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.