The Creche (Nursery) in the Sheep Barn

We have been spending a great amount of time in the sheep barn.  It is lambing season and we are at it full speed ahead.  
My birthday was a couple of days ago (15 newborn lambs also share the date!) and we did nothing exceptional except open a bottle of champagne at the end of the day...so exhausted, we had just one glass and fell into bed!  We sipped at that one bottle for a couple of days (lasts very well if you put a teaspoon in the bottle neck, handle down.  NB The teaspoon must have a metal handle).  A great way to stretch out a celebration.

Drama for the day? We had a ewe that lost her lamb and tried to steal the twin of another one. Usually a good idea unless the first has the capacity to produce an enormous amount of milk for which you want to safeguard the capacity as it is income! 
Yes, we sell our sheep milk to Societé, the producers of Roquefort.  When Roquefort was first produced, the wheel's of cheese were started right here in the Basque country and then transferred to caves in Roquefort for aging.  It is now produced there as well.  There are 3 main areas of France that produce sheep milk...Basque Country (Ardi Gasna) and the Auvergne (Roquefort).  Corsica also produces their native sheep milk cheese, Brocciu.
It amazes me how much help the sheep need to get their lambs suckling and milk production going!  Sometimes we have to actually fold the lamb underneath her mom (lamb belly up) and squeeze colostrum into its mouth.  If lucky the lamb will quickly figure out it is good stuff and the sucking begins.  Sometimes the lamb simply needs to be guided and it laches on.  Sometimes the teats are too large or too small for the lamb.  Sometimes the lamb just seems to be suicidal and wants NOTHING to do with any of it . Thank goodness this is rare.  In such a case we will try with a bottle because the sucking is easier...
Sometimes one twin is selfish and greedy and does not let his joint twin get his/her fill.  Sometimes there just isn't enough milk right away and we have to find a mother that produces an overabundance.  

Couple ANY of those scenarios with mothers that simply refuse to acknowledge her lamb (or one of them) and you realize where all the hours go. We have about 120 pregnant ewes left. We are about half way through birthing the herd, majority of those twins and born in the last 10 days.
When the mother rejects her lamb for whatever reason or the lambs need help as in the above cited cases, we put the little family in a too-tight corral.  Sometimes (rarely) the lamb is strong and smart enough to "steal the milk".  However, when she kicks or butts her lamb or tries to get away, we fill her trough with food and literally stand beside her with a rubber wand to insure the lamb feeds.  The mother occasionally gets a few swats, but she gets the message very clearly and within a couple of days time (usually) in these confined close quarters she develops a real love for her lamb...ALWAYS.  Once in a great while this bonding takes a week. In this circumstance, most are forced adoptions (after a miscarriage/death).  
The creche has really opened my eyes as to how difficult initial motherhood can be.  I count myself lucky that it was all so easy for me...for some it is hard work.  We are not all born on equal footing...with equal capacity or experience.  Some of us need a little bit of help, coercion, lessons, enforcement, tough love, tenderness, support etc.  But when a ewe mom looks at you with soulful eyes bowed down in gratitude there is just no better place to be... And I was not an animal lover!
If only all politicians had an opportunity to do an internship in a bergerie/sheep barn...imagine how gentle this world could be. 

The Sheepfarmer

The Sheepfarmer is a gentleman.  He has a quiet confidence,  humble.  

He is the most elegant and graceful man I know.  I have never heard him say a nasty word about anyone. He let me do my "own analysis" on people he knew and that I later met...  

He did everything in his power to earn my trust and confidence even though he knew it wasn't going to be easy. And he did not give up;  He was persistent in waving to me while I went out of my way to ignore him for 4 months!

He is a tolerant man without being a stupid man, greatly respected. 100% integrity.  Although not college educated, he has done the "Université de la Terre" and is the smartest man I have ever met.  He has become a successful man with limited means under very difficult circumstances.  The Sheepfarmer lost his father when he was 14 years old. They were riding up on Artzamendi (Bear Mountain) to survey sheep when his father keeled over and fell dead off his horse, heart attack. The Sheepfarmer shouldered the responsibilities of this farm, his sister and his mother.  

"Every woman deserves a man that can make her forget her heart was ever broken" (unknown), and that's what he did.

The first night I walked into his house through the front door he invited me into the kitchen where a warm fire was burning in the wood stove.  There are no living rooms in these old farmhouses.  And forget a sofa, too risky to have something too comfortable because "then you don't want to get up and go back outside to work." 

