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.

It has been calm, cool and quiet, these past few days. Clouds and drizzly showers throughout the day, thunderstorms at night. Plants (and weeds) are growing like crazy, especially the roses. The church chimes its bell three times daily, the sound carries far, the number of rings indeterminable.

I've become a little restless at being cooped up inside for so long. Yesterday I swore I could feel my anxiety pulsating inside my ears, if not actually hear it. I have been alternating cooking days, eating leftovers every other meal. This week we experimented with eggplant parmigiana, an Indian curry, baked macaroni and cheese with Gouda and Parmesan, and both sweet and savory crepes. Matt's at his computer. I have picked a couple collections of poetry from the library, forcing myself to stop reading when a mood is brought on.

We have found projects around the house to take on (dusting, killing spiders, running the Hoover). But when it hasn't been raining, we have been going on small expeditions. Like 5 km bike rides along latitudinally-enhanced country roads. On Monday we woke up very (frightfully) early to bike to Excideuil, where we caught a bus to Perigueux (the capital of the Dordogne). There they have the very striking cathedral of Saint Front, which has been named a Unesco World Heritage Site. The original entrance dates to Merovingian times, and the remainder of the church was built in the 11-12th and the 17-18th centuries. The cathedral was renovated by the same architect (Paul Abadie) who designed Sacré Coeur in Montmartre. Perigueux is a very old city -- it is also famous for its Gallo-Roman towers and ruins. The ancient amphitheater is now a public park with stone arches marking the multiple entrances. A tower, a former temple, was constructed in the first century and reaches nearly 90 feet high.

Other days for us are less busy. Maybe a ride to local villages like Genis or Chervais-Cubas, or a hike down muddy paths that run along the river and past the old paper mill. In the evenings we like to watch a movie. So far we've see some real pick-em-uppers: Dog Day Afternoon, Memento, and Badlands.

I.
Your arrival came unanticipated, an interruption
To an otherwise uneventful evening.
We had hastily abandoned our comfortable station at the faucet, leaving
The water to run and the basin full of soaped up dishes
And had thrown our bodies to the floor
As you made your manic circles over the stove.


II.
A few minutes into daybreak, we readied
Our foolhardy selves for the hunt.
Wearing a Panama unraveling at the crown and wielding
A feather-duster flail, Matthew led, as I, his Pancho,
Cloaked in deerskin gloves and a veil of terry,
Brought up the rear of our two-man procession.


III.
We journeyed throughout the house, leaving in our wake
Ignited lamps and open windows, portals for your escape,
Hoping to ensure we would not have to bear
The brunt of your brutal assaults and virulent hate.

The chimney was empty and the library clean;
Not until we had climbed the precipitous stair,
was your wicked and outlandish lair,
frightfully foreboding, finally seen.

Slowly the curtain was pulled, exposing your den,
And with waves of confusion did this sight send,
For there laid a thick trail, littering the approaching path,
Not of victims nor jewels, but mid-century bric-à-brac.

Yet, still haunted by your winged hand,
Not a minute longer could we withstand.

My hero took up his weapon, handing the wall heavy blows.
I stood behind, To Hell with Thoreau!

Envisaging a ferocious brood, an enraged family
To screech, barrel and swoop, (at best) a calamity,
We had at that moment caught on
That you, black ghost, were not just solitary,
But wholly -- and embarrassingly -- imaginary.



Sometime late last week we discovered there was a bat in Leni's half of the house. As our hostess was spending the week in London, it was Matt and I's duty to get the thing taken care of. Here's a little poem I wrote about the experience, with (as some of you may recognize) apt guidance and inspiration from the great battle epic, Beowulf.

From "Neighbourly help in high Pyrenees" by Kathy Flower:

Seventy years ago, in the harsh winter of 1939, [Madame Genis'] family were among half a million Spanish refugees who poured across the French border.

They were fleeing the firing squads after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War.

Initially interned in camps, the refugees eventually settled, finding jobs in farming or the vineyards. Their Catalan work ethic blended in with French rural traditions of self-sufficiency.

The remoteness of the Pyrenees has attracted other settlers too.

After the social upheavals of 1968, many hippies abandoned the big cities and came here, bucking the trend for people to leave the land.

They scratch a living from their scruffy farmsteads, and keep up the tradition of neighbour helping neighbour.

Last autumn, on the day that Lehmann Brothers collapsed, my neighbours Henrique and Gianno appeared on the doorstep, armed with chainsaw and rope.

They offered to cut down some dead trees in the garden if they could keep the wood in exchange.

The reality of this simple transaction was in sharp contrast to the unreality of the virtual fortunes, vanishing like smoke across the world's capital cities.

Matt and I were just chatting about this on yesterday's evening walk. We feel so much calmer here, and not only because of the fresh country air. We are currently unemployed. If we were lacking work at home, the media frenzy over the failed economy would have our anxieties running high. Here, we have to go out of our way (about an hour's drive) to find a recognizable newspaper. In fact, I find myself a little crazy to be checking the online versions of the papers at all.

