Brat Like Me

Cah-Vah-Yeah!

Posted: December 7, 2011 in family
Tags: family, france

I’m not even sure how it happened, but I launched a Chess game on my computer. It must have been one of those gaps like during those two days before and after the All Star Game where not a single professional sport is being played. I had ten minutes where I could sit down and do anything I wanted. The dishwasher was running, dinner was in the oven, the laundry was either drying or spinning, the baby napping and it’s pissing down rain. I poured a little cup of wine and sat down at the computer. I launched my very first game of Chess. I haven’t played Chess in a very, very, very long time. Everyone has their story where they played Chess with “person X” and won and “person X” got pissed so they never played again. Let’s just say, I’ve forgotten all the rules to Chess and it’s been a long, long time since I’ve played. Not two minutes into my quiet nirvana did Otto walk by and magnet himself to my side. It was my turn and I went to move the little horsey (or Cavalier as they say in French). The computer kept putting me back to my original spot because I made an illegal move. I tried it again, but was interrupted by Otto who exclaimed, “NO! you can’t move like that. It’s Cah-Vah-Yeah.” He did this and gestured two squares vertically and one square horizontally for each syllable. In a very Bourne moment, I thought. “Holy Crap! My son knows how to play Chess.” Little did I know that Otto is learning how to play Chess at school. He absolutely loves it. We don’t pay much attention to it and let him have fun with the game of Chess in what ever form he chooses.

In an earlier post I noticed that our nearest big Cité, Condom, hosts an international Chess tournament as well as an international Chess marathon. I’m not sure if he’ll ever get to that stage, but Condom is close enough and they have a great boulongerie. Not two minutes after my ten minutes, Otto whipped together a Lego chess board. He’s been kicking bottom playing against anyone who is up for the challenge. The most important advice I can share with you is : If you’re playing Chess (or any game) with Otto, his rules are somewhat slippery. Just when you think you’ve got the upper hand, he’ll whip out some fine print and knock you down. You don’t stand a chance. This is always great T.V. for those viewing at home, but for the opponent, it’s but a Chessboard toss away from Otto never playing Chess again.

Once again, I marvel at his artistic abilities. I know it’s viewed through parental glasses, but, damn! that kid can sang!

Project Cattle Pen

Posted: December 5, 2011 in farming

Brent has been working and designing cattle pens. We are designing a pen for low-stress animal handling. Brent took pieces from low-stress animal handling experts that work with our size herd as well as our animal handling skills. The result is simple and something the cows will happily trot through. We’ve used the existing pens (held together with baling wire) in the past as a rough draft. Some aspects were dreamy while others were tough. He’s eliminated the tough parts.

One of the big finds this week is that his design will fit into our old barn buildings. He originally set the pens up on a clean slate just outside our existing barns. This allowed him the freedom to come up with exactly what he wanted without existing silliness getting in the way. Then he ran his design past a farmer friend and they shifted it into our existing structures as a thought experiment. The result could save thousands of dollars as well as uncover a beautiful, old building.

Brent kicked off the demo by opening up an extremely not-so-stable “wall.” When the final panel came down, Brent, Zélie-in-the-backpack and me stood and oogled at the most astounding view. Pasture, trees, vineyard, classic Gascon farmhouse were perfectly posed in the distance. Before it was tired, stringy plastic, rotting wood posts and heavy steel panels. Now it is Oz. This view of the distance and pasture will help the cows happily move through the pens.

Legend demonstrates how a calf would hop through the hacked together veal pen. This will be removed.

CandyShop “guards” the crappy wooden fence used as a barrier. This will be replaced with a metal barrier with five or six horizontal bars.

Let’s Talk About “your” Big But

Posted: December 2, 2011 in why
Tags: farming

wild palombe. four of these babies given to us from a friend.

PeeWee : But what? Everyone I know has a big “But…? C’mon, Simone, let’s talk about *your* big “But”.

Who knew that PeeWee’s Big Adventure would be so deep. Somehow this gem hit our screen a few weeks ago and carrying an arm load of laundry, I walked into that scene. So you think, “yeah?! How about MY but??”

What’s my big but? I can tell you that it was not this: I always wanted to start a grassfed beef farm strung together with bailing wire in a country where I don’t speak the language and have a fourth baby in a house missing windows and doors yet has flush toilets, BUT …

I always wanted to do more musical theater, BUT I got paid more doing modern dance. (I CAN’T EVEN BELIEVE THAT’S TRUE!)

I always wanted to be on Colbert, BUT I need to write a book first.

BUT what. But, I’m glad I’m here. Each day is filled with unknowns and problems to solve. We have HUGE projects that will take years to perfect. It’s the ultimate slow food. I shed my microwave long ago. I’ve given up processed foods. I’m growing my produce. Slowly. Hopefully. Expectantly. BUT please don’t make me leave.

