Return of the Mountain Woman

The dirt under my nails, the broken nail of my middle finger, the nicks and cracks from wind, dryness, cold and constant washing, I have earned my moutiain hands back. My mountain legs are still to follow, but with the little hikes here and there, plus the general terrain of the land, I presume I’ll have them back in no time.

Crate after crate of strawberries, looking for a new home...

Strawberry beds galore!!

The garden is really coming along! Most of our work has been on the strawberry beds. We have unearthed the strawberries, amended the land, and re-planted them in orderly black plastic row cover. It’s been minscule work, crate after crate of strawberries to plant and water, though, with the thought of a sea of red, juicy strawberries come May, I’m motivated to keep digging and planting. 

It’s been colder than I had expected. We’ve had a few nights of frost, one morning we awoke to -2 degrees celcius! The water hoze was frozen and the basil and curcubites we had, including some tomatoes died from frost bite. This frost-killing has been a new experience for me. In California, I’ve been used to planting almost anything at anytime; and here, it’s a whole other beast.

Lesson 1: planting basilic (basil) in Apirl is not safe and too soon.

Lesson 2: buying tomatoes and cucurbite (squash family) seedlings are not safe without a greenhouse of some sort.

Lesson 3: Always trust your gardener gut. Some tomatoes did surive the frost, and a purple basil. So I decided they needed warmth at night and had been bringing them into they honey house. But then, one night, Jorris said that plants ought to be outside since humidity is not good for the honey and there was not going to be a frost, so following his words, agasint my garden gut, I agreed. And the next morning, they died :/

It all begins with LOVE.

And, actually, on the very bright side, the lettuce bed I created is thriving. So, all in all, in the general scope of the garden; we are doing well.

It’s also been pleasureable re-planting the calendulas which Philippe unearthed from somewhere in the garden. I hope they do well; they are cute and I love them in salads, and they are nourishing for skin and I want to explore using them in personal care products.

My first batch of soap!!!!!

Mixing lye into water can be dangerous. photo by Arnaud

2nd batch of soap with honey, beeswax, lavender essential oil. Photo by Arnaud

These make nice little gifts. 

My 3rd batch of soap!!!

Lavender: buds, honey, essential oil and beeswax. 

I have made a few different types of soaps successfully!! It’s been fun calculating, mixing, researching...and making. This week I made my my third batch of soap, with lavender honey, beeswax, essential oil and lavender buds. They will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks.

And, the first batch I made last week, Jorris and I tested out and it feels wonderful! Cleansing, nourishing and bubbly. In a few more weeks, they will get harder and be ready to last longer in the shower.

 

My lip balms and lip butter experiments. 

I’ve also been making various lip balms with bees wax, olive oil, shea butter, and lavender honey, lavender essential oil and geranium essential oil. They feel nice as well and my farm friends have been enthused to try them.

The cold has been the hardest for me to adjust to. I was expecting it to feel like Summer already, coming from California where it was 70-80 degrees F when I left. But, c’est la vie. I just have to be patient for the warmth of Summer to come, though, we have had nice sunny days already.

Left to Right: Ysé, Arnaud, moi, & Enguerran. Photo by Jorris

We’ve also had the company of some great wwoofers. All from France, Ysé, Arnaud and Enguerran. They are all kind and work hard. We have had good laughs in between plantings of les pomme de terres (potatoes) and les chou vertes (green cabbage), and mostly when teaching one another English and French vocabulary.

Through cooking food and sharing meals together, we got to know eachother more, and at least for me, better understand what it means to be human and to realize how small our world really is.

Take Arnaud for example. He is a dancer, tall, lean, with curly blonde moppy hair, and dazzling light-hearted energy. He speaks English pretty well and at the kitchen table, when he first arrived, we chatted a little about who we are and where we are from, and I found out that he lived in California for 3 months! And, not only California, but the world gets smaller, he lived in Silverlake! And, yes, it gets even smaller, I kid you not, he danced at the “Sweat Spot”which is right down the street from where I lived last year before my journey to France. We got all excited discovering this place we had in common knowledge and continued reminiscing about Los Angeles, the traffic, the coffee shops we both knew. C’est incroyable!

Arnaud and Ysé cooking lunch.

