 This week included a trip up the long road on a delivery run in the northern areas of Dordogne. I was very lucky with the weather as it was considerably cooler than the previous week when I would have baked in my non air conditioned cab. In 2020 I did this very same run in 40 degrees and ended up at one of my clients houses with her delivery, late in the day, whereupon the lovely lady took one look at me deposited me in front of a fan with 2 pints of water, a cup of tea and a piece of cake. I am very lucky I know so many kind and considerate people. The trip through the countryside was invigorating and full of splendid scenery, beautiful greens filling the landscape after so much recent rain. Of course all the rain means the sheep are inundated with delicious quantities of grass, making farming so much easier in some respects. And also no requirement for the summer water carting that is more normal at this time of year. The weather reminds me a little of Zimbabwe at Christmas, shorts and an occassional light jersey (sounds like a weather forecast). Here are some photos courtesy of my-in-laws. Just because it is nice to remember the beauty of other places from time to time. And comforting to feel connected through the sky and its similar hues no matter where you are in the world. The butchery after 10 years of faithful service is having a full make over and expansion. Requiring decisions about positioning of sockets, cold rooms and colours and types of paint. Not my usual remit. Our builder friends are doing a fabulous job and have managed everything so far with little or no inconvenience for me. Gavin has decided he would rather carry 10 rolls of fencing over a 10 hectare field than sand a ceiling. And Patrick has decided that mixing concrete would not be his first choice of occupation though ok for a change for a very limited period. Our original electric car which we have had for 5 and a half years finally had to go into hospital for a diagnosis and finally a new battery. Gavin was grief stricken as his favourite car was away from us for 4 and a half months. After having rather too much money going out on fuel he managed to convince me a month before the old car returned, that we needed another one and already knew where we could get a cheap, second hand, slightly crumpled, ex postman vehicle (have I been played?). So we are now fleet owners 😂 Fortunately the government are still running their subvention scheme for lower energy vehicles so we only paid one arm for the car rather then the usual arm and leg 😉 See you all very soon Helenxx
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 This week we lost our first furry friend in France, Bluey. She was 17 years old and had been chief of all she surveyed for the last....well.....17 years. A friendly, furry cat partial to bird in her younger days and in her latter years liver was her particular favourite. Best remembered and loved for peeing in my brand new sandals, they were never the same again. And for her daring leap from the first floor window when we moved out of our single storey house :-0 . We knew she was fine on landing as she had a quick clean and looked about to make sure everyone was aware the whole acrobatic thing had been planned. She had definitely gone slightly doolally in her senior years and took to sleeping in more bizarre locations than the standard sofa or bed. Her company is missed.  fat happy worms Thank goodness for the rain. The sheep are happy munching through all the delicious greenery and the vegetable patch is looking in fine fettle. I will add some beans in next week I think, they are quick to grow and yummy. We have built a worm bed with an old bath, compost and worms from the pig zone and we put all our cardboard and plant clippings in it to breakdown. The run out from the bath is used as a fertiliser for wherever needs it. It seems to be working quite successfully. All our frosted dead looking plants have sprung back to life and the citrus trees have gone into a mad flowering session. The bergamot is way ahead of the reast and is making tiny fruit already. The markets are back to usual with people circulating to have coffee with friends as well as do their shopping fro the week. I have become so accustomed to seeing people with masks on that I barely notice anymore. A new kind of normal reigns for the moment. I have seen some people in the last couple of weeks whom I have not seen for a year or more. Bizarre and heartening at the same time. And some new faces have appeared as well to join the social scene at the market.  Bergamot fruit forming Despite the pig rustling incident we are feeling quite positive about life. There are many projects coming up this year to keep us distracted and busy and with any luck the insurance are going to pay out for some of the losses accrued with the pigs and fence damage. We will have to be vigilant for the up and coming public holidays in July. See you all soon Helen :)  Grass growing in a properly fertile zone. We have some way to go still to get all of our land to look like this piece  CONTENTMENT Well we are never really sure that it is the end of lambing. There are always one or 2 stragglers that take you by surprise and arrive in mid June. But certainly the bulk is done. Now all we have to do is keep them alive. The whole flock was put back in together last week and moved to fresh pastures. The wet spell has come in the nick of time for some grass growth, and for our neighbours maize which came through beautifully. Let's hope there are no silly hot temperatures now so everything has time to grow out properly and take us through to the autumn with enough grazing without panicking.  TRIPLETS The rain clouds are blowing away and we are looking forward to a pleasant week. The lambs can romp around, and munch on green grass with the ewes.  