what am I doing here in Normandy...?

UNESCO and Sheep Shearing!

tansy forster — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:40:10 +0000

I haven’t had the time to get to do a blog for a while – quite a lot has happened since I last visited here!

Mr Willerby my incredible Jack Russell (The Irish pocket Jack) managed to have his evil way with Urenee on Utah Beach – the result 4 fabulous little Jacks – Urenee is a Jack Russell belonging to me dear friend who lives opposite our rental house at Utah Beach…the puppies were born in Paris so I didn’t get to see them until they were 5 weeks old…of course we ended up keeping one! So we now have FIVE dogs – Grace O’Malley our latest addition is a great little dog – she’s teething at the moment so we seem to be in a sea of chewed twigs, cardboard and other things that take her fancy… whicker baskets especially

Our cats are bigger than the dogs!Mr Wibbs & Grace put on a floor showGrace O'Malley

at the moment!

The name Grace O’Malley came about as I wanted to give a nod to the fact that Grace is half Irish and conceived on a beach… Grace O’Malley was a 15th Century female Irish Pirate !

Talking about Utah Beach we’ve just found out that the whole area is being designated as an area of immense importance for conservation etc. and possible being made into a UNESCO site…now I think this is wonderful news. Basically how it will affect everyone is that there will be no development in the area – if you want to change the colour of your house even, you have to apply to the architect du France. It will also apply to trees & plantation – only plant things in keeping with the area…hopefully that will mean some monster pine trees near us will HAVE to come down …hurrah!

But a few local folk don’t like change so it’s descended into quite a few public meetings… so we’re waiting to hear the outcome.

This is something I found how they choose a site http://www.france24.com/en/20100804-35-unesco-world-heritage-sites-france

For the past 4 months or so we have been incredibly busy here at Ferme de l’Eglise – however we had a little break – this morning the 1st morning with no early start for comings or goings…I said to Mike last night that as I did everything yesterday, all the ironing and everything is ready, I would do a rare unheard of thing – have a lie in… he laughed – won’t happen he said…he was right!

The 1st part of plan worked – went out to let the chickens out and feed everybody in my PJ’s with the idea come back in,

make a cup of tea and head back upstairs… to my horror the sheep shearer was half way through the flock in the field next door… he comes to us to do our 2 after he’s done the others…so had to round Larry & Harry up shut them in the shelter (all of this in my PJ’s with them watching!) rush back in and get suitably dressed in sheep shearing gear!

Before!the indignity of it all!are you sure you're who you say you are?checking each other out!

High commerce in the countryside…

tansy forster — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:17:45 +0000

5 cockerels sold this morning – vivant pour manger …plus 3 offers from folk to come and kill them for me – any time!

one of my Cockerels

I’ve GOT to harden up and stop being so silly if I want to do this rural life and stop it hemorrhaging money. I keep giving them all little personalities, but I mustn’t because I then find it very difficult to kill them… the result, I’m overrun – the cost of feeding so many fighting cockerels, not to mention the noise, is ridiculous now! Perhaps that’s the reason I’m getting so many offers to do the deed – to quieten down the neighbourhood!!

I knew on Saturday that I really was going to have to deal with my problem – not only had I got 5 dozen freshly laid eggs I had approximately 35 cockerels as well… all it is doing is costing over 100€ a month feeding them all and smashing eggs we can’t eat quick enough! So I took myself for a walk round the village with a basket of eggs – met 2 old ladies in their 80′s and asked if they would like any eggs – gave them 6 gratuit and just casually asked

Volulez vous une coq pour manger -

as quick as a flash… combien ?

off the top of my head I said cinq Euros

OUI was the snapped answer … with a muttered moins cher

Oh tres petite I say – c’est le babette

Ahhh, mange bien

do you want them dead or alive? I timidly asked

comme vous voulez

vivant c’est bon?

OUI

Then the killer question WHEN…. feeling brave I suggested tomorrow morning… NO it is Sunday was the response… tap dancing shoes on, I suggest Monday…and so it was arranged.

2 down 33 to go… no sooner had I got home flushed with my success the phone rings.. an order for 4 coq’s vivant. 5 minutes later the door bell rings – 2 ladies want to buy 2 dozen eggs.

