AUTUMN IS (REALLY) HERE

Waiting for a little surprise this week I wanted to give you a faint glimse of my summer and schooldays.

En attendant une petite surprise je voulais vous donner une petite aperçue de mon été et de ma formation.

One of my working experience farms, Jardin de Mazet in Monoblet, the Gard département

The autumn has officially started and of course the temperatures have fallen though it seems next week will be fine. The nights are chilly but the afternoons can still be hot, though not the days it's raining.

The farm of Mazet is terassed: all plots are small and they cascade from the top of the hill down in multitude of terasses. They grow many medicinal plants. On the background you can see their séchoir, the plant dryer house.

 

Thyme and cornflower drying inside the dryer .

 

It's the time of year there hovers in the air a smell of the "day after a good night of wining" as stated one of my collegues. The roads are filled with tractors getting their cargo of grapes to the wine cellar. We at the agricultural school have the "gos fortune" of having a cave coopérative, cooperative cellar just behind the school house, so that we really find ourselves in a constant atmosphere of grapes becoming wine...

 

The other day we made a visit at the organic agriculture fair in Valence and saw a lot of lovely tractors.

 

I've also been working in a plant nursery, the Pépinière du Grand Plantier at St. Ambroix, also in Gard.

One wednesday we were at the producers' market in Uzès where I saw this alembic for distillation of rose water.

 

 

We've also been a lot outside, doing botany lessons with our professors.

 

Now we have essentially exams and the finishing of the professional project in store 'till mid-october. At the same time I'm looking for a piece of land to start farming allready next spring. I'll keep you up to date.

 

Have a nice autumn - or spring if you happen to be Down Under, where the Rygby World Cup has just kicked off. And no, I'm not backing the French team, les Bleus, I'm All  Blacks all the way.

 

Bon début de l'automne officielle à tous mes lecteurs!

SOME NEWS

I know, I know, I’ve been long gone and I appologise. The fact is my agricultural course plus all the other littlle and even bigger things in life are totally consuming my time and energy.

Fortunately spring - no, summer is here ! And with the warm days my hay fever which I’m treating the old fashioned way with antihistamine pills; I’m not far enough in my studies yet to believe only in natural remedies for this. The down side of the pills is I’m feeling a little weary.

But I need those precious little pills because I spend a lot of time outside, with the school, working experience periods and my own garden. And without the hay fever what could be better ? Lovely sunshine, everything around us green and lush, flowers everywhere…

Some quick glimses of what has been going on…

 

I've been to Die in Drôme, to a course on Biodynamic agriculture with a happy binch of my collueges from Nyons agricultural school. We had a lovely week, sleeping over in a country gîte, a farm accomodation, and visiting various biodynamic farms.

 

I've allready done two work experience periods at the Mazet farm in Monoblet, in the Gard département.

They have lovely terrassed fields growing with nearly thirty different plants, mainly medicinal. It's been hard work, weeding by hand (they cultivate organically, thus using no pesticides) but such a wonderful weather and marvellous surroundings.  

 

The house you see at the background is a natural dyer, séchoir. They do tisanes, herbal teas and homeopathic remedies based on their plant production.

 

We also had three savioury days with a lady who specialises in cuisine sauvage, cooking with ingredients found in the nature, wild salads, flowers etc. Very inspiring - and cheap: food straight from the nature!

 

 

I must admit that every time we do something new I'm captivated. I found biodynamic methods very interesting but little hard to follow, so I'm still thinking about implementing it. On the other hand I adopted right away the wild cooking, it's been wild salads ever since.

 

 

And then I've been working on our little green patch where we are planting little by little vegetables, aromatics, as well as flowers and some medicinal plants for this winter's herb teas.

 

Above the aromatics, below tomatoes etc.

 

 

Must fly, hope to be here sooner. Have a good springtime, wherever you are!

A SCHOOL VISIT

On a visit to a farm near Crest. Observing enormous agricultural machines - not really a future for me...

En visit sur une exploitation près de Crest, dans la Drôme.