Sweltering August

The elderberries, sloes and hawthorns are starting to ripen. The hedgerows thicken with flashes of autumn - burgundy and crimson, mulberry and glistening aubergine so dark it whispers of black. All our guests have left and with their departure, the searing heat returns. A fog of illness casts its shadow as Matthew and I are over-taken by a heavy cold and fever, only the necessary chores are conducted. Every other day requires all water troughs to be filled and the relentless sun means that the fields are turning to dust so hay must also be carried to every group of cows. Our already low stock is diminishing quickly before our eyes. Each new sweltering day is becoming a disappointment and suddenly, I understand why farmers are so obsessed with the weather. The weather apps tease with the promise of a storm, but everyday it feels just out of reach.

I can smell the rain in the air. I stand on our doorstep, the wind whipping at the acacia trees in front of the house, the skies deepening blue-grey above them. The storms are circling around us. It is raining somewhere, but will it ever reach us? The last few days have been unbearably hot as the temperature passes 40 degrees, the humidity building alongside. We are desperate for rain. The cows and sheep are hunkered down in the shadiest spots they can find. We hide indoors, thankful for the thick stone walls that temper the heat at this time of year, only going outside when we have to. There have been wild fires licking ever closer as the arid days have passed on, the smell of smoke drifting on the air from a fire, closer than is comfortable, reports of 15 hectares lost in a neighbouring commune, everyone is just praying that they aren’t next. I stand on the doorstep wishing for rain. The odd drop reveals its proximity but I fear that will be all tonight. When does one seriously start to consider resurrecting the rain-dances of my forefathers??? My Native American ancestry stirs.

The now infamous escaping cows of July have been relatively content for a couple of weeks. They have been moved back onto their hill from where they can survey the comings and goings of the village: Guy tending to his potatoes; Odette watering her beautiful potager; Jacque, the mayor, taking hay to his Comtois horses; the cows seemed calm and settled once more. For several weeks now, due to the drought, they have been provided with water and hay, and have plenty of shade… so once again we find ourselves asking what more could they possibly want when Matthew phoned me from his morning rounds to tell me that once more, they were missing. In an ironic twist, they had repatriated themselves to the field that they had previously refused to stay in, where a little fresh grass had grown. We decided to let them eat it off, so once more moved their water troughs and electric fencing unit to them, and once more they appeared content….for 48 hours at least.

It is a beautiful place to live, nestled deep in the embrace of the Creuse foothills, sheltered and hidden by the wooded thickets and ancient landscape. It is particularly striking by early morning light, the glow of sunbeams bouncing off the departing shadows of the night before; and this morning, we are experiencing it in all its splendour as we stand in a road next to the neighbouring hamlet, contemplating our cows grazing in someone else’s field again, only this time, they have wondered several kilometres from our farm. We know we have to get them home, and we reside to putting them into the barn until we can make a plan to curb their adventuring, but we aren’t entirely sure how we are going to get them their. We have two options, we run them down several kilometres of roads, turning at crossroads, and scaling the village bridge or we run them back through the fields from whence they came. Both options have their pitfalls but we do know one thing, we need help. Madi is in the UK with her boyfriend so Matthew makes an early morning to call to our friends Adam and Ruth. Adam and Ruth have farmed here for 18 years and have been friends of ours for several years now, and luckily live 10 minutes away. We make the decision to run them back through the fields: 7 fields, and through the village, all hoping that none of them make other plans en route. We start; Matthew calls them on from the front, I keep them together and watch for stragglers from behind, Adam and Ruth put guiding strings up through the village and wait to steer them into the yard and then the shed. It is a long walk but the cows move steadily as we need them to and by mid-morning, they are safely locked in the shed, unable to escape again but handing us another problem: what are we going to do with them in the longer term? We thank Adam and Ruth for their aid and reaffirm our plans to meet later in the day to go and visit a chateau that is being renovated locally - a rare trip out for four tired farmers.

It is early one Saturday morning when Matthew receives an unexpected phone call from a man that we had given his phone number to back in April and we had no more time to think further on. Christophe, by pure coincidence comes from a village close to where we used to live, the same village that Sam and Madi had gone to school in when we first moved to France, he is a farmer but he is also a ‘sourcier’, a man who dowses for water, and on the back of his success with this skill, he has a business locating and drilling for water, and installing watering systems for farms; he is a man that we are thrilled to hear is on his way to see what he can find for us. Having gone through the summer carting water out to the livestock, and realising that it is taking about 12 hours out of our week (let alone the fuel costs and wear and tear on the tractor), we are keen to find a solution. Within 10 minutes, Christophe has established a water course that runs behind the cattle shed and is confident in his ability to get to it. He leaves us with a quote for the works and plenty to research and think about but we are excited at the prospect and it energises us into the end of the month.

By the end of August, the weather finally begins to break. Much more manageable temperatures and some overcast, damp days do not go unwelcomed, and bring with them a renewed energy; a feeling of touching upon Autumn. As the northern hemisphere begins to prepare for the ending of the year, Autumn heralds a time of beginnings on the farm. For us Autumn signifies calving, and the sowing of next years crops; now is a time for preparation and tidying, and we look up from the dragging heat, we see plenty to be done. I spend a few days flailing off old dried grass and weeds in the hope of revitalising the fresh growth below - we are hopeful that with a kind Autumn we will be able to make some extra silage in November maybe. Matthew clears away the last of the hay, silage and straw from the fields and the shed begins to fill with winter stores, not enough at this time, but it is nice to see nonetheless. We load up the trailer and take, the first of many loads of rubbish to the local tip, some of ours, but much of it left behind by the previous occupant; it is barely a beginning of what needs to be sorted and disposed off, but it is a beginning at least and the first time since we moved that we have had a moment to be able to think about the un-necessary. It feels like a productive time. I begin to plan the first sowings of flower seeds - sweet peas, larkspur, orlaya, yarrow…all hoping to produce flowers early in the season next Spring. It is refreshing to be thinking forward instead of fighting through the day-to-day, the never-ending struggle to get on top, let alone ahead. We always said that the first year would be hard but as we celebrate one year on our new farm, it actually feels like we may cresting the brow.