A NEW VERY PROTECTIVE EWE...BEWARE So there I was linking sausages and listening to BBC radio 2 for some musical entertainment and my peace was detroyed by the news. Usually I can drown the noise out with some machine or another, but this headline got me listening. The HS2 train in the UK is going to have a large portion of tunnels built as part of its line about 128km worth, I looked it up on the official site. Unfortunately for my brain I had watched Seaspiracy the previous week, as I thought I should, so I could keep up with public thought processes. and then I started connecting dots and here we are......  WHERE ARE WE OFF TO TODAY? It seems to be that if you can't see what is happening then you can devolve responsibility and make yourself believe that no damage is occurring. Although I did not agree with all of what was said on Seaspiracy a lot of it was true there is a lot of damage that we don't see in the sea that happens because we eat indiscriminately, without recognition of where anything comes from. Soil is the same as the sea. It is out of sight thus it does not matter what we do to it because we cant see it. Especially at 90m underground where some of the HS2 tunnels are going. We have all established that trees, bushes, hedges, marshes and grassland are important. And some of us are in agreement with the people who have proved that plants communicate with each other through the fungal network that lives in the soil to maintain a happy healthy ecosystem. So why oh why is it not ok to chop down an old oak tree, but yes ok to dig up 130 million tons of earth????? Jobs? Money for the boys? Did anyone think to look and see if there was a better option, cheaper and more environmentally friendly???? I am not surprised that the soil is tired and worn out with the abuse and lack of recognition that without it we cease to exist.  SAY CHEESE And please don't anyone even try to tell me that that is the reason they have invented soil free food production, because seriously that is a long walk off a short cliff material.
Have a lovely week ahead. And don't forget eat more soil, it is good for you, to plagarise and slightly modify a very good friend of mine. Helen :)  A mole cricket joining me in the butchery one evening. Once upon a time there was a planet covered in vegetation with great big animals and small animals, bacteria, and fungi (and other stuff we probably don't even know about anymore) wandering and living all over it, disturbing the soil, breaking the vegetation, pushing over trees, eating the grass and leaves and pooping. It is difficult for us to imagine what that was like we have moved so far away from it. But it was probably noisier (as all intelligent people know nature is a noisy beast) and full of many things that we are afraid of like snakes and spiders and insects that make you jump in the night. And I imagine enormous flocks of birds that darken the sky as they pass and also poop considerable quantities of poop over the planet. They may well have been the planet microbiome manager as they distributed different organic material everywhere from other places. Essentially mixing it all up so the planet stayed healthy. Probably an important function of migrating sea animals like whales, the seas microbiome managers.  Trees and hedges in the landscape Patrick recently did a course entitled "Syntropic agriculture". In short it was about trees, and organic matter and growing food. Very interesting. I admit I have a short attention span for absorbing information, lack of practice I guess. So I rely on the boys to filter and feed me titbits during the week until I have a picture of what different systems are trying to achieve and how it could work in our system.  Helen at play, a bit blurry but the best of the lot Some while back I had a FB conversation with a Frenchman living in Austrailia whose grandfather and great grandfathers were winegrowers in France and the grandfather remembered when all the trees were taken out of the vineyards so fields were larger and it easier to use equipment in the vines. And then I read another article about agroforestry in vineyards, there is a vineyard that practices this not far from us, which touched upon the connectivity in plants and protection from the weather and other stuff. And then I got to thinking about frost......  All of which is very lengthy to cover here... But a few thoughts were if vineyards and orchards were smaller and surrounded by hedgrows and trees of differing heights or even completely mixed up then would the effect of frost be so large. A textured landscape with ups and downs creates air movement as the air bounces off the different heights and textures of plants. If vineyards were mulched would the heat created by breaking down plant material be enough to disturb settling frost. If soils were healthy and full of microbial activity would they be warmer and prevent settling frost. If we were less obssessed with monoculture for ease and simplicity would animals sleeping in orchards and vineyards increase the air temperature enough to prevent frost damage.  Spring grass There have been many incidences of lost production due to frost recently so maybe it is time to change productions methods to find a way of living with changes in climate rather than battling againct it. Many cereal farmers will have cursed that patch of green wheat that grows under the tree in the hedgrow and is always green when the rest of the field is ready to harvest. And is also never damaged by frost. The workers resting  On the other side of the coin the forests around us, though they glorious to look at, are often stagnant underneath, there are no Dinosaurs, Mamoths and Aurochs to move around breaking up and mixing up the soils. there are no fresh pools of grass dappled in sunlight as the canopy is so dense it blocks the light required to create growth and new life. Another monoculture.