The die was cast… We sneaked up Sunday night to the hen house when everybody was asleep and lifted 5 coq’s, put them in a cage in the garage overnight, this morning the folk duly arrived to pick them up and to deal with the killing. Everyone was very pleased with the size of the birds … they are not after all babettes… I could command more money per bird. Free range birds go for as much as 30€ but, they are a lot bigger than mine… maybe I could get 8€ per bird.

The folk that bought them all early 80′s, no nonsense country folk, one old duck picked hers up and thrust it head down into her shopping basket without blinking a eyelash, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be walking round with a live cockerel in a shopping bag over your arm! Another old lady bought some eggs as well. Then they duly took a walk up to inspect the rest of the flock, I suspect to work out how many more dinners were there, admire the Llamas and laugh at the pet pigs… off they went… with mixed emotions I counted out my 31 € into my chicken pot.

Went up to feed everybody, check the water and see to all the animals, when in comes Raymond (our next door neighbour & Mayor of the village) and his side kick Michel, the under Mayor… they’d come to collect his Ram who had burst through the fence on Friday to get to Clarie who unbeknown to us had come into season. It had been agreed to let the Ram stay with her for the weekend to see what happens.

Well, the Ram was very reluctant to let his lady love go, bit hard on St Valentines day, but nevertheless the star struck lovers were to be separated. Eventually he was man handled out the field but plainly obvious he wasn’t going to walk round back home through the village, so Mike got the Land Rover… no no no were the cries from the Frenchmen, but Mike said no and insisted the Ram would go in the back with a little man handling… sure enough as easy as anything he was in, (and I guess he liked it the way he was looking out the window!), Raymond got in with Mike and the Ram and drove the home, Michel stood thoughtfully looking at all the coq’s and said I will come and kill for you… I knew he meant it, I was seeing it all through French locals eyes… nutty Englishwoman!

1 hour later Mike gets back – bear in mind he drove less than 100 meters – coerced into appero, Pastis or Whisky – the structure of my ‘little’ farm has moved into a new dynamic era I am informed. The cockerels will be dispatched by Michel whenever I need him and when Clarie has her lambs I am not to name them, Michel & Raymond will come when the time is right to dispatch them and we are to buy a new freezer… this will happen every year… we are to be self sufficient… I may even grow some spuds and really go for it!

where have you been

tansy forster — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:03:52 +0000

As a matter of interest I did this map just to see where I have been in the world and discover I have actually only visited 10% of the world… and here’s me thinking I’m reasonably well travelled… shows how big the world actually is! Must get Mike my husband to do this as in his former job he was a photographer with a major Newspaper in London I think we’ll find he’ll score fairly high!
http://static.travbuddy.com/flash/countries_map.swf?id=5421622

going green – we went green yesterday!

tansy forster — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 08:03:24 +0000

First of all please be aware we are not Eco warriors here! Our new ‘greeness’ has come about in 2 ways – a ring at the door bell and a blocked drain!
Door bell rang one day – a man (Emmanuel) with a van stood in our gate way trying to flog me brushes and products for cleaning… all in very rapid French and also seemingly expensive – I tried to dismiss him, but his persuasive powers won! I made the fatal error of looking and sniffing – before I knew what was happening I was a regular on his round and started to buy more and more of his products, it became a standing joke in our household how much would Emmanuel extract out of me this time! But more importantly I fell in love with the products and they actually are more economical as you use less.
I was sort of aware the products he was selling me were green, more they were compatible with the ‘fosse’, we do not have the luxury of main drains, nursing a fosse d’eaux with the amount of guests we have is actually quite stressful, so products kind to the fosse are incredibly important here in rural France.
This year alone we have had 2 blocked drains, a failed fosse, so the whole garden had to dug up and new tank put in for the cottage plus the main fosse for the main house has continually emitted out dreadful smells on a regular boring frequency!
Then the big decision came about with a 2nd blockage in the drains… water everywhere in the courtyard every time someone had a shower, smells wafting up from the tank – it was horrible and all these smells floating up into one of our rentals.
We called out the local enterprise that deals with all the horrible things, the big lorry arrives with pressure hoses etc. but after half an hour he couldn’t find the block. Our courtyard was due to be dug up to find it – now this prospect of the whole courtyard dug up was totally horrifying as it isn’t exactly small!
Fortunately Andre, (our man who is literally renovating our house), found the block at the end of the pipe, the unblocking procedure could commence! This is what turned us totally green … the block was probably a meter in length the whole of the 10 cm pipe. The only way to get it out was the literally pick it out with a crow bar. The smell unbelievable and was just black tar like substance with calcium deposits. The really frightening part of this was, this was the pipe out from my washing machines, the black tar stuff was the deposits gathering over the years from the ‘normal’ washing powder… I was vaguely aware petrol is used in washing powders and cleaning products but never again will I use ‘high street’ brands if this is the residue they leave…
Emmanuel called in again yesterday, this time I really paid proper attention to his products and took the decision to turn away completely from supermarket and well known brands…we now we are completely eco products, no chemicals at all – from our loo rolls, kitchen paper, shampoo, soap (the rose is gorgeous) washing up and washing powder/liquids, polish, floor cleaner, hand cream (best I’ve ever used)… even the deodorants (no aluminum) and the bleach is also friendly for the fosse.
All of this delivered to my front door, in fact I’m even helped to put it away! The company that makes it is German EMAS (verified products) www.hakawerk.com – all containers are recycled and they pick up empty ones, not tested on animals, no chemicals or petrol traces plus the actual products are great!
One step further we are thinking of taking, (we already leave the washing up liquid and cleaning products in the rentals for our guests), to also supply shampoo & soaps in the rentals requesting that our guests use them instead of their normal brands whilst here.