One of my favorite aspects of hosting wwoofers is trading kitchen secrets and recipes. Ysé was a chef cooking vegan food and selling at a small market table. Together we made arancinis, an Italian dish fried rice balls with cheese or veggies or meat stuffed inside. I love cooking with like-minded, creative chefs, who use what ingredients are on hand with what tools are on hand to make something delicious and beautiful.

The night before, we had made rice, and it just turned out terribly gooey. So for lunch the next day, she had the idea of making arancinis. And we had left over mixture of shitake mushrooms, red bell pepper and onions that I had tossed together as stuffing for roasted eight-ball squash. So she rolled the gooey rice with the stuffing and made a mixture of bread crumbs and mozarella to roll the balls in for a crusty layer before frying.

Gooey rice with added bread crumbs and parmesean cheese.

Sauteéd Shitake mushrooms, bell peppers and leeks. 

Add the mushroom mixture to the middle of rice flattened in hands. 

Roll into a ball and coat with more bread crumbs.

Fry!

Ysé! Chef of Villetale Haute! 

Then, the next afternoon, there was some more left over rice which Jorris used to mix his mixture of sauteed zucchini and onions. And, there were some left over bread crumbs, so I made some more aranchinis and they tasted even better with Jorris’ additional flavors and veggies. I bet Ysé would be proud back in Paris.

My arancinis!

They were delicious!

Another French recipe of her own which she has tweaked and she shared with me was Pain d’épices de Ysé. It is a typical spice bread with ginger, cardomom, nutmeg, honey and some sugar for texture. So good with tea and yogurt! She showed me how to make it step-by-step. Everytime I make Pain d’épices de Ysé, I’ll think of her. 

Warm spice bread just out of the oven.

Re-kindling with French friends and fellow agricultural producers has been so joyful for me. Community is so important and we have a great community of local organic and non-organic producers who have come together to sell products a few days a week at a store we’ve put together in an old building in  the local village of Puget Théniers. We well each work the cash register once a week. Our honeys sit lovely on beautiful wooden shelf, next to the other local artisinal wool socks, olive paste, organic beer, pickled eggs, quail eggs, chicken eggs, jams and other sweets of the moutain like dandelion jam, and of course cheese: brebis (sheep) and vache (cow); there are also various meats from local farmers as well.

Our honeys and essential oils sit with handmade wool socks.

Pickled quail eggs and farm fresh chicken eggs. 

Artisanal Beer also sold at the Puget Théniers collective store. 

Puget Store of artisanal goods, a joint effort of our local artisinal producers.

Jorris and I did our share of work at the store this past Friday from 4-7pm. I was the cheese girl, in charge of slicing various cheeses customers wanted. It was neat to wear someone else’s shoes for a little, even if in the slightest way.  

Fromage de brebis with thyme.

I feel invited and a part of the team. It’s been lovely to see our friends: Nicolas, our cheesemaker of cows; Marie and Samuel, their son Emile, our other cheesemakers of sheep; Thierry and his wife who make the olive paste, and other familiar faces. I’m exctied to get to know everyone better and to improve my Francais, though I am pleased to have been told by Nicolas and Philippe that my French is better. And, they are not sugar-coaters of words, so I really take what they say to heart.

Meet Pat, the newest member of our Villetale family. 

And, the best news of all, our sweet farm dogs Kan and Pat have returned to Nicolas and Ivette’s house where they ran off from. “The Call of the Wild,” Philippe calls it. They had been away for 3 weeks. Pat, the puppy, which means Paw in French, because he has big paws and always gives you a paw when you pet him, came back Monday night, famished, a skeleton of exhaustion. But, everyday he gets stronger. Kan had not returned with him.

Jorris lounging with Pat and Kan in L'Esterel. 

But yesterday, Jorris and I went to pick up Pat and took a hike in the woods in search of Kan. Jorris whistled the Kan whistle which gets his attention and I loudly called his name. Jorris called his name too and our call echoed through the valley. Although we didn’t find him yesterday, Ivette called and reported that he returned today!!! We were so thrilled, beyond words. We will pick him up tomorrow morning. Perhaps he heard our call or he was just ready to come back. In any case, Jorris and I jumped up and down, and Jorris cried. It was sweet to see. Now our little Villetale Haute family is complete and reunited.

*photos by Tiffanie Ma or otherwise stated.