Animal Wars

It must be something about the autumn air… today I spied the chickens bullying the ‘nutty dog’ out of his favourite treat – a walnut. Our chocolate Labrador is truly a ‘fruit and nut case’, I’ve mentioned before his passion for picking fruit from the trees but he also is very partial to nuts and in particular walnuts. We have two huge walnut trees in the garden and he finds the nuts that fall from the tree, caries them carefully to a sunny spot and settles down to a little feast. He breaks open the shells with just enough force from his powerful jaw to crack the hard outer layer then opens them with great skill before extracting every particle of the tender and tasty nut inside, leaving just the clean shells. He does this with the precision of a skilled craftsman.

The ‘west highland witch’ often hangs around while he does this and cadges scraps off the bigger dog, her jaws are not powerful enough to crack the nuts so if she finds them she just carries them off and buries them in the garden… leading to an explosion of walnut seedlings all over the place! But now the ‘nutty dog’ is being hounded by the chickens too. Whenever he settles down to a walnut snack, up the garden they run at the first sound of a walnut shell crack and with no fear just peck the nuts out from under his nose….

However I think the chickens should take care… yesterday our two cats were sitting in the sunshine in front of the house when the chickens came to see if there was any spare bread or cake for their afternoon tea. Refined chickens we have… between 4 and 5pm they pop up to the house where they know there will be a cup tea for me and some scraps of something from the kitchen I’m likely to share with them. Anyway as they waddled and clucked their way up to the door, the cats sat there watching them and I swear I could hear what they were thinking…

The black cat sniffed towards the chicken and put her head on one side as if considering the possibilities ‘it smells like a bird’ she says… ‘it looks like a bird’ the tabby one agrees, ‘beak, feathers, funny skinny feet, stupid expression… bigger than normal though’. ‘Think we could take them?’ the black enquires … ‘definitely’ replies the tabby ‘if we worked together we could, pincer movement, divide and conquer…’ ‘Fancy a bit of fun’ says the black cat stretching her long body and clicking her neck on both sides like a thug. The tabby stretches out first one paw then the other, considers the warm afternoon scene before replying ‘bit warm today for chasing a stupid bird… besides it’s almost supper time, why get all hot and bothered when we can have it silver service?’ ‘Fair point’ says the black jumping onto the warm windowsill ‘I can wait…’ she purrs menacingly at the chickens…

Purple poo, more blackberries and bartering

After several days worry about the health of my chickens I realised that the voluminous bright purple chicken poo all over the garden is not the result of some deadly chicken killer disease but is due to the vast quantity of blackberries the chickens are consuming! So I’m competing both with the dog and the chickens to try for my crop of berries.

More Blackberries
Found a fantastic recipe for Spicy Blackberry Chutney (recipe below) so spent an hour on Sunday afternoon out picking blackberries again, another 3lbs. With my little set of steps, my bramble tackling ‘paint roller’ tool, gloves and basket, I was congratulating myself that neither the dog nor the chickens have the equipment or ingenuity to gather the berries from the top of the hedge. But then I realised they didn’t need to - they had formed a different plan to get those biggest, juiciest berries from the highest branches - they were waiting for me to do the picking for them. Standing in a line under the steps they stood poised to make a grab for all those berries I was knocking off, dropping or throwing away. They're certainly not ‘dumb’ our animals!!

Meanwhile our other dog affectionately known as the ‘west highland witch’ (or often more simply ‘the witch’) was bombing up and down the hedge trying to terrorise the men and dogs walking up the lane beside the garden. The ‘west highland witch’ is, like most other west highland terriers, completely unaware of her diminutive stature and will happily take on all comers; even those with guns! Her pint sized frame is accompanied by a gallon sized bark and she’ll chase after any and all dogs no matter how big or small. She sees it as her role to defend our territory. ‘Nutty dog’ all 50 muscular kilos of him looks on in boredom, he’s not too fond of guns and unless the people come through the gate there’s no chance of bouncing on them so he’s really not interested. And besides there were blackberries to steal.

The men and dogs in the lane were our neighbours and members of the local shoot out looking for game in the woods. Here, as in much of France, they are very proud of the local game and their ability to put meat on the table every month of the year from hunting, shooting or fishing. Pheasant, partridge, rabbit, deer and boar are all plentiful, wild and ‘fair game’, in the literal sense of the expression. As a fierce opponent to fox hunting but very keen on fishing, I have always had mixed feelings about ‘country pursuits’ in the UK. Here it’s not only a popular pastime but a primary source of food for many, and a major part of community life.

Bartering

Our neighbours comprise of a vast extended family of cousins and in-laws who occupy a house and a couple of caravans next door. They work as builders and farm hands, they fix cars, they trade scrap metal, they keep a pig, and they hunt, fish and do whatever it takes to get by. They are all unfailingly polite, speak no English at all, and they are always on the scrounge for stuff. Most often the boys are after a litre of petrol or two-stroke oil to get one of their many motor bikes or ‘cars’ going. They caught on pretty soon after we moved in that my ‘machine nut’ of a husband usually has that sort of stuff hanging about. So round they come, often on a Sunday afternoon, and with a mixture of hand signals and our rubbish French we work out what they want – and so started the most amazing impromptu barter system. We provide them with emergency supply of petrol/oil etc, they do us favours and share with us the spoils of their activities. At first they cleared away a stack of scrap metal from our renovations; then they shared with us tips on where to catch the best fish; after that they started delivering a few fresh trout to us on their way back from successful fishing trips.

So when they appeared at the gate on Sunday evening out we went expecting to fetch the oil can; instead over the gate they handed us a brace of pheasants and waved away any offer of payment! All I can say is that the generosity and neighbourliness that has been extended to us since we arrived in the village in March, despite our truly terrible attempts to learn their language, is sometimes overwhelming. It hardly compares, but I will be making them a big blackberry cake this week.

Now does anyone have any recipes for pheasant…?

Spicy Blackberry Chutney

1lb of Blackberries
1 large Onion – finely sliced
5 oz Caster Sugar
2 tbsp Dijon mustard (I used whole grain which worked very well)

150ml Red Wine Vinegar - The original recipe used White Wine Vinegar but it is easier (cheaper) to get Red Wine Vinegar here and it worked just fine.

Put all the ingredients, except the vinegar, in a large saucepan and stir well. Heat over a medium heat stirring frequently until the blackberries have burst and the onions softened, this takes about 15 minutes. Add the vinegar and let the whole thing simmer, be careful that it doesn’t burn on the bottom. After approximately 15 minutes it should be slightly thickened so that when you draw a spoon across the pan you can see the bottom of the pan for a second.

Pour into a sterilised jar and seal immediately. Can be used immediately but as with all chutney it benefits from waiting a week or two to let the fruit and vegetable flavours come out and mellow the vinegar.