November 2-4--Next stop, an organic French cow farm.
From here, we drove about 20 minutes to a boulangerie (bakery) which used a 200-year old stone oven to make bread. After ogling at that and buying some bread, we continued for another 15 minutes to get to the farm.
No, really. If you make hollow clapping noises with your hands, it sounds like a cow pooping, and they like to all go at once, so it triggers the cows. In-cred-ible.
After I walked out of the cowfield with a grin on my face, we continued into the village, where we visited the local cemetery (where Lucie's great-grandparents are buried) and I heard stories about the school and the certain people who lived in town. As we left, I noticed that the telephone poles had steps in them, so I climbed up a ways.
After lunch it was time to burn some piles of dead trees. The family was clearing a nearby field to replant trees in rows, and the next part of the task was to make giant bonfires of all the felled trees with Paul, Louis, and Alain, Lucie's dad. I put my boots back on and tried to find a work suit to fit me. Unfortunately, I found that I was too big for all of them, which bears out my theory that I'm too big for Europe.
That's somehow simultaneously depressing and pride-inducing to me.
We got up to the field and I helped cut, carry, and start the fires--it was good to feel useful again. I had left my camera behind so it wouldn't get damaged, but once the main work was done Alain used the tractor to add big piles of debris to the fires, so I had time to go down for my camera.
After a bit, Lucie and her sister arrived with snacks and drinks and pretended to help out...
Lucie with a "tronceneuse"
After the field-work we came back, showered, and had home-made pizza for dinner. After dinner, Paul, Lucie, and I went bowling with her friends. Bowling is weird in France, though; it was more like a club. There were pool tables and a full bar, with lights and everything. And from the dress and demeanor of the people there, it was a cool thing to do on a Saturday night. Very different than any night of bowling I've had in the States--we had to wait an hour to get a lane!
I bowled alright, and I would have won if the machine had registered the strike I got correctly; it threw off my whole rhythm, you know?
The next morning I was Paris-bound.
To get to Lucie's family's farm, I had to take a train to Tours, then transfer after an hour to a train to Le Mans, and then catch a small put-put train to Sille Le Guillaume, where Lucie (another friend from camp) picked me up in my new favorite car:
From here, we drove about 20 minutes to a boulangerie (bakery) which used a 200-year old stone oven to make bread. After ogling at that and buying some bread, we continued for another 15 minutes to get to the farm.
The main family building
The main barn and guest lodging (on the right)
The farm is run almost entirely by Lucie and her family. They breed the cows, then sell the male babies to meat farmers and keep the females to produce milk. They have to milk the cows twice daily, and then put them out in the fields. They also have a straw field to feed the cows with, and other workers and people with specialized equipement come seasonally to help out. It's a big operation for one family, but they all do their jobs cheerfully and capably, with the two sons (Paul, 18, and Louis, 16) doing a lot of the work.
Lucie in the pantry with cider and jam bottles
After getting there, I helped Lucie make the soup for dinner and then hung out until everyone finished chores to come to dinner. Lucie also has a younger sister, and the dinner was lively and amazing, with a lot of homegrown ingredients like the apple juice and cider made by the family. I went to bed in the guest house with the window that opened up on this:
Luckily the room was insulated enough that there wasn't any cow smell, although I did get woken up at 7:30 the next morning by a sick cow being kept inside in the other part of the building.
After a breakfast that included local bread, newly milked milk, and homemade jam, I put on some boots and helped Louis climp up into the apple trees and shake some ripe apples down.
Still got some life in the old bones, eh?
After that, Lucie, Louis, and I walked up the road into St. Thomas, the local village. On the way, we wandered into a cowfield to make the cows poop.
After I walked out of the cowfield with a grin on my face, we continued into the village, where we visited the local cemetery (where Lucie's great-grandparents are buried) and I heard stories about the school and the certain people who lived in town. As we left, I noticed that the telephone poles had steps in them, so I climbed up a ways.
After lunch it was time to burn some piles of dead trees. The family was clearing a nearby field to replant trees in rows, and the next part of the task was to make giant bonfires of all the felled trees with Paul, Louis, and Alain, Lucie's dad. I put my boots back on and tried to find a work suit to fit me. Unfortunately, I found that I was too big for all of them, which bears out my theory that I'm too big for Europe. That's somehow simultaneously depressing and pride-inducing to me.
We got up to the field and I helped cut, carry, and start the fires--it was good to feel useful again. I had left my camera behind so it wouldn't get damaged, but once the main work was done Alain used the tractor to add big piles of debris to the fires, so I had time to go down for my camera.
After a bit, Lucie and her sister arrived with snacks and drinks and pretended to help out...
Lucie with a "tronceneuse"
There was definitely some room for clowning around, which resulted in Louis and I posing for maybe my favorite picture of the trip so far:
After the field-work we came back, showered, and had home-made pizza for dinner. After dinner, Paul, Lucie, and I went bowling with her friends. Bowling is weird in France, though; it was more like a club. There were pool tables and a full bar, with lights and everything. And from the dress and demeanor of the people there, it was a cool thing to do on a Saturday night. Very different than any night of bowling I've had in the States--we had to wait an hour to get a lane!
I bowled alright, and I would have won if the machine had registered the strike I got correctly; it threw off my whole rhythm, you know?
The next morning I was Paris-bound.
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