Creuse gite blog
28th November
Jack Frost visits Creuse
Jack Frost has arrived in Creuse with a vengeance. I ventured outside around 8 o'clock and was met with an icy blast of cold air. The ground was rock hard and all the water in the buckets around the garden were frozen solid. Even the geese's corner bath was frozen over and it took several hefty blows with a stout stick to break the ice. Having let the geese out I went to let the chickens out to begin there daily foraging for goodies. Sadly the cold and probably old age had caused a fatality in the hen house. One of our older chickens that we have had from the start had passed away. The chicken had not been dead long as it was still warm.
Being an ex Chef I am no stranger to handling dead animals but when it is still warm and one of your own it does make you feel sad. The good news is that the chicken benefited from a quality of life and had plenty of space to roam around in unlike their battery hen counterparts. The chicken had long since stopped laying eggs but being English we decided not to kill it but let it live out the it's remaining days.
The local French people would have no qualms about killing it and as soon as it stopped laying eggs it would be a quick trip to the cooking pot via all the gory bits that I am not going to mention.
The French are a practical lot and when you live in the middle of rural France you have to understand their way of thinking. Looks like it is chicken casserole for dinner.
We also lost a chicken the other day to the local wildlife. Probably a fox or one of the huge buzzards that frequent the region. You can often see them sitting on the telephone cables or soaring overhead in the sky. They look tiny from a far but when you get close up they really are big and if hungry enough it might try to take one of our smaller chickens or rabbits. My money is on the fox as there are quite a few in the area despite the best efforts of the the local hunt who blast everything in site. A local lady who breeds eating birds for a living once lost over 30 birds in one night.
Having dealt with the chickens I went to check on the 3 kittens that have been staying with me for the last week while their owner was in England. Cute and cuddly they are but they are a messy lot. There was cat litter everywhere and their food was all over the kitchen floor. The bins in the kitchen were lying on their sides and one or more of them has a runny bottom. Oh deep joy....but you can't not like them as they are cheeky inquisitive fur balls. I will miss them despite having to clean up after them.
After a cleaning up after the kittens it was time to check on the rabbits. We have over a dozen at the moment but not so long ago we had 19 of the blighters. We started with 1 and unfortunately that died and after burying it with full honors we got a couple of rabbits from a local Vide-grenier. (Like a car boot sale and translating roughly to empty attic) Rabbits being rabbits it was not long before we had baby rabbits everywhere. We did try to sort the boys out from the girls but one of the blighters slipped through the net and was filling his boots so to speak. Soon 2 became 21 and we had to give some to a local farmer for rabbit breeding purposes and some for the pot. Despite separating the boys and girls again it look like there is a male in with 8 other females. Might just have to dig out the rabbit stew recipes.
The sun has come out now and we have clear blue sky overhead. Looks like the temperature is going to drop again and freeze overnight. There might be even be some snow. At least it is not as cold as when we moved in to the house in January 2005. It was the worst winter for over 25 years according to our neighbour. We had a nightmare and.........excuse me looks like there is some one at the front gate I must go now. Catch you later.
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