Each day we have two sessions working with the sheep and lambs. After checking for and dealing with new additions to the flock, the unvarying part of each shift is the feeding. I say unvarying but, just as I thought I was getting the hang of it, the rules seemed to change. Nonetheless, whatever the recipe dictated by the professionals, Luc and Nadine, twice a day we feed the Ewes and lambs.

The bergerie (sheep-fold, according to Luc’s French-English dictionary) comprises five enclosures with conveyor belts in between. To feed the ewes, each belt is loaded first with bales of a plant called luzerne. The luzerne is then covered with straw and, finally, barley grains are sprinkled on top. The ewes get interested when the luzerne and straw go down but, when the barley is added, they go absolutely frantic. They are completely addicted. We sprinkle it from a bucket and, with much bleating, they clamber over each other in an attempt to grab it in mid-air before it hits the conveyor belt. It’s good to have one’s efforts appreciated. 🙂

While Luc and I are feeding the ewes, Nadine and Carol feed the lambs. The culinary delight aimed at the lambs seems a little odd, to me, at least. It is a mixture, varying in proportion according to age, of pellets and clay. It’s the clay I’m having trouble with. Clay sounds a bit odd but it clearly works so, so be it.

The youngest lambs and those with special needs receive individual attention. This can be because a mother is not producing enough milk or is not giving enough care and attention to her offspring. Somehow, probably by black magic, Luc and Nadine seem to keep track of this and take special care of individuals. A pretty neat trick with 300 lambs. The care often involves subduing a ewe by pressure on her back, allowing another lamb to suckle while she herself is feeding. (In case you were wondering, that’s what Carol is doing far left.) Today, one lamb even got bottle fed with milk from another ewe.

After our morning shift, Luc asked if we’d like a cassoulet in a local restaurant for lunch. Cassoulet is a regional classic in this part of France and the local restaurant, La Table Cathar, seems to specialize in it. A cassoulet is a “significant”, belly-building meal of regal proportions consisting of haricot beans cooked together with various meats, in this case confit de canard (preserved duck), pork and sausage. I make my own cassoulet at home and love it. If the smallest excuse arises to make a cassoulet, I grab it. It is a carnivore’s dream. However, this would be my first experience of the real thing in France. The cassoulet did not disappoint; it was absolutely magnificent. I will have to adjust my own technique now that I know precisely what I am aiming for. It was a wonderful and educational culinary experience.

A cassoulet is heavy stuff. Exercise after a cassoulet may just about be possible but it is not recommended. We did manage to get up from the table and stagger out to Luc and Nadine’s car but that was pretty much the limit of what was possible. Luc did drive us to a cartoon/caricature exhibition in nearby Castelnaudary (the home of cassoulet) which we managed to stagger around in a brave attempt to help our food settle but all to no avail.

We eventually returned to the farm, still full of cassoulet, to give the sheep their second helping of exactly the same diet. We were still groaning under the weight of our lunch. Fortunately, sheep don’t get bored easily. Neither, it seems, does a mixture of luzerne, straw and barley sit heavily on their stomachs. Once again they went frantic for their barley.

Still groaning after shift two with the sheep, our evening meal consisted of a little soup and green salad … and wine, of course.

OK, every morning starts at 7:00 AM. Let’s face it, ewes pay no heed to some strange human calendar and don’t stop dropping their youngsters just because it happens to be our weekend. No, they drop them when nature demands regardless of when that might be. If ever proof were needed, this morning provided it. We had a bumper crop of a total of eleven sparkling white additions.

Two of the eleven produced some excitement because Luc found it necessary to help one ewe give birth to her pair of lambs. He had told us she would deliver shortly (within 10 minutes) but it didn’t happen. He thought perhaps she had been distracted by another new born lamb and had “forgotten” to deliver her own. Shortly, half of doctor/farmer Luc’s arm disappeared up to the elbow inside the ewe and, after much groping around, reappeared clutching a new lamb. Back in up to the elbow went Luc’s arm for a second lamb.

