Normand Cow

I seem to have landed into another world all together.   Yesterday I left the farm L_ G_ M_ with G_ and we have found ourselves in a much better situation.  We spent yesterday exploring the small city of Granville on the Atlantic coast and today we arrived at another farm.  This farm is composed of two couples that rent the land and each couple has their own animals and their own yurt on the land.  They share a garden as well as the surrounding farm buildings.  One of the couples, W_ and L_ have been here for three years, they built their yurt which is quite big and they raise the pigs for the meat as well as the veal.  A_ and L¹ (another L)_ have been here since last October and they also have a yurt, although they eventually hope to build a house on the land.  A_ is in the process of starting a dairy from the milk from the cows (which currently feeds the veal) where he will make and sell milk, butter, and cheese.  L¹_ works with A_ at the moment but would eventually like to start her own large vegetable garden.  Like V_ from the first farm I was at, L¹ knows the local plants as well.  L¹ also works with the vegetables at a agricultural high school in a nearby town, is a private tutor, and a volunteer firewoman.  She told us today that she likes having various different jobs and like I’ve realized working in Normandy farms, it is important to get off the farm every once in a while.  At the farm they milk the cows twice a day, but like I said at the moment the milk is only then given to the baby cows.  There are lots of pigs as well that are separated into various pastures depending on their ages.  Right now there are three mama pigs with piglets and these older females are separated from the males.  Then there are the slightly older piglets who aren’t quite old enough to be with the full-grown pigs, and lastly there is a pasture for the full-grown pigs who are getting ready for the slaughterhouse…little do they know.  There are cows as well (maybe 30 or so) and at the moment there is one that is particularly vocal because she lost her baby this morning and so she has been mooing consistently since we got here.  Apparently cows that are sad can also produce tears.  Who knew? 

While there doesn’t seem to be that much laborious work (mainly weeding so far) the farm is much more fun and interesting to be at.  The people are great and seem to enjoy what they have set up for themselves.  They only take WWOOFers when they want to and otherwise they enjoy having their lives to themselves.  And thankfully, they understand as both G_ and I do that WWOOFing is not only about working but also an exchange of culture, language and knowledge.  While the conditions are much wilder here than the other two farms, the atmosphere is great and having already had a number of good laughs and numerous smiles with the people I have met I know this will be a nice place to spend the last two weeks of my time in Normandy. 

Adventures WWOOFing in Normandy

WWOOFing in Normandy has turned out to be an unexpected challenge.  WWOOFing here has been my first experience with this type of volunteer relationship amongst strangers and unfortunately it has not turned out, as I would have hoped.  The first farm I was at was relatively comfortable in terms of the people I met and worked with however there were severe problems with money that could not be avoided and always turned up in the discussions we had.  Last Saturday I switched farms and while I stayed within Normandy, I am in the department of Manche (which is technically in the Bay of Mont Saint Michel, although I wouldn’t exactly describe it as that).  It is a much smaller farm and V_ the woman who owns the farm lives alone and relies solely on the volunteer and presence of WWOOFer volunteers. The farm is relatively small and although she is government funded to have a “pedagogic farm” she has only owned the farm for four years and either hasn’t gotten around to that, or has decided that it is too much work.  This woman is a strong, bull-headed, independent woman who I think has suffered a lot in her life and is now trying to come to terms with her situation.  V_ has fibromyalgia and therefore she suffers a lot of pain and cannot do the things she used to love to do.  An active woman even now, V_ rode horses, motorcycles, lifted weights, etc. and now she is left to her own devices and is trying to sustain a life in Normandy. 

When I arrived the first thing I saw was a Newfoundland dog and immediately I assumed things would be fantastic!  But after the first meal I had with her and the other WWOOFers I knew that our characters and personalities didn’t mesh and that it would be a very challenging three weeks.  The one silver lining in this situation has been that when I arrived, another WWOOFer arrived as well.  G_ is a German medical student, my age, who is also on vacation and decided to make WWOOFing a part of that experience.  While working and living together may have encouraged both of us to think worse of the farm than it might have been for others, it has been great having a confidante and someone that I can trust.  A few days ago G_ and I decided to email other WWOOFing farms in the region to see if there was any possibility they would take us for the remaining time.  Luckily we got a response from a farm that is composed of two families and they said they could take us starting Monday.  While we would have liked to leave the farm a bit earlier, it took us a few days to process all the information, and to see if in fact, we really wanted to leave the farm.  Our plans were unraveling slowly and it became more clear as the days went on that we were indeed making the right decision. 