When I was a dancer I started dating this high-tech dude. We’d go to parties. I’d meet his peeps. Pretty much on cue, they’d launch the “so, what do you do?” line of conversation. I’m not sure if it’s an American thing, but people who “do” tend to ask “what do you do.” As a dancer, from their perspective, technically I “don’t.” So my answer to “what do you do” was somewhat disappointing. Occasionally what I don’t would be entertaining when the “do”s equated “dancer” with “stripper/feely girl.” Now that I’m older and wiser, the better question at those parties would be “what do you don’t?” What you don’t is your big but. You see, I’m a loner. A rebel. You don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like me, Dottie.

This Week, On Jean Acres

Posted: December 1, 2011 in farming
Tags: family, farming, food

Mr. Vine Man came to finish the vines. It turns out he brought a truck to haul out the hot wire. I tried to rush and get my camera to capture the smoking wire as it smoked a trail down our driveway, but one can only run so fast carrying a baby in the backpack. They carried other wire that was not so hot, but to wrap it all up today, they had to grab some of the hot stuff.

Michael came out while I was doing my chicken run and mentioned that the water was out. Occasionally, we’ll get a little water blip when the village does some maintenance on the water line. They don’t always tell us and the water comes back so quickly, it’s never a problem. Michael and I joked how “gee water cuts off right as vine men show up” ha ha ha. And then Mr. Vine Man came knocking on our door saying, “coupé l’eau.” To you and me that means, “whoops, I fucked up and cut your water line.” He quickly popped over to the water man. The water man came out with some help and we had our water up and running within the hour. Now that is service! This is the part where I love our small village and our strong community. Getting the water cut off is always a great reminder for us to have our back-up water plan. With the drought, the lakes are slowly filling up, but not as quickly as we’d like. We have a pretty awesome well outside our front door that we hope get running in the near future. For some odd reason, I always have a liter or two of drinking water in a pitcher somewhere and Brent keeps the cows water full before we tuck them in at night. If the water gets cut off, we have some room to troubleshoot.

After we checked out the water situation, Brent, me and Z went for a Detroit pasture walk. Kevin gave Brent an awesome hat that he no longer wears. I think it may be a pumpkin that bought a normal size issue. Surprisingly, it fit Brent’s pumpkin quite perfectly. After he’s been happily wearing it for a while he looked closer at the label and noticed that this cool Aussie hat (akubra) is called a “cattleman.” He wears it all the time. I love the look and I thank Kevin for allowing me to wear it home for Brent.

On our walk we saw Bambi and friends that live in our forest. Legend ran a tiny bit to check out what was what, but kept close. He’s a guarder not a chaser. He watched the deer intently and made sure they didn’t harm us. He’s a good pup that Legend.

GrayCute and CandyShop held their position by the barn should any more water-line-cutting trouble come our way. Thankfully our barns are safe due to their nap … I mean guard.

I did a little Christmas shopping today. We’re on a tight budget, which makes for some inventive and fun Christmas finds. In the past, Brent and I give each other a limit, say ten or twenty bucks. Then, on Christmas Eve we pop into Coles or Safeway and come home with a brilliant Christmas present. He has sipped coffee from his High School Musical mug for months! Brent usually wins on cool, crazy gifts for ten bucks at Coles, but this year I hope to top him.

While I was out I picked up some food. After all that talk on generics, I totally left out the evil Carrefour Kid generic that lifts at least twenty centimes from you for each food item directed at moms and dads. And tonight, I TOTALLY FELL FOR IT. There it was, Carrefour Discount fish sticks VS Carrefour Kids fish sticks. Fish sticks are pretty much the only junk food we feed the kids. It’s fish. It’s fast. It’s delicious. I knew I’d be late so I thought I fry up some of these beauties in lard. But did I buy the Carrefour Discount sticks?? No, no. I spent at least twenty extra centimes to recycle a box with a picture of Donald Duck and his minions. The kids washed theirs hands, sat down for dinner, ate and went off without ever knowing that Donald was there representing the food. In fact, Donald’s expression on the package is EXACTLY what I did when I realized at the cash register what the heck just happened. Oblivious little duck children carrying their fish with grumpy parent pissed off that he was a victim of marketing. I know the fish sticks in the white packet are the same as in the blue packet and yet still I acquiesced.

The Day The Vineyard Died

Posted: November 30, 2011 in farming
Tags: farming, france

Well, it was dead awhile ago, but the big, brown piles have been set ablaze. No longer will I hum, “Sigmund the sea monster and Johnny and Scott are friends” as I go off on errands. To me they’ve always resembled little Sigmund. To others they might be Daleks or Pleasure GELFs. Either way, they’re gone now and we can move on with getting the pasture lush and bountiful for the herd.