international art model!

tansy forster — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:03:15 +0000

One of our roosters is an international art model… how cool is that! I didn’t know anything at all about it until this email arrived

Tansy,

I thought you might be interested in knowing that at least one of your roosters is now an international art model. We liked how colorful they were, so took some photographs. An artist friend of Jessi’s, Ray-Mel Cornelius, specializes in, among other things, roosters. Here’s a link to some of his rooster paintings.

http://rmcornelius.blogspot.com/2009/08/rooster-show.html

and a couple more

http://rmcornelius.blogspot.com/2009/08/roosters-continued.html

Knowing that Ray-Mel likes to paint roosters we sent him some photos of yours. Here’s the result. This one Ray-Mel named Eli.

There may be more in the future. If he does another, we’ll let you know.

Thanks again for the wonderful stay.

Jim and Jessi

Then when I opened up Face book I find some photos of Jenny Cote – her book is published that Clarie our lamb has a starring role in… all of a sudden I am surrounded with internationally recognized creatures!!

The Llamas have settled in so well and with the 2 sheep make a wonderful foursome… they are always together, every morning down at the gate of the paddock patiently waiting for us to open our bedroom curtains, it’s rather endearing and reassuring that they are there every morning.

Our season is starting to draw to a close, to be honest will be glad when we’ve closed up for a while and get some down time… this time of year starts to be hard as we are tired now, when something goes wrong it’s almost through gritted teeth that we attend to the problem – stupid things like a leaking shower head and a DVD player not working.. why couldn’t they hold out just for another 3 weeks or so?! Irrational I know, but after 6 months with 1 more month to go we’re ready to close the curtains at night, the nights are drawing in very quickly now – (locking everybody up at night now is not far off 7.30 p.m. only seems 5 minutes ago it was almost 11 p.m.) - light the fire and watch lots and lots of TV, my hands are itching to get my knitting out too… so this next few weeks we’re going to push ourselves to get all the yucky jobs out the way like the accounts and office all straightened out, to then feel relaxed and enjoy our tower project.

Yes, the tower… looks like we have permission, we’re just waiting for the actual letter to arrive – we’ve been told verbally and the Mayor has given us some stone for it , but until the certificate is here we don’t start the foundations… however the stone mason is here today with his son dressing stone in readiness… it really is a big thrill to be building such a statement!

I feel that this winter is going to be another hard one – the hedgerows are weighed down with berries and fruit – our pear trees are full of fruit too – if the snow comes again at least the barn has been rebuilt and all the other roofs on the animal shelters are reinforced too,

so for me another adventure of big time snow would be quite the thing, (still a child at heart you see!)

6th June d- day celebrations in Normandy

tansy forster — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 22:09:52 +0000

I know it is the 13th June but we have only just started to recover… so goodness knows how the stars are – the veterans! I have heard all the serving parachutists and Army boys were complaining of being tired too!

What a week we’ve had!

