Time for a beer... Ooops, sorry!... an update...

Well, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since my last post...
but we are waiting with bated breath to see if it will continue to flow.

The view from the bridge towards the weir...

The authorities in Indre-et-Loire have decided to have a major 'clean up' of the river system to try and help the native Brown Trout [Salmo trutta fario] Truite fario and other species [eg; the Eels [Anguilla anguilla] Anguille d'Europe increase in number.

So far here this has resulted in work to the river bed of the Aigronne...
which we blogged about here and also here...
but now it is the turn of the banks [or berges] along our stretch to be fettled.
Yohann, the River Technician, wants our stretch to remain pretty much as is...
too much having been removed either side of us.
He has identified a couple of trees that will need to be dealt with...
but these can be 'tetard'ed [pollarded in English] and I have identified some others that I would like to have done...
and these will be included.

What is worrying us, however,  is what will be happening with the millstream [bief]....
there has just been a meeting with Richard, our neighbour, concerning his vanne [sluice in English] and the impedance of fish migration that it supposedly causes.
If they cannot come up with a method of helping the trout, etc. pass it...
they are talking about destroying the weir [barrage] at the end of our property.
That will leave the millstream as a series of stinking pools in the summer...
full of mozzies...
not nice at all.
Not for us, our health and our future.
It would probably mean that we would have to infill with rocks to create a dry bed in the summer...

The wier at the end of our property

Just as worrying is the fact that this will also destroy the water gradient across the meadow...
depriving the new willows and the existing vegetation of water in the summer months.
The type of vegetation that we have in the water meadow has evolved to survive in damp places...
things like the reedgrass, the Ragged Robin [Lychnis flos-cuculi] Fleur de Coucou and the Snake's-head Fritillary [Fritillaria meleagris] Fritillaire pintade....

It will also destroy history.
The bief has been in place since the 11th Century...
supplying waterpower to two mills.
The trout managed happily then...
and aren't impeded by Richard's sluice as he has it open when they are migrating anyway...
as would have been the old mill sluices.
[This to avoid damage in winter when the water is flowing at its fastest and strongest.]

The fishermen, however, to make up for the loss of native Brown Trout...
have been introducing trout...
apparently these are 'triploid' females and therefore infertile.
The native males now have a one in four chance of meeting a fertile female which.... 
surprise, surprise....
decreases their recovery still further.
The fish farms create the infertile females by giving the eggs an electric shock...
it is in their interest to create these, as people have to keep going back for more.
And they will go back for more of these...
they increase in weight far more quickly than the fertile native females!

One of two Brown Trout caught in an electrical fishing survey near our house!!

We wait!!

But not with bated breath...
not in France!!

One man went to mow...

...went to mow a meadow! At the moment in my case, it is one man and his cat to follow on.

We have around two hectares to mow....
that's around five acres in English money...
and the grass needs to be removed...
to lower the fertility and allow the weaker species to grow more successfully...
and hamper the efforts of  les orties* [nettles].

To mow we have "Betsy"...
our big two-wheel tractor with its 53" cutter bar.
To rake we have me and a Bulldog wooden rake...
so at the moment we slowly get a field full of humps and rows that become humps....
and humps that become bigger humps....
and so on....
and on!

Driving Betsy... the grimace is obligatory (as is the hat!)

When Betsy arrived she wasn't heavy enough at the cutter bar, so a cut of around three inches...
[or fifteen centimetres... I am of old measure]...
became a one foot high trim whenever the wheel hit a molehill.
It was very tiring to use and left me aching...
then the suppliers Trackmaster sent me two weights to attach to the bar and all changed...
she still bucks at humps but it is easier to get the front down again and she is, overall, more controllable...
which is vital when working near the willows!!

It is a big meadow.... this is the smaller bit....

The other reason for being able to mow large areas quickly and easily is that the meadow has Creeping Thistle [Cirsium arvense] Chardon des champs...
which needs to be kept cut before it flowers and the wind dispersed seed blows everywhere.
This is what the Wildlife Trusts have to say on the subject.
So you can see that it would not be beneficial to the birds to erradicate it completely...
not that I think I could!!

The selected areas of nettles [*les orties] that I am mowing are to reduce their competition with the grass.
I have no intention of trying to win the that battle either as...
[1] we want the butterflies that use nettle as a foodplant for the young... and
[2] we use the nettles as fertilizer and occasionally as food.
Well, that's my excuse, anyhows!!

Still mowing.... here at least you can see one of the paths along the edge of the bief (millstream).

Betsy is manufactured in Italy by part of the Ferrari works and moves at walking pace...
so I'm driving one of the slowest Ferraris on the planet....
but there is a big advantage with that...
we are working the land for the wildlife it contains and being able to stop instantly and walk forward to inspect for nests when birds fly up is a great help...
also, by cutting the grass and not chopping it with a flail or a whirling blade, allows the grass to fall aside and allows small beasts to fly, walk, run away.

Occasionally I get flying voles...
these rocket out of the grass and run along on the top, before diving back into the sward...
when they run ahead, this is usually repeated a few seconds later.

One of the first 'humps' is visble to my right in this picture.... it grew as the year wore on....
and had finished at around this height when I mowed through it last week.
We will be able to harvest compost from the bigger of these piles.

Betsy has another attachment...
a big wood-chipper that can handle up to three inch trunks....
but that's another posting.

/|________________________________________________|\

* Les Orties = The Nettles

(Thank you Susan for the correction.  

[The Nettles is a Celtic band - J.Nettles is an actor])