La serre du bois

Today is our tenth day at La Serre du Bois, our final farm in France. Here we have found the best of both worlds as far as the other farms are concerned. At La Petite Mane, we were farming, doing work, and eating wonderfully. They were a little unorganized, but they had only had the farm for 2 years, so it really made sense. At the other stupid place, we were not farming, but we were at least living a semi-hygenic, somewhat organized exsitence. This left us feeling too sterile, and we hoped to revert back to more of the Mane's trademark grunginess. Upon arriving at La Serre, we were thrilled to be introduced to the 200-year old farm house. This place as the character and the work that we loved at La Petite Mane, along with the amenities of the other (ie internet access, flushing toilets, and less mice.)

We speak French here. The couple, Dominique and Cyril, do not speak English. We had hoped to have practiced our French more along the way, but with the unexpected presence of so many Anglophones up until this point, we more or less abandoned French and stuck with our native language. (Which, as always happens to me in France, has become so dear to my heart that I can't even stand it. I always become disillusioned with English when I'm surrounded by such misuse of it all the time, but once I'm away from it, I become obsessed. The ease at which I can navigate it, manipulate it, make fun of it, and convey my most complex thoughts with others really just makes me fall in love with English over and over.)

At La Serre, we are eating the best food we've ever seen. Each meal is a spectacle. We eat fresh, organic vegetables from 300 meters away, picked daily, and prepared by skillful hands. Cyril and Dominique used to have a pizzeria, and they have not forgotten how to cook! We have a dessert and coffee after lunch and dinner everyday. The meals are simple but every one of them delicious. We talk and listen, and discuss such complex topics as music and travel. Derek outshone himself with his conversation about musicians in his second language. I was proud of him! He is doing very well in French. I sometimes do a quick translation to catch him up if a conversation has gotten a little far off topic, but his comprehension is, for the most part, very thorough.

Pictures of La Serre will follow. First, I will digress to explain the pictures of our beach vacation to Gruissan.

We found ourselves in a small delimma- we had purposefully given ourselves 3 days without wwoofing so that we might explore the region a bit as tourists. However, (and somewhat luckily) our second host needed us to leave earlier than expected so that his parents could come visit. We were wanting to go to Barcelona, but now with a minimum of 5 nights in a hotel, things were looking too expensive. Our host offered to let us come back at the end of our trip for a night, but we really really didn't want to ever see him again. So I called Dominique and Cyril and they generously allowed us to come two days early to stay with them. We spent the other 4 nights at the beach nearby, which turned out to be a very welcome and happy vaction.

Me in the Mediterranean! It was cold!

At the beach at sunset.

This one is out of order. It is a little squirrel that jumped down to eat our crumbs after a picnic on our hike. He was so cute!

The view from the hotel at night. Lovely!

Because neither of us are beach rats, we decided to take two long day hikes instead of going to the beach everyday. On this one hike, we saw what seemed to be the French twins of the Humbug Spires in Montana. The hike was really nice and smelled like fresh pine.

Derek on the hike.

This is the countryside surrounding La Serre en Bois.

This is the view out of the bedroom window. That is Cyril sitting at the table with Marjorie, a wwoofer on her last day.

It is unseasonably cold here in Southern France for August, so Dominique lent me a sweater. I wear it with my jogging shorts, and I feel stupid. I'm wearing the sweater right now, though, and I'm very glad to have it. PS, I'm so tan.

I love Pissou.

Their freakishly awesome study/library.

I think that is real.

La Loute! We love Loute. She accompanys me on many walks. She is so smart and very protective. She only speaks French, though. If you say the word in French for "bird of prey" she will look at the sky and freak out. She is trained to chase them off so they don't eat a chick.

Cyril with a wheelbarrow.

Derek and Dominique at the market on Saturday. Look at all of those vegetables! ALL ORGANIC!

I never want to buy non-organic vegetables ever again after realizing how much work goes into the production of organic. I've spent almost 5 hours today weeding a row of carrots. It's a hard life for an organic farmer, but the pride they have for their crop is really something. I'm so happy to have this experience. We're here for another 3 weeks, and I'm ready to learn as much as I can.

Next weekend, we're having a huge party to celebrate Cyril's 50th. It isn't until next month, but the party is this month. There are dozens of people coming, and Derek and I are going to perform some music. I can't wait!