That is not to say the community here is immune to financial woes. Some people in this village are trying to retire -- but cannot find someone to buy the farms that have been in their family for generations. The community buys the goods because they are what's available, in addition to the fact that it has been buying them for years. But without the founding family standing behind the farm, there is really no way to keep it afloat. The cost of renting the land and the equipment would equal, if not exceed, the net profit. Perhaps with an overhaul of pre-existing marketing plans (or, as the French are lagging behind, even an introduction of contemporary marketing schema) could turn this position around.

Perhaps strange

The world is full of goods trains
The passengers are cows
And milk and butter.
And cheese and lovely marmelade
And bulls and horses,
And cocks and hens.
The cow is mother to the milk,
And grandma both to cheese and butter.
The cheese is cousin to the marmelade.
The horse is cousin to the cock
The hen lays eggs.
The egg is cousin to the cheese and butter,
The son and daughter of the milk.
Isn't it strange?
It is.

Kurt Schwitters, "I Build My Time"

From "The Starter Garden," by Michael Tortorello, in this week's NYT online:

If I had started my garden at almost any point after 1940, I likely would have fertilized it with bagged chemicals from the store. These products come with clearly labeled dosages of the three essential plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Without this trinity, my starter garden would be a stunted garden — or a cemetery.

Initially, I’d been willing to experiment with chemistry. There’s nothing “natural” about a vegetable garden, after all; my patch would be the product of thousands of years of human meddling. But a few calls to green-gardening evangelists convinced me that spreading synthetic fertilizers is now considered roughly the equivalent of spanking a child: bluntly effective, but verging on criminal. And definitely not something you want to do in the front yard. These products work quickly but their effects don’t last, and they have a dirty habit of trickling into waterways.

Many farmers in this area look down upon those who are still using synthetic fertilizers, as well as chemical weed killers, of course. Leni keeps two compost piles so that she will always have compost available for use. She doesn't add chemicals (she might use nettles as an activator), and she only puts in raw food (cooked food attracts rats). She also has been experimenting with weed drying (versus burning) so that she can use the weeds as additional compost. She keeps a large tarp spread open in the meadow, throws the weeds on top to dry in the sun, and flips them every few days to make sure all of the roots have dried out completely. One Englishman Matt and I met who has been living in the Dordogne claimed that he had seen people (anti-growers, it seems to us) equipped with the pump and pack familiar to all weed killers spraying along walkways or in front yards, slaughtering imaginary beasts. Surely a manageable compromise can be reached.

Our days have been starting at about 8:30 in the morning, much to our delight and surprise. I always had the idea that, as farmers, we would have to rise with the sun. Perhaps this is because the farm where we are staying is not exactly a farm. It is not commercial, at least.

Leni, our hostess, has been living on the property full-time for about eight years. With a love of gardening and a strong commitment to the Slow Food movement, she has turned the grounds into several plots of vegetable gardens, a terrace with herbs and a collection of blossoming walnut and fruit trees. The part of the house where we are staying is an 18th-century barn that Leni has restored -- it is absolutely beautiful, with limestone brick walls and a combination of wood and natural stone floors. For the entire day the building is full of natural light. For the most part, we keep the doors and windows open. The barn is not heated, and without the assistance of the sun and the breeze, it would never get warm.

Our first day was chilly, so cold we were positive we could see our breath. I regretted packing so many t-shirts and only one sweater (cashmere, no less). Since then it has been wonderful, just warm enough for jeans and a tank top, but not too hot for a bit of work outdoors.

Our village, Anlhiac, is quite small, with a population hovering around 300. To better understand the scale, the regional map labels each village, and within each village, shows a small black square representing each farm. That is to say, Leni's house is represented on the regional map. Anlhiac has one restaurant, which also is the local café, bar, tabac, and bread shop. There is also the local church, but everything else is rural residence. We are in the department of Dordogne, also known as Périgord. Périgord itself is divided into four smaller areas: the white, black, green and purple. Black Périgord is where the infamous black truffle mushrooms were originally found and are now commercially grown. The region is the next-to-last most populated region in France -- the last being the island of Corsica -- but over 5,000 castles can be found within it. Nearby there are Roman ruins, as well as the ancient Lascaux cave paintings. To our northwest are the towns of Excideuil and Thiviers. To our southwest, the capital of the region, Périgueux. To our direct east, Brive. The landscape is very hilly and especially green this time of year.

The nights are still and quiet with the exception of an orchestration of frogs living in the hillside spring. The cockrel next door wakes us in the morning (in the case that our cell phone alarm doesn't). The owls woo-HOO throughout the day. And the cuckoo's incessant call is enough to pull anyone into their deep madness. The neighbors have a couple of dogs, the one directly across the street keeps a beehive. Leni herself has two fluffy, blue-gray-colored cats, Dexter and Ella. So far my allergies have been fine, except I can feel the asthmatic pull in my chest when working in the sun.