We are here on the planet and have already interfered with the natural cycle of things. The answer to global health maybe to adapt, modify behaviour, mix it all up, blend in and be less rigid. In a straight fight with nature, trust me there is no way we are going to win. See you all soon Helenxx I know you all think my french is fabulous..... ha ha ha, so I must admit that the lovely Marie photographed above with my youngest last summer, does all my translating. You do a fabulous job, Marie, and I am eternally grateful that you have the time and energy to pick through all my colloquial English. xx  New variety of pink sheep! Today we had a zimbo family Zoom meeting. It was good to see everyone and lovely to note how little people change. It gives a little bit of consistency to a convoluted world. The sun was shining outside and the air was chilly with its Siberian breeze. Sadly our 17 year old cat Bluey is having a bit of a rough weekend. She is curled up in her box by the door enjoying the rays of sun that have been on her all day. Our first Franklin Farm animal and hunter😻. No longer capable of catching any of the dozens of Blue tits we have outside the house these days. Bird has always been her favourite snack.  As some of you know Brexit has provided some interesting logistical hiccups with the running of our butchery as some ingredients come from the UK. I am lazy I guess, and have not bothered up to now sourcing from within the EU. There are some things that I have been unable to find. so the delivery from the UK is now being cleared through customs, I hope (!), unless I have had a spam caller and I have just signed my life away to some bloke called Gaetan 😰. Those who have seen me during the last few weeks have been busy little tasters on some new sausage recipes and we have had some pleasant feedback, for which I thank you. Some new sausage flavours will be sticking around, along with the ones to which you have become accustomed. As soon as I can I will be scooting around on deliveries to satisfy my further away people with their requirements. Fear not 😊 Whilst Emily has been house bound with snow in the Netherlands over the past few weeks we have been forced outside in large amounts of rain feeding hungry 4 legged animals. We also had a little helper for a couple of weeks to see what we get up to, and we hope we broadened his experiences for his course at Lycée. I assume, from the amount of sausages eaten, he was properly worn out after every day. Tired adolescents = happy adolescents.  I don't usually discuss abattoirs because I know lots of people like to think of our farm in a light and fluffy way. However, they are an integral part of our business, legislation dictates that we cannot sell or even give meat to anyone outside of our immediate family if it has not been dispatched in a registered abattoir. Ribérac abattoir has been closed due to financial issues. It is one of the last local abattoirs that will kill livestock for anyone who wants an animal dispatched in our area, the others require you to be a shareholder of their enterprise which means you have to have a certain tonnage that you process every year. Others require you to be a registered butcher and/or animal trader. Consequently small producers are pushed out of the equation for access due to lack of numbers or money. Not all abattoirs that are still functioning have facilties to kill all species. So if you have sheep or goats, finding an alternative can be difficult and may require a trip of 100km in each direction to deliver the live animal, and then 100km in each direction to collect the carcasses. There are 250 abattoirs in France. In 2000 there were 340. In the 1970's there were around a thousand. During this time the tonnage of meat consumed in France has not change considerably. So..... This means the facilities are getting bigger, higher tech, more expensive to run, further apart and less personal. Is that a good thing? I know where I stand on that but I will leave you to make your own judgements. The producers and parties concerned with Riberac Abattoir are having a second meeting next week to try and find solutions. Abattoirs are a public service, they should be regarded as a hub for a community, they provide employment, families who invest in their community, and they are full of skilled labour. It should be something that people are concerned about. An abattoir should be something that as a community you are proud of, should support and encourage.  A rare photo of me setting up at Ribérac market on a rainy Friday A bientôt
