The hen in the bucket, and we are melting...

It has been hot, hot, hot, down here in SW France, with temperatures of around 40C, which is sucking the sap out of all of us, including the veg plot. We did have veggies growing in there this morning because I weeded a couple of rows of leeks. Oh alright,....it was only one row, because I was late in getting into the veg plot because we took our two cows for an amble down the river path so they could fill their tummies with grass and other forage because the field they spend their day in is now a shade of golden brown, the 'green' grass now having been frizzled to brown by the heat of the sun.

It has been hot, hot, hot....oops....sorry, forgot I had already said that! Anyway, if we did have a swimming pool I wouldn't go in it because I would get wet, and then I would have to dry off, and....well.....we don't need a swimming pool because we have the river.

However, the river levels are dropping and the sun is now getting through to the bed rock making the water go horridly full of bits of stuff which smells. So, no doing things in the river for me.

Now it would appear that I am not quite my rational self at the moment, and you are quite right. This heat is difficult to work in, and one feels one's self slowing down and down almost to a stop. Indeed if one did sit down for a quick five minutes, then the sleep angel visits very quickly, and off into the land of nod one goes.

But....swimming pool? Nooooooo. The effort of getting into one and getting back out of it again would be too much in this heat. I have no fantasies about having a swimming pool. Honestly I don't.

It is hard seeing everything wilting. We have lots more days of heat ahead apparently. But staying upbeat and positive, and trying to push out of our minds the worry of not having any grazing for the sheep and cows, but we can always buy some hay in, which we might have to do soon.

We are going to keep the cows in tomorrow. There is no way that we can let them be roasted out on the field again, despite having a small woodland to shelter in during the worst of the heat. The sheep seem to be less affected, perhaps because they were sheared a week ago and so must be very happy to be rid of that thick blanket of wool. The pigs are having showers several times a day to help keep them cool.

..... the beans along the fence, and the beans in the rows have been doing quite well, but we planted late so everything is going to have to catch up.

 



The left hand side of the veg plot. As you can see, looking very juvenile at the moment, but we have tamed it, so at least it looks like something 'proper' is growing there. The lovely rich growth in the right hand corner of the photo shows the luscious growth of weeds, which are growing very strongly.

....... and here is the 'untamed' rest of the veg plot!


So a friend stopped by today. It was mid morning. As she walked towards me across the courtyard she said, "That chicken under the bucket.....should it be there?" What chicken! What bucket! It being hot making our brains work slower than they normally would, so Lester and me looked at each other, each trying to translate what she was saying as if she had been speaking a foreign language.
"The bucket by the tractor" she says, "it's moving about... there's a chicken underneath it......did you put it in there?" She is now looking worried, not wanting to seem to be questioning our actions......just in case this was some mysterious farm activity which was needing to be done here which involved a chicken and an upturned bucket.

Our friend leads the way. And there, in the middle of the entrance porch is indeed an upturned bucket. We lift it off, and there, squashed inside, is our second biggest hen, all squashed up, in a dreadful state of dedraglement, and an even worse state of heat exhaustion because the bucket had been in full sun for quite some time. In other words, the overturned bucket was acting like an oven, and she was being slowly cooked.

Oh dear. What to do...... cooled her down with a shower of water from the watering can, and left her to think about whether she was going to fight and stay alive or give up and pass over. She was in the shade, she had water beside her, it was now up to her.

Well,..... we expected to see the dogs romping round the courtyard with her carcass eventually, but no, she has soldiered on, and managed to waddle her way over to the rest of the chicken gang who have been spending their days beneath the very large and sprawly fig tree.

We have no explanation as to how she got underneath the bucket. It remains a mystery to us, and probably to her as well.

24 hours later: the hen is doing well, and is actually looking perkier than how she looked before her bucket experience. And for some reasons known only to herself, she seems to want to stay quite close to me when I am out in the courtyard. Earlier on today, when the sun was still obscured by heavy mist so it was cooler although the air was thick with moisture making it feel very humid,  I thought I really ought to get the sheep fleeces sorted out because the new juvenile chicks ( all fifteen of them) have now been let out of their runs and are busy investigating all that there is to be investigated, including toes (ouch!), and the pile of fleeces, which were quite clean a week or so ago but are now covered in straw, dust, and other general bits and pieces including, no doubt, the odd piece of chicken poo here and there because the juveniles view this pile of fleeces as mountains to be climbed.

Anyway, all the fleeces are in bags, ready to be brought indoors and put somewhere until it is their turn to be spun.

Been hesitating about buying the loom (last post), only because we are continuing to spend a lot of money as the renovation to the house rocks on. Not to worry, Lester and I do have moments of panic about the continual costs involved with getting this house into a workable state, and it is my turn to have one today, so I need to work on staying positive and pull out of the recesses of my mind the memory of the many times in the past when things looked a bit dodgy in my life but I stuck it through and everything worked out, in the end, very well. I am aware that we each have a life plan, pre-ordained by greater forces, it is just that I seem to have misplaced that plan somewhere so I need to find it again. Hoorah! Rooting around in the cupboards of my mind, that is what I am needing to do.

It is now nearly nine pm, and we are still cooking here. Lester has just come in from getting the animals in from the field, and said that there are humungous flies everywhere, that the well is not pumping very much water so we shall have to be frugal with watering the veg plot again, which is what we shall be doing in a minute, when I stop chatting with you, and he said to make sure that I drink a couple of glasses of water before I join him outside because I am likely to sweat that water out of me within a minute or two.

I need delay no longer........ and off I must go.

.....so saying bye for now,

Vx