Return of the cows

« C’est beau, mais ce n’est pas printemps ! » Lucien, our neighbour from over the road, said to me last week during one sunny, pleasant but not yet warm afternoon. (A mes lecteurs français – n’hésitez pas de corriger mes mots français dans ce blog (par courriel ou comment) – et pardon en avance pour mes erreurs dans la langue de Voltaire ;o)

Living where we do I feel much more directly aware of the changes in the weather and the progress of the seasons than I used to be in Fleet. The farmers around us follow a specific pattern as well. This is mainly a dairy area and the milking herds follow a routine between being in the fields for twelve hours and then moving into the big élévages for milking. The herds are usually brought in by hand or quad-bike. Nicole, the wife of our local farmer Dominique, has a unique style when she brings the cattle in; shouting “Allez-y, allez-y” as she walks down the road. The sight of sixty cattle five hundred metres away pricking up their ears and then standing up and walking over to meet her at the gate always makes us smile. And then, after the snow came in December all the cattle everywhere disappeared indoors where they stayed until Monday this week when they appeared again in the fields of the farms all over our commune. Of course, the farmers are all reacting to the same things; weather, grass growth and the cost of feeding the animals indoors but, this being France, I really wouldn’t be surprised if there was a centrally defined calendar the farmers have to follow.

The backing soundtrack in our area throughout January has been the buzz of the chainsaws as the farmers use the quiet period to work on the trees on the boundaries of their fields. The oaks are pollarded in a way that leaves a single thin vertical branch growing upwards from the point of the pollard. The timber is then cut up and carried off to the woodpiles to become next year’s seasoned wood for heating.

The weather has been nice, tempting the cats out for brief periods sunbathing on the back wall before resuming their mouse patrols as the weather cools in the afternoon. But Lucien’s correct, it’s not yet spring.