“The Road to Les Verrines” over the last year…
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter
Summer
August Garden
August was a month of harvesting. The months of work digging and preparing the land, planting and maintaining the gardens throughout the summer, and watering through the dry months were starting to pay off. The caves were filled with kilos of potatoes, onions, shallots, beets, and carrots for the winter. (more…)
Saint Sulpice en Fete
Yes, it’s that time of year again. August is time for les vacances, and it’s also the time of year when we Sulpiciens dust off our flea market table, oil up the rifle, tune up the tractor, grab a case of beer, and head down to la fête.
Contemplating his Chances
July Gardening in Les Verrines
In July, all the hard work in the garden in May and June finally started to pay off. Plenty of rain and sunshine got the garden growing fast and green… and we were finally able to enjoy our first harvests! We have more food than we know what to do with- and so much more to come! It’s a really great feeling looking around you, knowing that you have raised enough food to live on and even better- that it was all grown without ANY chemicals, and all right in our own back yard! SO MANY VEGETABLES! (more…)
Izzy’s Le Vignaud
Yet another crazy collaborative effort that took a few months to complete! It’s worth the wait though… This is Izzy’s view of Le Vignaud from her visit back in June. I think it may be the most complete view of Le Vignaud yet available on the WWW. Of course nothing beats a visit in the real world, but this is about as close as it comes. She’s captured some great moments, and lots of nifty details about the place that have never been documented. This is one for the LV Historical Society Archives.
August Update
Le Vignaud in August
August has finally arrived here in La Creuse. Surprisingly though the weather has so far remained mild, and we haven’t gotten the typically hot summer of past years. The lake is warm though, and every other day another fruit tree is ready to be harvested is some forgotten corner of the village. I’ve done my share of collecting, harvesting, digging, and eating all of the bounty that surrounds us in this time of year…
Of particular note, is the now finally completed Dandoodlies video which describes our first attempt at dandelion wine making here at Le Vignaud. This has been in the works for over three months now – along with the wine, and now both are ready for consumption.
Added yet another super excellent stop-motion video; This one’s of the Tour de France as it passed under the Glénic viaduct on Bastille Day.
Also, Cherry Picking occupied much of my time in late May and early June, and I’ve thrown together some thoughts about those experiences as well, including, Clafoutis and Confiture.
I have literally hundreds of photos from the past few months waiting to be picked through and a few stories to go along. I hope to be able to get some of that online over the next week or so while I happened to be ‘connected’ for the moment. I will be back-dating those articles, so please check back often, or even better- Subscribe Now.
Thank you once again to everyone for your continued show of love and support- both for me and this project in general. From family to friends, to neighbors and strangers; so many people have had a hand in this. I hope this project has been and will continue to be a source of inspiration in whatever form it may continue.
Love and light,
Jason
Click through for more photos…
Garden Harvest
Dirty Darren came by one Sunday afternoon to help with the garden. All the hard work was finally paying off, the garden was full, and it was time to begin the harvest. In late July, it’s time to pull and dry the onions, garlic, and shallots, as well as dig the potatoes. It was a great help to have an extra hand to harvest and pack kilo after kilo of these, which will hopefully last through the winter. There were also tomatoes, plenty of GIANT courgettes, beets, cucumbers, peppers, beans, and salad. I can’t help but to say again how incredible I find it that this much food can come from such a small piece of dirt, with truly minimal effort.
July Gardening Update
Holy Courgettes!
In July, the big words on the tongue of every gardener were Tomatoes and Courgettes. In fact, after a few weeks of all you can eat style stuffing our faces, it was a challenge to get rid of them faster than they were coming out of the garden. It was a wonderful problem to have. We all had to get creative thinking up new dishes and finding new friends to share all the wonderful things coming from the garden.
Once again the garden was amazing me with the incredible amount of food that it produced. In the case of courgettes, from one plant you should get a fully gown squash every other day or two. I had planted eight plants in Jeanine’s garden and by now they were full-sized and producing like mad. That meant plenty of Pain aux Courgettes, Soupe aux Courgettes, Omelettes, Farcie, and more. The tomatoes began to turn red across the village somewhere around July 14. Might have been a coincidence, but it really felt like summer and the tomatoes knew it too.