Chestnuts...

A big subject to be sure.From woodland management to fine woodworking. The tree is a great provider.I am told that posts can last twenty years in the ground It has a timber that exhibits a similar figuring to oak, shimmering medular rays being a prominent feature. The wood is not favoured for an open fire as it has a tendency to spit.What to do with an abundance of sweet marrons, I have yet to learn. The nut was ground down for flour in ancient times , a main staple food before the introduction of wheat.We will be experimenting with marron jam and marrons glacé. In the meantime dryroasting over oak embers is still a popular seasonal favourite. . Bon appetit.

October...

Seed for next year...
Grandma's old hat oversees the kale...
The work is never ending, it's a warming thought...
If fresh figs is what you fancy, you had better get here soon.

An invitation...

The work, whether a joyous dance or dour struggle is never ending. It goes with the life.
This October marks the beginning of my sixtieth year. The good sense is piling up around us, as much as we need to carry us forward with a reserve of promise for the future ensuring the sharing of our good fortune will be most pleasant. I feel there is cause for celebration. If you are passing this way, don't hesitate to stop a while . We don't expect a crowd. Not so much a party as a Thanksgiving.For those who brave a strangers hospitality a warm welcome is guaranteed. Jam on it too, most likely.
Stacking firewood is the order of today.Last years pile lasted well, a years worth of stove wood still remains. The "tidy pile" left out in the weather last year is now ready for storing undercover. For the most part we are burning knotty old oak, the tree was diseased from fungal decay becoming a liability in the hedgerow. Nothing is wasted.
The garden is looking a little tired. It has been a good season. There is plenty in store for the coming year and more to come. The cabbage, kale the leeks and swede are the best we have had in the last four years. There is still the maincrop carrots to lift. Parsnips, beetroot and a succession of salad. . We haven't been short of beans in several years. The onions look likely to keep well. We put a punnet or two of our first raspberries into the freezer for later. Our first modest crop of redcurrants were also frozen , promising some delicious desserts over the coming months.
Anne-So has just been picking her way through a small bunch of black grapes, a gift from Marie Therese. Our first figs have been collected , some were bursting on the young tree . There aren't many left on the table. There is a few yet to come from the tree. You had better hurry if that's your fancy. We will gather more chestnuts from some old local trees. We have been invited to help ourselves from a neighbours walnut tree.
There will undoubtably be more tales here of mud and stone and back breaking labours of love. Later. The wood wont stack itself, I'm off out to do a bit.

There are some who claim they wish that I was dead...

To hide the fact that they wished in truth that they were living.
Join us, it's never too late to start.

Recent visitors...

Four pictures with rocks in them...

In service to the common good, the betterment of man and the greater glory of God, whether there provably is one or not.

At last, success with the Savoys...

The first of this season's cabbage , we are delighted with the results. We will freeze some for later.

Perfect peaches...

Our first harvest. The small tree,grown from a stone four years ago. Last year it bore us one tiny sample. A tantalising taster. This year it produce two hundred intoxicating sweet delicious fruit. What they cost? Virtually nothing. We pay one Euro tax per year for the land. I don't begrudge it.
We salvaged a few windfalls after a gale the other day. The small bowl of gleanings amounted to more peaches than I had ever managed to afford in the U.K. We will bottle some in syrop and likely make a few jars of conserve. We will eat our fill of fresh. We are happy to give away the excess to our needs. There is more to come, two whole trees full that have not reached the peak of their perfection. The promised anti cyclone will ripen them off. You wont find the bouquet or the flavour by rooting around in the skips, our kid. Home's the place we keep the blessing of our austere abundance.Be there or be square. Wish you were here.

There is no such thing as history...

The fabled realm is eternal. It is still only a rough stone sketch. We search for more pebbles, large and small. A hundred tonnes or so of rocks and soil might just do the trick. I still have a long way to go I will save the explanations for later. Key words to ponder on evolutive design , transtemporal, organic architecture. (Honest it does it on it's own, must be magic) All's well in the Izdom of Iz.