All was not completely rosy, though; there had been a twelfth lamb but still born. According to Luc, it had been dead in the womb for maybe two weeks but had been delivered along with its healthy, more fortunate twin. Luc put the sad little body in a plastic sack. I have yet to ask how he disposes of such fatalities. A 5% loss is apparently normal. We could help building the six or seven additional crèches but this was definitely a morning for the professionals.

The last of the eleven snuck out behind our backs while its mother and siblings were in one of the new crèches. One moment the ewe had twins, the next there was damp, fresh third lamb. Some ewes produce only one lamb and a few have triplets. Triplets can be a problem, not necessarily because the mother has only two teats but because they may be too weak or there may be insufficient milk. Luc thinks these three are strong enough. We wait to see.

After the morning shift we went to visit a special market, le marché du gras (literally, fat market), in Limoux. Here one of the main attractions is foie gras. I watched fascinated as one trader carefully excised an entire fattened liver from a duck (I think it was duck – a little small for a goose). This stuff may be controversial but it is delicious.

After our second shift tending the sheep, Luc & Nadine took us to visit Toulouse for the evening. We haven’t previously ventured into Toulouse by ourselves. It has an underground train which we took to avoid the hassle of attempting to park in a sizeable metropolis on Saturday evening. Using the underground train was a first for Luc. We had a quick guided walking tour of some of the sights of Toulouse. Well, I say “quick” but it took a couple of hours; it would have been quick but for the ladies being constantly distracted by shops. Somewhat comfortingly, it is the same the world over: the ladies go into every shop while the men remain outside wondering what the fascination is.

Eventually we finished walking and shopping and dined out on Galettes, savoury filled pancakes made of buckwheat flour. That’s another first for us.

After another very full day we returned home at about 11:00 PM to unwind with a Calvados which we had bought on our journey down. Luc and Nadine seem strangely unfamiliar with this French product from Normandy in the north.

Somehow I managed to stay awake in bed ‘til 1:15 AM writing these blog entries. It’s the only time I can find to do it.

Our first morning on the farm began à bonne heure (early), 7:00 AM. We were soon dressed in our farming clothes, not knowing whether or not they would be appropriate, and making our way to the barn where the sheep were kept. It was time to find out what we’d be getting up to. Scary stuff.

The first task in any given shift is checking for new arrivals. While we slept, there had been three tiny white additions to the flock. Why are lambs so painfully cute? Luc has to figure out which lamb belongs to which ewe. That is not always obvious. The process involves unceremoniously picking up a lamb by its front legs and moving it around in the hope that the mother follows, which it normally does. A new crèche is built for each nursing mother to suckle its lamb(s). The crèches are built from sections of fencing tied together with twine. Once erected, a family of lambs is put in and the dutiful mother follows.

Most ewes have twins, we are told, which is handy ‘cos the ewes have two teats. Sometimes, before a lamb can suckle, Luc has to unblock a ewe’s teats which have some kind of bouchon (a plug). Curious. Occasionally the newborn lambs need encouragement to begin suckling. The encouragement involves introducing the lamb to the teat and repeatedly agitating its tail with one’s finger. Day one and I got to help a newborn lamb suckle. Fiddling under its tail with my finger felt a little like bestial paedophilia at first but I soon got over that. According to Luc, the action with the tail mimics the encouraging actions of the mothers, which nuzzle their lambs backsides as they suckle.

There is a second bergerie (barn where the sheep are kept) which we checked later and heard the plaintive cries of another newborn lamb. It took Luc quite a while to locate this lamb’s mother but eventually he did and this family was eventually separated and sent to join the other nursing mothers.

Luc and Nadine were visited by Luc’s parents and his brother’s family (wife and three daughters) for dinner in the evening. We had foolishly/bravely (delete as applicable) brought some English wine and cheese as a small gift. Bringing cheese and wine to France is very much like carrying coals to Newcastle. Nonetheless, some of our English produce was wheeled out and presented to the family. They seemed to like it. Some even came back for more. We breathed sighs of relief.

