Well whoo hoo the second day of the dreaded spraying course is over. I can't remember the last time I wanted to something less, but its done. I'm still not 100% certain that I'll get the permit without further issues but the actual 16hrs of French instructional course is over.
We spent Christmas in the UK, which whilst lovely and fun was mostly spent in the car, driving, and after a particularly rough crossing back, I'm glad to be home and back in the pruning. The weather here has been pretty mild until this week and I'm praying that we're not about to have a repeat of last years sudden dump of snow, followed by a month of under zero! Especially as I took the executive decision to prune my roses this week as they were all bursting into bud. Typical!
The pruning is plodding along and I still hope to have the majority done by the start of Feb!! Hmm we'll see.
The other thing that's plodding along is that the girls and I are still running 3 times a week and they're now up to running 1-1.5 miles three times a week!
So that's about it for a bit and I hope everyone is well, happy and enjoying life!
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Thursday, 13 December 2012
I know I know it's been a while!
Yes yes I'm sorry. I have had a slightly neurotic reason for not writing and that is my superstitious brain didn't want to go on about things until I'd heard from Agri-Mer with regards to our grant. I've had a very cross week about 6 weeks ago when we were told we couldn't replant the part we arrached last year, next year due to various antiquated reasons involving the poor beleaguered ugni-blanc grape and decided I was too cross to write about it. There would have been a lot of language.
You can see where this is going now, can't you! This afternoon we received the news that our grant is being paid into our account.
I'm now doing the dance of someone who has accomplished round 1 against the powers-that-be.
What else has happened? P has put nearly all the beams in. I have started pruning (I refuse to have to spend endless days doing it in the pissing rain). I've brought some goldfish, which currently have no names.....no-name fish are a bit sad really!
P's marathon training is going well, he ran his first accidental half-marathon last week. How one runs an accidental half marathon is beyond me! The cat had yet more urinary problems. The girls and I had our last swim in the lake on the 5th of this month.... I say swim, it really was more of an in and out.
I'm sure more things have occurred but I cant remember them, blinded as I am by my success in the grant department!
Here are a few random pictures from the last couple of months....
You can see where this is going now, can't you! This afternoon we received the news that our grant is being paid into our account.
I'm now doing the dance of someone who has accomplished round 1 against the powers-that-be.
What else has happened? P has put nearly all the beams in. I have started pruning (I refuse to have to spend endless days doing it in the pissing rain). I've brought some goldfish, which currently have no names.....no-name fish are a bit sad really!
P's marathon training is going well, he ran his first accidental half-marathon last week. How one runs an accidental half marathon is beyond me! The cat had yet more urinary problems. The girls and I had our last swim in the lake on the 5th of this month.... I say swim, it really was more of an in and out.
I'm sure more things have occurred but I cant remember them, blinded as I am by my success in the grant department!
Here are a few random pictures from the last couple of months....
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Tired.
It's been a long couple of days. I've been helping out at a friends harvest in Pussiguin. He makes his wine on site so its a lot more complicated.
Over two days I've hand harvested several patches which were either too old or too difficult for the machine to reach and then spent time on the sorting table. The sorting table involves sitting hunched over a conveyor belt fishing out leaves, lizards, snails and anything else that one wouldn't want to find in ones cuve! The important thing with the table is not to stand up too fast at the end or you'll fall over or vomit or both, which is pretty much frowned upon.
The first day went on pretty late and culminated in a vendage party.... which included singing, rocking around the table and as the evening went on, some people even got up and danced on said table.
One of the songs appeared to be about a pig and some potatoes... and someone else told a story that seemed to involve going into the woods with some women, that no-one seemed to find at all inappropriate... it was all thoroughly surreal and I have to say I loved every minute of it.
I do wish I spoke better French though!
Over two days I've hand harvested several patches which were either too old or too difficult for the machine to reach and then spent time on the sorting table. The sorting table involves sitting hunched over a conveyor belt fishing out leaves, lizards, snails and anything else that one wouldn't want to find in ones cuve! The important thing with the table is not to stand up too fast at the end or you'll fall over or vomit or both, which is pretty much frowned upon.
The first day went on pretty late and culminated in a vendage party.... which included singing, rocking around the table and as the evening went on, some people even got up and danced on said table.
One of the songs appeared to be about a pig and some potatoes... and someone else told a story that seemed to involve going into the woods with some women, that no-one seemed to find at all inappropriate... it was all thoroughly surreal and I have to say I loved every minute of it.
I do wish I spoke better French though!
Monday, 17 September 2012
I've been slack I know...
What can I say, I'm sorry. We've been busy and we are busy. The new vines are in the ground and watered and treated and one parcel is even weeded. The other two still need weeding but we are finding we can only do a row or so before our backs give in.
Round two of paperwork complications started this morning with the people who give us the grant finding yet more problems with our paperwork!
We've also discovered today that we have cicadelle in some or our vines which we have always thought as being fairly catastrophic but JL says he has it also and he barely batted an eyelid. Hmm confused, very!
We've just spent two hours or so standing around admiring our new harvest machine whilst the boys give it a test drive. What can I say, it's big and yellow and seems to work!