Puffball...

What a find, a giant puffball fungus growing beneath the oak trees.
It's fleshy and white inside, you have to catch them before they produce spore. This one is ideal. Anne -So hacks away the inedible bits, the tough root core and a few suspicious looking insect holes.
I prepare the cabbage for a dish my dad taught me.Bhuja The strawberries are another story. They ended up in the conserve.
Voila! Anne-Sophie's Puffball flan. The meal was a masterpiece.

Butterflies in the daisies...

By evenings fading light...

Dry stone and cornichon...
Cabbage and marigolds.

The gift of cabbage...

It's a good one. All credit and thanks to Marie Therese for growing the little darling and leaving it at our door.

Friends ...

Green Salamander...
Three toads in a hole...
Eurasian Hoopoe.

Images that made me smile...

There's a lesson to be learned here,the old stonework is outlasting the modern repair.Accidental art, kept catching my eye every time I travelled to Rennes.Now near useless as a working fireplace, the house long since gone, it's historic hospitality remains in service as a thing of beauty for all to enjoy.

It took two photos to get the whole image in , I apologise.
Plums that I can eat at last.Since I visited my grandfather's orchard as a child I have stayed clear of shop bought plums, picked before truly ripe. Sugarless sour and extremely expensive as a gamble.Those days are over .Apricots, tomatoes and strawberries also. You have missed the cherry season, it was delicious.
We are still sorting out the rubble , even the mud is being salvaged, when it's dry it sets like concrete. I will pour it into the stonework as a slurry when the time comes to stick the walls down in their permanent positions. We are still on te lookout for a source of large boulders,there will be time for explanations later.

Having the images smile back sometimes makes the work feel more worthwhile.
Today the ground is saturated from a great deluge, my fingernails are worn quite thin from abrasion, the skin on my hand is cracked from constant exposure to rock and grit. The little I do today wont amount to much, certainly nothing worthy of a photo.
The promise of several more days of heavy rain is not a cheery prospect
, in between downpours I will prepare for the next big effort of work.

Without facade...

It probably looks like a confusing mass of rubble. I wont try to convert your way of seeing. The geometry of the finished project is not crystalized as a graphic plan on paper. You may imagine if you like where it is leading .There are many undoubtably with vast experience that might say I am "doing it all wrong". I am doing it, iz all.
The geometry of the invisibuilding is nigh on perfect, The hardcore infill will be consolidated and stablized once the cement slurry is introduced to the voids. Cement in this case will likely be the mud and stone dust mixed with white sand.The sand has a high shell content. Should integrate well with the lime mortar .I will start sticking stones down once my "rough sketch", ongoing at present, is complete.For now I press towards what will in time become my finished working surface. Bridging the gap between what I regard as an historic mistake, and the Utopian vision with which I have come to be both cursed and blessed in equal measure, is a labour of love that would be impossible to abandon.Here's praying that my body doesn't drop off before the task is done.

Jewels from iz treasury...

Content over style, the method works...

Tree swallowing a rock...

The sweet chestnut tree is ancient.A ragged and rotten, hollow trunk but new growth is springing forth from the decayed relic.

I couldn't help but admire this wall...

The stone stripped and clean , likely as not to be repointed. I like the hungry joints ,envious of the easy to handle small pieces I was, loving both the colour and the form. Grateful for the chance encounter on the journey back from La Roche aux Fées.

La Roche aux Fées...