There are LOADS of volunteer vines throughout the old vineyard. I’m planning on digging some up and erecting a little mini-vineyard to remember what this farm once was.

Brent picked up the kids from school and they saw ten giant bonfires. They were giddy with excitement. We all hung around the one located outside of the villa and tossed wood in. They quickly learned that the white stuff on the ground was actually really, really hot.

There will be a few more Sigmund burnings today. When all the piles burn to the ground, the vineyard-burning man comes around and digs holes to bury the metal. And that will be that.

Adishatz, vineyard and thanks for all the grapes.

Shampooing

Posted: November 28, 2011 in art
Tags: beauty, france

I’ve always been a HUGE fan of generic. There’s nothing I hate more than paying extra for marketing. It’s soap. You tell me that it’s going to make all my smelly problems go away and flowers and fairy dust will swirl around making my clothes cleaner than ever. But, that’s not true. Soap is soap is soap. In fact I should probably go back to using baking soda (bicarbonate) for damn near everything. I will always give generic a go. I’ve developed a preference for various generics. The best generic I’ve ever experienced is Kirkland brand by Costco. That is seriously a case of running the generic label right after the expensive brand. Churn out your shipment of Huggies, switch out the label maker and then make them Kirkland. Same shit different tag. I’ve even tried the Kirkland Champagne and found it not only drinkable, but enjoyable (forgive me Erin!). I’ve tried all the generic brands I could find in France including Eco+, Top Budget, Carrefour <wank> and Carrefour Discount. Carrefour not only has a generic label, they split it up into classes of generics. It goes from high-end generic to welfare generic. America sort of did that with “white label.” White label “BEER” was my all time favorite; of course I can’t seem to find a web image for the stuff. The lowest you can go is Carrefour Discount. That’s your welfare class generic. Of all the generics I’ve tried, Carrefour Discount is as close as I’ve gotten to my beloved Kirkland. It’s as low as you can go, yet still you can buy Carrefour Discount Roquefort as well as Carrefour Discount Bayonne Jambon Cru. See, even cheap white label generic sounds great in France (viva la France!).

I can generic damn near everything, but I’ve somehow excluded shampoo. I discovered Aveda before Estée Lauder messed it all up. This is my I-liked-Nirvana-before-they-were-famous moment. I hooked up with Sapmoss when it was a wee free sample. The lather, the smell, the joy of washing my hair was beyond words. I LOVED this shampoo. I would gift it to people with sort of a “first one’s free” intention. I never branched out to the other products in the Sapmoss line. I stood by my shampoo and that was that. Until, it was discontinued. One of the hair ladies tipped me off to this atrocity. In a crazed run on all Aveda stores, I managed to grab hold of three large bottles. These babies go for near two hundred US dollars on ebay. Knowing this was the end, I’ve not opened them. I was waiting for the right moment. Maybe squirt out a few beads on special occasions. In the meantime, I’ve been running through French shampoo. All of it okay, but nothing to blog about. Then, I picked up some Carrefour Discount shampooing for the kids and gave it a go. My hair loved it. I’ve tried the olive oil one as well as almond. I dug out the Sapmoss to try it side-by-side. Carrefour Discount held its ground. Now there’s no shampoo out there that will give you that Sapmoss smell, but for eighty-four cents a bottle you can get the same lather and the same bouncy loveliness in your hair. I’m shocked and excited and somewhat embarrassed.

Thanksgiving In Parts

Posted: November 27, 2011 in food
Tags: family, france, thanksgiving

Back in America we would host Aliens Thanksgiving. Every year, Seattle has a lot of foreigners wandering around on the fourth Thursday of November wondering, “where the heck is everybody?” We’d turn on a little turkey beacon and invite them in. I was usually the only American at the table and was forced to explain the meaning of thanksgiving. I’d mumble something about crazed European nutters taking over other people’s land in search of help from the locals to get up and running while simultaneously killing themselves and the natives with disease, laughing it all off at the end of the day with some corn on the cob. Now please, pass the stuffing. No, but really it’s a feast of brown and good friends and warming up the imminent cold, dark days.

Lucy sets the table for everyone. She refused to do a “kids table.”

Now that we’re in France, I’ve missed our cloud of aliens eating, drinking and giggling. Each year we’d meet new people as the aliens would get married, have children or bring other aliens. One dude married an American who increased our native count to two (love ya Kris!!). Brent did most of the cooking, Kevin played sous chef and I picked up the rest. Kevin caught a moment during 2002 when Brent, dressed in chef wear, had just pulled out the Turkey. Bassam is playing the role of restaurant owner. This photo is in my kitchen and I cherish it.

