'coucou' in this family.

All went relatively well if we don't count him getting lost a couple of times and other such trivia. But...couple days after that, the whole country was confined to their houses due to the c-virus, all hospital appointments cancelled and Mon Cheri practically stuck in his dad's house. Alone and with nothing to do, he decided to come back home (and for medical reasons as well, since we didn't know how long this confinement was  going to last), driving by night, when there would be almost no other traffic, what with the confinement and all. And right at the beginning, following the small roads, he got lost again (yeah, it is really confusing down south, all those little roads), many times. Once he finally found the right roads, he lost his food bag somewhere along the route. Having also lost lot of time and being exhausted, he tried to sleep a little. He did have a sleeping bag to crawl into and some warm clothes but even with all that, he got to know finally the true meaning of cold. It was a middle of March anyway.

Next morning he continued his tiring journey and after several hours of driving he took a little nap by the side of the road, only to be awaken by the police. They just wanted to make sure he was ok and bien sure, to check his attestation, the document to state his reason for being on the road. Luckily Mon Cheri had prepared this document earlier and satisfied that he had an approved reason, the police waved him goodbye. Few more hours on the empty roads and finally he made it home, totally exhausted but happy. Well, I'm ready for some boring, quiet life now, thanks very much!

Aaaaanyway, here's a photo of our lovely new lean-to for logs that Mon Cheri built (after several days of rest). All recycled material.

And I finally managed to finish this puzzle, that I already started once couple of years ago but stopped because it was just too tricky. I have re-done all my 8 puzzles and had to go and buy few more.

Now that the weather has warmed up, I can finally get stuck into gardening. Making the road-side wall a bit prettier by moving some succulents here.

I sowed the first seeds about a week ago and the first tomatoes are already coming up! Wow, I need to get Mon Cheri to finish up the extention of the greenhouse soon, if these guys keep growing like this. And there's always something to do in the garden, it's a never-ending work site.

I also bought some extra toilet paper for extracurricular activities! Stay safe and stay at home everybody!

What, Spring Already?

The weather has definitely gone a bit bonkers lately. It seems there's an increasing number of floods, forest fires and other freak weather happening all around the world, and even in my own garden I can see signs that the natural order of things is well out of sync.

Trees are starting to put out their buds and in some cases the leaves as well, flowers are popping up here and there, birds are showing signs of nest building and we have had a few extremely warm, sunny days which is definitely not normal for February. Not in this part of the world and not at this altitude anyway. Whereas it is of course jolly nice to have weather like that, it is a worrying reminder of the state of the climate and its rapid warming.

A few weeks ago it was all 'ice, ice baby' and now there's flowers up everywhere and even my garlic is starting to sprout. Noooo, it's too early!
Our neighbours said that last spring the same happened; the unusual warm weather made the buds come out, then it got frosty again and they didn't get a single fruit in their fruit trees.
Even though I am eager to start sowing and growing the plants, it's still better to wait a little while. When we moved here in the beginning of May last year, it was snowing!

Meanwhile, Mon Cheri has managed to finish building the compost and it certainly looks better than the big, untidy heap we had last year. Hooray!

Normally the St Valentine's day has been marked with a rose, but this year Mon Cheri had a great idea to buy me a tree! A Nordmann spruce to be exact. Now, that will last considerably longer than a rose (if it takes well to its new living quarters, the state of its roots was shocking). We had a lively discussion as to where to plant the tree, a compromise was made and the tree got a home in the garden. Now, I would have prefered up on the second terrace but hey, you have to choose your fights...
Though I'm pretty sure we will have to move it again in the near future.

Le petit sapin!

The few sunny days meant that the grill came out of its hibernation and we managed a couple of bbq's and it was warm enough to eat outside too. J'adore! Merghez and chipolata sausages coming up!

And as the weather and few other things leave me wondering, I will share this little piece of wisdom with you:

Mindcraft

In the honor of the new year I felt that I wanted to master a new skill. My dad had sent a set of chisels to Mon Cheri for his birthday back in the autumn, and I thought it was about the time to start using them. I have done woodwork in the past, at school and at home with my dad, but that was such a long time ago that it feels like I'm starting from a square one.

The big storm several weeks ago had broken a couple of branches from the pine trees behind the house, and that was the perfect material to start carving a little spoon from. The wood was easy to carve, but getting it into the form I wanted was not. In my enthusiasm I nearly carved a hole to the spoon part and the whole thing just looked rather fragile. A bit more of this whittling and I would have material left for only a toothpick. I tried to make the surface as even as possible with the chisels and then finished smoothing it with the sandpaper. Not easy at all but not bad either for a first try.

I've always liked to work with wood, it's such a beautiful, pleasant material, the end result a pleasure to use and to look at (normally). This spoon might be a bit to fragile for use, so I will just look at it and try to remember the lessons learned from that first try.

Brand new spoon waiting for a coat of linseed oil that will protect the wood.

The very next day I started to carve yet another spoon, but a bit chunkier model this time. I was using birch wood which was a bit harder work than the pine but still easy enough to carve. The spoon turned out a bit different than what I had in mind, which is often the case with my creative work; it evolves as I go on. But I am still happy with it.

Mon Cheri took it immediately to use as his coffee-measuring spoon. Must be good then! For those who don't know, Mon Cheri in an ébéniste, a cabinetmaker, and likes to give me advice on woodwork techniques etc, which I do receive gratefully, sometimes. And at other times I just want to be left alone to do it MYSELF! Even if I am wrong. And because of this character trait, I quite often learn the things the hard way.



When I split the pine branch that I used to make the little spoon (above), I was left with a very narrow piece of wood, that I thought would make a perfect butter knife. Again, very nearly a toothpick but after a lot of sweating and swearing, I managed to make this.

Finally a thing that I can use, a rest for a spoon or a ladle. Looks deceptively easy to make but I can tell you, it was not. Maybe if you're using machines, but I like to make my stuff just using the hand tools.

After many weeks of nagging encouragement, Mon Cheri started building a compost next to le potager. We had a compost pile exactly on the same spot last year but it was a bit unsightly, so this solution will keep it more contained and looking better too.
A promising start.

But a bit more than half way there, Mon Cheri's arm got very sore and he had to stop working. In a few days it was evident that he'd got tendonitis (he has had it before) and only rest would make it better. Banging all those nails through those thick planks isn't obviously good for the health. Blast!

Ah, but he is tetu, so few days later he was at it again. He didn't get very far though before he had to stop again and admit defeat. The compost would have to stay unfinished for some time. Ach well, not the first unfinished job in this house...

Before christmas I got into cross-stiching, another rather meditative past-time. I made couple of bookmarks to give as xmas presents and this one for myself.

And this one for my sister-in-law. Lets not forget to laugh.

Then something a bit bigger and more demanding. I haven't decided what to do with this one yet but it was fun to make. I didn't have all the right colours for this work, but hey ho, when I'm in the flow, I can't stop.

I feel the important thing is just to create, never mind the result. Some people meditate, I find that little art and craft projects work for me. There is so many roads to get where you want to go.