Muir, Harry & Harry2

Harry Kulkowitz came and stayed with us in our home for the 7th year… he landed on Utah Beach 6th June 1944 and went right through to the Battle of the Bulge, lied about his age and joined up with a whole host of other New York Jews who all joined up enmasse. Harry was a radio interceptor, trained in England and came across the channel by boat.

We were asked by our Mayor when we first bought our house in this village if we would take a veteran in as English speakers so obviously we were delighted – Harry was billeted with us and as we tease him we can’t get rid of him! I think over the 7 visits we’ve had all 3 grand children, his sister, his 2 daughters and each time his son Mark who owns and runs the Mad Batter & Carroll Villa in Cape May NJ. see this link http://www.philly.com/philly/green/96201444.html

He came this year with his son Mark and his youngest daughter Tessa.

Harry is rather frail now – he’s having memory problems but quite frankly when he is stimulated he is a lot better, but there were a couple of occasions when he was completely exhausted so we had to help him stand on parade and one time in a wheelchair… but take into account jet lag as well he did remarkably well!

For this post I’m mainly going to add photos so you can all see for yourselves the respect and the love that is shown to the veterans. This year we had 600 paratroopers come down over Ste Mere Eglise – French, German, US, British, Belgium and Canadian. 10 planes. The men all here for a week to see for themselves the 6th June celebrations… it was just wonderful to sit on a table with Americans and Germans side by side bantering and showing huge respect to the old boys.

Our weeks was as follows:

Harry arrived 3rd June – slept 15 hours and then on the 4th June it all kicked off…

4 p.m. ceremony in Carentan to be awarded the Order of the Senate – effectively as he is already a knight of France holding The Legion d’Honneur this senate is equivalent to being made a Lord!

6 p.m. Houesville for ceremony to mark the passing of Reg Alexander a Screaming Eagle that came to Houesville for over 25 years died in January. followed by Vin du honneur in the Salle du Fete

8 p.m. Banquet with 2 star general and 200 or so serving soldiers – we left around 1 a.m.

5th June the 600 parachutists, big event in La Fiere followed by a birthday celebration here for a little boy born on 6th June (cake & champagne) followed by another banquet this time in Ste Mere Eglise – 600+ people to include soldiers and local people – huge firework display at the end – got home around 1 a.m. again.

6th June we tried to keep it calm – so it was just a visit to Utah Beach and the museum there – dinner at The Mayors house, 5 course meal – home for around 2 a.m.

7th June Went to Grandcamp Maisy for lunch and met the 2 star General in the same restaurant then on to Coleville sur Mer where Harry was invited to fold the flag at taps. Got home for 7 p.m. and straight out to dinner with a local French Army Officer – another 2 a.m.

8th June party for Harry at our house 35 for 4 course dinner – very late night – 2 a.m. with Harry, Mark & Tessa due to leave at 6 a.m. – luckily Mike woke up!! They got off OK we’re left with a mountain of washing up!

We also had a British Veteran staying at our Utah Beach house – he was a Scots Guard and came through Normandy in a Churchill Tank… delightful chap and with his son researched one of the battles he was in – traced a house that he almost demolished, returned to the spot and apologized to the owners… still the same family to this day!

We met another British Veteran – another Harry – Royal Navy his job during the invasion was dropping off the lads as close to the land as could get… he was escorted by 3 ex Royal Marines that all served together one of whom was the first 4 British Legion chaps to pay respects to the fallen coming through Wootton Bassett from Afghanistan. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5771032/Wootton-Bassett-A-very-British-way-of-mourning.html

Click to view slideshow. photographs © Mike Forster

cute little lamb?… more like a full on battering ram!

tansy forster — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:27:42 +0000

Claries a cute little lamb? No sorry folks she’s now a full on battering ram…she’s actually quite powerful and also wilful! It’s going to be a challenge to keep her, I’m wondering if I need to find another to keep her company and maybe her desire to be with us and especially Mr Willerby may subside a bit… I’m getting slightly fearful that with her head butting games she plays with the pup she may indeed hurt him one time. Certainly she has the strength to hurt me when she wants her bottle!

Yes, you read it right, when she wants her bottle!… she’s not weaned yet either… I’m making it longer and longer for her feeds and have got it down to 2 … may even try 1 today but haven’t worked out which feed to cut yet – night or morning.

The Llamas are doing really well now – calm is in field and I actually think they are enjoying each others company now.. it is a lovely sight to see the 2 of them grazing almost side by side! I have also out of the corner of my eye spotted some flashes of galloping Llamas so I think they are actually playing too now.

