Friendly; a hen with attitude!

Just to show you what fantastic creatures hens really are, here are some photos from a few years ago of our brilliant, fearless hen named Friendly.

We realised that she was different, when one day I pulled out the kitchen chair away from the table, so I could sit down, but found it was unusually heavy. "Oof! A cat", I thought, but no, there was the hen settled down on the seat as happy as could be.

My husband could walk around the house and grounds with Friendly sitting on his wrist in a falconery pose. She also loved to be in the veggie garden with me while I hoed and dug and there were several heart-stopping moments that I nearly killed her as I swiped down into the earth with the sharp Italian hoe (zappa), while she dashed in to grab some succulent insect.

When a couple of local men came to cut down trees in the nearby woodland, they just couldn't believe her behaviour, as she nipped in under their hoes to look for worms and insisted on sharing their lunch. As you can see from the pictures, she became very keen on cat food and as soon as she saw I was pouring out the cat crunch, she would rocket down to the cat bowl. The cats were not at all impressed by having to share their breakfast with a hen!

Sadly, one day I missed the fact that she didn't seem her usual ebullient self and I found her quite dead the following morning from one of those strange upsets that chickens will pick up when they are messing around all over the place. Friendly was one of the best and has since been sorely missed by us.

Wild flowers

Today, the sun came out ... "hip, hip, hooray"!  It does really cheer everything up and although I know that the countryside could probably still do with more rain, it was lovely walking the dog this morning down by the river while heron soared overhead (which drives the dog crazy, because she can ever catch them) and a streak of turquoise blue as the kingfisher whizzed past.

 Dandelions

 Dead Nettle

 Ladies Smock

 Liverwort

 Ox Slips

 .... and wonderful Mistletoe!

Wild flowers are abundant here, especially dandelions, which have turned the nearby fields bright yellow and I have been waiting for the rain to stop so that I can go out to do a quick study of these wonders. I didn't today, because it's lazy Sunday for me and so instead I took some photos of the lovely varieties that we have on our doorstep just at this moment.

Trees and Mistletoe

I did a quick drawing of this view yesterday afternoon and I was all set for painting a watercolour this afternoon, but it's grey and raining today … pooh! The trees around here are very beautiful and I was hoping to get some paintings done of the heavy bouquets of mistletoe hanging from the branches before they disappear behind summer foliage, but unless the weather improves I don't think I'm going to do much outdoor work here in France. At least my new studio is warm and cosy!

It's raining, it's pouring ... and it's very chilly!

So we are back in France and on our way here, we stopped overnight with friends in the Luberon where, despite being bitterly cold, sunshine sparkled and glittered over the whole landscape dotted with pale limestone built villages hugging the hill tops.

Here in the Aveyron, under leaden skies, we have fires lit and we are both suffering chocolate cravings. I am hoping that Meteo France will be right in promising that temperatures will rise and the sun will put his hat on and come out again tomorrow! I suppose this is the price you pay for living too near the wild and rugged countryside of the Aubrac, but it is all still spendidly beautiful for us and we are still getting huge enjoyment from the local culture and delicious food. Apart from anything else, the countryside is in desperate need for rain which just didn't happen over the winter, so at least this will help the farmers and their cows.

I am beautifully warm in my new studio at the top of the house, which I have now better organised for working in, as well as unpacking the full boxes from Italy. For the moment, while we have the Italian house on the market, we will need to go back and forth until there's (hopefully!) a sale in the not too far distant future. It's a bit of a roaming life now for us and the dog, because in about ten days we will need to pack up again and return to Tuscany, but that's no great hardship.

Selling our house

I've been up to my ears cleaning, throwing out things ... then deciding not to after all ... cutting bushes, weeding and suddenly I realise that we are on the way out, even if it might take years to sell here. Suddenly everything is bitter sweet; the first nightingale that I heard singing the other night in the tree outside our bedroom (do they have those in France, I wonder?), the chorus of frogs after the rain, my lovely neighbours giving me a brown bag filled with fresh eggs, and I know that I will find it very hard to leave this local life around Montisi.

Although I don't blog very often,  I thought it would be nice to put down the things that I have enjoyed, even disliked, with living in Tuscany for a shocking 27 years and the process of selling the mill, where we live now, is the catalyst for me to do this.

"Selling up in Tuscany" is my new other blog; http://lizziegraham-yooll.blogspot.it/2012/04/easter.html

We are still clearing up after the February snow damage and now we just have to work out how to straighten up the poor cypress trees. However the weather is glorious and the violets are out.

It's now all somewhat bitter sweet for us, since we are now putting our mill on the market; what with Robert no longer working with the hot-air balloon and me wanting to paint full-time with minimal time to work on the land, it isn't possible for us to keep this magical place going.

Breakfasting this morning we were enjoying the Scandinavian cries of Nutcrackers; a bird that has no business being in Southern Tuscany as far as I can see and there is increasing noise as the migratory birds return here. I am hoping to see the flying lemon-like Pallas Warblers again this year, which come from SE Asia. This all makes me wonder if, birds changing their territory like this, is another indicator of climate trouble in the world?

Meanwhile, life in this little village of Montisi is as enjoyable as ever and I am enjoying our very welcome home-coming from friends and villagers after two months away in France and London. A major part of the village was together for a grand dinner for Festa della Donna last Saturday night, and this Saturday night we are looking forward to the re-opening of the bar/osteria "Mama" with a grand party. Continuous fun for us …. who said that country life was dull?!

Back in France

Well, it's been an eventful time. We returned from London to a completely frozen house and the dog wouldn't even come inside with us, because although it was very cold outside it was like the North Pole indoors. We took three days to get the place warm and then the truth was out that a pipe had burst. Then there were a few miserable days, until our knight in shining white armour came in and fixed the burst pipe ... hooray! As I walked the dog, I realised how very cold it had been while we were away, with the River Aveyron frozen absolutely solid with ice so thick and hard that trees cut on the upper bank had just crashed onto the river surface without even making a crack.

We were then rewarded with sunny spring like weather which has only just come to an end, but I can't feel unhappy about that if it at least manages to rain since the whole area is suffering a drought. Re- the drought, we met a very good fun farmer, at dinner with friends, who runs his farm organically. He was saying that it takes a year for him to grow grass for his cows and he has had no problem with the weather conditions, whereas the industrial farmers grow their grass in two to three months, with the help of industrial fertilizers, and their grass just dries up in drought conditions, because it hasn't formed a good root system. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Since the weather was so warm and gorgeous, I was able to consider painting outdoors, so I went for several days to my husband's place which is basically a pile of rocks, but surrounded by pretty land. This year, I have decided to paint a series of paintings to do with the many beautiful trees that we see here in the French countryside. I had a few afternoons working on this study and I am hoping to paint these trees in different seasons. It was lovely, because my dog was very happy to be at my side and we had some delicious picnics.