After a hard day beginning to learn the art of sheep farming followed by a long evening listening to 9 fast native French speakers and, with some difficulty, following very little, we eventually retired, limbs and ears exhausted.

Thankfuly, today promised to be far easier that yesterday. All but the final handful of kilometres were on autoroute, much of which were toll roads so the traffic should be lighter. And so it proved; we calmly covered the 600kms/400mls or so from Orléans to Fanjeaux in a casual seven hours. For most of the way the weather was overcast with some occasional light drizzle but when we passed Toulouse the Mediterranean effect seemed to kick in, the clouds broke and the sun shone. Bliss!

Close to our autoroute exit is a supermarket with relatively cheap fuel so, being a little earlier than we had planned, we decided to call in both to fill up and buy some emergency wine supplies. We filled up first then entered the supermarket and bumped straight into Nadine, our hostess for the coming week. We struggled to keep up with Nadine’s French but had a pleasant reunion alongside the fresh vegetables. Hopefully our ears and brains will warm up and become more accustomed to French while we are here.

We left Nadine to finish her shopping and drove our last 10 kilometres to the farm at Fanjeaux where we eventually found Luc tending his ewes and lambs in the barn. He now has some 280 lambs all of which look painfully cute. He’s had about a 10% infant mortality rate. We may not be very good at that bit.

We still don’t know what we’ll be doing to “help” but it seems we’ll begin to find out at 7:00 AM tomorrow.

Having retired early, to bed, I mean, with great expectation, we were rudely awoken at 2:15 AM by high winds and lashing rain. Eventually we managed to return to sleep only to be awoken, as planned, by the alarm at 4:30 AM. We drank tea, finished loading the car and set off for Dover at 5:30 AM. Our ferry was at 9:15AM and it should be a drive of about 2 hours 15 minutes but I wanted to allow spare time for the grossly unpredictable (ja)M25 on a weekday commute morning.

We needn’t have bothered. after a dream of a journey, just three miles out of Dover we joined a stationary string of vehicles, mostly lorries (trucks, in Amerispeak). The queue did begin moving and we crawled our way into the port of Dover only to join another queue. This queue didn’t move. Actually there were several separate queues for the individual ferry operators. Our P&O queue continued not to move for about 30 minutes. Eventually a radio travel news broadcast explained all: the overnight storms which had rudely awoken us were severe enough to have rudely stopped all ferry services and we were now sitting in the resultant backlog.

The weather having abated, life slowly began to return to normal and we were checked in to embark upon the next ferry, “whenever it can leave”. It did so at 10:55 AM. The crossing was much better than my weak stomach expected and we disembarked in Calais about two hours behind our original schedule. Not bad, considering the severe conditions and disruption.

Our second glitch came at Rouen. The two hour delay appeared to put us smack bang into Rouen’s rush hour. Well, I assume it was rush hour though it was only 4:30 PM. Either way it took us almost 30 minutes to get through and on to open roads again.

We covered the rest of our route without further mishap and finally checked into our B&B Hotel at Orléans at about 7:30 PM very grateful to be there.

There was, however, one final sting in the day’s tail. Access to the rooms at B&B Hotels is controlled by a code number for a key pad. Gasping for my first glass of vino, I entered the code. A red light flashed. Red is usually not good. This was not good; the door failed to open. I tried again. More red flashing lights. I tried a third time to the same result. Back to reception where I was assured that the code was good and that I must wait for a green light. I returned to the room to try again. Still red. A passing B&B-experienced stranger tried for me and got the same red light. Much head scratching. I returned again to reception and eventual prevailed upon the manager to try. Much head scratching. “Go back to reception – it’s warmer.”

After about 15 minutes of effort using some magic gizmo which, as far as we were concerned, might have been a fireman’s axe, the manager managed to gain entrance to our room and let us in. We’ve no idea what the problem was but we didn’t care. The wine didn’t touch the sides.

After a trying day, we slept well.