Helen  This is a photograph of my mate Mr.Stink he has been sitting on my bathroom wall for a few weeks now obviously hibernating and readying himself for the new season which, I am sure cannot be that far away. I have come a long way from the squealing woman who arrived in Zimbabwe some 30 years ago and jumped at the sight of every bug that moved, and even the ones that didn't. Now I only squeal at fake plastic spiders left lying around by evil children. Our family takes pride in our ability to improve our insect population through our more natural methods of farming and living adopted during the last 17 years in France, fallen into initially by a serious lack of capital and then continued through increased awareness and education.  Saint Aulaye The media publish articles about fewer or no insects on our windscreens, or birds found starved to death at odd times of year. I wonder what people think when they read about it? Lets give some money to a charity and absolve our requirement to do anything? Without insects the world will fall apart they all have a function many are involved in the clean up and processing of our rubbish into something that will become soil for us to use. Some are pollinators enabling us to eat. Some are pest controllers. some are seed dispersers....... the list goes on. In short we cannot exist without them. Cherish them in all their stinky ugliness and elegant, hairy, beauty.  La Lizonne/Nizonne In theory we should be open to change during covid-19, but it appears that change is a very difficult task. We have been spoilt for too many years being able to get what we want whenever we want it and are reluctant to accept that continuing on our slightly diverted current path is not the best choice. We have become so detached from our environment that we forget that we are one big ecosystem The Planet, and whatever happens on the other side of the world happens to you too. Too much talking not enough action it is dispiriting. Le Né It was a long and depressing drive through the Charente last Monday on my delivery run in the pouring rain and floods. I had several diversions en route...... I try to speak out in support of my farming compatriots defending and explaining the reason why things are done the way they are. But after driving past so many naked fields, with no trees or hedges on the high ground from where the water runs, and not an ounce of sensible field cover with adequate root system to protect the soil from the rain and hold the water back to eleviate the flooding, I wanted to cry. Yes there was a lot of rain I am not denying that but compounded with so little green cover did not help the situation. The headlines say how the government are going to support 7000km of hedge planting. Well p*****g in the wind springs to mind. Cover the ground should be the new mantra, mixed and varied farming. No to moncropping. Get those animals out on the land and give those tireless insects some food to work on (if you are not keeping up with my thought processes, I mean poop) This should be something to be excited about my farming friends. No, just being organic does not count. I drove past several properties advertising their organicness with their bare monocropped fields shining and underwater. Back closer to home where we are surrounded by trees, hedges and permanent pasture there was a normal amount of run off from the ground. Above is our water running off our permanent pasture. Please note it is clear. Why? Because the field has poop, insects and roots. I am not going to apologise for being repetitive if you have read all this before. It needs saying often in several thousand languages to as many people as possible to spread the ideas to get down with the bugs and soil to help make some progress. And fear not my fine farming friends next time I will be going all out for those people who insist on town planning with tarmac, concrete and digging up trees. Another depressing subject. Ín the words of Spock "Live long and prosper" Helenx Fixing the spillway on the dam
 Happy New Year Everyone and welcome to 2021 I hope that you all have had a pleasant festive season and are enjoying the beginning of the new year knowing that the days are already lengthening. I have checked our weather book that we found after 5 years of hibernation in a box in a barn and it says that in 2010 and 2012 cranes (birds, not construction equipment) were heading north on the 3rd of February..... so that means there is less than a month before it starts to feel like Spring is nearly here. Not of course that I am not appreciating a good cold spell. The nasty pathogens and more annoying insects and some diseases can be curtailed with the cold.  The birds are chomping through the food I have put out for them at a great rate around the house. If I had a go pro camera permanently attached to my head I could have had some nice video footage of our cat, Peaches, trying to reach the cat food meercat style and not fall off the back of the chair at the same time. She failed, quickly looked around.... and then started cleaning, as if the whole fall from grace had been part of the plan. Cats (◔_◔) always good for a laugh. We had thought that after the hecticness of the Christmas period, some of you experienced it at the market and I thank you for your patience....... weeeellllllllll...... it didn't quite pan out like that. So 40 something sheep later we have done a rather intensive lambing in the freezing cold. Not the best environment to lamb outdoors in. So there was much too-ing and fro-ing in the trailer at all hours karting the mamas and the babas from field to the house and to the sheds. Not too many under red lights, not too many stillborns all things considered. So next New Years day if you are feeling slightly under the weather then I recommend a brisk walk in the morning at minus something, carrying warm slimey animals, a bit of a jog and some rugby tackling of warm fluffy animals, followed by a few hours in the afternoon mucking out and moving manure from the sheds to the garden, to start early preparation for the vegetable garden raised bed, no dig system. Followed by an evening stroll at minus something to rugby tackle and carry fluffy or slimey animals again.  