Theories abound. Theories don't pull much weight. We don't go out much. It was refreshing to do a little revision. This place will undoubtably be a site of pilgrimage for generations to come. I don't feel too diminished in awe of the engineers of former times. It wasn't the product of just one mans effort. Content I am with the singular result of my own personal journey. We are still on the look out for as many big pebbles as we can find. We will shift them into place by magic if necessary in the event that the application of scientific principles should fail us.Doing the do, the old fashioned way without complex thinking or vaccuous words obstructing the progress.Pointless spilling thcontents of the grail all over the internet, the minor revelations on one's own personal journey are too hard earned to be wasted on coffee table banter. The work is far from academic as it is possible to be. Folk have implied crudely that I must be crazy, perhaps suffering from psychiatric delusions to be attempting to build the journeymans rest. No matter, even if I don't complete the work I have presently in hand. My home site will be a perfect venue from which to impart the benefit of the working experience to date.Pleasant enough prospect for my last mortal days.I have a while and a bit with many miles of grunting under the pressure of the stone burden before that time comes. If you want to gain a practical clue as to what may be involved
build one of your own, or lend a voluntary hand in assistance to someone who is actively engaged in neolithic construction.Let it remain a mystery to all those not prepared to do the do themselves. The knowledge gained through practical experience is simple, none vocal.
We are heading forward in every direction at once. Expanding and improving ever closer to the fabled realm by each passing season. More later.

Invisibuilding...
A pile of mud sticks and stones...

Many rivers to cross...

Butterfly and walnut leaf...

In praise of low risk food...

A choice of shit we've got used to or a brand new killer variety. They call it "organic" I don't buy it.The commercial Eco Lie of the new enlightenment.To be safe, grow your own at home. Die of something more befitting a good and wholesome life, a contented old age. I wonder how many folk naively fooled by the "green" label have taken the trouble to look at what they are putting on the fields these days. Near enough to raw sewage as to make no difference. As long as the packaging and marketing is successful no one gives much of a damn. Ecology is still an important word, to me , as in returning to a state of grace with planet earth. There is more to it than "green"spin on the uncured bullshit.We eat without fear of being poisoned.Zero food miles A no petrol zone.You wont find antibiotics in our soil. Cow manure is unsafe untrust worthy at least.The bacteria appear to be mutating at a faster rate than the pharmacutical "cure". Abandon hope all who live there. There is no cure for a way of life that cannot sustainably live at home. Admittedly we have a long way to go before we may rest on our laurels, in the meantime we are assured that our modest struggle wont be undermined by serving toxic food.Between pogoing the keyboard, a couple of senteces at a time, I pulled some peas and after a bit of weeding unearthed some small new potatoes that were growing wild left over from a previous season.
Yesterday I harvested the broad beans, they are in the freezer now. We still have some of last years to munch through.
After a couple of days of welcome rain the garden is ready for a productive high summer. The runnerbeans , both white and red are about to climb their supporting sticks.The black currant hedge needs relieving of a weight of fruit. I am pleased as punch by the results of propa gating more plants . A white currant hedge is the latest emergent feature. Easily missed this year but just wait. The red currants too are thriving well.Our first taste of raspberries were incorporated into a beautiful sponge cake with the addition of strawberries and whipped cream. The coming season's menu is looking good. Parsnips, carrots, beetroot, cabbage peas several kinds of beans all accelerating as they should.Onions and shallots. Lettuce galore.Endive too.. Tomatoes and aubergines ,capsicum peppers, a variety of squash and courgettes.Cornichon for pickling.I will be sowing turnips and swede this week and taking a chance on chou rave(the English name eludes me for now). Happen there will be much more. Put up with the photos if that's as near to sharing a joy as you dare to venture.
Twenty two people dead the rest able to shit through the eye of a needle at twenty yards. Green, I bet they were.
I wont be moving a single pebble today.That side of things is far from done. This just isn't the day to do.
You have just missed the cherry season. we have several kilos awaiting our serious attention in the fridge.It's all work. Looking forward to our first proper peach harvest. Last year only produced two. There looks to be the promise of more than a hundred. More little trees are being brought on in reserve. They don't have a long productive life but well worth the little effort of cutivation. What's next? A bit of hoeing if the weather stays clear. But first a cup of Royal Ceylon.

Iz at ease...

I am in the pink. A mellow evening.
The cake was good, I missed you, and now the cake is gone.
The red marker will be moved uphill soon. It wasn't my intention to have it look like a grave stone, it is just a reference point that cant get easily kicked out of place.Next location will be the compost area . When I find the strength.