The farm has a gite on site and there is a family staying there at the moment with two small children.  Over the course of our time here the young girl has helped us every morning with the animal chores and we have gotten to know the family.  Both G_ and I felt very comfortable with them and we trusted them much more than we trusted V_.  So yesterday when G_ and I had made our decision that indeed we were going to leave the farm we confided in the family of our plans because we knew how close the young girl and become with us and because we wanted to let them know why we would be leaving.  It turned out to be a great conversation and after we told them our situation, we talked for an hour and a half over tea and tisanes.  Last night, both G_ and I slept a bit better because both of us had been quite anxious about the whole process and we decided that today we would inform Valerie of our decision and see what the next days would bring.  We worked all morning and there were numerous incidences of our clash of personalities, work ethics, etc.   Her lack of confidence in our abilities to weed the garden, feed the turkeys, etc, led us to believe that we had indeed made the right decision.  While we planned to tell her in the afternoon, we ended up delaying it until the evening because she ran some errands and we were brushing the dogs, etc.  Finally after dinner, we sat her down and said that we didn’t feel comfortable at the farm any more and that we had decided to leave.  I told her that I was sorry that we were interrupting the time we had said we would be available to work, but that it is our vacation and we do not feel like spending it here.  Thankfully, she took it fairly well and she is willing to drive us to the train station on Sunday.  Hopefully the next farm will be a bit better and Sunday G_ and I will be spending the day in Granville, a fortified costal down in Normandy. 

Far, Farm, Farming

I have been at the F__ d’E__ for about two weeks now and it has been one of the most challenging times of my life, however not physically, as expected.  WWOOFing was an adventure all in itself.  Working on organic farms all around the world in exchange for room and board seemed like a great way to spend sometime in France between my two academic programs, and for anyone or anywhere else, a great way to see the world and experience cultures that might not previously be appreciated.  Coming to the F__d’E__ I had no idea what to expect but I hoped for the best and was willing to put all my muscle effort into pure labor for the work and future of the farm.  Unfortunately the physical aspect of my work at the farm has been overwhelmed by the emotional rollercoaster that every employee and volunteer at the farm seems to be on.  

The farm is in desperate need of money.  The owners, a couple, V_ and her husband bought the farm four years ago and from what I can tell, this is the worst season they have had.  Yesterday I was on a canoeing trip with P_ who works in the vegetable garden.  He and his friends were talking about the financial circumstances of the farm and of V_’s position.  It seems the bank has refused to give V_ and her husband sufficient funds to keep the farm going.  It has become clearer the longer I’ve been here that money is very tight.  Just last Thursday there was barely any food in the refrigerator and V_ kept saying that she couldn’t do the grocery shopping because there just wasn’t enough money.  Friday and Sunday guests of the farm came for a meal that V_ prepared so she was able to earn enough money to buy some groceries for the farm.  While I’m not ignorant about the financial situation of the world at the moment, I think the conditions for this farm do not lie merely on the economic situation of France, or the economic crisis that has trickled across Europe in the past few years.  Unfortunately, the situation is much more difficult and sad than an economic lapse in judgment.  V_ is a woman that has thrown herself into an endeavor to grand for her to even grasp. She has herself in deeper than she even knows, so much that she cannot even see a practical solution, much less those around her who are trying to help.  Everyone that works on the farm is here to help, whether for money or room and board, but the organization and distribution of labor on the farm is so inefficient that it does not allow for the farm to thrive, much less make a profit for the benefit of V_ and the farm.  The animals are here merely for pedagogic reasons, occasionally an old goat or sheep is eaten, but other than that the animals play a role of tourism and unfortunately of absorbing much of the money for the life and vibrancy of the farm.  The apple orchard makes cider and juice in the fall and the gites and summer camps bring in some income, but that doesn’t seem to bring in enough to make the farm stay afloat.  

As for my role, I have tried my best to be as helpful and aware of what is going on at the farm, although at times I feel that my help is not enough for the economic sustainability of the farm.  I am very conscious of helping V_ when I can and providing her with enough questions and commentary to keep her mind off the situation she is in.  However it has been difficult for me emotionally to be on a farm with a financial situation larger than I can fix and with people that are saddened and angry about the conditions of their lives.   As my mom says, I have twenty-seven antennae and thus I absorb and listen to all the conversations and emotions of the people around me.  And while in some situations it can be nice to be aware of all that is going on, here at the F__ d’E__ it has proved to be my weakness.  It is too much to absorb the sentiments and tragedies of the people that work on this farm.  For now, I am trying my best to make the best of everything and in a week I’ll be switching farms and hoping for the best!