It had been a chilly climb up that hill!  He asked me to sit down and offered me a glass of Pineau Charentes and it definitely warmed me up.  We talked and drank and talked and drank.  When I thought I should be leaving, so he could eat his dinner, he told me he had already eaten...I later found out it was not true.  Good thing we had munchies/apero!

I will never forget when he told me I was like a "herrison" (hedgehog) with a spiny armor protecting a soft and vulnerable underbelly (insides). This really surprised me because he told me he knew that I lacked confidence! 

And I thought OMG he really sees me...right through me. EVERYONE thinks of me as being strong and confident.  Everyone.

I talked to him about my daughters and the heartbreak.  I put it out there because I thought if he is going to judge how I must be a bad mother, let him do it now. Right away.  He didn't judge.  He listened and told me it will work out when I let it come to me and that someday when she had a child she would.  She did.  He also told me that she may not forgive me until that child reaches adolescence and she sees how difficult it is to parent in the best of circumstances, let alone bad ones.  She hasn't.  Yet...

When it was time to go (about midnight and neither of us had eaten dinner), he lent me his flashlight and walked me down the hill.  He took my hand and said goodnight and that he hoped we would see eachother again very soon.

I went to bed happy after a perfect evening in good company.

The next morning when I woke I thought OMG what have I done?  How could I have gone up there and barged in on him like that?  I took my coffee and sat in the sun out on the back terrace overlooking the meadow and he went by in the brebismobile.  I ignored him.  He came back by up the hill towards home.  I ignored him.  In the afternoon he came by on the tractor.  I ignored him.  I did the same thing on Sunday.  But on the Sunday afternoon on his way back home, he stopped in the middle of the street, knocked on my door and asked if it was possible to buy a coffee.  So I asked him if he wanted to come in for coffee...  

The Sheepfarmer asked what I was doing for dinner and I admitted I had no plans, he wanted me to join him for leg of lamb...I did. On that evening before I went home he asked me if he could make dinner for me on Monday evening.  
I said he could.  He made me dinner again Tuesday and asked about Wednesday...that evening I brought up homemade spaghetti and bolognase sauce that I had made.  It was the first time he had eaten it! 

We had dinner together Thursday and he asked if he could kiss me goodnight.  
I said yes.  It was awful, mouth wide open and "harsh".  I told him to let me show him how it is done and he said ok...no bruised ego.  I told him "lips are to be tasted not devoured."  He later told me he did it this way on purpose so I could show him how to do it "right"...he said he got to kiss me longer that way.  I don't think he's lying.  He never has lied (to me). 
When I left I told him he could not do that the next evening or I might not go home.  He did it again Friday, very well.  
I didn't go home.  I have been here ever since.

Road to the Sheepfarmer Part 2

To this day I claim divine intervention and I was not a believer in such things.

Up the hill

When I got home from work I knew I would not get ready to go out towards the coast and drive back again, nor was I about to shower, put on my jammies and watch TV. 
I wanted company, social contact, someone to laugh with, tell stories to, ask and answer questions.  Someone to share a bottle of wine and philosophize with.  
My work week had been utter hell and I needed to unwind and begin celebrating the state of freedom in my weekend.
I wanted to spend some time with someone who wanted the same...
I was not looking for a "date", just companionship.  I think I am good company and I wanted the same...
So I got home, showered, changed, threw on jeans and a sweater, light jacket and boots, put on a little make-up and decided I was going to walk towards the village.  A good 3 km.
But I asked myself who are you going to talk to?  The only people you have met have children, significant others or spouses.  You can't barge in on someone you hardly know out of the blue on a Friday evening. And it's not like there's anything more than a small hotel or 2 in the Village where the "Older Ladies Society" will talk about you being on the prowl if you go to such a place (alone)? You are not even likely to run into a stray cat.  Besides, the only ones around these farms are feral anyway.
So, I did the only logical thing.  Rather than turn right at my door and head towards the village,  I turned left and headed up the hill.  
To say hello to the Sheepfarmer that I had once again been ignoring for the couple of weeks since he had fixed my car. (In all fairness, and to be polite, I had invited the other neighbor and the Sheepfarmer in for coffee after they fixed my car the morning  it had died.  However, I will not hide the fact that I was utterly delighted they both declined, as I needed to get to work).  Months later the Sheepfarmer and I decided it was my brother and his father (who had both died many years previous) who had literally pushed and shoved me up that hill.  THAT is exactly what it felt like.
As I climbed up the hill I kept asking myself what the hell I thought I was doing?    I knocked on his door.  He opened the door.  I blurted out that I had just been stood up by a friend, I had had a shit week at work, that I didn't want to be alone, that I am sure he didn't either, that neither of us had a family or significant other to tend to so maybe we could have a nice quiet drink on a Friday evening to start the weekend and talk a bit. Haha! As if a sheep farmer knows what the hell a weekend is, even I have now forgotten :/   
I also told him not to get ANY ideas whatsoever about me warming his bed.  
I wanted a friend in this backward Village, that's it.  And with that his smile became even bigger, he opened the door even wider and the Sheepfarmer asked me to come in.