We’ve been let down on the 2 donkeys e were going to take on… it all got terribly complicated plus as they are Sicilian donkeys that don’t like the rain… don’t ask why are they in Normandy then?!!! Anyway long story short we’re not having them which in a way is a relief – we are now looking for a Cotentin (local breed) and I thought a pregnant Jenny would be a good idea that way she wouldn’t be interested in Stavros in the field next door who is intact and she’s have company when her foal is born… so that is my latest mission!

The reason we want to get a couple of donkeys is that the Llamas can be rather aloof, they don’t always let strangers pet them, whereas the donkeys do…our guests we have discovered actually come here for 2 reasons, either because we allow dogs so they can bring theirs OR they like to fuss our tribe…

We had a delightful Dutch couple stay with us recently – the 2 Jack Russell’s kept disappearing, we knew that they always give a huge greeting to folk when they return back from a day’s sightseeing, however it wasn’t until I received this picture yesterday did I realize the full extent of our Jack’s determination to share holidays!!

Jack Russells with our guests in the cottage

Yesterday whilst on the phone I heard Madge almost howling – when I looked out the window she was at the cottage door demanding to be let in… sure enough the door opened and in she went! Our American visitors had only been back 3 minutes!! We do also have guests from time to time that are not interested – funny the dogs don’t bother them… hang around us instead almost like having bored teenagers in the house…’I'm booorrred’!

We also had a mounted policewoman stay with us recently, I rang my friend Fanny in the village who’s Father in Law owns the Chateau in our village which is a Haras, they have 75 mares in this village with 35 foals due to be born and 8 stallions doing the business – with help from Fanny’s husband!! We were treated to a trip round the Haras met the breeding mares and the stallions even saw a ‘echographie’ (this is a case of an English word has left me, remembered… ultra sound!!), of a foal in a womb… even though Fanny & I are friends and see each other every week I hadn’t quite grasped the size of the Haras less than a 10 minute walk from us! It is a lesson to me you never really know what is on your doorstep!!

Llamas together at last and fox attacks…

tansy forster — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:17:53 +0000

The big day arrived yesterday, Esme was allowed into Fernando’s field. For the past week I have let Esme into the other big field with the goats so she and Fernando could touch noses, (in fact Fernando could get half his body through the rails and nuzzle her neck), so with it 6 weeks to the day since the big boy had his snip we opened the gates… as you can see we had a little bit of chase me chase me for a while – we did have to separate them again as it all got a little shall we say raunchy! But today when we let her in again they sort of said hello and when I went up to check a few hours later they were at opposite ends of the field with their backs turned!! We must have taken away the mystique now they are together!! Tonight will be the first night in the field together so should be interesting to see where they are at dawn.

©Mike Forster Meeting up!

So whilst all of this hankey pankey is going on Clarie Chops the lamb is still on her bottle – fat as a barrel and confused as to whether she is a goat, a Llama (albeit a small one) a dog or perhaps even a chicken… she is very funny and looks to play with the dogs, unfortunately she doesn’t realise her size or strength … poor Rudi the poodle got butted and was tossed into the air… he is a baby so we did all know about it for ages after-wards! Mr Willerby though just takes it in his stride!

The week has been a bit of a disappointing one in the chicken department – my eggs are not selling so I have a glut of them, for some unknown reason I’m losing loads of chicks… I had 4 mummy hens insisting on sitting on the same eggs and arguing over them, (2 muscled in after 2 had been sat for 15/16 days) then chicks started to hatch under the wrong hen – the new comers timing programmes were for a further 20 days to sit so I got squashed dead chicks and then when 2 did eventually get down with 5 live chicks they have managed to lose 2 – so at last count down to 3 there. I had another Mummy hen who had 5 chicks – she lost 4 and had just the one following her round – grew into a pullet, was quite a handsome black bird with feathers on the legs and was just becoming ready to be independent, only went & fell into a bucket of water – I found it drowned – same morning I went up to the Llama shelter where there was a mummy hen with 3 quite sizeable chicks – all I found was a bundle of feathers… the Llama is sleeping out in the field so the fox came and helped him/herself… plus a couple of other piles of feathers this week – the fox is coming during the day as well… so this week I think I have lost 4 pullets, 5 or 6 chicks and 3 really very good silkie girls… it sometimes makes one feel quite despondent when you have a run like this

Goosey Goose is very bad tempered at the moment and her feathers look quite spaced out… I think she is about to go into full moult – she’ll stop laying and then the garden starts to look as if someone has gone completely mad with pillow fights every night for the next 4 or 5 weeks!