farming adventures in a small town in Normandy

A day in the life of a French farm…I suppose there is quite the history behind this farm but not the time to tell the stories.  Everyone is busy, somewhat, but at the same time, it occasionally seems like nobody really does anything.  The farm is from the 18^th century and the workings of the farm are only up to the 20^th century and possibly a bit into the 21^st.  For example, today I hacked a weed with a tool that could have easily come with the originally farm, like a machete only longer and I hacked and hacked until I couldn’t hack anymore.  Yesterday I worked with a young woman who is part of an organization, French/German, that sends young Germans to help out in disadvantages regions in France, sort of reparation for the WWII.  There is a little house (that is called the chateau) just up the road from the F___ d’E____ and every year there are two new Germans that occupy the house and volunteer at the farms around the neighborhood.  She was very nice and so yesterday we took this large woven sack and our clippers out to one of the paths behind the farm and hacked a weed called ronce (bramble).  The prickly spines are terrible and another plant that grows right next to the ronce is also quite prickly and lives elevated red spots all over my body.  The work isn’t really that hard and in comparison to studying, I quite appreciate the physical labor and the simplicity of taking out a machete and hacking away at a plant.  The hardest part of the work here is watching the people continue day after day, working and trying to make this farm successful at the bare minimum.  V and her husband bought the farm four years ago but from my conversations with her the bank wouldn’t let them much in terms of a mortgage so their payments each month are quite steep and the farm doesn’t make enough money to make a profit each year but rather just enough to survive for the next season.  At the moment there are three large groups of kids who come as parts of summer camps and stay at the farm for a week or two which is very good for the income of the farm, however that only lasts until late august when school starts up again.  Then the harvests come and there are some vegetables and nuts and juices and cider to sell, but the quantity isn’t enormous.  The farm isn’t an enterprise with lots of apples and lots of people pressing cider; it isn’t a business to make profit but more a farm to share with passers-by. 

Besides the farm being quite the culture change from my time in the south of France, the running and seeing the villages has also been quite the shift.  I’ve been running almost every morning before the sun has completely come out from being hidden behind the clouds.  I have been running to the actual town S__ J__ le B__, of which the farm is located, but more on the outskirts.  This morning it was a bit chilly, but wonderfully refreshing from the sweltering heat of the Côte d’Azur.  My first passage is past many fenced fields, awaiting the cows that will change pastures as they eat their way through the land. Alongside the road are those nasty ronce built into walls to separate the fields from the road.  At the first “intersection” there are numerous different signs indicating “gites of France” and other lodgings, much like the F__ d’E__ for travelers on foot or on horse.  And then further on is the village of S__ J__ le B__.  Coming down the first hill from the farm I can see just the tip of the spire of the church and upon entering to town I can smell silage but I see now silos.  I hear cows but no cows are in sight.  I hear the rooster crow but only as I pass by. There are houses that are empty and for sale, there are cars but no people.  As I continue through the town, much forgotten there is a post office built at the corner of the main “carrefour” (main intersection, four corners) and on the opposite side of the road is the mayor and a small school attached to the mayor’s office.  The town is desolate, and while it may be 8am in the morning, that seems to say something about the lifestyle and the people that live in S__ J__ le B__ in Normandy.

Calvados

Yesterday was a grand adventure.  After five days on the Côte d’Azur with a great friend of mine S____ we both went our separate ways.  Starting in Nice I left the hostel, Villa Saint Exupery Beach around 8am and took the tram to the train station.  The tram runs very frequently and traverses the Place Massena, where we were staying, as well as follows a path through much of the city.  After two stops, I hopped off and lugged my baggage to the train station.  Luckily there were no stairs, although stairs were to come.  I was early so I sat down and had some breakfast while I watched all the frantic travelers wait for their departures, or for their friends and families to arrive.  The trains were all on time, which was great because the day before all the trains had been at least an hour late.  My train eventually got a “voie [track]” so I headed over and found my car and my seat.  Unfortunately with random assignment I was not by a window but I decided to sit by the window anyways and maybe nobody else would come.  I was in the double part of the double decker train and at 9:43am my train departed for Nice and headed north for Paris.  After the first stop, Antibes I think an old man got on and it turned out that he was assigned my seat, alas, I moved to another row so that I could still have a window, but then later another couple came on and I was in their seats, so I decided just to move back to my non-window seat.  I drifted in and out of a dazed sleep and right before Avignon, the old man got up and gave me his window seat.  Passing Avignon was sweet, but then a young girl, no older than 12 got on and again I was in her seat.  But I passed the time watching the countryside of France pass before me on the TGV.  