Road to the Sheepfarmer Part 1

In the previous post Village Diaries: First Move I wrote about what a snob I was in regards to attempted kindness on the part of the Sheepfarmer.  

I had ignored him for 4 months while all he tried to do was say "hello".  

It wasn't until I had car trouble that I finally laid eyes on him and decided he was not nearly as bad as my protective imagination had perceived.  

He was kind, articulate, intelligent, funny and rather good looking. 

Brains and muscles in all the right places.  Now THAT was a surprise!

But because he was a farmer.  

Who had lived with his mother.  

Well into adulthood.  

I had decided he was most definitely NOT relationship material.  

There was no way I was going to leave that door even slightly open.  

I was not going to give him any false expectations. Whatsoever.  PERIOD.

Therefore I continued to ignore him everytime I saw him come by.  I would look the other way.  He later told me that he knew I was ignoring him because there was no way we could have missed eachother ALL those times. HA!

My apartment was in the white farmhouse at the bottom of the hill.
The Sheepfarmer lived in the large house at the top of the small hill...

Back up explanation: I had moved to the Village to diminish my expenditures as I was starting to wonder about the stability of the company where I had been employed the previous 6 years...

It is not difficult to guess that the export manager with an important salary (in comparison to the other office workers and in manufacturing), would be prime target to immediately stave off economic disaster.  This was in the spring of 2008 and and the money faucet had just turned OFF from one month to the next..."la crise economique".  Orders for furniture plummeted...and export expenditures, much like human resources, are the first to go.  

Savings-in-a-chunk.

I was subsequently proved correct in my assumption because a few months later I was indeed laid off, "Licencement Economique".  And although the orders had again started improving in the Fall, the Director wanted me to work part time (after having told the other 4 office workers that everyone would be working 3/4 time). It was upon my return from Christmas vacation that the "offer" for decreasing work hours was made only to me.  I turned him down because I was the only one taking the hit and I know I would still be working more hours than my colleagues.  I already was.  There is no such thing as a 35 hour work week for mid-management.  Even in France. But I am getting ahead of myself...

In this quaint, less expensive Village I was away from my usual friends.  Away from the coast and living "inland" where things are pretty "peaceful".  Always.  The Village is in the opposite direction from my place of work, in comparison to where I used to live and travel time or access to my friends was about 45 minutes away.  Since moving to the Village, I was at "Copine's" almost every weekend!

After a hellish and demoralizing workweek, I was so looking forward to my "Copine" (my best gay guy friend) coming over, cooking him a nice dinner and sharing a bottle of wine!  He was going to stay the night and we were going to go hiking the next morning...but my cellphone rings, right before leaving work (on TGIF!), "Copine" tells me how sorry he was for having overlooked his "get together" with his teaching colleagues.  I was crushed.

So in my pitiful lonely state, in dire need of company and social contact...guess what I did?

Village Diaries : First Move

Farm of eligible bachelor on the left

Now that I have met and fallen in love with my Sheepfarmer, I have come across various occasions to meet some of his friends and, of course, his family.  
Sometimes I have been quite taken aback that there are so many eligible middle aged bachelors!  And here's the "real news" :  They are quite the catch! 
Good looking, good health (as well as physique!), intelligent, hardworking, "clean up" well, have style ...and they live in the most gorgeous of pristine places!  They do not brag about what they drive, where they vacation, or real estate that they own.  They are not out to impress anyone. They live quietly and observe their surroundings.  Their hearts run deep.  They are sweet and sentimental.
AND these guys are single?!
I asked myself HOW is this so? What is the common denominator? Are you asking the same?  
It is simple: These bachelors are somewhat reserved and probably not likely to make the first move.  That's it.   Bottom line.  
It's not that they are even deathly shy...say hello, give them an "open window" and the guy will feel confident enough to get to know you.  The truth is just that they have not had much experience in the social graces.  Let alone "the rules".

I have a few single girlfriends that will never make the first move. Ever. By principle...not due to lack of social graces.  
It is a shame because these guys are out there waiting for someone to open their hearts to. Someone to take care of who will take care of them right back. Someone to love... 