We’ve a wicked cold East wind at the moment … I’m hoping that this means the weather pattern will follow the very good summers we have had in the past… when the wind stopped in May one year we had the best summer ever… can only be positive!

Goose and goat, Jacks and lamb plus a 16 year old Burmese cat!

tansy forster — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:30:59 +0000

Where do I start?… Everyday seems to have more going on! Today it’s the 16 year old Burmese cat that is driving me nuts… I’ve just given up listening to her yowl… she needs to go… but she is warm by the Aga and her litter tray is in the porch by the front door so muggins here has to lift her up & carry her to her indoor toilet – her way of telling me that her toilet should be beside the Aga where it is warm… if I don’t lift her the rotten little madam will piss in the dogs toy basket… so then I have to wash all their toys!

Chicks are hatching out everywhere… we nearly had a tragedy yesterday but the Aga saved the day yet again. The goose gets very aggressive and grumpy just before she lays… an egg every other day.

If she decides she wants to go into a nesting box that a mummy hen is already in she will think nothing of picking the poor unfortunate chicken up by her tail feathers and start flinging it around – I’m usually alerted to this when I hear a huge kerfuffle, involves me to drop everything and to then gallop up the garden to the hen house. What I’ve done to try and stop this huge panic is to put little grills at the openings – so Goosey goose has access to the one that is vacant…however yesterday, a family of chicks got in to a muddle and must have tried to get through the rails rather than round…I found one lifeless with it’s head stuck… it was so cold, but I felt a little tiny flutter when holding it my cupped hands, then a gasp for air, blowing on it all the way down the garden (the gallop in reverse!), quickly got it down to the ‘hold’ oven in the Aga, 10 minutes later it was chirping, so many times I’ve had a live chicken coming out my oven! This morning with it’s mummy & the others as if nothing had happened!

Quite often when I open up the nesting boxes I find an array of different sized eggs!

Clarie Chops is becoming quite stubborn, she’s 9 weeks old tomorrow, I’m hoping in just a couple more weeks she’ll be weaned – it’s a great tie 3 feeds a day. She is becoming more interested in grass and her sheep nuts now, but she is so very good at being the wrong side of the gate – I want her to go in with Esme, she’s to big to man handle now, so leave her that side – 5 minutes later all I can hear is a bawling lamb, she does now want to go in with Esme…

It’s a very hard time of year and frustrating for farmers with grazing animals, the grass hasn’t really started to grow yet – very nearly there… then when it does come through it’s too rich so can cause problems. I’ve opened up the field I had closed off for 8 weeks to rest it and let it clean itself, so now I should be able to start cutting down on oats, sheep nuts, hay and other foods – I think they are getting enough nutrients from the grass.

We had to smile yesterday, we were doing quite a few jobs up in the field and all the animals put on an act, the goat playing with the goose was unbelievable we’d never seen that before, the lamb with the 2 Jacks and the poodle playing together and Esme on her pogo stick legs in the field… here are some photos of them all… by Mike of course!

I have the opportunity of being given 2 Angora goats which I think would be rather nice, so we’d have 4 goats.

We do have a bit of a problem with the 2 pigs… they don’t exactly do a lot except eat and poo a great deal – they make such a mess of the field as they have disgusting habits to include whilst eating they poo at the same time. I am seriously thinking that it is time to let the pigs go. It’s been quite interesting having pet pigs but believe you me there isn’t a great deal going on up there, they don’t interact except for food, the poo in the summer just attracts lots of horrible insects that bite the other animals… I may have to be grown up about this and fill my freezer. Sorry all you Veggies but they have had the life of Riley… if we do go ahead it will be here and they won’t know a thing about it as I won’t transport them… I know they can sense it when they arrive at the abattoir. Anyway it’s a dilemma and we are thinking about it… when the cockerels were dispatched the other week I didn’t get upset at all as it was so quick they didn’t know a thing about it… before when we have had to cull it was bloody and horrendous, so as long as it is quick and painless with no stress.