The key to survivng this regime, the Franklins have decided, are copious quantities of tea, large roasted meat joints, warming potato, pasta and rice dishes, pink fizz, beer, chocolate and ice cream. If there is no time to prep half a tables worth of vegetable dishes then throw lots of onions and leeks in everything and you are good to go.  The butchery has had a 6 monthly clean, paint and tidy up and now our rented cold room has been taken away I am trying to work out how to organise the butchery for the next year and wondering whether we will have to make some more permanent modifications. All should be ready to be back rat the markets this coming weekend ready for some more seriously cold weather. The key to weather management is appropriate clothing. Gavin is going for his 3 month check up with the surgeon tomorrow for the next phase of decision making. The physiotherapist has already moved him on to the next phase of exercise and this week that included doing a squat on one leg and then jumping up out of it. Interesting. Now don't go breaking anything trying this at home. It is not a challenge. But let me tell you it is not easy. At all, even if you have not had knee surgery.
Take care of yourselves and happy eating during 2021 Helen 😃 xx  Peace and tranquility. Copyright alice Franklin So it was an entertaining week last week and in the spirit of the festive season it contained.....5 rendez- vous's, 4 trips to Chalais, 3 broken cars, 2 morning markets and one de-livery service. All in all a busy and expensive week. More expensive than I had been planning on as once again I discovered that insurance is never what you think it says on the tin. Even though the pick up from the side of the rocade in Bordeaux was fast, efficient and competent, the effort involved with repatriation of a vehicle to its home is exhausting, annoying and expensive. We believed that the towing of a vehicle was partially covered by our insurance policy, but in fact if your car breaks down on its own without being in an accident, it is not covered. 500 euros later we have our car back home. Gavin thinks it is not terminal, and will be writing to the ombudsman about the lack of clarity with the policy that we have. Oh to be super rich and only have to cover yourself for public liability, third party and maybe legal assistance. But that is the fate of the lower incomes, pay out a whack of money all the time to cover you for something that in fact you don't actually have. If our current circumstances had been different, we could have hired or borrowed a trailer to tow our own car but with Gavin unable to drive and the other 2 of us so busy it just was not practical nor even cost effective. So chalk it up to experience (again) and move on (again!). "So Helen, what have you learnt most about yourself in your 50th year?" Hmmmm, that is easier for me to be pragmatic when I have shouted so hard at someone I have blown several gaskets in my own internal combustion engine.  Sunshine and cobwebs. copyright Alice Franklin In other news the boy sheep are with the girl sheep this week, so may there be many baby sheep in about 5 months time. Let us hope for some lovely warm, grass growing weather in the next few weeks so the winter period is not short on the grazing front. So that the sheep are fat and content and all our lambs are strong, fit and healthy when they hit the ground with my repaired husband, who with any luck will be running around come lambing time. Though possibly with a little less stamina than in previous years.  The elusive new sign for the stand Yes I know it is going to be a strange and perculiar Christmas for everyone, to go with the strange and perculiar year. However the practicalities have to be dealt with unless we are going to be ostriches and bury our heads in the sand, which, by the way is a complete fallacy because they don't, they sit on the floor and lie their heads and necks along the ground so they look like big rocks. Or they put their heads in their nests on the gound to roll their eggs, and then I suppose their heads may disappear behind their eggs because their eggs are easily bigger than their heads. Such a dim bird. One of my least favourite encounters during my farming life...... ......I digress..... Don't forget to order your gammons before this Saturday 15th November. Be warned please, that I may not be able to squeeze you in this year as a late orderer as I have done in the past.  Creamy,cheesy,leftover mash and leftover ham And so lovely people, go forth with a song in your heart and have a lovely week.
