Just a reminder -- more blog posts are on the way! This is the first of many to come, I hope.


We filled our final week with Leni at Le Bourmier with various projects -- cleaning the barn, installing tomato stakes, planting beet root and various greens. Our final project was to wrap planks from a large, antique wooden barrel around the bathtub using some sort of awfully sticky and gray roofing caulk and Matt's hiking socks as a wedge. It tested our ability to work as a team, but we're still both here and the tub looks great. By the time we left the farm, our corn grew taller and even some spinach had begun to sprout out of the dirt.

We had a bit of fun, too, like a trip to the château in Hautefort, a live concert with Ronnie Caryl (Phil Collin's former guitarist) in the nearby village of Genis, and swimming in the park with Corinne and Michael, an Irish WWOOFer.

Leni drove us down to our next host's farm. We stopped several times, turning the two-hour drive into an expedition of Southwestern France. One in Domme, a very pretty medieval town with an excellent view, albeit too touristy to stay for long. We also stopped at the Ossip Zadkine Museum in Les Arques (in the department of Lot). Les Arques is also home to the well-known restaurant, Le Recréation, but we had to save our money. Zadkine was a Cubist-Expressionist sculptor born in Russia in 1890, but lived most of his life in France. He kept a house in Les Arques, hence the museum.

Our stay at Le Bourmier provided an excellent introduction to life in rural France and to gardening. We were able to put the principles of Slow Food into action and really enjoyed the results. I felt healthier, lighter. It was no surprise to me to learn how much I enjoy the act of eating, but making meal preparation (and consumption!) the central part of the day required a real shift of attention, and one I would like to maintain, if possible. However, maybe not 2-hour long lunches and 3-hour dinners. It's difficult to get much else done, but what else in life matters except for good conversation and good food?

Looks like the NYT is trying to scoop us yet again. Here's an article on recent liberal arts students and graduates turning to organic farming to learn how to live sustainably. I find the article degrading the new crop of interns and their efforts, though its probably partly true in its reflections of the students' expectations. It reeks of that typical NYT, Generation Jones reporting --  patronizing the younger generation's dependence on technology, suggesting that our enthusiasm for social change will putter out once we realize hard work is involved. Anyway.

Early yesterday evening Leni hosted a small gathering in preparation for Sophie's upcoming exhibition in Excideuil. Leni and Rebecca, another British ex-pat, are preparing the amuse-bouche for the opening, so they had a test run with the bread, cheese and selected ham. (Side note: with Leni operating as head chef, Matt and I made the bread. He was in charge of two walnut loaves, while I made a couple with onion, rosemary and sage.) It was another pleasant social event, and this time we weren't the youngest of the bunch -- Rebecca's rambunctious 8-year-old daughter, Olivia, also joined in. 

Well, things have certainly picked up around here. We had a real Friday evening (including dressing up out of our work clothes and into clean jeans). With Leni and an American friend of hers, painter Sophie Hawkes, we drove to an exhibition and poetry reading at the Centre des lives d'artistes in Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche (about 45 minutes by car). The national book collection is housed in a very beautiful, modernized space -- except it is still quite small (apparently has only two or three full-time staff members) and needs to improve its access to the general public. From what I understand, the center is a free viewing and research library, except the books are at least presented to be off-limits to visitors. Perhaps one must make a reservation or have a membership to really explore, or maybe I was just too shy. The exhibition was on Romanian collagist and poet Ghérasim Luca, but also showed a hodge-podge of documentation from a number of artists associated with Fluxus. The reading of Luca's writing, half of which is what I would call concrete poetry, was performed by Michael Lonsdale, a recognized Anglo-French actor. Lonsdale has a sophisticated, well-practiced voice and the reading was a pleasure to attend. Audio of Luca's work can be found on UBU -- check out one of his poems read aloud (in French, désolée) with additional music provided by Colleen.

After the reading, the four of us went out for pizza, where the pitfalls of applying critical theory to poetry before the aura of a reading dissipates was the hot topic for discussion.

On Saturday we returned to the exhibition space to spend a little more time with the Fluxus documentations, and then Sunday morning was our village's randonnée. At 9 in the morning, we stumbled over to the village square (the parking lot of the restaurant) with Corinne, Leni's daughter who is visiting from Paris for her birthday, for a 12 km (about 7.5 miles) hike through the forest, past farms, along the river, and up steep, muddy hills. Despite the group falling apart and a little confusion about the right directions to take, it was lots of exercise in the sun and it felt great. Afterwards was a large potluck, starting with an apéritif, various salads (coleslaw, macaroni, beet, carrot), then a slice of pork, then sausage, camembert, and ending with far too many slices of cake (tiramisu, fruit pie, custard, crumble). We relaxed for an hour or so to digest, and then got to work in the garden. The project for the next couple of days is to prepare the duck house in the meadow. Yesterday we lined the base of the house with a thick stone barrier to prevent drafts. Today we'll paint the sides with a turpentine and linseed oil mixture to prevent weathering, as well as mend a fence and hopefully put up some wood or metal on the front door to prevent foxes and weasels from sneaking in and eating the poultry.

Our big project over the weekend was mainly decorating the bath in the barn (also known as the gîte, where we are staying). The tub sits on the wooden floor, and Leni found an old barrel that she wanted to take apart and use to line the outside of the tub -- so that it looks like a barrel bathtub. We put some wax on the wooden planks and then situated them so that they fit evenly around the tub. Now we're waiting for some industrial glue to affix them into place. I think it looks great, and when it's finished (and if I remember) I will post a picture of the project.

Good news! The corn we planted the other week is growing. For some reason the red corn is germinating easier than the yellow, so we will have to investigate.