Arriving in Paris I grabbed by baggage from the train and found the number 14 metro line to take to Bercy where I then took the number 6 metro line to Gare Montparnasse, near where our apartment was in 2001 I believe.  Lugging my bags was difficult, although thankfully it was not as hot up north as it was in the French Riveria.  I got on the train at Montparnasse and I did not have a seat assignment so I just chose a seat in on of the cars and found one without a ticket indicating cars and seats (because apparently some people did have assigned seats).  A woman congratulated me on picking such a good seat and it was only about halfway through the ride that I realized I was in first class (strange since I had not paid for first class), but nobody came to check my ticket so I had plenty of legroom as well as a seat facing the direction the train was going so I could see the countryside of even further north pass before my eyes.  I arrived at the train station in Vire, a small town in Normandy and I waited for about 15 minutes for the woman from the farm who had left a voicemail saying she would be a bit late.  Not a problem and I was glad to have the opportunity to stand for a while.  She finally came in an old car that smelled wonderfully of farming, much like our old neighborhood in West Braintree. We talked all the way back to the farm, about 20km from the train station.  Upon arriving at the farm, which is huge dinner was semi-prepared but V______ made a sauce for the pasta and we all sat down to eat, while watching Olympic swimming of course!  Not long after dinner we all headed to bed, as everyone seemed exhausted, I slept in V_____’s daughter’s bedroom.  Originally I was going to share a gite with another girl who was staying for one night, as it turns out she is coming next week, so V_____ moved me to the main house “so that I could be with everyone else.”  I slept very well and the rooster didn’t crow until 8:40 (that I heard, very impressive). 

A bit about the farm, from what I can gather: V_____ and her husband, who works at a large enterprise of pigs further north bought the farm about 4 years ago and her husband occasionally comes down, but it is mainly V_______ that runs the farm.  There are cows, pigs, sheep, donkeys, ducks, geese, chickens, goats, bunnies, kittens, and maybe more that I haven’t seen.  There are also a number of gardens of various sorts.  Before coming to this farm in Calvados, V______ worked at another farm doing medicinal and aromatic gardening so I think there is still some of that here as well. There are also a number of “gites” which are very popular around France. People, often families, can rent out the gites for a week or so and spend the time on vacation at the farm.  Each gite is equipped with a kitchen and beds etc, as well as the experience of living on a working farm.  The farm seems very old, although I am not sure what year.  Cider or apple juice (I’m not sure exactly which because we seem to have both here) is made on premises and is sold in a small boutique on the farm.  Groups of kids, families, other tourists, stop by the farm and pay a few Euros to visit the workings and the animals.  The farm is entirely organic and as V______ is very adamant about not wasting everything and recycling as much as possible.  Much of the food scraps we save for the pigs and V_____ won’t by cheese with plastic rind, etc so to minimize the carbon footprint and use of petrol on the farm.  I think I have quickly adapted to life here, it is pretty relaxed and a much different day from my time in Avignon studying all the time, or even my vacation on the Côte d’Azur where it was hot all the time.  The other people working here besides V_____ all seem to come from different facets of their lives.  There is one other WWOOFer at the moment D_____ who is in the process of looking for a job and at 37 he doesn’t seem to know exactly when he would stop WWOOFing but he lives not too farm from the farm, further north and his brother also works on the farm (although I don’t think his brother is a WWOOfer).  Then there is P_____ who I think is a volunteer.  He seems very much content doing whatever it is he does.  The brother of D_____, S_____ I’m not sure what he does, he doesn’t live on the farm, but he seems to know things very well.  I think he might be making bread this afternoon in a wood oven outside by the sheep.  Then there are two other young people on the farm who live close by and work on the farm.  I’m not exactly sure if the farm pays them or if they are volunteers but they all seem very acquainted with the workings and processes of everything.  N_____ is the last person working on the farm.  He is a student of birds and trees, from what I can understand, and he has been doing an internship for the past two months with V______ as part of his studies.  He leaves tonight and he says he is going to come back in about a month to WWOOF and finish whatever he needs to finish for his internship.  I am the only non-French person but my French seems to be holding up just fine and they seem grateful that I understand and catch on quickly to what they are saying.  This morning I helped N_____ hack some weeds over by where the geese are kept and although I’m not exactly sure what the plant was, my fingers are still a bit tingly from whatever prickly things were on the stems.  We prepared lunch all together, everything from the garden or from the animals, which is great!  A busload of kids came around lunchtime and they ate out back and then this afternoon will get a tour of the farm.  I’ll try and update when I can, there is no wifi here but I’m going to try and upload both text and photos from one computer to another, hopefully it works out.  Until next time.  Bisous.

 Click the map to enlarge.  Currently I am in a small town called Saint Jean le Blanc, near Calvados which is in the region Basse Normandie in the upper left part of the map, west and a bit north of Paris.  Avignon is in the department  Vaucluse, Provence-Alps, and  Nice is on the Cote d`Azur.