I will see you all soon Helenx  Oh my! it has been so long that I have just had to read my own blog to find out what I said last. And much has happened since then. To catch you all up on the stolen sheep scenario no-one was caught, no lamb was found, no insurance payout. Situation sadly normal. Gavin has had his cruciate ligament replaced in his knee and is making steady progress. The physio said today that rehabilitation is long winded for this one and he should just be patient. Easy to say, less easy to achieve for someone used to working a 14 hour day and being outside 80% of the time. It is surprising what he has been driven to do with his spare moments this week. Strip the chainsaw, dismantle the quad (he got told off for that one) cook shepherds pie, mop the floor, clean the bath, do the accounts, pay the bills and help me put away stray sheep by calling them, as they dont know me so well, and banging his crutches together from the safety of the road to get them back in the field.  Gavin finally found our old weather book whilst sorting out the accounts (don't ask about the state of our office zone) as we were contemplating whether the change in air pollution levels and also cloud disturbance, due to the reduction in air traffic this year, has had an effect on the climate. It does feel like South Wales, rather than the Dordogne we have been used to for the last 16 years. The book showed us that rainfall in the past had fallen in shorter spurts with longer stretches of sunshine inbetween. Completely unscientific theory based on limited data and lots of gut feeling. However I do not believe for a moment that the quantity of air traffic has no effect on cloud formation. Below is a photo of the weather at home last Friday morning whilst we were at the market in Ribérac.  We seem to have had a much greater variety and quantity of insects around the house this year I wonder if this is also due to reduced pollution. I have had fun trying to capture some of them to share with you. And its a good job I spent several years in Zimbabwe to desensitise myself to most bugs. Lastly because we always like to keep things calm and easy at Franklin Farm we got a puppy :-O or as we like to call him a convalesence dog for Gavin. So here's Mushu....  See you all soon at the markets, on delivery or at the farm.
Helenx  Gavins toy Hello Everyone Well it seems I have been a little idle and have not written anything since July....shocking....one could assume that it is because nothing ever happens around here. Which is of course completely untrue. Summer came and with it the arrival of the children with them much eating and drinking was done. they did a little light exercise, shearing sheep, feeding lambs, sheep and pigs. And then once they had acheived an improved level of fitness some of them left and some stayed behind to assist the ailing parents, one of whom (not me) will shortly be undergoing knee surgery to replace his crusciate ligament, which is just his excuse to have a bit of a lie down as it means a month of crutches then no work for a further 2 months then building up strength over the next 3 months. so come lambing next year we should be back to normal... whatever normal is.  Resting the knee Normal service will be maintained, though if you could give me plenty of warning for orders, and yes even Christmas orders it would be much appreciated. Sorry I know it is early but I will have to be super duper organised this year espacially on the ham front. Goodness knows what will be happening though with the delights of covid and brexit all happening in the same year. As some of you will already know there was a bit of 2 legged wolf activity on the farm during the summer so we were relieved of 20 lambs ready for marketing. Our friendly organic sheep farmer up the road has provided us with some bottle fed lambs to replace the missing stock and we have spent the last few weeks feeding 3 times a day.  Playtime Abbey, our chief sheepdog had surgery to remove a lump, thankfully non cancerous, but the very large scar is taking a while to close up. as she does not enjoy being left behind at working time. The cone of shame that she wore for 3 weeks is finally off and she is happily eating a bone outside in peace and quiet.  Abbey and the cone of shame This year has been a "control" year for the business. 2 at the market checking hygiene and cleanliness, labelling and such like (we passed). One on the sheep and goats blood tests for brucellosis (they were clear) and then finally a check to see if our fields had grass underneath the trees (they did). Lordy! I think all the civil servants must have been thoroughly bored with confinement and just wanted some fresh air. So now I am waiting to go back to the markets and suspect that there will be new regulations to do with handwashing and mask wearing and lots of other joyful things.  Trees with grass underneath I am waiting in anticipation for the call from the fridge repair shop to tell me the van is fixed has passed its cold chain test is ready to roll, and in the meantime because you know there was nothing else to do I have repainted the butchery floor and walls.
With any luck now we should be covered for the next couple of years. Oh and tomorrow I am going to do a course on how to prepare your flock of sheep for the arrival of wolves in the district and I do mean the 4 legged ones this time. The joys of wildlife, farming and country living. See you all very soon Helen |
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May 2022
Helen FranklinI am farming sheep and goats on the Dordogne/Gironde border with my husband and our 3 children. We have an on farm butchery and sell our meat direct to the public via the markets and delivery points in our local area |
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