Brent works on a Sunday.  Frozen urine covered cowpats are cold.

Otto finds a recipient for his well made snowbomb.

Chickens flying everywhere.  It was like The Birds, but with chickens.  Our chickens got cold feet.

The cows are happy.

The chickens are scratching for worms.

The patou has found his happy place.

Otto has turned seven.

Tosca secures the warmth by the fire.

Minty explains the importance of essential cold weather gear.

Z likes to sit in boxes.

I still would like to get a house dairy cow, but there ain’t no way I will be milking by hand. It was great at first, but after awhile both the cow and me were thinking “are we done yet?” The woman whose cow I milked was fast, fast, fast at it. She made it look so easy. She milks twice a day and it takes her somewhere between twenty to fifty minutes. I’ll look into milking machines for one cow and see where that goes. The milk is amazing. I made some ice cream. One of the best ice creams I’ve ever made. I’m forever working on my recipe, but I think that fresh, creamy, fat milk made a huge improvement.

Then, I welded.  I must admit, I squealed a few times when I first made that spark.  Brent said, “people who weld don’t squeal.”  After a couple goes, I got used to the spark and learned quickly to love it.  Yes, yes, the welds aren’t perfect.  I played a bit with little steel rivers to work on my rod-to-metal distance.  It takes a little getting used to because the rod of steel shortens as you go and you need to maintain that perfect little weld bead.  But, I stuck shit together with steel!  I have a lot of practicing to do.  Thankfully, I have a lot of metal.  I feel much more comfortable returning to our book on “Farm Welding.”  Last year when I started it, I hit way number ten (of twenty) on how I was going to kill myself, then gently put the book down. I haven’t picked it up since.  Today helped me get past safety and general “this works like this.”  Now I’m excited to  learn the rest of the story.

And with that, I leave you this:

F is for Farm.

F is for Fun.

F is for Food.

F is for France.

F is for Fevette.  Who taught me early on what cows were capable of.

F is for Fuck.  As in “what the fuck have we done?”

F is for Firetruck.  Thank you Michael for providing an alt word for “fuck.”

F is for FuckYeah.  This steak … “FuckYeah!” tastes fantastic. (need alt word for FuckYeah)

F is for Fantastic.

F is for Friends.

F is for Four.  Three was great.  Four kids is better than great.

F is for Feu.  Pot au Feu.  Yummy, soul satisfaction.  Feu.  Bon Feu.  They lit our vineyards on feu.  Feu. The villa was on feu.

F is for Fat.  Pig fat tastes good.  Pork chops taste good.

F is for Finances.

F is for Freebies.

F is for Fencing.

F is for Fencing.

F is for Fannie Farmer!

F is for Fancy.  We dress up all fancy on Saturday night because it’s date night.

F is for Fit.  I wouldn’t go so far as to call Brent fat, but this farming stuff makes you fit.  Brent is fit.

F is for Fix.

F is for Fowl.

F is for Fart. Maximet le Cacahuète Qui Pet

F is for Fleather.

F is for Fluff.

F is for Fuzz.

F is for Fremont. F for Freezing! implied.

F is for Finish this post already.

Have a FABULOUS night and a FAST and FURIOUS new year.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m very proud when I don’t have to leave the farm.  I was a girl who had to go out at least once a day to feel like the day was a day.  Now I’m up to my nose in projects that I love getting stuck into, I can’t be bothered leaving.  We have all we need right here (I know, so very Dorothy-Scarecrow of me).  While I secure my dairy connection, I have to leave at least once a week to get fresh milk.  The kids are ALL AT HOME (weeeee!) and Brent is a bit ill.  Minty is full of beans.  I felt I should take her with me (and Z) to the shops so she wouldn’t wake Brent up every five minutes.  I’ve had this happen.   It’s torture.  It takes one, maybe two minutes to fall to sleep.  Another minute to slip into deep sleep and BAMN – “Mommy, mommy.  Isn’t Lamby cute?”  Off we went.

As we approached our closest big village (population 3,628. Big city compared to our 301.) Minty asked me, “Mommy.  Mommy, what are those white tsings?”  She, of course, meant “things.”  I wouldn’t go so far as to say the girl has a lisp, I mean she’s learning two languages.  What’s the brotha gonna do.  She’s four.  “What things?” I asked.  “Zose lines in the road,”  she clarifies.  Then I realized she meant the dashed white lines dividing the road.  Yes, Minty is developing her country roots.  I explained that  those lines divide the road in two.  I drive on one side and those people coming the other way drive on the other.  Can you imagine only knowing back country roads without dashed, white paint?  Don’t even get me started on ten lane carriageways.  Not this city girl.  She’s a very special Mint, our Minty.