Here are a few random September pictures:
Round two of paperwork complications started this morning with the people who give us the grant finding yet more problems with our paperwork!
We've also discovered today that we have cicadelle in some or our vines which we have always thought as being fairly catastrophic but JL says he has it also and he barely batted an eyelid. Hmm confused, very!
We've just spent two hours or so standing around admiring our new harvest machine whilst the boys give it a test drive. What can I say, it's big and yellow and seems to work!
Here are a few random September pictures:
P trying to persuade sheepy visitors away.
Misty early morning treating.
Big yellow machine.
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Headless poultry.
Well to say we've been busy would be an understatement. I naively thought getting the things in the ground would be the majority of the battle. How wrong I was.
The paperwork and related bureaucracy have very nearly finished me off. Having carefully completed all our paperwork correctly as we went along and doing all the forms so they all concurred we got to the final stage and were told by the Duanes that we had put too many vines in the ground. Alot of driving round the countryside later and we seem to have it sorted only to get the offending clearance form from said Duanes, on which NOWHERE does it mention quantities of vines, only surface areas. I swear I'm going to kill someone soon.
Anyway, ding ding round one finished, rounds 2-100 no-doubt still to come.
After the vines went in the ground we then commenced the watering marathon which at one point saw us finishing at 1.30am only to start again at 5am, with torches and a lot of caffeine. P has constructed a very Heath-Robinson contraption which does mean we can both do a row at the same time, thus speeding up the entire process and hopefully there won't be many more times that we need to do it for.... but then again, seeing as its stupid-hot here now...
Anyway, I've now started the new marathon event of weeding the little darlings. Needless to say my back hurts and as it's currently 39 degrees and is not set to drop below 35 for the rest of the week, the weeding happens very early in the morning, ditto the hand treating.
All in all I'll be glad when spring comes around and they're all still alive!
Fingers crossed.
We managed to watch a little of the Olympics, which I love beyond reason, except the football and possibly the tennis and hockey. We've also had a non-stop stream of visitors which has been alternately, something to be endured (thankfully, mercifully short) and a pleasure.
I'm not sure exactly where this year has gone but it does seem to be rocketing past and I suspect I might have to think about getting the heating fixed soon.....
The paperwork and related bureaucracy have very nearly finished me off. Having carefully completed all our paperwork correctly as we went along and doing all the forms so they all concurred we got to the final stage and were told by the Duanes that we had put too many vines in the ground. Alot of driving round the countryside later and we seem to have it sorted only to get the offending clearance form from said Duanes, on which NOWHERE does it mention quantities of vines, only surface areas. I swear I'm going to kill someone soon.
Anyway, ding ding round one finished, rounds 2-100 no-doubt still to come.
After the vines went in the ground we then commenced the watering marathon which at one point saw us finishing at 1.30am only to start again at 5am, with torches and a lot of caffeine. P has constructed a very Heath-Robinson contraption which does mean we can both do a row at the same time, thus speeding up the entire process and hopefully there won't be many more times that we need to do it for.... but then again, seeing as its stupid-hot here now...
Anyway, I've now started the new marathon event of weeding the little darlings. Needless to say my back hurts and as it's currently 39 degrees and is not set to drop below 35 for the rest of the week, the weeding happens very early in the morning, ditto the hand treating.
All in all I'll be glad when spring comes around and they're all still alive!
Fingers crossed.
We managed to watch a little of the Olympics, which I love beyond reason, except the football and possibly the tennis and hockey. We've also had a non-stop stream of visitors which has been alternately, something to be endured (thankfully, mercifully short) and a pleasure.
I'm not sure exactly where this year has gone but it does seem to be rocketing past and I suspect I might have to think about getting the heating fixed soon.....
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Malbec
Well here are the first lot of vines and it's made a day that started off pretty horrendously improve no-end!
What kind of a day has it been then. Well P got out of bed determined to get a treatment in and then promptly reversed the tractor into the outside tap, breaking it and sending water pissing everywhere! Cursing loudly he went in search of a stopcock which he couldn't find. About 4 mins later and a couple of hundred litres of water later I found said tap and stopped the flow!
Oh well we thought we'll use the pump to fill the sprayer which after about 15 mins of wrestling we managed at the EXACT same time as the tractor started misfiring.
P, it has to be said lost what passed for his sense of humour at this point.
The mechanic is on holiday. We need to treat and to have the tractor ready for tomorrows onslaught of planting. At this stage it was all pretty catastrophic and P had a face like a slapped arse!
After a long of confusion I rang the guy we brought the place from and asked for the name and number of his friend who is a "sometimes mechanic".
Phone calls made, JM turns up plays with the tractor, does a lot of revving and announces that we need a new "Pompe alimentation de gazoil" which I have to write down after twice asking and twice forgetting... also a new oil filter.
Without much hope we trundle of to the fantastic chaps at Chansaulme who pick both items off the shelf and say that'll €86 please.
I then call lovely mechanic bloke back, who says alot of things very fast that I don't understand and says goodbye.
