Green golfers

The piece of grass I optimistically call my 'top lawn' is beginning to look like a tee box. Look at those divots!

Towards the end of the working day, Kevin invariably asks me if I'd like to 'hit a few balls'. He's re-created a circular patch of scrub that he calls 'the green'. It doesn't have a hole, as such, but it does have a flag. It's a par three hole (without a hole...). There's now a second green somewhere near the edge of the top field, but there's no flag there yet; he's asked me to make one at Sewing Club (seriously).

Can you see the flag?

There it is!

When we bought this property, we didn't fully appreciate how onerous three hectares is, and because most of our energies are focused on renovating cottage #1, it doesn't receive the attention it needs... apart from the golfy bits. I call the land 'fields', but our French neighbour farmer calls it 'our park'. He's not being funny. Whenever he talks about the hedgerows that he's managing between our two properties, he talks about 'the trees that divide your park and my park'. It makes me feel slightly titled.

Kevin gave the sit-on mower a thorough service and clean up last week. At night! Kevin should know that I'm fully aware of his motivations. It was actually nothing to do with the weather getting warmer. It was simply to entice me out there in 'the park' to trim his golf course.

And on this farm, we have a ruin. To be honest, all of our buildings are ruins, but this one is definitely beyond help. Undaunted, I decided to liberate it from its ivy and bramble straight-jacket in order to investigate the idea of creating a little romantic nook. Clearing it has not been romantic. Despite wearing thick gloves, my arms and hands are nicely lacerated. It's my firm belief that hacked-down plants fight back, so it was inevitable that a flicky fat frond of bramble would rip into my face, cutting my nose, brow, cheek, lip and chin. Nice one. Ever the secret pessimist, it is my (secret) opinion that, once the vegetation is removed, the whole lot will tumble...

I was carefully sorting bits of kindling and bits of bramble (all cut to my regulation 6 - 8 inches) into two separate barrows, one destined for the back of the wood shed, and the other to be wheeled into the back of the trailer. Kevin dumped it all in the trailer and told me to stop cutting. Just dump, he says. 

The only thing holding the stones together. apart from the trees and ivy, is air. And lizard poop.

A bread oven opening...

Where the bread oven itself should be... That Dahl-esque contraption is an oat-crusher, I think. It's bolted to a great slab of concrete, which is a bit disappointing, aesthetically... It can't possibly have been used in that position, as the delightful corrugated metal roof gives only a small squeeze gap for oat-dumping.

The wood shed is becoming unmanageable...

And we've still got all of this lot to store...
You've noticed the missing barn roof metal panel? We nailed back the ones that blew off recently, but this one has disappeared.

Kevin tries to 'just dump' straight from tree to trailer. Missed!
We've made two trips to the decheterie already, great tangled mounds of thorny green and brown.

I thought it would be amusing to take a photo of our park from Farmer Joel's park! He he... The white blob mid-left is cottage #1.