Morning sounds:
Symphonic bird (oiseaux) song emanating from the sycamore (platanes) trees
Baaaaaahs and bells clinking from the sheep (moutons) and their Spring babies in the shepherd’s field over the hill
Chattering squirrels (écureuils) jumping from the pine (pins) to the oak trees (chenes)
Whinnying horses (chevaux) grazing in nearby pastures
Cooooo coooo coooo-ing from the doves (tourterelles) I feed with seeds scattered on the ground in front of the workshop
Murmuring chickens (poules) laying their tasty eggs in the coop just over the wall
The 18 dogs (chiens) next door barking for their breakfast — my next door neighbors are proud boar (sanglier) hunters
In fact, we’re having sanglier stew for our Sunday lunch today. My next door neighbors … these people, this family — just over the stone wall separating my side of the long narrow farmhouse from theirs — welcome me with interest, smiles, and help, so much help! Wood delivered to my yard — kindling, medium-sized wood, a phone call to the woodcutter to bring three cords of 50cm logs — which fuels my enormous open fireplace, the only heat in this farmhouse (mas) dating from 1640. Apparently I’ll be cool come summer scorching heat … But for now, this old house, with stone walls two-feet thick, holds the cold winter/spring air.
Three cheap electric radiators, hastily purchased the day after I arrived, attempt to stave off the cold, but really, they only heat the air a few inches in either direction.
A month and a half ago, when I arrived here on March 4, I stayed in bed as long as possible, the only place warm enough aside from sitting on the hearth of the fireplace. Ten days later, still bleary from jet lag, France instilled our shelter-in-place (le confinement, in local parlance “le confi”).
Without wifi for the first three weeks and with intermittent countryside cell service, my morning coffee routine consisted of attempting to eke out some understanding from the local Provence online news service and still pulling up the CNN app on my little phone screen to read the harrowing news.
Now, six weeks later, I have wifi and TV but can’t bring myself to ingest any news. Now, in late April, I can feel the nights becoming warmer. The days are glorious when the sun shines — it often does. Le confi? I barely notice it.
So my morning coffee routine now consists of listening to the birds and the sheep, watching the sun reflect pink on the tips of the Alpilles mountain range in front of my house, the pink glow descending as the sun rises. Yoga, shower, dress, and go find my neighbor Jean-François, a retired farmer, who is always up to something. “What’s happening in the hamlet?” I ask him every morning. He smiles when I call it a “hamlet.” He and his family have been the sole owners here and on all the surrounding land for generations. So it’s not really a hamlet, it’s just one family. But to me, it’s a hamlet.
Today in the hamlet, for example, we celebrated Jean-François’ mom’s 86th birthday. I gushed “I’ll be happy if I look as good as you at 86!” Her other son Claude, whose property I purchased, walked by and winked, smiling …
“it’s the country air”
Champagne and crémant, cake, more cake, flowers in a yogurt jar, provençal tablecloth, all of us — me and this family — around the table in the shade of the 200-year-old lilac bush planted by their ancestors. Old family photos were brought out. I left after my first glass of champagne, wanting to give them family-time perusing their history. Up on the hill, pulling dead stems from flower bushes, I heard them sharing stories and laughing the rest of the afternoon.
One morning, I took a long walk with Jean-François’ 88-year-old dad Jeannot, who admitted, “I can walk far but not fast.” Jeannot showed me all their family land, acres and acres of fields, pastures, olive orchards, open space, rising from our mas almost to the foot of the Alpilles. He showed me how to spot wild thyme, onions, sage, and mint. He’s big talker, always with a story to share or news to report, always with a twinkle in his eye.
On Sundays we eat hours-long meals together and play raucous rounds of pétanque on the sloping, pebble-filled yard — hardly a level, consistent pétanque pitch. The unevenness makes it more challenging and full of surprises!
Indeed. This country life is not easy — there is so much work to do — but it is challenging and full of life. Since my arrival, I have breathed this countryside air, heard these countryside sounds, lived this countryside life. Walking around the property, I find myself smiling, whistling, humming, even laughing to myself out loud … full-hearted happy. I have wanted this life for as long as I can remember.
In French, the garden around the house is called “le jardin” and the vegetable garden is called “le potager.” It’s helpful and more specific to have two different words, not just “garden.” And there is so much work to do! My jardin is huge, with lush green lawn needing weekly mowing, and flowers, trees and shrubs all around and up on the hill around the pool, with more property and plants behind the house. My potager is enormous, about 1/4 acre (800 m2), and will be gardened biodynamically (more organic than organic).
This first year, only one-quarter will be veggie garden; the other three-quarters will have cover crops to nourish the soil. Little by little, much progress has been made.
The design was drawn and staked out. Jean-François tilled using Claude’s hefty tractor, breaking up the compacted soil which had been a horse pasture for 25 years, and an apple orchard before that. Claude left me a huge pile of horse manure as compost, perfect for the soil. Jean-François and Claude’s sunny, bright daughter Maria helped me lay down compost on the potager beds. We made two compost piles and added the biodynamic preparations as prescribed.
Jean-François designed and we installed the irrigation system, with all the complex bits and pieces. We’ve sown cover crop seeds. Yesterday we — or I should say he, Jean-Francois — did the backbreaking work of rototilling in preparation for planting. I would be completely lost without Jean-François and his long, deep experience as a farmer, and without his steady, sturdy, generous willingness to help me. He is my garden angel! I’ve started melons and peas and tomatoes, which Jean-François chides with a smile, saying, “You won’t have tomatoes before September!” And I’m sure he’s right, and I don’t care. I will have tomatoes. This year. On my land. In my potager. Here in Provence.
I don’t care that I have only the furniture, appliances, and tools loaned to me by Claude: a bed, sofa, armchair, coffee table, fridge, stove, washer/dryer, wheelbarrow, rake, shovel, hoses, buckets. Nor that I only have a few kitchen items loaned to me by my French family: one pot, one pan, three forks and spoons, one loaf pan (for making zucchini bread for the neighbors — it’s the only thing I can think of to do for them, in return for all the help they offer me daily). I don’t care that I drink wine and champagne and water out of little “Ricard” (pastis) glasses that Jean-François lent me. Their generosity floors me.
I don’t care that right after I moved in the bathtub leaked down into the kitchen, or that the pool pump broke, or that the water heater drips, or that I can’t figure out which pipe (tuyau) waters the garden and which pipe waters the hillside.
When le confi is over, furniture and kitchen items will be bought. Repairs are slowly being made. I am figuring out the tuyaux. My friend Frédéric painted me a painting of the breathtaking view from my front door. My container with my few things and artwork just arrived.
I have (almost!) mastered the finicky fireplace — opening the front door to create a draft before lighting, adding the right mix of paper, cardboard, kindling, medium-sized wood, and when all-ablaze, adding the logs. At first I was running back and forth from the kitchen to the fireplace, trying to keep my dinner from burning and the fire from extinguishing. Now the scene is calmer. I used to run out of paper to burn and had to go over to Jean-François’ to get paper, often enormous empty paper bags of rice he uses to feed his dogs. But now I have mountains of packing paper from my shipment, all the paper I’ll need for a year! A happy day is one when I prepare the fireplace early in the day for the evening fire, sweeping the ash from the fireplace into a metal bucket and adding the necessaries, so all I need to do is light it right before dinner. Simple pleasures.
So for right now, I have everything I need, and more. I have space, countryside air, countryside sounds, the best neighbors imaginable, and endless outdoor physical work. Simple pleasures. Great fortune.
I’m waking up to the life I have always wanted. It is finally here. I am happy. Grateful. Feeling so damn lucky.