Here's the glitch.  As is the custom here, many have inherited the farm and the care of their parents with it.  Many times that usually means the mother.  Although some guys have married and made their own living quarters within the home, others wait until mom is no longer there to welcome another woman into what becomes his home.  This is how IT happened to the Sheepfarmer.  It is how IT happened to his father.  IT happens a lot...
When I first moved to the bottom of the hill, I had heard the Sheepfarmer lived up on the hill in a beautiful home, although rundown! He was working a 300+ Sheep Ranch on his own!  I had heard that he was a "coeur a prends" (a heart to be taken).  His mother had gone into a care facility (with Alzheimers) a couple of years previous.  She was diagnosed with the disease a few years prior to that. 
No matter how "highly recommended" he came,  in my eyes "he had lived with his mother" and because of this fact I refused to look at him. PERIOD.
For months, out of the corner of my eye I would watch him wave as I pretended to look in the opposite direction.  He would go by on his tractor or his "brebismobile" (camionette to transport sheep) or this other little white wreck that I have since learned is his trusty little "non 4x4" that he drives to survey the sheep from non drivable roads into the mountain pastures. 

brebismobile

We finally met after 4 months of my avoiding him, because my car battery went dead and he drove by while another neighbor was helping me.  The Sheepfarmer also offered his assistance (ugh!).  
It was the FIRST time I had laid eyes on him and I thought "hmmm.  He has decent teeth.  He has a nice haircut.  He speaks beautiful French with a well thought out vocabulary"  The lightbulb went off. THIS farmer was smart...said the "I pride myself on not judging people" world traveler (moi).
I now ask myself "How many other world travellers are priding themselves on not judging these farmers who have or are living with their mothers... THAT which is considered to be very bad Feng Shui  (or principles) in our Anglo Saxon culture? Let alone my evolved French girlfriends...
My advice?  Make the first move.  These guys are worth it. 
And the mother issue will work itself out.  Always does.

Dream Kitchen

We are steadfastly working on the milking barn and lambing is fully underway.
I am still dreaming of a kitchen that would be perfect in this old house (built in 1835).  Are you ready?! Come on in...

Here's what it would look like:

 We have a stone fixture (ancient "sink" much like the one above) with a tiny arched window that I would put somewhere in the stonewall to make a "niche".  I think I would also like brushed stainless steal appliances (fridge/dishwasher) for an "edge".  I would LOVE an AGA too, being as I have learned to love cooking on a woodstove...all that evenly distributed heat AND a warm kitchen in the morning.
Of course, this being the South of France, I would need an outdoor kitchen for summer (and all that canning!) Note to self: Future post

The little nook area in the corner of the kitchen will look like this.  The beams, doors, hardware, etc. are already here.  So is an old built in cabinet like this.  
It used to be for keeping foodstuffs: coffee, jam, chocolate, Piment d'Espelette, etc.  ...all those things that should be kept in a dark, cool place. 
But first I have to talk the Sheepfarmer into tearing out the rocks with which he built a fireplace insert in an area that was originally much like this (DOUBLE SIGH :/ )

We have the original dalles that were brought up from 3 different homesteads,  only ours are irregular shaped and in granite...more rustic.  
I've just got to convince the Sheepfarmer that the house deserves as much effort as the Sheepbarn...
All this is rather labor intensive ($/€) because I really cannot think of him in terms of being very handy.

This will be the feel of the "entry hall/formal dining area" or Azketza which was/is the home's entryway. This area is "almost there"...

Forgiveness

Today I read a beautiful post on the blog Tongue in Cheek regarding forgiveness and it gave me great hope...

I miss my daughter(s) and grieve for a relationship we do not have.  I am told she is a lot like me.  She loves Paris and Robert Doisneau and cooking and making a home.  She is bossy. Her mannerisms are like mine and her sense of humor.  This is what I am told.

Last spring she sent me an e-mail with a photo announcing her pregnancy.  These little e-mails went on for awhile. Back and forth.  I gained a little confidence and prior to our first vacation in August (the Sheepfarmer and I went to Paris) I had written her a long letter (e-mail) with tidbits about my life: gardening, canning, photos, dinners, animals, favorite books, the Sheepfarmer, etc.  Just a little bit about my day to day asking about her day today, somewhat light and nothing about the past. 

A few, long weeks later I received the birth photos and announcement.  

A beautiful baby boy...and a thank you for the paintings I had made for him.  

My daughter also allowed me be her FB Friend so that I could "see their life with the baby". 