** notice though, that she does the “hollywood hand-on-hip” to lessen any tricep spillage.  Totally organic.  I taught her nothing.  She’s a natural.

Brent and the boys moved material.

Lucy played “Musketeer Fairy.”

Minty Played with Lucy.

Muffin moped.

Zélie Macked.

G moved a ladder under the Gascon Sun.

Two chinese-made purses hung in an evergreen tree.  One later broke.

Legend surveyed.

Kids frolicked.  Majority avec tutu.

Tosca not photographed as she was guarding the fire and providing the finest quality assurance for any dropped crumbs created by resident one-year-old.  She’s good like that.  It’s a tough job, but some dog’s gotta do it.

It’s a holiday unto itself.  On the sixteenth of December, Otto collapsed into his desire to eat the entire advent calendar.  Despite some counsel regarding taunting sisters, he ate his way up to and including the twenty-second of December.  Did he eat Christmas Eve Eve?  No.   Because Christmas Eve Eve is a holiday.  It’s a day of excruciating cheer.

Christmas Eve comes with its own minty ooze of false hopes and visions of presents tightly stacked and packed under the tree.  Oh there will be presents, donchoo worry, but it’s never as high or as packed as a kid can imagine.  We latched on to a tradition my mom used to curb the excitement.  Though, technique would be more accurate.  On Christmas Eve we let the kids pick one present from under the tree and open it.  Any present they want.  Any one of these four presents right here.  Pick any one.  Pick any one with your name on it.  We all know what’s inside.  When you open a brand new set of snuggy jammies the night before Christmas, it’s when Christmas really begins.

We’ve received a handful of Christmas cards this year.  I love the cards!  It is so much trouble to send a card to France.  You can’t simply stick a stamp on it and be done.  I really appreciate seeing the pictures of families and receiving that little dose of spirit from other parts of the world.  Some include Christmas letters summing up the wonderful year that was had.  They are always a hoot to read.  I’ve launched a blank document of a popular wordsmith application a few years in a row to pen some such letter.  After the first sentence (e.g. “Whoah what a year!” – “Gee has time whizzed by or what?!” – “Hi folks!”), I close without saving because writing a Christmas letter is not for me.  I had thought about wrting an anti-Christmas letter describing how dismal it all went and maybe send it out sometime in July.  I also toyed with the idea of sending out a non-Christmas letter similar in design to Paul Taylor’s “dance” where he stood still for the entirety of the piece.  Or similar feeling to Bert and Ernie’s broken television set that flashes the letter of the day over and over until Ernie fixes it.  Our Christmas letter would be a sparse piece of A4 with one word in the middle summing up the year.  I’ve thought of a few words like cow, farm, holycrap (is holycrap one word?).  This could only be improved by summing up the year in a letter.  With that in mind, this year has been brought to us by the letter ‘F.’  Sure, I could tell you why, but that wouldn’t be very Taylor of me.

Happy Holidays to y’all and to y’all a good night night.

Here are a few tidbits …

Our neighbor told us that this is the time when the foxes and other chicken eating creatures hit the hunt during the day as the cold nights approach.  I’ve not had any fox problems.  I think Tosca and Legend keep the foxes away.  But chickens have gone a-missin’.  So, the poor things are kept captive in CoopaCabana until I get my eggmobile on.  It’s so on the list.  I want to build it and love it and move it and call it Steve.  It’s just … it’s just … I don’t know … it’s just not getting done.  But gaddammit, that fox ate FattyPat.  She was mine!  She was fat.  We wanted to try an old, fat chicken in the pot, cook it for hours and hours and see how wonderful it would taste, but no.  Mr. Fox beat me to it.  Kevin and the babes are shut in until I get this thing built.  I will do it.  I said it out loud now, therefore it must be so.

The kiddies are out of school.  France enjoys a lot of vacation and I am fully amenable to this tendency.  Lucy had her last fencing class in Musketeer-ville.  She was the only one in class on the last day due to extremely high winds.  Her teacher gave her a one-on-one lesson and taught her some new things.  She calls Lucy her “little champion.”  I’m not sure if she’s any good, but she is VERY good at learning it and loves it, so I can’t be happier.

While Brent was at fencing with Lucy, Otto walked off the bus with a “boolb.”  To you and me, it’s a bulb.  More specifically a hyacinth bulb.  They grew them at school.  Now it is at home with us.  The kids speak French very well.  Occasionally we hit a little franglais.  This kid hasn’t hit the word “bulb” before and now he calls it a “boolb” because it’s all he knows.