Poodle Parlour & blood test

tansy forster — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 06:56:51 +0000

Rudi has had his spring cut… 1st day of Spring and he’s all spruced up!! Poor boy was getting terrible hot under his Bob Marley look a like get up… his coat was starting to get dreadlocks! He has Toilette 1st day Spring… always for 6th June week (his appointment is 2nd June this year) so he looks his best for all our American visitors especially Harry the veteran, possibly again end of August and dependent on weather his final cut of the year in November… but this year the weather closed in so he’s gone quite a time… looked like some little shaggy unwanted scruff!

Rudi before

Rudi being finished off in the poodle parlour

The funny part of it all was is this was the 1st time Mr Willerby the Jack Russell pup saw Rudi as a clipped poodle! As well as the new look there was the the smell of all the powders and skin lotions for his nose to get by. Willerby seems to spend a long part of the day tormenting Rudi and swinging from his ears, Rudi seems to actually like it – however we were concerned that without all that shaggy fur would the pup hurt him… if anything the game seems to be more controlled with Rudi more the boss! It was amusing to watch the double take by all 3 dogs when Rudi was reintroduced to them… Madge had a sneezing fit, whilst Monty challenged him, Willerby just though better ears to swing from! Dear Rudi just takes it all in his stride… he’s a great dog!

Mr Willerby had to have a blood test for his passport today, but because he is so small the vet had to give him a general. It was all a bit stressful as it really hit home how much this little creature has wormed his way into my heart and has the power to squeeze it hard!

Now we wait for the results (83€) if the anti bodies are high enough the countdown starts for his passport which will be issued in 6 months to the day of the blood test results…. then he and Madge can come to England with us if they want. We haven’t had passports done for Rudi & Monty as they are quite elderly dogs now, Monty is 16 we think (I found him at the side of the road with his teeth kicked in waiting to die 6 years ago)

Monty

and Rudi a millennium pup is now 10 – he also a rescue – I intervened with the old man that had him as the dog looked so dreadful – ‘vous voulez’ and the leash handed to me is how Rudi joined us! They have all their rabies injections up to date but as they only speak French we don’t think they want to go to England… as Madge is from Derbyshire and Willerby is Irish they’ll quite like visiting!

Monty we think may have been a gypsy dog. We have quite few camps in the area. The real Gypsies pass through here with their horse drawn caravans on the way to various horse markets to buy & sell the Norman Cobs they breed… these guys treat their animals well… but we think Monty came from the travelling trader side of things, white transit van pulling a Fendt with a trailer on the back for the dishwasher, washing machine & tumble drier… lets just plug into any power we can find attitude and leave a great pile of rubbish when we leave. We think he was tied up possibly under a caravan or in a kennel, offered food and the kicked when he took the food. It’s taken almost 6 years for him to take anything from our hand and then he is still hesitant. Every evening we have a routine, ham time. A slice of ham is shared out between the 4 dogs (Tommy the cat joins in too now!), we put any medication that is needed into this treat plus gradually Monty is getting confident enough to take a treat… only takes 2 minutes for him to pluck the courage up now… he used to retreat under the table and hide – if you tried to get him out he’d bite – we have moved on big time as he used to hide under the table at meal time and amuse himself by biting unsuspecting visitors feet… unfortunately he did it once to Jean-Louis and bit through his 200€ kid leather Italian moccasins – he was not amused!

We live opposite the church (built in 1743) the bell tower is almost level with our bedroom,probably 50 meters away) if anything goes wrong with the bells I am the 1st to the Mayor to report them… they are a way of life now – a rhythm in our day, Easter they fall silent I can’t wait for them to start up again. They’ve just struck 7 a.m. d’angelis so time for me to get on with waking the household up, making up Claries’ bottle, letting everyone out and feeding everybody… now takes me an hour in the morning and the same in the evening – plus a midday feed for Clarie – I’ll be glad when she’s weaned! We’re only half way through as well!!

To show how close we are the the church – here are some photos – the 1st one actually of this village being liberated 8th June 1944 our bedroom window is the very small window set back slightly – the tree opposite is the yew tree in front of the church door

All photos I use in this blog are by my husband Mike Forster unless otherwise mentioned… so really this is a joint blog! The original war photo is held in Caen museum.

liberation of Houesville June 8th 1944

60th anniversary Liberation of Houesville