The dust of our new life in France has settled a bit and we’ve managed to put on a proper American feast. Brent is officially American now so as a family, we are the aliens. We had British and Australian representation as well as a lovely Scottish accent and a Swede at the table. I cooked as much as I could the day before and prepped the rest the morning of. It was a little difficult because I burnt the crap out of my hand two nights ago. Not unlike Mr. Toht from Raiders of The Lost Ark, I felt I should model a replica of the scar and see if it will lead to forgotten treasure. Instead I prepared the turkey with the fat-salt-pepper routine and learned first hand what salt does to an open wound. With thanksgiving dinner locked and loaded, I could relax and giggle with our guests. It was an enjoyable evening.

Tosca rests up for an evening of dropped Thanksgiving bits.

Having Thanksgiving in France forces a few tweaks in a traditional meal. The main difference is in our part of France we can’t buy a whole turkey to roast. I had dreams of raising a turkey for this day, but other important things took priority. Instead, I went to the shop to pick up a small collection of turkey parts. I managed to locate four turkey legs and two turkey roasty ball things. So we had a four-legged, two-balled turkey. I did a few turkey part roasts in the past and I’m starting to prefer this way of cooking turkey. You can pull the legs out early and let the thicker breasty-ball-roast keep cooking.

The other Thanksgiving tweak is we eat on Saturday. France is alive and working on the fourth Thursday of November. Our giant meal doesn’t fit with school the next day. The cool thing about having Thanksgiving on Saturday in France is that the next day is Sunday. On Sunday in France nothing is open. This means you are not enabled by giant money-saving super sales preying on your trypto-coma to spend your money. It’s a “spend nothing” day.

I wish all the Americans, Aliens and European nutters out there a Happy Thanksgiving.

Otto plays with the plasma ball

A Farm Held Together With Baling Wire and String

Posted: November 25, 2011 in farming
Tags: family, farming

We are starting a beef farm. We feed them grass. There are so many projects on our whiteboard right now, I sometimes lose sight of that. Amazingly, I’ve actually managed to cross off projects that have been completed. It feels so good. It feels so right. While Brent works with all the aspects of getting our cows fat and tasty, I stay closer to the homestead with our one-year old (yep, she’s one!). Part of getting this farm up and running is getting it neat and tidy. We’ve made progress with Project Tidy, yet still it feels like hardly a dent has been made. The bones of this farm are solid. We have the right size land. The land has great soil with some steady improvements being implemented by Brent. The cows are extremely happy and somewhat spoiled with the food they get each day. Brent is working out systems to get the grass for the cows to taste good, keep them fat and healthy without spraying chemical fertilizers. All that stuff is moving and shaking.

Project Tidy looms. The out buildings have solid foundation and fairly good walls. The doors, windows and roofing are mostly held together with baling wire and string. Project Tidy means getting the old bidet, toilet and sink being stored in the attic and tossing it to the big bin of gravel (VERY satisfying … let me tell you). But Project Tidy also means: solid. We have to do away with broken plastic windows. No more giant doors hanging on hinges and itty bitty steel wire. I suppose it’s time now to get welding. I read the first page in my Farm Welding book a few months ago when Zélie was a newborn. After reading the list of ways I will kill myself welding, I put the book aside and let all that sink in. I’ve met a few people in the area who know how to weld and I think before I crank up that giant glue-gun, I’ll have an expert nearby to laugh at me or catch me, which ever comes first. Soon I’ll be welding like I’ve never welded befo’.

… little one-year old
Thankfully, she’s held together with sugar and spice.

A Fleeting Moment On My Kitchen Bench

Posted: November 22, 2011 in food
Tags: food

I set my glass of wine down as I was looking up a recipe in Fannie Farmer for apple pie and suddenly I felt a photo coming on. This counter is oozing with Autumn. Market apples for one fiddy, pumpkins from the neighbor and field mushrooms brought in from Brent’s pasture walk sit patiently as I prepare for processing. Last year’s garlic and shallots hang expectantly next to some dried peppers we received from another friend. I hope next year I will hang my home grown ones. They are snugged in nicely in our new veggie patch. Now I wait.

Maximus The Peanut Who Farts

Posted: November 18, 2011 in family
Tags: family, france

Or as Otto danced and sang around the room:

“Maximet Le Cacahuète Qui Pet”

It’s important for you to know this sort of French expression. First I gave you the “real” French word for brown. And now, you can enjoy a little character invented by French school children with its own theme song. I think a little Mr. Hanky vs Maximus the Farting Peanut mecha-style may be in need of a venue.

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