For our first few days, we shared the bedroom with another WWOOFer -- a curious and brave home-schooled teenaged girl (Sunshine) from a large family in Arizona. Last Tuesday she left for another farm farther south. Before Matt and I arrived, there was another couple WWOOFing with Leni. Their names were Eric and Katie, and if you are curious, you can follow their blog here: bagues et baguettes.

Leni is a (almost) 60-year-old published poet, coming from a half-British and half-Dutch background. She left London for Anlhiac several years ago, and she has managed to immerse herself fluently with the local community. We share many interests (Brazilian poetry, Bob Dylan, Pedro Almodóvar, David Lynch, tracking the effects of internet culture and other predominant social trends), so I consider her library and music collection a blessing. She possesses a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of plants and is eager to pass this information along to her volunteers. Already Matt and I have planted herbs, geraniums and lime trees, and have sowed seeds to grow corn. As part of our WWOOFing experience, we went on a walk with Leni to collect trees for her live willow bench-weaving project. We have weeded, spread mulch, and hacked clay to soften the soil in her vegetable garden. Last Saturday, she generously arranged for Matt and I to participate in an orchid walk, originating in nearby Excideuil. The walk was mapped at seven kilometers, but took several hours considering how often the group stopped to leave the path in search of rare specimens. I pictured groups of middle-aged French women walking through a field, possibly even sipping tea, while pointing fingers at colorful buds. Instead, the randonnée involved guidebooks, walking sticks and extraordinarily large camera lenses.

An integral part of our stay here is the focus on growing, harvesting, preparing and eating of food. Slow Food, they call it. Leni doesn't use pesticides and tries to avoid food products (and even manure) that may have involved the use of pesticides. Working within these limits has been an entirely fruitful (har) experience thus far. The milk and cheese we use comes from a nearby dairy farm. The bread, a local baker. When I made a salad the other day, I walked out to the garden, identified the spinach and started cutting. It's fresh, healthy, incredibly cost effective and, so far, fun! Sometimes the plants have already been looted by snails or tent worms, and to see everyone's hard work go into their mouths and not ours is a bit of a drag.

Our daily lunches and dinners are abundant, vitamin-rich meals. Packaging is kept to a minimum, so our carbon footprint is, too. Leni has a great selection of cookbooks, some of which are entirely vegetarian, so it has not been difficult for us to take turns preparing meals. Wednesday we assembled crêpes with eggs and cheese. To work off all of this energy, we spend approximately four hours a day outside in the garden or the meadow. One morning Matt and I cleaned the windows of the barn, and we did a fine job of dusting out the cobwebs -- and killing the largest spider we've ever seen outside of a zoo.

I will be posting from barns, meadows and surely surly cafés in Southwestern France. Disenchantment with the small city of my Alma mater and discouragement from the current economic situation has sent me packing once again. This time I have a partner, Matthew, and we have joined an international group for young people learning about serfdom and voluntary servitude first hand -- in short, WWOOF. In all actuality, it is an incredible organization where people looking to reconnect with the earth and other cultures can contact farms who need some extra help in exchange for food and board. If any of this sounds interesting to you, read on.


***

It's 7:40 in the evening here in Anlhiac, and dinner's late by ten minutes. I'm at the kitchen table reading today's Herald Tribune (a struggle between Donald Trump and a Scottish land-owner, more protests in French prisons and universities) when Matt calls me over to stir the polenta. I make my way to the stove, hobbling as the rugged stone floor kneads my weary feet. As I stir the cornmeal in the classic volcanic orange, cast-iron Le Creuset casserole dish, he slices carrots that were organically grown and harvested less than one-hundred meters away. Out of the window I can see the neighboring farm's cattle graze on the hillside meadow, led by a large bull the size of the devil's kitchen table and who occasionally bellows something out of Jurassic Park. This particular breed of cattle is named Limousin, after the region where they originated -- and where I am currently living. They are perhaps one of the most famous breeds raised for beef (and, here and in Italy, their veal) and their chestnut coloring makes them easy to spot among the lush countryside. They are found lurking behind bends in walking paths, and after being warned my first day that they could be a bit aggressive, I learned to watch for the first defensive move: a turn sideways, showing their great size, is guaranteed to intimidate.

What took me out of Ann Arbor's safety net and transplanted me on this small, rural estate? When I met Matt just over a year ago, he told me about WWOOF. He was interested in organic farming and had learned about the organization from a stall at the Kerrytown Farmer's Market. He didn't know where to go next, but was a little anxious to leave Michigan. I was less than enthusiastic about sticking around, and with all of the current economic turmoil, I figured I could get away with postponing (still) important decisions -- mainly, sorting out a satisfactory, introductory career. With the management job I held this winter, I was able to pay off most of my debt and save something sufficient to make this trip happen. Sometime in the middle of winter, between working late nights and groaning about having found no resolution to the endless exploration of graduate schools, scholarships and potential careers, we decided to WWOOF.

His original destination was Italy. When we decided to be partners in a cross-Atlantic journey, a compromise was made. I speak French and German. Neither of us speak Italian. We planned two-and-a-half months on farms in southern France and possibly three months in Berlin. Now we are in the very first leg, but I feel great progress has already been made.