Ardèche. A name that escapes from your mouth with pleasure. To French people it evokes steep hills, wild country, delicious chestnuts and long rugged river canyons. We would see the look in their eyes when we said we were going to Ardèche.
"Bah oui, c'est très joli! Mais attention, c'est raide!" (Oh yes, it's very beautiful there. But watch out, there are steep hills!" And in fact, all of the above is true, as we would find out. We would come to see that life in Ardèche is challenging, rewarding, and tilted to the remote side of things...
Our first stop was at a WWOOF host's at 850 meters in the village of Curins in the wild heart of Ardèche. Our hosts, Maxime and Marine, along with their 6 month-old baby Mila, made sure that we got a warm welcome to the region...
THE PEOPLE:
Bo hanging with our hosts, Marine and Max, and their daughter Mila (6 months). Marine and Max are modern homesteaders, living in an old (16-17th century) farmhouse and doing everything themselves: growing and selling organic vegetables; collecting wild crops and making jams and preserves; raising chickens and selling fresh organic eggs; harvesting chestnuts, walnuts, apples, pears, etc. for added income and nutrition.
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| Who's that behind the wheel? Every morning here the first thing Bo did was to go see the tractor and make sure it was still there. |
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| Jeff and Bo after a wet walk. The first 3-4 days of our stay featured nearly endless torrential rain and we all went a little stir crazy... |
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| Katy doing her best not to lose her mind. |
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| Max slinging Mila. Max is originally from Lille. |
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| Bo and Mila and Marine playing with tractors. Marine, from Brittany, is a school assistant several days a week in a nearby village. |
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| A break in the rain and a walk up the road... |
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| Max and Bodhi became good pals. |
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| Not sure if Bo put more chestnuts into the basket or heaved more out of it! |
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| One of Bo's buds. Max and Marine raise a family of rabbits and this is the daddy, out for a sniff-about. |
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| Max was kind enough to give Bodhi a special tractor ride, his second such event on this trip. |
THE PLACE:
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| The village of Curins, year-round population of 8. Nearest bread shop and bar at 5-6km, nearest food store at 25 km, nearest department stores at 50km. Ardèche is historically one of France's poorest regions. |
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| Max's and Marine's farmhouse, backed by endless forest. |
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| The view from the driveway. |
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| Our lodging was in this building... |
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| ... which featured a wood-burning stove for heating. Here drying out loads of items after the intense downpours. |
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| A break in the storms gave us a chance to explore the hills above... |
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| Katy and Bo enjoy the sunshine. |
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| It's convenient being an organic farmer: you can store an enormous amount of delicious food for the winter. These are Max's pumpkins and squash. His focus, however, is on onions, potatoes and carrots, all of which he sells on Sundays in the nearby village of St. Pierreville. |
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| Escaped chicken-turned-pet. |
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| Sunset at Curins. |
THE WORK:
(WALNUTS!):
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| Besides picking apples in the furious rain, one of our first tasks was collecting walnuts with Max and Marine. It was a banner crop for these trees, as we amassed a huge amount in no time at all. |
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| Bo helping out. |
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| (L-R): Max + Mila, Marine, Bodhi, Jeff. |
(OF CHICKENS AND EGGS):
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| A few hundred meters from the house, Max set up a chicken coop with approximately 90 chickens, witrh the express purpose of producing organic eggs. Unfortunately, late in the season a local hawk started picking off chickens, and heavy rains disturbed their egg-laying, causing low yields. |
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| We often helped out with the feeding of the chickens (wheat berries and table scraps), and the collecting of the eggs... |
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| Katy pouring out chickenfeed. |
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| Bo resumes his highly-entertaining challenge of catching a chicken, to no avail. |
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| Meeting their donkeys and pony, on adjacent land. |
(ALL ABOUT CHESTNUTS)
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| The majority of the time we spent with Max ended up being devoted to chestnut gathering. You can see we arrived in the full peak of the harvest, the Chariot floating on a sea of chestnuts in this pic. |
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| On our way to Max's chestnut lands... we often cycled there from the house: over 8 km, a 200 meter descent, and a 75 meter climb. |
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| These are very old, established chestnut plantations, now resembling deep wild forest... |
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| Chestnut trees, stunningly beautiful, are deeply embedded in Ardèche history and culture. Their maximum production came around 1860, but the region still produces about 5000 tons a year. They are eaten fresh, made into flour and bread, eaten in soups and stews, candied, in purées, etc. |
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| Max and Katy gathering random fallen chestnuts. Done with gloves as chestnuts come in spiky pods! |
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| Katy all loaded up with chestnuts. |
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| Bo too gets in on the gathering. |
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| Lunch break, a gourmet picnic. (L-R): Katy, Bo, Jeff and Max. |
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| The view from Max's chestnut lands. |
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| Time out for a feed. |
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| Next we started to empty out Max's nets. Above, Katy shakes out the nets... |
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| ...Jeff sorts chestnuts out of the ensuing pile... |
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| ... and Max rolls up the nets for storage. |
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| The nets are also useful for field nappy changes! |
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| It's hard to get any work done when this guy is about. |
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