I dither, the vines arrive delivered by a very lovely chap and then I pluck up the courage to phone M. Le mechanic back who says (very slowly) he'll be here tomorrow at 8.30am..... HURRAH.
I shouldn't be counting my eggs or chickens or uncrossing anything yet.
BUT our vines are hear and arn't they lovely?
What kind of a day has it been then. Well P got out of bed determined to get a treatment in and then promptly reversed the tractor into the outside tap, breaking it and sending water pissing everywhere! Cursing loudly he went in search of a stopcock which he couldn't find. About 4 mins later and a couple of hundred litres of water later I found said tap and stopped the flow!
Oh well we thought we'll use the pump to fill the sprayer which after about 15 mins of wrestling we managed at the EXACT same time as the tractor started misfiring.
P, it has to be said lost what passed for his sense of humour at this point.
The mechanic is on holiday. We need to treat and to have the tractor ready for tomorrows onslaught of planting. At this stage it was all pretty catastrophic and P had a face like a slapped arse!
After a long of confusion I rang the guy we brought the place from and asked for the name and number of his friend who is a "sometimes mechanic".
Phone calls made, JM turns up plays with the tractor, does a lot of revving and announces that we need a new "Pompe alimentation de gazoil" which I have to write down after twice asking and twice forgetting... also a new oil filter.
Without much hope we trundle of to the fantastic chaps at Chansaulme who pick both items off the shelf and say that'll €86 please.
I then call lovely mechanic bloke back, who says alot of things very fast that I don't understand and says goodbye.
I dither, the vines arrive delivered by a very lovely chap and then I pluck up the courage to phone M. Le mechanic back who says (very slowly) he'll be here tomorrow at 8.30am..... HURRAH.
I shouldn't be counting my eggs or chickens or uncrossing anything yet.
BUT our vines are hear and arn't they lovely?
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Planting and other things.
Well they're here, busy inserting marquants into our rotovated, fertilised and now-dry-enough-to-not-sink soil. The plants are due to arrive Thurs am and hopefully by the weekend all 7000 of them will be in!
We've been so stressed about the whole thing and everything has been conspiring against us... well mostly the weather so I'll be massively relieved when its over.
The rest of the vineyard, it has to be said, is looking amazing at the moment and I'd say that we've finally got it looking like it should as a matter of course, not like it was looking when Dominique had put several years of concerted neglect into it.
P has cut the grass, I've strimmed, he's rongered (not sure how it's spelt but pronounced Ron-yeah-ed) it all. We've still to treat again this week and I've still got a couple of parcelles to de-pampe (de-shoot) and then we'll put more weed-killer down and it'll look perfect again.
Except (there's always an except!) for the cabernet sauvignon that is riddled with Esca (black measles). This used to have a treatment option but they're withdrawn that (probably quite sensible as it was an arsenic derivative). So unless we want to spend a ruddy fortune (€9 per plant) for an injection that might or might not work, we'll be ripping them out soon. Pity that's where we mostly put the new piquets.
What else has happened? Well I had a very curious conversation with a frenchman in his tractor... yes yes lesson number one, but I wanted our verges cut properly...that proved that old cliché, that frenchman are indeed obsessed with sex.
Amongst talking about his kids, how long we'd lived here, how our neighbour was doing post surgery, he informed me that, whilst my French was very good, the only way to learn French well was to go to bed with a Frenchman. He followed this with informing me that it wasn't necessary to be faithful to ones wife, as life was too long and it all got too boring. Good then, well that's my vocabulary expanded into areas I wish it wasn't. But then again we do have beautifully cut verges.
We've been so stressed about the whole thing and everything has been conspiring against us... well mostly the weather so I'll be massively relieved when its over.
The rest of the vineyard, it has to be said, is looking amazing at the moment and I'd say that we've finally got it looking like it should as a matter of course, not like it was looking when Dominique had put several years of concerted neglect into it.
P has cut the grass, I've strimmed, he's rongered (not sure how it's spelt but pronounced Ron-yeah-ed) it all. We've still to treat again this week and I've still got a couple of parcelles to de-pampe (de-shoot) and then we'll put more weed-killer down and it'll look perfect again.
Except (there's always an except!) for the cabernet sauvignon that is riddled with Esca (black measles). This used to have a treatment option but they're withdrawn that (probably quite sensible as it was an arsenic derivative). So unless we want to spend a ruddy fortune (€9 per plant) for an injection that might or might not work, we'll be ripping them out soon. Pity that's where we mostly put the new piquets.
What else has happened? Well I had a very curious conversation with a frenchman in his tractor... yes yes lesson number one, but I wanted our verges cut properly...that proved that old cliché, that frenchman are indeed obsessed with sex.
Amongst talking about his kids, how long we'd lived here, how our neighbour was doing post surgery, he informed me that, whilst my French was very good, the only way to learn French well was to go to bed with a Frenchman. He followed this with informing me that it wasn't necessary to be faithful to ones wife, as life was too long and it all got too boring. Good then, well that's my vocabulary expanded into areas I wish it wasn't. But then again we do have beautifully cut verges.
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