On the one hand, I am thrilled to see her so happy and well accompanied by family and friends.    I am also embarrassed...these people (FB Friends) have never seen me as part of her family.   She names my ex-husband's wife as her mother. It is them in the picture doting on the baby.  
Three years ago, she had written me to tell me I would not be invited to her wedding.  I am truly the outsider looking in.  The untrusted neighbor who stands at the door and has not been invited inside.

I am tortured in knowing I share no part of her life. None.  

I thought I had played it safe,  safe enough for her to come out from under the bush and get to know me..like a wild, feral kitten.

Logically,  I know that a relationship between us will not exist until she is ready to forgive me.  Maybe I didn't try hard enough to win her back in the past?  Maybe I wasn't strong enough to stay and let myself keep feeling so hurt? 

Maybe I just have to admit to not knowing what happened?

I keep seeing us on a suspension bridge hanging between the mountains.  

In high winds. Rocking back and forth.

I reach and step and stumble and fall.  In the dark.  

We can't seem to find our way to eachother.  

This seems to be the pattern between us...when she reaches out to me, I stumble and fall.  I scare her off.

I thought I had come a long way in 15 years, but sometimes I must have been walking in circles. 

My true authentic happiness?  As long as I stay in it, I am fine.  

But that also means feeling strong enough to allow myself to feel the presence of her loss. 

How do I hope and pray and allow myself to feel that void?  

I have faith that someday the bridge will not be rocking in high winds.  
And it will not be dark...

                        

Secret Chapel of St Marie Madeleine (Mary Magdalene)

          When we went to take care of some of the sheep the other day, 
        I discovered a small chapel on the grounds of the "new" pastures.

           This is the chapel of St Marie Madeleine (Mary Magdalene).  

It has been here since medieval  times...offering refuge to those in need.  

"Mary Magdalene cured by Jesus of an unknown, severe  illness; becomes the leader of a group of women disciples who follow Jesus, provide for him financially, and listen first-hand to Jesus' teachings; first witness of the Resurrection; first evangelist, since she is told by Jesus to 'tell the others'; she brings the news of the Resurrection to the other disciples, including Peter and John" . I also do not abide in the rhetoric that she was a prostitute.  I think she was a strong person with obvious leadership qualities and those qualities were less accepted of a woman in those times than even today.

There is an inscription in the supporting stonewall that reads :

"Your heart is my tomb.  I am not Dead, but I rest always living within you"  

  
unknown monk, 13th century.

I am not particularly religious (perhaps more "spiritual"), but I find the quote particularly reassuring...and beautiful.

                                 The chapel was a complete ruin.  

             The current landowners restored it at their costs in 2008...

                                    beautifully and respectfully. 

Notice the stonewall to the right of the door.

It is not in guidebooks, but he who wanders by will find it open.

                On July 22, the mass for St Marie Madeleine is celebrated there...

                                  beautifully and respectfully.

Sheepfarmer and His Sheepdog

Today we gathered sheep.  This is a group of sheep that is set to lamb after Christmas, hence they are still free to roam.  They are kept in meadows close to St Pee Sur Nivelle or Senpere in Basque.  They were checked and vaccinated.

         The sheep were cornered and gathered to be led into a holding pen.

                                              The sheep eyeing the Sheepdog

                              The Sheepdog eyeing his sheep

               Sheepfarmer and Sheepdog guiding the sheep into the pen.

                                      Ready to be vaccinated.

    The ones with blue marks had their hooves trimmed and the purple ones have already received their vaccines (like whooping cough).

                                    Slowly let out of the pen and verify their number

Sheepdog holds them until asked to release them.

The sheep do not really fear the Sheepdog.  

He is their supervisor.

Once in awhile when one escapes or one gets out of line Sheepdog will munch a wee bit of wool off its behind.

Productive morning.  Let's go get that coffee.

Toussaint in the Village

         Yesterday was Toussaint, All Saint's Day, in the Village. 
This French holiday is equivalent in importance to Thanksgiving in the US.  

      People return home to their origins to pay homage to their ancestors.

And so families (mostly women) clean and prepare the family plots for the "Thanksgiving" and the return of their families to their roots.  It is a matter of pride to have the family tomb be as presentable as can be prior to the Toussaint mass and gatherings at the sites.

I think I understand the French (Basque) mentality to aging and the respect of individual beauty.  

There is not an aversion to death.  Although no one is in a hurry to get there, it is considered a natural evolution.  

    

A part of life to be respected and honored.

                               Peace and reassurance abound

                           and the views are nothing short of spectacular

It takes your breath away.